In an arid desert area, thirty minutes from the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, lies the ruins of Persepolis, once one of the greatest cities on earth. Founded by King Darius I in 518 BC it was the capital of the Persian empire and inspired awe from those who visited it. The ancient Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, described it as "...the richest city...

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In most cities, Embassies are the hosts to long lines of patient visa hunters in the day time, and cocktail parties at night. Usually ostentatious, always in the most expensive part of the city, and often, to be honest, boring. Not in Tehran. Embassies have been the focal point for protest, political games, occupation, death and destruction since 1829. ...

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Tehran will not win any prizes as the most beautiful city in the world. Pollution often hangs over the city blotting out what would be the wonderful backdrop of Mt Tochal, and with 14 million people its roads are clogged with traffic, and its subway trains are worse than Tokyo at rush hour. Yet it is unmissable, has great food, parks and museums,...

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Going to any war cemetery can be a depressing experience. There are always huge numbers of graves of young men who never got to experience life much beyond their childhood. The Behest-e Zara war cemetery on Tehran's southernmost city limits is no exception. ...

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The storming of the USA Embassy on the 4th November 1979 remains a pivotal memory for Americans and, along with the ongoing hostage crisis, led to a distrust of Iran which continues to the present day. For the Iranians, the 'Conquest of the American Spy Den', was equally an important part of their revolutionary history. The CIA had meddled in Iran's affairs before,...

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Baku is an oil city. The black gold has turned what was once a small sleepy port into a modern city vying with Dubai for excess in modern architecture. The hotel prices are crazy, and accompanied with an archaic visa system (now slowly changing), there is little encouragement for tourists to visit. Yet Baku is well worth the effort, and expense, to visit...

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A mountain that is continually on fire near Baku, Azerbaijan? That sounds a bit like the 'Gate to Hell' at Darvaza in Turkmenistan, one of the most amazing sites I have experienced. I set off to see how one of the major attractions in the country compared with that of its near neighbour. ...

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Hidden away in the hills, less than an hour from Baku, is Gobustan (pronounced Qobustan by the locals) an astounding site of ancient human art. Whereas other prehistoric sites such as Lascaux in France are closed to the public, with museums built nearby with reproduced copies of the art for tourists to see, Gobustan is an open air museum with few visitors and...

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If you are a regular reader of Far Flung Places you will know I have a penchant for volcanoes, particularly active ones. Travelling through Azerbaijan I had heard about their local version, the Mud Volcano, although getting to see one was not going to be so easy.  ...

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It is a sad fact that some of the most beautiful spots on earth have some of the most sought after commodities underground, such as the uranium under Kakadu national park in Australia. The island of Bougainville, east of Papua New Guinea is another such place. There are great coral reefs for diving, long sandy beaches, and a lush green interior dominated by...

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I tried to to like Lae, I really did. But I could not wait to leave. It is the second city of PNG, with just over a 100,000 population, located on the Huon Gulf, with palm trees, beaches, and a great position overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It could be a tropical island village in Hawaii, but the reality was more like Kabul. ...

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