Iranian tourists and local residents visit Naqsh-e-Jahan square in Isfahan, Iran. (Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg)
(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Our burly driver in the baseball cap kept his eyes on the road as my unfailingly suave guide, Ali, chatted away. We’d barely left the holy metropolis of Mashhad, in northeastern Iran, on our way to the small, ancient town of Tus, and already Ali was discoursing on flowers and mystics and philosophers and empire. Other than a quick hello, our driver, perhaps 60, said not a word. It would be almost an hour b...