After an interesting journey from Manchester to Tehran via Istanbul I arrived into Iran at 3am on Saturday morning. Hours late, hot, bothered and tired but who cares - I was finally in Iran. I had heard that the Iranian people were really friendly and welcoming and I would feel very safe. This was shown to me within minutes of landing when I went to the Money Exchange. I handed over my cash to be told "this is an official exchange so the prices are set by the gov...

When I go off on my travels I'm very much a comfort over style sort of girl. I have a drawer full of my travelling gear from zip off trousers, waterproofs, fleeces, walking boots to well worn t-shirts. A couple of weeks before I'm due to leave I'll have a look at what I've got, replace what I need to replace and that's me done. However, due to the strict moral code of Iran flinging a few old faithful's into a backpack and hoping for the best just wasn't an optio...