Central Iran (August 2013)

Photos: Gallery 1

timseal — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 22:16:00 GMT

last day (17/8)

timseal — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 15:00:00 GMT

Today is our last day and I do not expect to add to my journal. We leave for Tehran this evening and our flight to Istanbul and then onto Gatwick

quiet day in Esfahan (16 Aug)

timseal — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 14:44:00 GMT

Today we just drifted around Esfahan, seeing the sights and doing some shopping.

Here are a few of the things you notice in the Iranian towns and cities we have visited -

The roads are amongst the scariest. Everyone focusses only on the next 10 yards. Once that is sorted, they consider the next 10. This means constant jerks of movement followed by violent braking. Everyone squeezes through impossible gaps (successfully or not) and so bodywork is hammered. No cyclists or motor- cyclists wear helmets, so you can have say 2 babies or toddlers on a motor bike with 2 parents, none of whom have a helmet on. I think the hot weather and/or prices are prohibitive.

Groups of people, unless a family, are always single sex. There is no mixing.

Transactions are done in any currency required. The Iranian currency is the least popular even for the Iranians, because of daily value changes and rampant inflation. Iranian currency is only obtainable in Iran. There are 2 coexisting domestic currencies, Tomans and Rials. The former no longer exist but are the most commonly quoied.

There is an obvious split in the generations, with the say 50+ far more conservative in all respects than the younger ones.

The social enmities are complex and numerous in a population with so many different races and castes, all with long histories, remembered accurately or not.

There is a sense among the people that they are being watched but they do not really know by whom.

Religion is either absent or a v strong presence, with no moderation in between.

Foreigners are always greeted warmly. However we saw no Americans or Israelis.

........

Esfahan and the Esfahanis (15/8)

timseal — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 13:32:00 GMT

Aida is a 10 year old girl who lives in central Esfahan. She lives with her mum and dad, and spends a great deal of time with a man in his 20's called Mr Sali.

Aida, her Dad and Mr Sali seem to spend most evenings in Naqsh-e Jahan square, looking for tourists to befriend. British are amongst the rarest and therefore highly prized. Once we were identified, they clung to us like limpets.

Aida is a very likeable, but precocious girl. Her English and her understanding of the world, is very sophisticated for someone of her age. However, there is enormous pressure on her and as a result she is very emotional and quite desperate. She is looking for a ticket to western riches and success, according to the Iranian vision of those things. After lengthy pleas the night before, we agreed to meet her and her entourage again in the evening.

We spent the day sight-seeing. There are an abundance of mosques, palaces and bazaars to visit and photos only, not words, will do them justice.

Our long evening was in 2 parts. First, we were invited to attend and be the main topic at Aida's English classes. We spent about an hour in 2 classes talking to and being quizzed by the all girl/women groups. The questions all revolved around what the UK was like and the isolation endured by Iran. The latter topic is excluded from this journal. This is because we heard a lot of pretty punchy stuff throughout our time in Iran, that we would not want being read by those who we know are sniffing our online activities.

The lessons were great fun and of course we were treated like royalty.

After the classes we met up with Mr Sali. He wanted to introduce Rich and I to his older brother and his friends. Mr Sali and his brother are unusual people and again I am excluding much of the detail about them from this blog. However, I can say that the brother fixes Citroens by day and sells perfume by night. He is also a boxer. Our evening with them was our most nervous time in Iran, but it turned out that they only treated us with friendship.

the road to Esfahan (14 Aug)

timseal — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 13:00:00 GMT

This was a long hot day in the Peugeot, taking the back roads through the Zagros to Esfahan. We stopped for food in Yasuj and In Sisackt. We also stopped at a waterfall 10k outside Sisackt and filled up the camel packs with the fresh mountain water. Apart from that we passed the hours singing western and Persian songs, with us trying to imitate Batman's versions of the latter, often adjusting a word or two for gentle comic effect.

We let Batman drop us beside the road outside Esfahan so that he could get going on his return journey. To retain his $16 profit margin, he needed to avoid taking a room overnight.

We left our bags at the hotel and headed into town, where we were promptly accosted by Aida and her father, who we spent the next few hours talking to in Naqsh-e-Jahan square. This is the main square in Esfahan. My photos will be uploaded soon, but in the meantime, if you find photos of the square online, you will see why it is the subject of the famous Esfahani half rhyme - "Esfahan nesf-e Jahan". This translates as "Esfahan is half the world". The square and the mosques and palaces that front onto it, are one of the wonders of the Persian world.

