The luxury of lapis, two revolutions and the art of the holiday

Tabriz, Iran

Tabriz is an attractive city with a lovely climate in summer. After the searing heat and humidity of the coast, it was delightful to be in a temperate, warm climate.

“We arrived in the city of Tabriz....and encamped outside it in a place called al-Sham. At that place is the grave of Qazan, king of al-Iraq, and alongside it a fine madrasa and a hospice in which food is supplied to all wayfarers, consisting of bread, meat, rice cooked in ghee, and sweetmeats. On the following morning I entered the city by a gate called the Baghdad Gate, and we came to an immense bazaar, one of the finest bazaars I have seen the world over. Each trade has its own location in it, separate from every other.”

The tea bazaar, Tabriz

We went to the bazaar on arrival, which is indeed spectacular and rivals the bazaar of Isfahan. Walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, dates, hibiscus tea, rose tea, honey, sunflower seeds, saffron, spices, sugar candy – burlap sacks were everywhere stuffed and overflowing, the smells over the years seeming to have permeated the very stone of the vaulted covered corridors. Tabriz is famous for its mixtures of roasted, salted nuts as well as shirinee, a kind of cookie made of egg white, almond and pistachio.


The spice bazaar, Tabriz

Fortunately, being Thursday, the carpet bazaar was closed - I did not want to be tempted. But there were plenty of other things to buy. In the evening we walked through the fresh fruit bazaar where cherries were on sale for 6000 Iranian riyals a kilo which is about 65 cents, (the current rate of exchange is approx. 9000 riyals to $1), fava beans were 5000IR a kilo and strawberries were 12,000 IR per kilo. As I have mentioned before the fruits and vegetables in Iran are delicious, because they are grown and sold locally and eaten seasonally as they should be.

Mr. Bean goes to Kish and the Last of the Pearls

Bandar Assouleh & Kish (Qais), Iran

There was no hotel in Siraf so we had to go to Bandar Assouleh to spend the night. This is one of Iran’s new industrial areas and is a center of oil and natural gas refining. We first of all could not find the exit off the highway and in fact we never did – we had to cut across a dirt track to enter the town which was utterly nondescript with the exception of the esplanade.

The esplanade of Bandar Assouleh - the flares behind the streetlamps are oil (and/or gas) refinery flares.
We could not find our hotel and hard as this may be to believe, the guide did not have the phone number. He only had the name. The hotel had changed its name. We drove around for two hours, nobody knew where the hotel was – everyone here comes from somewhere else as they come for work – and eventually the driver, by now furious with the guide for being so incompetent, said he would drop us off at a restaurant and he would try to find it. Because it was Friday the office was closed and the guide did not want to call anyone at home..........

The driver came back and took us to the Persian Gulf hotel – nothing to do with the name we had which was the Bandar Assouleh Inn. The guide had been telling me it was a government-run tourist inn such as we had stayed in the night before. It was not. It was filthy. It was apparently the best hotel in town and you would not have put a rabid dog in it. Nobody could use the loo, the cockroaches were the size of small birds and they were legion. I tried to pee down a drain and one leapt up, followed in rapid succession by me, so that was the end of that. I closed the door and slept with all my clothes on, on top of my silk liner. The next morning I peered cautiously into the bathroom, the repulsive creatures were still there. I went to a gas station to use the loo. I did however have one of the best meals for breakfast I had yet had in the entire country – a plate of beans from a tiny hole-in-the-wall that had workers lined up down the street. That and a cup of strong tea did the trick. And thus fortified we set off from the unforgettable Bandar Assouleh……..

Earthquakes and a Sufi's worth

Lar, Khonj, Siraf, Iran

“…From there we continued our march for three days through another desert like the former, and came to the city of Lar, a large city with many springs and perennial streams and gardens, and with fine bazaars.”

More of the astonishing desert vista; an extraordinary but forbidding landscape with massive chunks of the earth’s crust uplifted into rippling folds and craggy peaks.

By the time we reached Lar, and took time finding the hotel where we were the only guests, I could barely wait to close the room door firmly shut. Had there been anything to watch on TV other than a religious program in Farsi, I would have been content. There was not. I went out in the evening and bought some walnuts, salty cheese, yogurt, olives, fresh bread and chocolate for dinner. I wandered round New Lar but there was little of interest. Old Lar was destroyed by an earthquake in 1960 and a whole new town was built a few miles away. Old Lar, still inhabited, is the only part of interest.

