The notice by the museum entrance said: "Iranians 500 tumans, Foreigners 5,000." Ali, my guide, interpreter and general fixer was asking the unshaven attendant in the kiosk for tickets.
"One Iranian and one foreigner."
The official looked puzzled. "Where's the foreigner?"
Ali pointed to me.
"Oh, I thought that was your Iranian grandfather."
I was wondering whether to be offended by the insult - surely I don't look ancient and decrepit enough to be the grandfather of an overweight 26-year-old - when the ticket-seller addressed me in such fast colloquial Persian that, though my command of the language is better than it has any right to be after 30 years of disuse, I couldn't quite catch his drift. Before I could stop myself, I had cupped my hand to my ear and, in the quavering, piping voice of an old, deaf and stupid grandfather, was asking: "What? What?"
"You ... are ... welcome ... Sir," the man said very slowly, loudly and patronisingly. "May ... you ... never ... be ... weary!" It's a common enough Persian greeting, but he seemed to me to say it more pointedly than necessary. I consoled myself with the thought that I had saved myself 4,500 tumans (about $25) . Over the next 10 days, as we toured the country in Ali's clapped-out Fiat, playing the Iranian grandfather was to save me a lot more money, as well as getting me into the kind of cheap lodging-house that wasn't willing to take foreigners. This was lucky, since I was visiting the country at a time of year when most decent hotels are full.
Having come to Iran to look at pre-Islamic sites for a book about the ancient Persian prophet Zoroaster, I particularly wanted to witness the Persian New Year celebrations, still strongly Zoroastrian in tone in spite of nearly 1,300 years of Islam. This is the most popular holiday of the Iranian year and the Lonely Planet Guide suggested that it was not the best time for a visit: "You should seriously consider avoiding Iran altogether for about 10 days before and after Noruz, the chaotic Iranian New Year, which starts on or about 21st March."
Ignoring this advice, my plan was to spend 10 days driving in a great circle around the country. Iran is a difficult country to travel in. Neither trains nor planes seem to serve the most sought-after destinations, and I had no idea of the condition of the roads. It was going to be touch and go whether I would make it back to Tehran in time for my return flight and my daughter's birthday back home.
The start was inauspicious. Daylight-saving time began the day I arrived, and I dutifully set my watch forward. The next morning we were to set off at six, but Ali was more than an hour late. He laughed when I pointed to the clock on the hotel lobby wall. "We don't work for the government," he protested. "And the Mullahs don't control the sun."
Nor, it seems, the roads. After two hours' playing dodgem through Tehran's insane morning traffic I was genuinely relieved to find myself still alive. No self-respecting Iranian driver will forego overtaking just because another vehicle is coming the other way. Two lanes are expected to accommodate three cars, or even trucks, abreast, even if it means scraping through, hooting like mad, with only inches to spare on either side.
Starting out, you can't help holding your breath and gripping the seat, white knuckled, at the hairiest moments. But there is a limit to the number of times you can brace yourself for certain death. In the end you learn to say, with the Iranians, Masha'allah: whatever God wills.
Our first, 500-mile drive south through the rolling desert took us to the oasis city of Yazd, with its unique skyline of tall wind towers, designed to catch any faint breaths of breeze and funnel them down into secret retreats at the heart of the huddle of mud-brick houses. We spent the next day visiting Yazd's spectacular mosques, its prison attributed to Alexander the Great and its Zoroastrian fire-temple, packed during Noruz with Iranian tourists craning to catch a sight, through the protective glass, of the sacred fire which has been burning continuously since AD 470, though not in this same place.
A few years ago after a great windstorm, Yazdis were amazed to see the top of a dome peek out of the sand just outside town. Much digging exposed an entire buried village, perfectly preserved, complete with a fire-temple of its own. During our visit, a local family party arrived. The father, who seemed to have insider knowledge, was lecturing his wife and daughter about Zoroastrian beliefs in the wildly theatrical style Iranians use when reciting verse - drawling out the long vowels as if eating them, peppering each sentence with sudden loud phrases or unexpectedly ... slowing ... right ... down. I whispered to Ali that this must surely be a schoolteacher by trade. The man heard me and turned on us.
