My beloved British friends! It has been 25 years since I threw that goodbye party in Brixton, complete with saffron-laden rice dishes, to bid you farewell before I returned to Iran. You were the cast of my life from the day I arrived as a homesick 12-year-old. From schoolgirl, to undergraduate, to Londoner, you were at my side.

Yet, in a quarter-century, none of you has accepted my offer of coming to visit me here. The image of Iran is so calcified by its politics that not even one of your own could persuade you to come and explore for yourself. This is my last-ditch invitation: maybe you’ll get over that psychological hurdle and catch the six-hour flight to Tehran.

You will need to organise a visa and travel through a tour operator though, since Britons can’t get a visa at the door, unlike many other nationalities. But that is easily done, so many Britons and Americans are visiting these days – and from Monday British Airways has daily flights to Tehran from London.

Map for Haleh’s journey (and Yasmin Khan’s foodie tour).We can’t possibly see everything Iran has to offer in one visit, but let me take you south to the cities of central Iran, veering off the tourist map here and there. By the way, in answer to that one girlfriend who keeps saying she doesn’t want to wear “the black thing,” you don’t have to wear a chador; not everyone does. But women visitors will need a mid-length coat, and a light cotton scarf to hang loosely over their hair. And since there won’t be any booze, you can use the time to detox; there’s plenty of superb food, especially fruit and nuts, to compensate for the lack of calories from alcohol.

Tehran






[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="620"] A mural outside the former US embassy in Tehran. Photograph: Alamy[/caption]


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