Stephen Orth: Couchsurfing in Iran: Revealing a Hidden World

• Listen to the price.

• Marvel at how cheap it is.

• Convert the named price from rial to toman: add a zero.

• Realize that it isn’t so cheap, but still cheaper than home.

• Search for the appropriate bill (count on between thirty and sixty seconds initially).

• Pay.

THE MOST STUNNINGaspect of Tehran are the nearby Elburz Mountains, reaching up to thirteen thousand feet to the north of the city. The peaks are invisible most weeks of the year because a cloud of smog envelops the city. The daily traffic chaos is legendary; there are almost 4 million cars for the 10 million inhabitants. Most of the almost 4 million exhausts can merely hoarsely laugh at terms like “catalytic converter” or “green fuel.” The head of the Traffic Police once calculated that air pollution levels are equivalent to those of 48 million cars with modern exhaust systems. Tehran’s motorized pollutants create more carbon monoxide than all automobiles on the streets of Germany. Every year thousands of people die as a result of the smog. It is thought to be healthier to smoke forty cigarettes a day than to spend a few hours wandering around Iran’s capital on a smoggy day.

Early in the morning of the New Year celebrations, the gray giant of Tehran is still sleeping. Hardly any traffic, okay views. Behind the Milad Tower, the mountains can be seen as soon as the first light hits them, and there’s plenty of snow up there.

In such a slumbering city, whose stores are still shuttered and whose inhabitants are still at home, the first things that catch your eye are the signs. Billboards, signposts, logos. The Persian lettering, with its decorative lines and squiggles, is still unfamiliar. The figure with the highest recognition factor is the “5” as it looks like an upside-down heart.

A barbershop seems to be only able to do eight different styles, at least according to the paintings above the entrance. The ad for a supermarket is less realistic; it depicts a customer and a shopping cart with a single giant apple in it, as big as a medicine ball.

A few feet farther on there is an auto trader shop with a Mercedes star on its facade. It sells Peugeot and Hyundai and Saipa, Iran’s own auto brand, but no Mercedes.

There seems to be a disproportionate number of banks in Tehran: Sepah Bank, Pasargad Bank, Samen Credit Institution, Saderat Bank, Melli Bank. There’s no point searching for international banking concerns, as a couple years ago UBS, Credit Suisse, and HSBC all withdrew from Iran.

It’s still too early to text my host for tonight, so I get out of the cab near the old American Embassy and take a stroll. On both sides of the street there are rows of apartment blocks that look like oversized shoe boxes. Tehran is hiding. From the sidewalk, walls and iron grilles hide the forecourts, windows are made of frosted or reflecting glass, and the curtains are closed to protect against prying eyes.

I walk for ten minutes, not finding a single window to enable me to glimpse the slightest detail of a living room or kitchen. Iran’s apartments are the refuges of people with something to hide, strongholds against the outside world. For only when walls surround you can you be free—one of the many paradoxes in the ayatollah’s realm.

My trip is a search for the great and small liberties of the Iranians. I’m looking to draw out the mysteries of the country and discover what happens behind the blank windows and closed doors. My ticket to accomplish this I find on online portals like Couchsurfing, Hospitality Club, or BeWelcome, where people offer accommodation to travelers. In Iran there are already more than 160,000 members on Couchsurfing, and the trend is growing rapidly. And all this despite the threat of difficulties with the police for housing foreigners.

The travel guidelines issued by the State Department state: “Iranians are encouraged to have no contact with foreigners ‘over and above normal requirements.’” In isolated cases Germans who had organized their accommodation through social networks on the Internet were investigated by the Iranian authorities and promptly deported. “Furthermore: visitors staying overnight with Iranian individuals or families whose addresses have not been registered on the visa application form or at the point of entry must reckon with confiscation of passport and legal procedures.”

Before my departure I contacted roughly fifty couchsurfers and a few others I had met during my first trip to Iran a year ago. Most of them replied promptly and gave me their cell phone numbers so that I could contact them en route. I didn’t mention any of them on my visa application because so much private contact would have aroused suspicion. One of my acquaintances was refused a visa because he gave the Tehran address of his Iranian friend as his contact address. A few years before, he had had no problems traveling there when he had only entered hotel addresses in tourist locations on his application form.

Two months in a rogue nation, a summer jaunt to the “axis of evil,” a vacation in a dictatorship. I don’t plan to cross the country from east to west or north to south or to allow myself to be governed by the guidebook tips and must-see tourist attractions. Where I go depends on people. I have planned a rough route, but I am prepared to ditch it at any time if the Iranians have better suggestions. And if they have worse ideas, I will still join in. When in Qom, do as the Qomans do. Or something like that.

My travel destination is assimilation. Within the next few weeks I want to morph from a blond Westerner to an Iranian—well, at least to a certain extent. The to-do list is: 1. Unveil mysteries. 2. Become an Iranian. 3. Get out alive.

To: Yasmin Tehran

Hey Yasmin, how are you, my dear? This is my iranian number. When can I come to your place?

To: Masoud Kish

Hey Masoud, this is Stephan from cs, how are you? I will arrive on Kish in a few days, could you host me for 1 or 2 nights? Would be great!:)

BREAKFAST TIME. Igo to the first convenient café, where a few laborers from a construction site are sitting. There is only one meal on the menu, a fatty soup with calf’s brain. Tender meat is usually something delicate, but this is just a bit too tender for my tastes. Lesson of the day: 8:30 isn’t a good time for food experiments. But everyone else seems to like it. Evidence that the assimilation that I am seeking is as distant as Isfahan is from Illinois. This also applies to the language. Apart from “hello,” “bye,” “tea,” and “thanks,” I can say almani , meaning “German,” and Man farsi balad nistam —”I don’t speak Persian.” The last sentence I apparently pronounce so well that the brain soup restaurant owner doesn’t believe me and proceeds to fire off a wide-ranging barrage of small talk. The conversation remains one-sided and eventually he accepts that I’ve understood nothing.

People staying in hotels can simply check in at any time. For someone staying in a private apartment the situation is more complicated. You have to adjust to when your host is at home; you have to synchronize with the daily patterns. As I booked my flight on very short notice, I couldn’t fix a time to meet Yasmin. Contact me when you have landed, she posted on Facebook. Until I receive a reply to my text message, I’m a homeless person with heavy luggage.