Into the mountains (13/8)

timseal — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 15:24:00 GMT

We'd been told that there were 1 or 2 local Shirazi guides with family ties to a nomadic tribe west of Shiraz. These guides could get you up into the mountains, find the tribe and fix it for you to stay with them. We managed to track one down and paid him to get us into camp for 1 night, then drive us the 400k or so across the high passes of the Zagros mountains to Esfahan, which was our next stop.

We set off early Tuesday morning. We were ushered into a Peugeot that had been stripped down to the bare minimum. As bits had fallen off, like bumpers and windows, they not been replaced. We learnt on this journey just how few parts a vehicle actually needs to be able to move in roughly the right direction.

The journey into the mountains took about 1.5 hours, with the last 30 mins off the roads, picking a way through rocks and up and down dry river beds.

The Bakhtiyari tribe move between the Persian Gulf coast in winter and the uplands of the south western Zagros mountains in summer, following the path of falling temperatures and grazing land for their sheep. In August they are scattered in their black tents across the Zagros between Shiraz and Yasuj.

We arrived and were shown around the homes. The family consisted of 4 brothers each with their own 2/3 tents, in which they housed their children (average of 3 or 4) and their worldly goods. Each brother's tents were about 200 yards apart from the next brother's so that their flocks did not mix. They fenced their meagre cooking areas off against the vaste landscapes beyond. In addition to their sheep, each brother had varying numbers of goats, dogs, chickens and donkeys.

Our guide Bahman (we called him Batman and despite his countless corrections we didn't explain why) promptly suggested a walk across the high valley floor and up onto the mountain slopes. The first hour took us over a mixture of steppe and something almost Provencale. Then into vaste orchards where we loaded up with apples and peaches.

As we started onto the lower slopes, we met a herdsman and his sheep. He looked at Rich and I with bemusement. His body was bent permanently at 45 degrees, from a lifetime of leaning into the steep slopes. His eyes looked in different directions, presumably from years of watching for errant sheep.

After an hour or so into a climb, the slopes turned a lot steeper and so we stopped and assessed our progress. As we were getting ready to continue the climb, Batman asked if we were interested in a swim. He said he knew of a place about 20mins away. We needed little persuasion and followed a track slightly downwards and away from our route up. We quickly saw a small patch of blue green water in the near distance. It turned out to be a neat rectangle of cool water fed from a black pipe, erected with no obvious purpose in the middle of nowhere. We messed about in the pool for nearly an hour, trying not to focus on the soft irregular floor beneath us.

Our walk back to camp took about 2 hours, where food was nearly ready. We ate well off of a large grease proof sheet, with the by now customary piles of rice, boiled meat, something close to ratatouille and the bruised peaches left in our bags.

After dinner we were shown every variation on cannabis or similar resins imaginable, that had smoking or medicinal purposes. We also picked off threads from bits of wood, which when matted together, tasted like apple. Rich and I taught the children rude noises, plus mouth popping sounds and Donald duck voices. We also instructed them on Old Maid using a tired deck they had.

As night set in, we joined the whole family around a Soviet style gas burner in a big tent, and listened to them talk in their rare Turkish dialect. Bedtime was early as the fathers and eldest sons would be up at dawn to take the sheep to higher ground to graze. We were loaded with rugs to lie on and underneath as the temperature would drop sharply at this altitude overnight.

As the snores started up shortly after everyone was settled, the wide chorus of sheep flatulence began, broken only by the odd emission, we think, from one of the donkeys. Alas my sophisticated sense of humour disappeared, because I spent the next hour or so in pieces at the feast of nearby blasts.

In the morning we quickly fed, watched the herds move slowly away and thew our bags back into the Peugeot, to start the long drive to Esfahan.

Persepolis (12/8)

timseal — Mon, 12 Aug 2013 18:44:00 GMT

We took a bus out to Persepolis and some other nearby places today. These are all UNESCO sites where the names of Darius, Xerxes, Cyrus and Alexander are all writ large in the very fertile landscape of the Fars Province. Cyrus The Great's tomb at Pasargadae was the highlight for me. Huge and simple, lifted up above the Morghab valley floor by six giant plinths.

On the way back we had lunch with some farmers, had a melon tossing competition, ate tiny cucumbers straight from the fields and held an impromptu dance competition on the bus to some traditional Persian music.We were 2 Turks, 2 Columbians, 12 Iranians and 2 Brits.

Another great day in this country that is surrounded by some disintegrating neighbours, but which itself seems an oasis of.calm and hospitality.

Shiraz (10 & 11 Aug)

timseal — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 20:33:00 GMT

This former capital city below the Zagros mountains in south central Iran, is where the Shiraz / Syrah grape began life, although no wine has been produced here in a long time for obvious reasons. It teems with bazaars that, like Istanbul, contain little in the way of interesting items to buy, but unlike Istanbul, are home to some great tea-rooms and largely unspoilt caravanserais (former inns for camel trains along the trade routes).