"Were you speaking English?"
Ali confessed. The man pointed at me.
"Is he British? Because there are some things that should not be spoken in front of some people."
"Well," Ali told him, "he carries a British passport, but his family came from Czechoslovakia and he himself was born in Vienna."
The schoolteacher looked at me a little more benignly. "Then his sins are diminished."
Afterwards I said to Ali "I thought it was the Americans who were the Great Satan."
"Oh no," he explained, "Iranians believe that the Americans are good people at heart but innocent and naïve. It is always the British who command them to do bad things."
The first threat to our tight schedule came on my third Iranian night. All hotels in Yazd being full, we were sleeping on the living room floor of a local man's basement flat. Generously hospitable like all Iranians, he brought out a hookah and a brace of bottles of wine for his guests.
"Alcohol? Isn't that against the law?"
"I don't drink it for enjoyment, only for health," he emphasised, as if that made all the difference. "Anyway, it's not made from grapes, but from pomegranates and honey." The first taste confirmed that nobody could drink it for enjoyment.
The resulting hangovers delayed our next day's departure south over the mountains until noon, so that it was too dark to see anything by the time we reached Cyrus the Great's tomb at Pasagard and the spectacular remains of Persepolis, the summer capital founded by Darius and burned by Alexander. My executive decision was to press on to Shiraz and return again very early the next morning.
Even at 10 o'clock, Shiraz, elegant city of palaces, poets and perfumed gardens, was like a madhouse. All of Iran seemed to have congregated there for Noruz. Festive crowds pressed along the decorated streets, while gaily-dressed wedding parties, the women's black chadors barely concealing their finery, crammed on to the backs of lorries and paraded through the city centre, shouting and hooting and blaring raucous wind instruments.
After two hours of fruitless driving around to find a vacant hotel room, Ali regretfully conceded that we would have to make do with a common lodging house. He found the Heavenly Guesthouse near the central glittering Sayyed Mir Ahmad shrine but came out looking gloomy.
"You won't like it," he said.
I didn't. The tiny room, with space only for a double bed and a washbasin, was so filthy that Ali suggested we avoid undressing. The smell of urine forced us to leave the window open, and rowdy wedding parades outside kept us awake till three. It was no hardship to be up again and ready to leave town at five.
Lost time was impossible to make up, however. Though we were back shortly after seven at Cyrus's movingly simple and dignified tomb, the entrance gates to the site were locked and, in spite of my offer of money and Ali's improbable claims of high political influence, a dishevelled and bad-tempered official refused us admission for nearly two hours.
Late that night, we were 200 miles behind schedule when exhaustion forced us to stop in a small town on the road, at a guest house which proved to be, if anything, even more awful than the one in Shiraz.
In the morning I asked Ali the name of the place. "I want to be sure never to come here again."
"Beh-behan," he said. "Literally, it means 'Used-to-be-better'."
Driving on that night into the hours of darkness turned our careering descent to the oilfields of Mesopotamia into an awesome light show. Gigantic gas flares sprang from the ground on all sides, painting the entire sky a flickering rose red, as if we were entering the gates of Hell. It was almost a surprise to arrive unscathed in the cool modern urbanity of the great oil town of Ahwaz.
Next day, it was an even greater surprise to be thoroughly frisked on leaving the slick shopping mall by the banks of the Karun river, though Ali took the indignity for granted. "Otherwise people would steal things," he said.
But even Ali was taken aback when the best hotel in town refused to change my dollars at a respectable rate, on the grounds that some of them were more than a year old. The cashier claimed to be worried. "Perhaps they are not valid any more."
I suggested that the day that two-year-old dollar bills went out of date, the world economy might as well close down. "Why?" he asked. "Here we change our money all the time."
By the time we had reached the nine o'clock position in our 360 degree circumnavigation of the country, we were falling ever more behind schedule. We had to press on far into the night to reach Shush, the site of Susa, one of oldest and longest-lasting of ancient Iran's cities - and one that took the brunt of the enemy onslaught during the Iran-Iraq war. The dusty hill of ruins which was once the biblical Shushan stands opposite the supposed tomb of the Prophet Daniel, the forecourt of which - for the benefit, I suppose, of Jewish pilgrims - is daubed with a huge savage mural, in uncannily Belfast-like style, showing heroic Muslims capturing Jerusalem. Close by is a gruesome blood-and-guts exhibition memorialising the martyrs to Saddam Hussein.
