Kish (Day 1)
We got up at 4:30 am today to go to the resort island of Kish in the Persian Gulf. After going through two sets of metal detectors and getting our boarding passes from a ticket agent that did not even ask for identification at Mehrabad Airport, my Dad and I got on a Topoloff jet plane headed for Kish. The flight almost straight South took about 1 ½ hours and was very smooth, despite the fact that the plane was a Russian fossil. Arriving at Kish International Airport, we saw an advertisement for a PVC pipe company that used a picture of the skyline of downtown Houston (a little bit of home on the other side of the world)! Outside, a van awaited us that took us a couple of miles to our hotel, Hotel Maryam (Mary, in English). Looking down the main hotel strip, I could not help but compare this place to Las Vegas, or what Las Vegas probably looked like when it was first being developed. The island is absolutely gorgeous with modern housing, hotels, shopping areas, and miles of beaches. The architecture here is everything I knew that Iran could be and hoped that more of Tehran would be. It is about 10 miles long by about 8 miles wide and sits slightly north of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
We checked in to this hotel, and to my amazement, its entertainment complex, which is in a separate location, has bowling and billiards (www.maryambowling.com). I recently finished a bowling league with some of my friends back home, and I’m sure that they would appreciate the fact that I get to practice my horrendous skills here. After eating breakfast in the hotel and resting for a while, my Dad and I decided to walk around. When we first started walking around, everything was closed. We asked some locals and realized that practically the whole island shuts down from 1-4 pm for lunch. So we went to the beach.
This is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The coastline of the U.S. on the Gulf of Mexico is extremely murky, not necessarily due to pollution but due to the currents that suck up mud from the bottom and fill the shoreline with the nasty brown color. Here, that problem does not exist. Clear blue as far as the eyes can see. The locals on the pier were extremely friendly and warm. One offered a one-hour trip around the island for about $35. The man in the booth on the pier was renting out pontoon boats with clear bottoms and marketing it as a natural aquarium. He even said that one can go at night, where they drop a light to the bottom of the water.
We went back to the hotel because it was way too hot and decided to wait out the lunchtime siesta back at the hotel. At dusk, we took a walk back down to the main strip and ducked into one of the shopping malls. These malls are the same as the malls that we have in the U.S. except that there did not seem to be any big department stores and some of the shops have this uncanny ability to cram two store’s worth of products into one store. The prices were comparable to the U.S. Some things were more expensive and some were less expensive. The only difference is that in the U.S we buy goods with the buying power of a $3000 a month average salary and over here they buy goods with the buying power of a $300 a month average salary.
The whole island is what is considered a free trade zone, where you pay no import taxes or customs taxes for your goods. Iran also has no sales tax to speak of. The whole culture has centered on trade for thousands of years. A sales tax would probably be a huge insult to that culture. Tehran served as a midway point on the Silk Road, a trade route that extended from China to Europe. The country’s main exports include handmade rugs, copper goods, other handcrafts, pistachios, caviar, and obviously oil and natural gas.
Dad and I then decided to take a taxi to the local aqueduct. This is an underground structure that was discovered in recent years. A German investor came in and further excavated and renovated these waterways. The idea is to turn it into a museum of handcrafts, a restaurant complete with a stage for a band, and a traditional shopping area for merchants to sell handcrafts and other goods. For now, for about $2.50, they give tours of the vast tunnels with detailed information about the excavation project, the natural history of the rock formations, and the ancient history of the island and how the aqueducts were used in the past.
We then took a bus back to the main strip. On the bus, a couple of locals sitting near us answered some of our questions. Land is fairly expensive on the island. One guy was selling a 2500 square foot plot of land for about $60,000. Development on the island is very interesting. In order to expedite progress, a developer has a short window in which to finish a development project. This is usually about six months. If the project goes over, there are severe fines. Development began on the island about 20 years ago and really took off about 10 years ago. Everywhere you look, people and machines are working around the clock to meet their deadlines. A paved walkway that was only halfway done when we walked out in the morning was near completion on our return to the hotel at night.
Stopping in the middle of the strip, we went into another shopping mall that was even larger and more beautiful that the first. Next to it was the Maryam Entertainment Complex. Affiliated with the hotel we are staying at, this complex has a 16-lane bowling alley on the first floor, an expansive billiard and snooker hall on the second floor, and an unfinished food court on top. Looking in the billiard hall, there was a bar in the middle. This is very ironic being that they don’t allow alcohol in this country. Or do they? Well, kinda. They have non-alcoholic malt beverages with advertisements all over the place.
Deciding to get in some bowling later, we headed back to the hotel. On the sidewalk on the way back were some busts of recent Iranians of note in the realms of science, art, and culture. Iranians are very attached to their prominent people. When a building is built, everyone wants to know who the architect was. When a song is sung, we argue over who originally wrote it.
