Having got to bed relatively late, it was an unwelcome alarm call this morning as I had to get up for my "tour" of Persepolis. In fact this ended up being little more than a driver with barely passable english. Still, he smiled away, nodded his head at every thing we said to him and drove us to where we wanted for a few dollars. When I say passable English, I should say that he knew one phrase, "hello, how are you". To say that he spoke no English would be harsh as whenever he wanted to communicate something he would point or nod his head awkwardly and, parrot fashion, say "ah, how are you, yes how are you". Replying "Fine thanks, but where is the ticket office?", just replied "yes, how are you" and extended his finger roughly in the right direction.

I was sharing the tour-cum-taxi ride with Philip, who was the first Englishman I had seen in Iran - though actually travelling on his Irish passport. We spent a couple of hours wandering the ruins which are impressive condiering their age of some two and a half thousand years during the reign od Darius the Great (Of Alexander the Great fame). But next to Ephesus they pale in comparison. It wasn't long before a group of young female university students, dressed in full black chador, gathered round to inspect the curious foriegners. Again speaking phrasal English, we spoke establishing where we were from, our names and if we were married. Behind the veiled faces there were some extraordinarily attractive women, and my thoughts ran back to a sign I had seen in the Tehran arrivals hall proclaiming "Ladies: The scarf is a shell, the woman the pearl inside" - how true, yet frustrating.

We came back to Shiraz via a couple of less interesting sites including the tomb of Xerxes I and decided that now would be a good time to post some stuff home. It wasn't. I trapsed around from post office to post office for an hour before eventually finding someone who understood what I wished to do. He called a taxi to send me to the main post office, some 3km out of town (frankly not sure I understand how the locals cope with this). Once there it was time to undergo endless, and seemingly pointless, form filling followed by shuffling from counter to counter as my parcel was gradually checked, wrapped, weighed, stamped, sellotaped, stamped again, paid for and sent.

I decided that the best way to recover was with retail therapy at the Bazaar - and get lost amidst the usual chaos. But it was unusually quiet. I stumbled accross a new Caravanserai dating back 200 years with shops set around a peaceful fountain garden. A charming man who lived in Birmingham as a jeweleler, but was visiting his family, engaged me in conversation and with traditional Iranian Hospitality invited me back home. I decided though that I was tired enough and that I just wanted some quiet time and politely declined. Wandering around for any souvenirs, I cam accross a guy selling stamps from the late eighties which proclaimed the Iranian successes against the American Embassy and which encouraged anti-americanism. Amused by this, I purchased a couple wondering that if I used them to send a postcard to the US if it would ever arrive.

That evening I ate supper with Philip at a rather souless cafe round the corner from the hotel, and as seems to be typical here, met a couple of Iranians wanting to practice their Engilsh. Still fresh in Iran and not minding too much I obliged. One guy, Ghozem, was an Iranian footballer playing for the local Bargh Shiraz FC and who spoke excellent English. Another invitation home was declined being too tired, as were some tickets for their opening match which wasn't for a few weeks!