Leaving the ancient mound, I was so affected by this combination of ruthlessness and horror that I quite forgot my Iranian grandfather role - until three angry men came running up to stop us in the street. Too late, I realised that I had been speaking English.
"You didn't say you were with a foreigner when you bought tickets," their spokesman accused Ali aggressively.
"You didn't ask."
"Foreigners must pay 10,000 tumans."
Ali was squaring up for an argument. "There is no sign that says so."
The two others were beginning to look belligerent. I feared they might call the police and that I would never get back to Tehran in time to catch my plane.
"Pay them the money and let's go," I said.
Ali did, but with ill grace. "It's $57. You know the money will go straight into their pockets."
"But I don't want to miss my daughter's birthday."
By driving through the night, we somehow managed to visit the carved cliffsides near Kermanshah and the ancient city of Hamadan as planned, and still arrive back in Tehran on the right day. With huge relief I checked in at Mehrabad airport well on time.
The check-in clerk looked sombre. "I am sorry," he said. "Your flight is being diverted via Baku. You are going to miss your connection to London. The airline will pay for your overnight hotel in Dubai."
I protested, of course. But this time there was absolutely nothing I could do.
• In Search of Zarathustra, Paul Kriwaczek's look at the influence of the ancient Persian prophet on world religions, will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 2001.
Visa
You can apply for a tourist visa at the Iranian consulate in London (Kensington Court, London W8, tel: 020-7937 5225), for a non-returnable fee of £40. You may be asked for a sponsor in Iran. There are agencies on the internet, which offer to do it all for you-for a fee. Otherwise be prepared to queue.
Getting there
Iran Air (020-7409 0971) flies Heathrow to Tehran from £380 return. British Airways (0345 222111) flies Heathrow to Tehran from £559 return. Cox and Kings (020-7873 5000, www.coxandkings.co.uk) organises a 10-night Treasures of Persia tour for £1,495.
Health
It's definitely worth calling in at the BA travel health centre in Regent Street (London W1). For a reasonable fee, they will provide all necessary jabs as well as give you a computer printout detailing the latest health news and Foreign Office travel advice.
Money
Surprisingly, the foreign currency most generally accepted is the US dollar. Mastercard is the preferred plastic. There is a difference between the official exchange rate and that on the street, but changing money unofficially is illegal, risky and not recommended. Banks will do the exchange, but hotels usually give a quicker, easier far less bureaucratic service. The current rate is around 1750 Iranian rials to the dollar, though Iranians themselves calculate in tumans (10 rials).
Accommodation
Cost varies wildly between about $120 a night at the top end of the scale down to $25 near the bottom. You wouldn't want to stay in a cheaper place.
Food
Earlier this year, the former Intercontinental Hotel in Tehran, now called the Laleh, was charging $30 for breakfast. On the other hand, you can get a filling meal in a roadside kebab house for under $5. No wine or beer, of course - except for a really horrid local non-alcoholic brew. Non-Muslim foreigners may be allowed to bring a small amount of alcohol into the country for their own use, but the hassle isn't worth it. Tea is the preferred drink in Iran and very good.
Travel
Buses are extremely cheap. The journey from Tehran in the north to Shiraz in the south, about 550 miles, costs around $2. A car with a driver will cost anything from $25 to $100 a day. But away from his home, you will have to pay for the driver's food and accommodation.
Overall cost
My 10 days in Iran cost $1,500 overall plus the air fare. It was definitely worth it.
Feasibility
Forget the TV images of chanting fanatics - that's merely political window-dressing. Iranians are friendly and welcoming, a highly civilised and cultured people with a longer and more distinguished history than almost any other nation - 2,500 years of it. The country is a treasure chest of magnificent architecture and fabulous antiquities. In spite of what one might expect from a theocracy, Iranian Islam is mostly tolerant and Iranian democracy has free and fair elections, though from a limited list. Under normal circumstances, a tourist visit is entirely feasible, even for a woman on her own.
