My presence must have been puzzling. To those at the check-in counter, to the guards manning the terminal gate and, most of all, to the other passengers on Flight D7-154. Why indeed would a Filipina be traveling alone to Tehran?

It must have been some program on National Geographic more than ten years ago. I caught the tail end of it and it turned out to be a piece on traveling in Iran. Iran was never a place I had associated with travel. Terrorism, yes, but travel, never. Until then.

Why not, I thought. It is, after all, an ancient land, with an ancient people with a very storied past, a controversial present and a questionable future.

It must be fascinating.

Since then, Iran ranked high on my list of must-go-to places.

Last year, I had made up my mind to go to Iran once and for all. I just couldn’t find anyone who wanted to go with me. Well, there were some who were interested, but there was no real commitment and there was always somewhere else less dangerous to go. With the international storm clouds brewing over the country, I was almost sure that my window to visit Iran had closed.

Then last January, while lazily looking around Facebook, my thoughts randomly turned to this girl whom I had hung out with in Bali. I clicked on her profile to check out what she had been up to, and maybe drop her a line.

The first thing I saw on her wall was a message from one Calvin Sun, asking if she wanted to join him on his trip to Iran.

I almost fell off my chair. I shot them both private messages. Calvin immediately replied and invited me to join him on his trip, while she took a while longer but vouched for his character. (No, she couldn’t make it to Iran.)

Since then, piece after piece of the journey began to fall into place. Slowly, for sure, and with maddening cliffhanger-like suspense. (I only confirmed joining Calvin’s group ten days ago when I finally got my Iranian visa. All other arrangements were made after then.)

Tonight, I finally kissed the ground of the land once called Persia.

The flight coming over was a riot.

At first, I thought it was going to be one, long arduous journey. There was a crying child across the aisle to my right and, at the very last minute, a lady with a crying child plopped down in the seat right next to me. I was on my way to being a grumpy, harrumphing bitch, but managed to change course before it was too late, and I ended up inquiring about my seatmate and her baby.

As she turned to talk to me, the wailing child’s attention also turned towards me. I asked him why he was crying and that seemed to make him forget that he was supposed to be very upset. I carried him for a bit, showed him colorful pictures from my Lonely Planet, and played peek-a-boo. That’s when his mother and I became fast friends.

Zahra and a temporarily pacified child.

As luck would have it, Zahra was an English major and even used to teach it. She’s also translated several books from English to Farsi.

When her husband took over taking care of the baby, I got a chance to talk to him too. His wife would, later, tell me that he developed an acetone-free product that removes nail polish. It’s supposed to be very popular in Iran. (It’s called Najeh and, yes, I will try to bring back some for my girlfriends back home.)

Zahra’s husband and wailing child. The plane was full of wailing children actually. The families were coming home from their respective No Ruz (Iranian New Year) holidays.

Around me, ears were pricking. Most notably from an older gentleman, in a suit, across from me. When Zahra and her husband were away from their seats, he started a conversation with the other guy sharing my row. Every now and then, he’d drop some English words and look my way. Finally, we just started talking.

Asghar is a retired professor of accounting at the University of Estafan. He still teaches eight hours a week.

He studied my itinerary and critiqued it. “Ah, yes, very good. You shouldn’t miss the ancient capital. Ah, yes, very good… Very good… Tell your tour mates to visit Estafan University. Let me give you the number of Dr. Shahin. He’s a very important man. You have to call him. You can call me too…”

Since we were seated behind a lavatory, men on their way to or from the loo started standing over us. They’d talk to Asghar first and then finally address me directly. “Why Iran?” was their favorite question.

My interrogators: Mehraram, Majlessi (who teaches history of architecture), and Asghar.

Several times, the aisle would be completely blocked and, soon, it was like there was a party going on in our cabin, with everyone out of their seats, talking to one another.

Zahra laughed. “Have you ever seen a plane like this,” she asked.

“Is it always this way?”

“Only when we have something in common,” she said, “and, right now, that is you.”

I guess I was the elephant in the room and they finally started to address my presence.

When our talk turned to food and I mentioned that I wanted to try “abgusht”, Mahsan, an older woman who spoke no English, laughed. Soon, she was calling out different dishes to me. “Very delicious,” was all she could say.

Aida, with the beautiful face and black-kohled eyes, acted as translator for her.

Aida and Mahsan.

Akram, with the other crying child across from me, also kept nudging me with more suggestions of Iranian food to try. She’d pronounce the words very slowly and I would have to pronounce them correctly back to her, note them down on a piece of paper and ask, “Khosh mazeh?” (Delicious?)

Of course, they are.

(Akram’s husband has a popular line of women’s clothing called “Holiday”, which I must remember to look up. I did like the Holiday manteau Akram was wearing.)

Akram and family. They finally put the crying child to sleep.

My attempts at Farsi made everyone laugh. Zahra’s nine-year old, who could only say “Excuse me” in English, kept popping up beside me, trying to teach me new words and correct my pronunciation.

Everyone had something to say.

The flight attendants could barely get through the aisle. One time, a gesticulating Akram almost knocked a pitcher of hot water out of an attendant’s hands. Several times, the pilots had to tell everyone to return to their seats and fasten their belts.

Our rowdy cabin. That’s my empty spot in the front and you can see Zahra’s yellow hair as she desperately tries to get her baby to go to sleep.

In the midst of all of it, Zahra and her husband tag-teamed with their sick child, while I, occasionally volunteered to, literally, take him off their hands. Zahra joked that her child had an “expiration date” on his attention span before he had to be entertained. She seemed to be at her wit’s end, totally exhausted from a holiday she confided she did not enjoy.

But even when her child was with her husband, or with another passenger who offered to help, while trying to sleep, she’d still listen to my conversations with other passengers and laugh or join in or remember another piece of advice that I absolutely had to write down. Finally, she turned to me and said, “You know this flight may have been hell for me but, because of you, I enjoyed it. I think I love you already and I miss you already.”

Before I got off the plane, my itinerary was scrawled over with notes, telephone numbers and e-mail addresses.

Why Iran? I think they just gave me the answer to their question.