A long friendship delivers an experience of green, white, red and pink, and many shades in between

Until I met Amin, an living in Geneva, 10 years ago, I knew little about the country he came from-even if that knowledge was a little more substantial than that of many Chinese who confuse Iran with its neighbor Iraq.

Before long, Amin, an engineer in a chocolate factory in Zurich, and I had become firm friends, and my veil of ignorance about Iran gradually lifted. Over the years he told me many stories about how he and his family had fled the country after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 when he was a baby, and eventually a special affection grew in me for this distant and ancient country.

It seemed that it would be only a matter of time before I would set foot in it, and that opportunity finally came when five friends and I boarded a flight from Urumqi, capital of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to Teheran at the end of September.

Often for Chinese one of the biggest impediments to visiting other countries is the hassle of getting visas. However, in this regard Iran is relatively painless: all that is needed is a valid passport, a couple of photos, 500 yuan ($85) and three working days. In fact if that seems like too much of an effort, it is possible to apply for a visa on arriving in the country. (Lonelyplanet.com says 15-day tourist visas can be granted on arrival to visitors from about 65 countries, but that "notable absentees are Britain and the US".)

For Chinese, a far more difficult task than taking care of visa formalities is reassuring families and friends that you are not heading off into a war zone. That reassurance is likely to be framed something like this: "No, I'm unlikely to be caught up in a roadside bombing. I think you're thinking of Iraq. ... No, the Taliban are in Afghanistan and Pakistan, not in Iran. ... No, there is no civil war in Iran. You must be thinking of Syria."

Those reassurances notwithstanding, solemn goodbyes, pious invocations and injunctions to be careful were still ringing in my ears as our full China Southern Airlines flight left Urumqi, the Xinjiang Uyghur autonomous region, for Teheran. Our group - three women and three men - would stay in the capital for just a day before heading to Kashan, Yazd, Shiraz and Isfahan on a 10-day trek covering about 2,000 kilometers.

The short stay in the capital was in deference to the advice of other travelers who had warned that lingering in this sprawling metropolis with a population of 8.5 million, comparable to that of some of China's bigger cities, would be a mistake. Similarly, they said, it suffers from severe air pollution, although on that score the day we were there it compared favorably with Beijing.

Despite the shortness of our stay we had enough time to visit the National Museum of Iran and a few other tourist attractions: Golestan Palace, Teheran Bazaar and the National Jewels Museum. As we headed out of the city in our hired van at about 6 pm, we discovered the hard way that Teheran, like Beijing, is plagued by traffic jams; it took us nearly two hours to get out of the city to reach the highway that would take us to Kashan, 250 kilometers to the south.

Kashan is a place that the great bulk of tourists just pass through on their way to more popular destinations such as Yazd or Isfahan, but we planned to buck that trend and stay there for two days. It turned out to be an inspired decision, because this small city boasting beautiful ancient public bath houses and traditional houses and famed for its carpets turned out to be the highlight of the trip for me. That evaluation is helped in no small part by the two nights we spent at Manouchehri House, a historic traditional house-turned-boutique hotel.

The hotel, opened in 2011, has only nine guest rooms and perfectly combines traditional and modern elements, providing the service of an international standard. The six of us enjoyed the largest suite, with a dining room, a living room, three bedrooms and a mini study.

Kashan is also famous for the Fin Garden, completed in 1590, the oldest extant garden in Iran. In 2011 UNESCO put it on the World Heritage List, with eight other gardens in the country.

The heat in Kashan can be searing. From May to October the maximum temperature is generally in the 30s and often in the 40s, and on a hot afternoon nothing matches wandering under cypress trees and by pools and fountains, taking time to admire the watering system that the ancient Persians installed.

When we reluctantly left Kashan it was for Yazd, 390 kilometers by road to the southeast, a city with more than 5,000 years of history and a center of the Zoroastrian religion, one of whose tenets, apparently, is: "Good thoughts, good words and good deeds."

Such things may be difficult to sum up in a place surrounded by desert, where the heat is a sun for giving as that of Kashan, and which is the country's driest city. Particularly impressive here were what are called windcatchers - towers on old buildings whose job is to harness the elements to counteract that unbearable heat.

A sunset walking tour in the maze-like alleys of the old town is highly recommended, and have no fear of getting lost: The friendly locals are bound to show you the way out.

The next stop on our tour was Shiraz, perhaps best known as having lent its name to the red grape used in making wine. For us though, the outstanding color here was pink, that of the Nasir ol Molk Mosque, popularly known as the Pink Mosque. In fact, on its own this superb edifice must be one of the biggest attractions for tourists in Iran, so ubiquitous is its image in travel brochures.

However, there is much more to Shiraz than wine and stunning architecture. The city, with a population of 1.4 million, is regarded as one of the oldest cities in ancient Persia, known for its poets, literature, flowers and-shopping centers.

After seven days visiting mosques, bazaars and gardens, we decided to see a modern shopping mall here, the Persian GulfComplex. Located to the north of the city, it looks just like any other shopping mall in China, or probably anywhere else in the world, with numerous shops, a huge car park, a supermarket, a cinema and a food hall. We happily made our biggest purchase, of local delicacies, at the supermarket.

Our last stop was Isfahan, the third largest-city in the country, and which is given even more gilded credentials in a Persian proverb that says "Isfahan is half of the world". That harks back to the 17th century when the city was the capital of Persia, one of the world's biggest cities and one of its most beautiful.

Today it is graced by splendid tree-lined boulevards, and at its center is sprawling Naghsh-e Jahan Square, at 89,600 square meters one of the world's largest squares, and which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

After touring the nearby bazaar, Imam Mosque and Ali Qapu Palace, we sat down by a giant pool on the square, just as locals do, lounging around, picnicking, riding bikes, taking rides in horse-drawn carriages and simply lapping up the atmosphere.

In China the Iranian government has stepped up tourism marketing in recent years, and it is proving to be as mightily effective as those windcatchers in lapping up the wind. That was evident by the number of Chinese who went to the country during the recent National Day Golden week holiday. When we arrived in Teheran, it was as though we had not left home, so inundated was it with Chinese travelers. The hotels we stayed in were also full of Chinese, and if any more proof were needed that Iran is becoming a big tourist destination for Chinese it came in the form of two words: the ebullient "Ni hao" that locals so often greeted us with.

From what I could make out, it was simple enough for those traveling alone to make their way around the country with relative ease, although as a group we rented a van and hired a local English-speaking guide who markets his services through social media, such as WeChat and Facebook.

For a country that many might regard as out of reach, we were pleasantly surprised - indeed overwhelmed - by how approachable and friendly locals were. In fact many often sought to have their pictures taken with us, so exotic were we.

On our first day in the country, as we waited for our guide who was doing a banking transaction one of our group took photos of the bank lobby. A young employee politely asked her to desist, saying that taking photos inside the bank was prohibited. But instead of shooing us off he invited us upstairs for tea and biscuits, and eventually the general manager even popped in, treating us as if we were potentates from afar. Before we left, the employee apologized for having bothered us earlier and bade us well for the rest of our trip.

Ten days later, on our last day in the country, there was much more to reflect on than this encounter and the glorious architecture that makes a tourist magnet of places like the Pink Mosque. As I told my guide before we left: "For me one of your country's biggest attractions is its people."

It was through friendship that my love affair with Iran began, and it is friendship that has sealed it.

tanyingzi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily USA 11/23/2015 page7)