Iran, the slightly Islamic Republic of

After a little over three weeks in the slightly Islamic Republic of Iran I'm burnt out on theocracy and craving a secular dictatorship, so tomorrow I'm off to Turkmenistan. Stan comes from the Persian for province, the Iranians had a pretty big empire back in the day, according to them, whilst the Arabs were burying their daughters alive the Persians had conquered half the world, developed possibly the first monotheistic religion and built grand palaces. Islam is a thin veil over Persian culture, they have there own interpretation, Shia, which is a departure from the strict monotheism and touches into some deep need for idolotary. It is a superbly friendly country for a man and the people fail the fundamentalist test, open and barely religious.