Don't skip Tehran's unmissable sights

Tehran is the city travellers love to hate, with many avoiding a stay here altogether en route to Iran's more popular tourist destinations. But as Mike Milotte discovers, the capital's gorgeous galleries, sociable locals and exhilarating pace give it a beautiful side too.
Iranian friends and our guide/interpreter alike think we’re mad, but we persist with our plan to spend 10 days of our month-long visit to Iran in the polluted and architecturally unattractive capital, Tehran. It’s a city most organised tours dispose of in a day or two with a quick visit to the crowded and bling-choked Jewellery Museum, a glimpse of the Azadi Tower, and a stop at one of the former Shah’s flashily opulent palaces. For my part, eleven museums, six art galleries and three bazaars later – not to mention two mountain trips, one cinema visit and a memorable night at home with a Tehrani family – I’m glad we persevered.
The plaza outside the main bazaar is a great spot for people-watching. The streets are teeming, not with mullahs or gun-toting police as I had anticipated, but with seemingly carefree shoppers, armed with mobile phones. There are lots of head-to-toe black chadors, but just as many women wear cheerful loose-fitting headscarves, tight jeans and dramatic makeup. Consumer goods are plentiful and restaurants are crowded.

Of course, appearances aren’t everything, and repression is still part and parcel of life here. We catch one small glimpse of the Islamic Republic’s other face when, from a bus window we watch a squad of Ershad, the morality police, hustle a young woman into a police van for wearing ‘bad hijab’ – a headscarf that reveals too much hair and neck – and an enormous pair of earrings.
A fellow passenger explains in perfect English what is happening. Soon after, when the bus passes a cinema, she reveals that she’s an actress, and pointing to a huge bill-board advertising her latest film asks bashfully, 'Would you like to come and see it?' So off we go to a huge cineplex to watch a smart comedy that pokes gentle fun at religious fanaticism. There isn’t an empty seat in the house. It’s all in Farsi of course, but over spicy chicken wings in the cinema’s fast food outlet, our new-found friend has explained the plot, and we laugh with the rest.