I’ve attached a few pages from my journal, written during my first few hours after arriving in Tehran.
They aren’t conclusions. They’re simply thoughts and observations captured while everything was still new.
One of the principles that guides my work is a deliberate quest to question the narratives I inherit, including those shaped by the West. Within moments of arriving, some of my own assumptions about this ancient city and its people were already being challenged.
That’s why I travel. To replace certainty with observation, and preconception with experience.
The pages from my journal continue below, exactly as they were written in the moment. They're raw, unfiltered, and shared exclusively with paid subscribers who make this independent reporting from the ground possible.
