Iran - Yazd

25 Mar 2019 . category: Travel . Comments
#Iran

Day 5: Drive to Yazd

This was mostly a driving day, from Isfahan to Yazd, stopping in Nain and Meybod. Honestly, these cities were both sort of forgettable, and I think only served to break up the journey. The highlight was the Narin Castle in Meybod, where I almost got wrecked by walking into a ladder. Thankfully, a nice Iranian construction worker yelled out just in time.

We arrived in Yazd for a late lunch at the touristy but good Silk Road Hotel where I had camel meat for the first time. In their parking lot, we saw a couple expedition/overland type vehicles, including these people who are out to basically drive around the entire world. Based on the map on the vehicle and their website, they’d started in Germany, gone up to Lapland, and then down through Russia and the Caucuses to Iran. It seems like an epic journey!

Varzesh-e Bastani

In the afternoon, we checked out a zurkaneh, a place where the traditional exercise regimen of Varzesh-e Bastani is done. I don’t think I’m going to do a better job than the Wikipedia explanation, so I encourage just reading that. It was basically an hour of musical singing/chanting combined with interesting dance-like exercise. Many of them involved rapidly moving and lifting these large wooden clubs ((video)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTVtpZ1f-7k]). We picked one up afterwards, they are really heavy! The venue itself is also rather beautiful, as it’s in what was a large domed water cistern.

This was another stop I asked to add to the itinerary, and I think worth a visit. Though note that the venue does indeed smell like a gym.

Wandering Yazd

We spent the remainder of the afternoon/evening just wandering around Yazd, as the next day was the main sightseeing day. Really, I think if we had cut the stops in Nain and Meybod (driving right from Isfahan to Yazd), we could’ve gotten away with just one day in Yazd and left the following morning. That would be my suggestion if anyone is planning a similar itinerary and more pressed for time than we were. Though honestly, ending up with two more relaxing days in the middle of the tour didn’t make me sad. Perhaps a sign that I’m getting older…

As I may have said in Tehran post, just wandering around cities is one of my favorite things to do while in a foreign country, and Yazd didn’t disappoint. A famous local candy story had this strangely elaborate water dispensing apparatus where you obtained a clean straw upon every use:

We also saw this gem of an outdoor display:

as well as this lovely t-shirt for sale:

While walking around, we also purchased some servings of popcorn. I mean, how could one resist the smurfs?

Paying for these was a bit of a struggle, as there was a language barrier with the vendors. Unsurprisingly, a random person selling popcorn on the street probably doesn’t get that many foreign tourists. My own lack of familiarity with the currency didn’t help - it turns out it’s just more difficult to reason about money when every bill has what seems like infinity zeros at the end… So I basically just unfurled some bills and let them choose which ones were appropriate. I saw at least one vlog before visiting Iran where someone mentioned doing this, and found it ridiculous at the time. But honestly, I think this is a reasonable way to pay for things in Iran due to (1) the wackiness of the currency (2) the general politeness toward tourists (3) the cheapness of everything. I think the popcorn was something like 20 cents, so even if I did get majorly ripped off, that was okay with me. And generally, I felt that people were very polite with tourists. We were only actively solicited a handful of times the entire week, and even then they were pretty courteous about it and stopped asking after the first decline.

One last thing we saw were some touristy stores selling e.g. expensive rugs with Visa and Mastercard stickers outside. We didn’t see these anywhere else, and I’m pretty sure Visa and Mastercard don’t operate within the country, so I’m wondering how these work. Are your credit card details transmitted to a foreign affiliate who charges your card?

Day 6: Yazd

Zoroastrian Sights

The next morning we began at the Zoroastrian fire temple, where we learned a bit more about the the religion, and were able to see the fire that supposedly has been continuously burning since 470 AD. Reading the Wikipedia page page as I write this, it is apparently the highest grade of fire, with only nine such temples in the world.

In the afternoon, we visited another Zoroastrian sight, the Towers of Silence. Traditionally, this is where Zoroastrians placed their dead to be eaten by carrion, “excarnation.” Be warned, it’s a bit of a hike up to the top, especially in the afternoon sun.

Dowlat Abad Garden + Water Museum

These were I think the most beautiful gardens we saw while in Iran. Though I mostly think that because of the non-garden aspects. In particular, there’s an impressive windcatcher which was used to create natural ventilation in the building. They are also often found over water reservoirs connected to underground canals, or qanats. We saw remnants of the elaborate water supply system all throughout our time in Iran, and especially at the Water Museum in Yazd. Digging and maintaining these underground channels was unsurprisingly rather dangerous, as evidenced by the very upbeat notes in the museum:

Here’s a silly shot of Dore and me looking up the windcatcher tower, suggested by our guide - maybe Q is secretly an Instagram influencer!

The complex also included some beautiful stained glass windows:

Lunch with the Colonel

Lunch that day was at a relatively fancy restaurant on the outskirts of town (on the way to the Towers of Silence). The proprieter was this lovely older gentleman with an awesome beige three-piece suit that reminded me of Colonel Sanders:

He apparently reminisced with Q about what things were like before the Revolution, and offered a toast welcoming us to Iran. He said he hoped that we would return, and perhaps next time, we would be allowed to toast with whiskey! The restaurant also included a live band which was pretty great.

Imam Zadeh Jafar

We also visited this incredible shrine in Yazd, dedicated to a descendent of one of the Imams. It wasn’t on our itinerary / I wasn’t expecting to visit at all, but it was incredible. The vaulted ceilings on the inside are completely covered in millions of little mirrors, with the light from chandeliers bouncing all around. Sadly all the light bouncing around caused my camera to struggle quite a bit / photos really don’t capture the beauty, but here’s the best picture I got:

There’s weirdly a short stock-footage video available, which maybe captures things better. Also, here’s a close-up of the mirror-work, with some posters calling attention to the War in Yemen (and in particular Saudi Arabia’s role I believe):

There was also this interesting poster hanging outside. Q translated the Persian for us, but I think the image really speaks for itself, with the West trying to pull away the modesty of the young woman:

I think this was one of the top sights in the country for me, so I’m surprised that it doesn’t get mentioned in e.g. “The Top 10 Things to Do and See in Yazd”.

Two other stops in Yazd: Cafe Travel, another hipster-y coffee shop with various filter coffee preparations and something that I think they called Yazd coffee, a delicious slightly-sweet coffee flavored with spices; Alexander’s Prison, which despite the name is not really a prison and also has no relation to Alexander the Great.

Day 7: Drive to Shiraz

This again was a driving day, our last one of the trip, from Yazd to Shiraz. The sights this day were a bit better in my opinion though.

Parsargadae

Our first stop was at Parsargadae, the capital of the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great. It was a nice change of pace to see some very old structures, as most of the week had been mosques and shrines of a similar age and appearance. The area includes his tomb:

as well as the remants of several palaces. We also ran into some friendly kids who alternated between shyness and wanting to make conversation with us. Here’s all of us together:

Just outside the complex, there was this lovely sign from the Ayatollah:

It’s slightly ironic as Iran has since banned Telegram. The sign to the right memorializes martyrs from the Iran-Iraq War. These were ubiquitous across the country, sometimes large with many soldiers like this one, sometimes just honoring a single local son. They were particularly common along main roads, no matter the village we were driving through.

Cypress of Abarkuh

The second stop of the day was less exciting, the Cypress of Abarkuh. It claims to be one of the oldest trees in the world, but our guide Q humorously pointed out that the advertised age has inflated over a thousand years since he started tour guiding, so I’m a bit skeptical.

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