Barely 10 minutes go by without a young boy calling out "how are you today Mister?" or "I love you Mister!" We stick out sharply as foreigners. Everyone welcomes you to "my Iran" and asks you why the "Inglise" do not come.

We met 2 other Brits last night (only seen a few Dutch and Italian otherwise) and lost out on the one-upmanship to their 2000k bike ride from Istanbul to Tehran. But we got our own back later on, by convincing them that their unprotected Yahoo e-mail accounts were inevitably being watched and so their messages back home which they told us about, ridiculing the hejab and chador, were very ill-advised.

Largely been sight-seeing and trying to persuade ourselves that Hafez (a Shirazi) really was the greatest ever poet as all Iranians keep insisting.

Eid is definitely over after 3 days of varying local opinions.

Off to Persepolis tomorrow.

message from the editor

timseal — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 15:40:00 GMT

Please post some comments. I have 150+ views but no idea who's reading this.

I'm working on getting some photos and video uploaded, but Iran blocks a lot of things, eg the required software

Yazd to Shiraz (10/8)

timseal — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 15:30:00 GMT

Nothing to report, just 6+ hours on a bus, nodding like Churchill. Just arrived at Niayesh Hotel in the old town. Quadruple room and ensuite inexplicably...

in the Malek-o-Tojjar restaurant

timseal — Sat, 10 Aug 2013 03:01:00 GMT

and when you arrive they ask what country you are from. We said the UK. A moment later they bring us over a Union Jack on a metal pole with a marble base. I look around and only see Iranian flags on tables. This feels like a Summit where everyone else stayed away

most people seen on a motorbike

timseal — Fri, 9 Aug 2013 16:33:00 GMT

is currently 5

Desert camp (8 & 9 Aug)

timseal — Fri, 9 Aug 2013 16:20:00 GMT

Late Thursday afternoon, Rich and I were picked up by a guide and driver we'd booked and taken out into the Dasht-e-lut desert outside Yazd, which extends almost to the Afghanistan border some 300 miles away to the east. We drove south about 60k along tracks and open desert until we arrived in the foothills of the Kharanagh mountains. Our driver pulled over and our guide took us out on a 5k hike which allowed us to get a good look at the salt stained lower slopes. The salt is left by the winter rivers that flow down off the mountains and dry up by March.

By the time we got back, our driver had built a fire and was starting to prepare dinner. Our beds (a ground sheet and the thinnest role of foam) were set out on a jagged flinty floor up against a rocky mound. There was no tent or awning.

After dinner and feeling like a cowboy out on the trail (but not Brokeback Mountain), I asked our guide Mohammed if he knew any campfire songs. I was expecting a shy "no, sorry". But bugger me, with barely a pause, he started up like some persian Pavarotti. After 2 really moving traditional ballads (he explained afterwards) with that soulful wail redolent of the middle east, I was panicking about what on earth I could follow him with. Unhelpfully, all I could think of was something by The Kinks, but I knew I could at best remember the words to half a song, and in any event, it really didn't qute fit the moment. Worse followed. Bloody Rich launched into some folksy number he knew from Croydon Folk Club. So to my shame, when he was done, he offered to sing Waltzing Matilda, so I could join in on the chorus.

A long night of back pain finally ended around 5.30am. As everyone was slowly rousing we spotted a snake under the jeep and I was glad I'd not seen it whilst going to sleep the night before.

The jeep's battery was flat after running an external light most of the evening and so we had to jump start it. About 10k up the road and we then had a puncture. Neither of these things are great when the temperature is climbing quickly through the 30's.

Around 11am we stopped where the scrubby desert gave way to some large dunes. We got out and messed about on the dunes for about 45 minutes until Rich gave himself a nosebleed after we had done one too many swallow dives off the ridges.

Our lunch stop was Fahraj where we were shown some sights, such as Iran's oldest mosque. Just as we were starting to feel a bit grim from lack of sleep and water, and an excess of dune sand in most orifices, we were shown into our guide's brother's hotel. It was stunning. Like most hotels in this part of Iran (and perhaps all of Iran, but I wait to see), it had a pool of water in the middle of the main courtyard and this one bigger than most. These pools are ornamental, which if they are nice ones, can be quite cruel on the parched traveller. Our guide turned to us and smiled, and said - "you can go in if you want to". I was down to my boxers and in the cool water before Rich had taken his rucksack off. The 2 of us, our guide, driver and the hotel manager spent the next 45 minutes messing about in the pond. It was fantastic.....