We ended our night with dinner at the local KFC (yes, KFC). This building was a blend of modern architecture and old-school outdoor seating with the benches I have described before. The fried chicken was really good. It didn’t have the Colonel’s blend of 11 different herbs and spices but was good nonetheless. The fries were the best fries I have ever eaten. Sometimes you have to go half way around the world to get good fried food!
We checked in to this hotel, and to my amazement, its entertainment complex, which is in a separate location, has bowling and billiards (www.maryambowling.com). I recently finished a bowling league with some of my friends back home, and I’m sure that they would appreciate the fact that I get to practice my horrendous skills here. After eating breakfast in the hotel and resting for a while, my Dad and I decided to walk around. When we first started walking around, everything was closed. We asked some locals and realized that practically the whole island shuts down from 1-4 pm for lunch. So we went to the beach.
This is the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. The coastline of the U.S. on the Gulf of Mexico is extremely murky, not necessarily due to pollution but due to the currents that suck up mud from the bottom and fill the shoreline with the nasty brown color. Here, that problem does not exist. Clear blue as far as the eyes can see. The locals on the pier were extremely friendly and warm. One offered a one-hour trip around the island for about $35. The man in the booth on the pier was renting out pontoon boats with clear bottoms and marketing it as a natural aquarium. He even said that one can go at night, where they drop a light to the bottom of the water.
We went back to the hotel because it was way too hot and decided to wait out the lunchtime siesta back at the hotel. At dusk, we took a walk back down to the main strip and ducked into one of the shopping malls. These malls are the same as the malls that we have in the U.S. except that there did not seem to be any big department stores and some of the shops have this uncanny ability to cram two store’s worth of products into one store. The prices were comparable to the U.S. Some things were more expensive and some were less expensive. The only difference is that in the U.S we buy goods with the buying power of a $3000 a month average salary and over here they buy goods with the buying power of a $300 a month average salary.
The whole island is what is considered a free trade zone, where you pay no import taxes or customs taxes for your goods. Iran also has no sales tax to speak of. The whole culture has centered on trade for thousands of years. A sales tax would probably be a huge insult to that culture. Tehran served as a midway point on the Silk Road, a trade route that extended from China to Europe. The country’s main exports include handmade rugs, copper goods, other handcrafts, pistachios, caviar, and obviously oil and natural gas.
Dad and I then decided to take a taxi to the local aqueduct. This is an underground structure that was discovered in recent years. A German investor came in and further excavated and renovated these waterways. The idea is to turn it into a museum of handcrafts, a restaurant complete with a stage for a band, and a traditional shopping area for merchants to sell handcrafts and other goods. For now, for about $2.50, they give tours of the vast tunnels with detailed information about the excavation project, the natural history of the rock formations, and the ancient history of the island and how the aqueducts were used in the past.
We then took a bus back to the main strip. On the bus, a couple of locals sitting near us answered some of our questions. Land is fairly expensive on the island. One guy was selling a 2500 square foot plot of land for about $60,000. Development on the island is very interesting. In order to expedite progress, a developer has a short window in which to finish a development project. This is usually about six months. If the project goes over, there are severe fines. Development began on the island about 20 years ago and really took off about 10 years ago. Everywhere you look, people and machines are working around the clock to meet their deadlines. A paved walkway that was only halfway done when we walked out in the morning was near completion on our return to the hotel at night.
Stopping in the middle of the strip, we went into another shopping mall that was even larger and more beautiful that the first. Next to it was the Maryam Entertainment Complex. Affiliated with the hotel we are staying at, this complex has a 16-lane bowling alley on the first floor, an expansive billiard and snooker hall on the second floor, and an unfinished food court on top. Looking in the billiard hall, there was a bar in the middle. This is very ironic being that they don’t allow alcohol in this country. Or do they? Well, kinda. They have non-alcoholic malt beverages with advertisements all over the place.
Deciding to get in some bowling later, we headed back to the hotel. On the sidewalk on the way back were some busts of recent Iranians of note in the realms of science, art, and culture. Iranians are very attached to their prominent people. When a building is built, everyone wants to know who the architect was. When a song is sung, we argue over who originally wrote it.
We ended our night with dinner at the local KFC (yes, KFC). This building was a blend of modern architecture and old-school outdoor seating with the benches I have described before. The fried chicken was really good. It didn’t have the Colonel’s blend of 11 different herbs and spices but was good nonetheless. The fries were the best fries I have ever eaten. Sometimes you have to go half way around the world to get good fried food!
posted by Al Jameson, D.C. @ 5/18/2005 09:00:00 PM
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