Many of our fellow readers already knew that after India we had planned to go to Iran. We wanted to visit this country mainly for two reasons: first, to explore the culture and the Persian heritage and second, because we had heard so many good things about the Iranians and their hospitality. And despite the political situation, we were told that once you are in the country, you almost forget about the brutal Islamistic regime.

But in order to enter Iran, you need a visa and the process is quite complicated. You need a letter of invitation and it is most common to receive it from a travel agency, which helps you during the application process afterwards. So when we were at the end of our travel through China, we filled in the online form for the first time, giving all our personal details, our travel plan for Iran, and the wish to “pick up” our visa in Mumbai before taking the plane to Tehran. However, the travel agency explained us that once the application is accepted (usually after 10 days), you have to go the consulate within the next month to get the visa. For us, this would have been too late since Mumbai was the last city in India we wanted to go to. So we filled in the online form a second time (already being in Kathmandu), but now we asked to send the visa to the consulate in Hyderabad, which we would visit much earlier.

We knew that our travel entry date was just after the Iranian presidential election date, so we were quite nervous whether the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) would allow us to enter the country for the requested period. But on the last day of our trekking through the Annapurna region, we received the great notice that our visa was approved for the desired time and that we should go to Hyderabad to “pick up” our visa. We were very happy about that and booked our flights from Mumbai to Tehran and from Shiraz to Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania). Had they refused the visa right away at this stage, it would not have been any problem at all, given that we had some alternative plans in mind.

Two weeks later at the Iranian consulate, the official, who apparently never had worked on visas for Europeans before, told us that instead of the requested 30 days, we would only be allowed to stay 20 days in Iran, and even worse, that our visa would directly start from the date of issue and not from the date of entry on. The first constrain the agency had forgotten to tell us about, and the second one was a peculiarity of the consulate in Hyderabad. In Iran, each consulate and every embassy seem to have their own rules and regulations. But still, getting our visa in Hyderabad became impossible for us, as it would have already expired before entering the Islamic Republic. That’s why we asked our agency to change the place of issue of our visa to Mumbai, which eventually was accepted by the MFA.

Once there, the officers were exceptionally friendly and the daily tea tasty. But unfortunately the news were almost always bad. First, we had to fill in a whole application form again. Then, we were invited to an interview, where we were asked about our lives and if we were gay. And of course, we had to explain why in Germany they celebrate Christmas a day earlier than the rest of the world, whether we estimate sons more than daughters (the officer was pleased when we said “no” because he actually has one daughter) and whether engineers have a higher reputation than physicists. After that, they were ready to accept the application but had to wait on new orders from Tehran on how to behave after the election. This meant for us that we would have to change the flight dates and hope for the best.

Immediately after the election, we were quite optimistic since the agency told us that even visa-on-arrival at the “Reza Pahlevi Airport” (or something like this? we don’t exactly remember after which criminal the airport is named at this moment ….) in Tehran would be granted to us anyway. On the next day, we went another time to the consulate, looking forward to good tea and good news. Unfortunately, only the first was available. The officer told us that even though the MFA had approved our application for exactly the desired days in June, they could just issue a visa which would allow us to enter the country from the 23rd July on. We were a bit shocked and phoned our agency which was extremely surprised about this strange procedure. They assured us that the officers would have to give us the visa right away if we showed them our online application accepted by the MFA, which referred to June.

So once again, we took a cab to the consulate and once again we were disappointed. The officer explained us that his orders came directly from Tehran and that he could not do anything to help us. One more time, we called the agency, and this time the manager went to the MFA in Tehran. He came back with new optimism and a high self-confidence: the MFA had given us a new visa reference number with which he assured us that they would give us a visa for June immediately. And if the consulate refused it would be punished. Hearing such a strong statement, we were looking forward to our time in Iran.

But the next morning, when we went to the consulate for the sixth and last time in total, the officer repeated the same procedure as every day. Again very friendly, he added that the agency would really not know what was actually going on. Moreover he admitted that although our application had been accepted for June, the MFA had changed its mind and given clear and strict orders not to let anyone in after the election for “security reasons”. Knowing their phone number by heart, we called our agency and asked for a definite answer, as we could not wait any longer. In the afternoon they phoned the consulate themselves and finally had to admit that indeed, we would not get our visa for the right time.

We were very disappointed, because we really wanted to discover the Iranian culture (and because we had lost a lot of time in Mumbai and money for the booked flights), but at least we were able to plan. After two days we had already organized a new trip to another country on our way to Tanzania. This country also has a great cultural past, an awesome landscape and some pretty poor governments in recent times. We are looking forward to go to Ethiopia!