Mashhad: conservative city!?

The city of Mashhad houses Iran's holiest site: the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed and the 8th Shiite Imam. Iranians and Muslims from distant lands come to pay homage to and mourn the death of this important imam. This makes Mashhad one of the most conservative places in Iran. We of course also went to visit the complex which was rather impressive, both architecturally and ornamentally, but it's also a great place for some people-watching: crying women, all of whom dressed in the black hijab, and contemplating and chanting men make the shrine complex a very interesting scene.

With Hanna covered up in the nothing-revealing hijab and with Floris's Islamic-style beard, we managed to get into the inner sanctum: the shrine itself, which is normally off-limits for non-Muslims. At least on the men's side, people were clambering and pushing to touch the shrine, some of them climbing onto it's fences. A rather impressive sight!

Later that evening, we ventured out in the city to find a tea house. Not even 100m out of our hotel, an overly friendly man took us to a small tea house. A friendly deed for sure, but we actually wanted to go to another tea house as the one he had taken us to was rather sadly empty. But the man had already paid our tea so we had no option but to stay...

However, just as we were finishing our tea and planning to leave, the young manager of the tea house came to get us for dance ("Please, Sir, Please!"), as apparently a small party had just started. We quickly learned that one of the ladies had her birthday party, and there was no escape. Not that it wasn't nice: we were spurred to eat some snacks, eat some cake and have a drink - including our first "underground alcohol" in this officially alcohol-free nation.

It was very interesting to have an inside view of how young Iranians go about. Meeting members of the opposite sex is a difficult endeavour in this largely conservative society and even in a closed private party like this, there were some restraints. Some girls took off their headscarves immediately, but others did so only very hesitatingly, letting it drop bit by bit. The boys on the other hand were very free: many of them dress extremely sexy. Interestingly, there was an old lady (somebody's grandmother) supervising the scene, probably to keep an eye on what was happening...

The unexpected combination of the religiousness of the worshippers at the shrine and the underground party of Mashad's youths made it a very interesting first stop in Iran.