Before food we were offered a room to sleep in for an hour or so, which we gratefully accepted. The usual x plus rice plus chopped gerkin was lunch and then the jeep back to Yazd. A great 24 hours.

Yazd (7/8)

timseal — Thu, 8 Aug 2013 16:22:00 GMT

spent the evening in the courtyard of a nearby hotel smoking orange hookah and drinking tea

Yazd (7/8)

timseal — Wed, 7 Aug 2013 23:47:00 GMT

Breakfast is lavish as long as you like cucumber, tomatoes and dates, dried by the morning sun.... so I stayed pretty hungry until lunchtime. Yazd is said to be one of the oldest cities on earth, with maze-like expanses of compacted mud and straw single storey buildings, spreading out across the northern part of the modern city. It is zig-zagged by 1 or 2 walking tours that take in a couple of mosques and a prison. There are few signposts or landmarks and so you walk on in hope rather than expectation that you are going the right way. My water intake is considerable, as my swollen fingers are telling me, if I needed reminding, that I am pretty dehydrated.

Lunch is the obligatory chicken and rice. I am getting through a couple of ice lollies morning and afternoon, even though it seems gluttonous with Ramazan not yet over.

The heat is punishing, with very little breeze.

A low point this afternoon came while we were sat in a subterranean tea house, based in what is said to have been a dungeon built by Alexander The Great. Two crones emerged from the shadows to take our orders, only to tell Rich how handsome he was. With no similar compliment coming in my direction, I felt very alone for a moment in that grim place.

Yazd (6/8)

timseal — Tue, 6 Aug 2013 19:54:00 GMT

it is hot...mid 40's and my searing wit is starting to ebb a little. The very dusty hotel laptop keyboard has a few keys that need to be hit alot before they work and the "b" shows 5 additional characters whenever it's struck, so typing is not as quick as I'd like

we've spent around 4 hours this afternoon up and down imam khomeini st looking for a coffee.net (internet cafe), money exchange and phone shop for new SIMS, and got the lot eventually.

Dinner is good at a nearby backpackers hotel - The Silk Road. I have the obligatory chicken and rice. The iranian beer tastes like a dodgy dandelion and burdock, so we only have a few each.

We have a decent twin room. Rich has got the views and i have the wall. Still, he has the air con unit chuntering overhead all night. The SIMS still don't work

Tehran to Yazd

timseal — Tue, 6 Aug 2013 13:00:00 GMT

I changed $100 USD at Tehran airport and got 26,000,000 Iranian Rials back, which would be helpful for all my small change needs.

[2137] The journey by train from the Tehran terminal to Yazd is about 225 miles and takes anywhere between 5.5 and 9 hours. It runs mostly across dirty, scrubby desert, with very few towns, villages or half-completed building works in between. Our train was half full, mainly of middle aged women in dusty burkas slumped asleep. We joined them straightaway and only woke at a handful of unexplained jolts, before the train arrived early into Yazd around lunchtime. As we dropped down onto the platform we were set upon immediately by half a dozen taxi drivers, who had the desperate air of men who relied heavily on the trade of only the very occasional out of towner. They all streamed into the toilets after us and so I headed into a cubicle, leaving Rich at the urinals with 3 or 4 drivers still urging him to choose them. The drivers jostled us all the way out front to their cars, before we just chose one at random and scrambled in quickly. The rusty lada swung away at speed in the direction of our hotel.

Istanbul to Tehran flight

timseal — Tue, 6 Aug 2013 03:00:00 GMT

We took the opportunity to have our last beer for a few weeks at the airport and then rolled up as the token westerners at gate 302 for the Atlas Jets flight to Tehran. This being a night flight, we'd presumed there'd be no refreshments, but 1 hour into the flight at 1am, with everyone in a deep sleep, the lights came on and the stewardesses appeared with trolleys full of food and drink. After we'd got the sleep out of our eyes, we had our 2nd meal of the last 2 hours

Visas for Iran

timseal — Mon, 5 Aug 2013 12:57:00 GMT

(Istanbul 1250) So after 2 weeks of attempts back in the UK to get the Iranian Embassy in Frankfurt to issue our visas, which ended in failure on Thursday, we arrived in Istanbul last night with our hopes resting on the Iranian embassy in the Turkish capital. Over 4 hours this morning, our prospects have changed about every 5 mins. We've just been told to come back at 1500. We are faintly optimistic.....

(Istanbul 1640) we have our visas and now can fly tonight. After the Frankfurt fiasco, we weren't even finger printed. We'll be in Tehran in the early hours of tomorrow

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timseal — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 00:36:00 GMT