Although the current bazaar dates primarily from the 16th century, there was a bazaar here when Ibn B passed through in 1347. Perhaps because it was located in an area prone to earthquakes, (better structural support?) or perhaps due to the very hot climate, the bazaar is built below ground level. It is built in a cruciform or ‘chahar-su’ plan, with a pierced central octagonal dome, which admitted both light and cooling breezes. Originally there was an octagonal pool under the dome which further cooled the inside temperature, but it is no longer there. The ashlar stonework is masterfully executed while the remains of painted stucco moldings are still visible.

The Principled Highwayman and the sacrificial goat

Hormuz Island and Kawrestan, Iran

You need a scarf and preferably some kind of face covering in this part of the world in summer. The wind is searing – it seems to fry the very air in your lungs. But it is the excessive humidity which leaves you wilted like a steamed lettuce after about 5 minutes. The boat crossing to Hormuz took about 20 minutes – I was sitting on some blankets on top of some plastic gasoline containers which I had not quite realized until I looked down and saw one pale blue linen trouser leg covered in petrol……. Arriving at Hormuz Island, a bedraggled fire hazard, we now had to set about finding someone to drive us round the island. . We were rescued by a man who came to the quayside driving a decrepit, red Toyota pick-up but to us it was a Mercedes limousine.

Our ‘fixer’, whom we had met on the boat and was related to said driver, now decided that he would drive the pick-up, but the car seemed to have only two gears one of which was reverse, and when the engine cut out as it did when you changed gear, it had to be hot-wired to start again as the key had disappeared long ago. Fortunately for us he quickly realized that his skills, considerable though they undoubtedly were, did not include driving a finicky pick-up and he quickly called back the owner who had over the years familiarized himself with the idiosyncracies of his vehicle. The island might only be 6 miles long, but for a moment it looked like the chances of us getting off the pier, never mind round the island were remote at best.

Hormuz island is a salt plug - this is a common vista as one drives around the island.

A long way from Tehran

Bandar Abbas, Iran

Our itinerary for the next few days was something of a shambles. We backtracked over many miles because we were doing the trip in the opposite direction from Ibn Battuta, and the places he visited which were vastly important in the 14th century barely exist now, but it was also because not being an area frequented by tourists, there are very few decent hotels. For the sake of Ibn Battuta’s text we will pretend we did the same route – south to north – when in fact we went north to south and then back north to Kish island……..The journey was the proverbial dog’s dinner.

Ibn B arrived in Iran from Oman - another country I am visiting out of sequence, but he went to Oman twice and like Iran, I am consolidating his trips into one which will make it almost accurate……..

“I traveled there next to the land of Hormuz. Hormuz is the city on the sea-coast, and is also called Mughistan. Opposite it in the sea New Hormuz, and between them is a sea passage of three farsakhs. We came to New Hormuz, which is an island whose city is called Jarawn. It is a fine large city, with magnificent bazaars, as it is the port of India and Sind, from which the wares of India are exported to the two Iraqs, Fars and Khorasan.”

Minab creek today - hard to believe that this was once one of the most important ports in the Persian Gulf.

A Drunken Rage, Shapur’s Glory and the Traveler’s Friend

Persepolis, Bishapur, Kazerun, Fars province, Iran

PERSEPOLIS
I have never entirely come to grips with Persepolis despite the fact that my first visit was with Alireza who is one of the finest, most knowledgeable guides I have had the privilege of working with, and Mike Kozuh who, with a Ph.D in Ancient Eastern Civilizations, could read the cuneiform inscriptions on the walls like a newspaper. When Alexander the Great destroyed Persepolis in 330BC, he did not pussyfoot around – excluding the astonishing Apadana staircase, there is little left. It is said that one night he got completely plastered and hoisted some undoubtedly beguiling, equally drunken slattern onto his shoulders who torched the halls. The city, much of which was built of wood, was incinerated. It has also been suggested that it was revenge for the burning of the Athens Acropolis by Xerxes in 480BC, but this seems unlikely since Alexander was Macedonian, not Greek. It is much more likely that Alexander deliberately inflicted this final touch of defeat on the Persians, to indicate to them that their empire, their days of glory were most determinedly over, and to destroy any hope of revival they might have entertained, and remove any vestige of what they once had been, he thoroughly razed their legendary ceremonial capital.

