The fun kicked off at Terminal 2 at the airport. Very much the poor cousin of Terminal 1, T2 caters for little known airlines that fly to little known destinations with passengers to match. It's a good place to play spot-the-Russian (look for peroxide, pimp-wear and too much cheap gold).
Once arrived our first mission was to change enough money to Rials to cover us for the entire trip. With no international credit cards and a currency where IR10,000 is about US$1, you quickly wind up with a very big wad. This pic is how much we paid for the accommodation between us, which was €810.
So there we are on our way up to the mountain, which is just outside Tehran. We were in a green van being driven by a guy who pretty clearly thought of himself as a bit of a rally driver. The only time I've been driven through the mountains by a race-nut was with Matt King and we managed to spin out. And that was in an MX5 (admittedly on cold tyres but on a dry road. Actually, I've spun out twice with Matt on mountain roads, the first time in a Prelude in the snow.) So I was pretty amazed when Colin McRae Admaninhajad got us to the hotel in Dizin in one piece.
Dizin as a ski resort has both good and bad points. On the one hand, the terrain isn't too steep, but on the other, Iranians don't ski off-piste and there aren't too many there anyway so you can still get fresh tracks two days after a snow fall.
And really, isn't that what it's all about?The facilities at the resort are a little old-school, to be honest. The gondolas have their windows held in with bits of twisted wire and date from the late seventies. On-mountain food is restricted to the Iranian version of KFC, but that's okay because you can go back to the base and one of the two hotels which, interestingly, have the same menu. Which never changes. And which doesn't cater for vegetarians.
If you go, take your own gear or at the least take your own tuning kit as the skis have no edges. The boots are nearly all rear-entry (sooooo 1986) and if you were to hire clothes you'd probably wind up in a fluoro onesy, and that's just inexcusable.
The hotel was pretty good and the bedroom was electrifying. Literally, not figuratively. The air was so dry that you could run your hand over the blankets with the lights out and see blue sparks flying off. It's taken me until now, two weeks later, to be comfortable touching metal door handles again.
In the next couple of years I think Iran will pick up a little as a ski destination and will hopefully be upgraded, although that would lose it some of its charm. It would also lose the freshies and therefore it would just be mountain of blue runs. All up, I'm very glad I went when I did.
y
ou can see more photos at:
http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=784253645
or maybe
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=29451&id=784253645
