Travelling is a way of life for me.. I guess nothing else can make me feel the excitement of starting each day I breathe in a place I have never seen before.. I resist those who say traveling is a matter of money, and those who say traveling is a matter of plan-program-detail.
Sometimes, when I detail my trip with a-b-c plans, sometimes the next departure point becomes clear at the airport where I will land.. For a long time, after working non-stop and without permission, I had made up my mind to escape.. This time, I think it was time to embark on the Iran trip, which I whispered to myself in a loud voice.
My heartbeat started to beat faster than ever for Iran, which I dreamed about for years and once thought should be my first trip abroad.. Iran, surrounded by the embargoes, was a center of attraction for me with its closed state to the outside world and all kinds of question marks.. Then, I opened my mind to a few people around me to measure their reactions and increase my courage.
While waiting at Atatürk Airport
There were also those who said “Good luck”, “Take us with you”, “Let’s set the dates and go together”; Quite naturally, I came across some anxious exits mixed with jokes such as “they will take your head”, “what are you going to do there”, “can’t you find another place for God’s sake”, “they will take you to Iran”, “I hope you will come back”.
Turkey and Iran have maintained for many, many years, citizens of both countries are exempt from visa when visiting another country.. Iranians have taken advantage of this visa-free advantage very well.
In recent years, there has been an influx of tourists from Iran to Istanbul, Izmir and Antalya.. Looking at the other end of the route, the graph stays almost where it left off.. (The number of Turks visiting Iran in 2013 is 232 thousand- the number of tourists coming from Iran to Turkey is around 1 million 200 thousand) Leaving them where they are, by train or plane, I bought my plane tickets to Tehran, one of the most crowded capitals of the world with its population exceeding 21 million.. As the round-trip tickets were bought and the time began to approach, it was time to open up the idea to the family.. My mother, whom I normally expect to have a much bigger and uncontrolled reaction, said that such and such a neighbor’s relative went with a caravan, and they said that Iran is not a country to be afraid of.. He was afraid that I would be punished for an involuntary mistake in a culture I had no knowledge of.. According to him – and I sometimes think the same way – places where democracy was scarce posed a great risk to people due to arbitrary practices.. I was in a good mood with the smiles of a few support messages I received from my close circle.
I don’t know what kind of plan I would make in a country where credit cards are not accepted, internet is limited, and international hotel and hostel reservation sites do not work.
When it was time to go and the doors I had reached through a few acquaintances were closed in my face one by one, I was thoroughly alarmed.. I didn’t know what awaited me in Tehran, while I was calming them down with my message that everything is under control, while I was leaving my halal family behind.. On the other hand, in the light of the information I read from the travel articles on the internet and the Iran travel guide, I had at least enough information to move from the airport to the city center.
“Iranians do not speak English”, “you cannot talk to women in the streets”, “no one will help you”, Time was getting closer and closer, as if testing the rhetoric of “take care of your money and your belongings”.
Stars began to collide in my head when I got on the bus that carried us to the Istanbul-Tehran flight of Turkish Airlines at Istanbul Atatürk Airport.. While I was waiting for the flight time, those beautiful make-up ladies lined up next to me on the bus on the apron before they even got on the plane. we took the right action.
When I was making the final location notifications on my mobile phone, I seemed ready for a flight that would exceed 2.5 hours.. The plane was going to take off towards the capital, which the Turks call Tehran, the Iranians and the world called Tehran.
