From Part OneNavigating the Islamic Republicchapter one:Getting There, Getting In TAXI DRIVER:I really shouldn't be driving you into Tehran without an order from the Imam. I could get my hands chopped off.ROBERT REDFURN:Well, I appreciate your accepting a bribe. I really do.TAXI DRIVER:It's been a while. We don't get too many Westerners in town anymore. The only Americans we've seen in months are the liars and demons of the U.S.

press. You hail from the Great Satan yourself, right?ROBERT REDFURN:Uh, right. New York, actually.TAXI DRIVER:I can always tell. How long you been working for the C.I.A.'--DOONESBURYCOMIC STRIP, MAY 30, 1980, IN THE MIDST OF THE HOSTAGE CRISISPersia is a country made for wandering onward.

-- VITA SACKVILLE-WEST,PASSENGER TO TEHERAN I have never liked flying into Iran in the middle of the night. But after too many trips to count, I now have the drill down pat.It isn't easy to get there from the United States. Tehran is 6,337 miles from Washington, D.C., and no American carrier flies there. American economic sanctions, the absence of diplomatic relations, and common sense in the face of official Iranian hostility toward the United States preclude that.Lufthansa is the most efficient way in: a seven-and-a-half hour overnight flight from Dulles to Frankfurt, a six-hour stay in a day room at the airport hotel, and a five-hour overnight flight that arrives at an ungodly hour in Tehran.

Some people I know do the second leg on Iran Air, which is cheaper and whose aging American Boeing 747s are surprisingly safe. But Iran Air requires women to cover their hair with head scarves and serves no alcoholic beverages. I prefer to stave off the restrictions of the Islamic Republic as long as I can.For security reasons, Lufthansa often changes the gate for Flight 600 to Tehran without explanation. The boarding pass lists one gate; the overhead monitor doesn't list the gate at all. The actual gate is usually somewhere else, sometimes in an isolated area down an escalator that is inaccessible to the duty-free shops and the luggage carts.After unloading its passengers in Tehran, the Lufthansa plane loads new passengers and heads straight back to Frankfurt. The airline considers it too much of a hassle, and too dangerous, to stay overnight in Iran.

A German businessman, a non-Muslim, was once sent to death row after being convicted of having sex with an unmarried Iranian Muslim woman, although his sentence was later reversed and he was sent home.Even on Lufthansa, the metamorphosis begins before the plane lands. The liquor bottles are quickly stored and the Lufthansa playing cards collected. Passengers are given a warning to leave behind the miniature bottles of Jack Daniel's and Stolichnaya. A second warning is reserved for female passengers. "By the decree of the government of Iran, all female passengers are required to have their heads covered," the steward announces. "For your own interest we ask you to put on a scarf before leaving the aircraft." The dance of the veil begins.

The women cover their heads and bodies. A woman sitting across the aisle in khaki pants, a low-cut black top, heavy gold necklace, gold bangle bracelets, big hair, and blood-red lips puts on a trench coat and a good knockoff of a Hermes scarf. A woman on the other side of me wraps herself in a black chador. I reach into my carry-on for a long, solid-colored, textured cotton scarf that doesn't need to be tied under my chin.Mehrabad International Airport was once state-of-the-art, a showpiece of the Shah's campaign to transform Iran into one of the world's most modern and prosperous countries. Even today, despite the worn runways, the airport functions fairly well. Planes arrive and leave remarkably close to their scheduled times. There are Western as well as Eastern to.