There is a fine balance between the advantages and disadvantages of traveling on your own as a woman. On the positive side – there is no doubt that you meet more people when on your own, not only because they approach you, but also because you are more open to them. On the negative side – well, the chances are that you are never in any real danger, but there are certainly occasions when one feels particularly vulnerable.

A few years ago I spent six weeks in Tehran, working in the British Embassy as part of a Foreign Office work experience scheme. I was keen to see as much of the country as I could, (Iran is, after all, not the easiest place to get into), which meant setting off on my own every weekend. There were definite advantages to traveling alone.

Apart from being my own mistress, it was an ideal opportunity to meet Iranian women, who (like in most other countries in the world) were far more reticent than men in approaching strangers. For example, if you fly as a single woman in Iran, you will always be seated next to another woman. On a flight to Isfahan I talked to a lawyer who was thinking of going back to university. On another flight to Shiraz I was seated next to a student, eager to practice her English, who offered to show me around the gardens of Shiraz, laid out around the tombs of the famous Shirazi poets Hafiz and Saadi.

There are not many tourists who find their way to Iran. This is a pity, because apart from the lawless Southeast of the country, close to the borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan where drug-runners are in permanent low-key warfare with the Iranian military police, the country is very safe. The greatest risk is of falling victim to a ‘motor-cycle bag snatcher’ – a phenomenon that is unfortunately becoming increasingly common in Iranian cities with their huge populations of young people, and high unemployment. However, insofar as it affected me, the scarcity of tourists meant that people had no ulterior motive to their friendliness.

There were a number of times when, on hearing that I was a student from the UK, the part-time student taxi driver would blithely waive his fare, though I always felt obliged to pay something all the same. Once, while on a visit to Ayatollah Khomeini’s tomb - a vision of golden minarets from afar that resembles a multi-storey car-park when you get too close - I was approached by an elderly Azeri woman from Tabriz. She established in pidgin Farsi (her first language was Turkish while my Farsi was limited to the phrases in my guidebook) that I was Hindustani, but living in Inglistan, then introduced me to her family and invited me to share their picnic lunch – all through signs and gestures.

However, it may not be always smooth sailing. On one encounter, in Shiraz. I had hired a taxi to go around the ‘tourist sites.’  It was noon and everything was shut. The taxi-driver was a  student supplementing his income, pondered if I could go to his house and watch videos.  I  tossed away the offer at once but he had the tenacity to keep driving to his house anyway to ‘change into some beautiful clothes’.  Wondering how to handle the situation, I calmed my nerves and said in stern voice that I was a British diplomat and in a rush to attend an important meeting in an hour!   That was good enough for him to drop me near a Masque safely.  Perhaps I read too much into his innocence but caution cannot be lost, at any cost.

There was another occasion that was rather more sinister, but resulted in one of the best experiences I had in Iran.  This time I was not on my own. I had gone to the town of Hamadan with a friend, Paivi – another work-experience student from the Finnish Embassy. As we wandered round the town we were approached by an obnoxious young man in fatigues who started to follow us and was gradually being joined by a stream of friends. At the time we were in the center of the town, there were a lot of people around, so it was quite safe. However, we had booked into 2 dollar-a-night hostel for the night, and when the group followed us to the hostel, we decided to move to a more secure hotel. When we returned the keys to the proprietor and explained why we had decided to move, he first assured us that the hostel was quite safe as he would be at the reception all night. But our uncertainty must have shown on our faces - because the next thing we knew, he had called his wife and asked her to come and take us to their home where we could spend the night comfortably. He even insisted on retuning the money we had paid for the hostel rooms.

It was a wonderful experience to receive such generous hospitality. The next day, the couple and their nineteen-year-old daughter drove the two of us to some flooded caves 100km from Hamadan, where you could sail around in plastic dinghies, deep underground. Our hostess cooked us lunch – the only time I had the chance to taste proper home-cooked Iranian food – and then dropped us at the airport to catch our flight back to Tehran. It was definitely one of the high-points of my stay in Iran, but was the result, ironically, of an unpleasant experience.

In the end, unpleasant situations don't seem to matter - it is the friendliness and generosity of strangers that I remember and which encourages me to travel again!

Courtesy : South Indian Society, Deepavali souvenier 2003