Persepolis was built as a ceremonial capital by the Achaemenid dynasty; begun by Darius the Great in the 6th century BC, continued by his son, Xerxes in the 5th century BC and then his son Artaxerxes, also 5th century BC, it was burned to the ground by Alexander the Great in 330BC. Having defeated Darius III at the Battle of Issus the same year - “all that belongs to you is now mine” - he deliberately destroyed Persepolis, glittering symbol of the empire’s power and might. Iranians are not unbiased or even-handed about this event and call Alexander “the Macedonian” as for them he was not remotely great at all. The Gate of all Lands was a waiting area where notables were led to await their audience with the King. Mounted on stone bases are two human-headed winged bulls who were ‘guardians’ of the city.

There is so little left that I have never been able to get my imagination to bridge the gap between what the eye sees and what the experts tell you must once have been. I dutifully toured the site again but with the exception of the phenomenal carvings of the Apadana staircase, Persepolis leaves me unmoved, I am self-evidently a cultural incompetent. And Ibn Battuta, as was his wont when world-class sites were pre-Islamic, sailed past without visiting or even mentioning them.

Carved on the inner staircase of the Apadana are 'The Immortals' - so-called because there were ten thousand of them and whenever one died he was immediately replaced. In battle they were legendary because it seemed when one fell another appeared in his place - another reason they were feared as 'immortal'.
From there we drove a short distance to where there are some Sassanian rock carvings. The Sassanians used this method to let people know about events in the empire, usually victories of some sort. One of the great carvings is of the powerful Zoroastrian priest Kartir, an unmitigated scoundrel, his right hand in the Sassanian gesture of respect – the curled forefinger.

Kartir, powerful Zoroastrian priest.

Shrines of Shiraz

Shiraz, Iran

“ We traveled to the town of Shiraz….famous in repute and high in esteem; it has elegant gardens and gushing streams, sumptuous bazaars and handsome thoroughfares.”

We arrived in Shiraz late afternoon through the Koran Gate, a route with a view which has been oft-raved over by a litany of travelers, but which now in a combination of pollution and urban sprawl, is quite unremarkable. And far from there being ‘gushing streams’ the main river is now in fact called Dry River on account of the fact that nary a drop of water is to found in it. (To be fair there is an effective water conservation program.) Shiraz, historically the place of wine, women and song, nightingales and roses – all the grand and eloquent subjects of Persian literature, is now just another large traffic-clogged city with no wine and two famous dead poets.

Begun in the late 18th century during the reign of Karim Khan, this mosque is famous for its spacious prayer hall and the exuberance of its tiling much of which was done later by the Qajars who completed construction of the mosque. Forty-eight stone columns with a spiral pattern ending in acanthus-leafed capitals are an unusal feature in an otherwise brick-built structure. The dados of the iwans are carved in alabaster arabesques while the upper walls and muqarnas are decorated in an exuberance of Victoriana swirls, flowers and general chintz with the predominant color being pink - a hallmark of the Qajars.

However the city does still boast some beautiful gardens, exquisite palaces, and stunningly-tiled mosques and madrasas although most of them were built after the time of Ibn Battuta – Shiraz was above all the city of the 18th century Zand dynasty. Of Ibn B’s day not much remains but we endeavored to unravel what we could. But first I had to find a kalyan – it was difficult, but after a day of the guide’s constant; “are you alright, watch your step, mind your head, are you too cold, watch out for the car” etc. despite my threat to emasculate him if he did not stop treating me like a little old lady from the suburbs on her first trip away from home, I needed to calmly smoke the pipe. Ironically it was he who told me where this could be procured; the Park Hotel – a hotel which has certainly seen happier times but which has a lovely garden with sweet-smelling jasmine and flamboyant pink bougainvillea. It especially has lovely carpeted charpoys – a kind of elevated large rectangle with cushions on three sides where one relaxes with tea and kalyan. And so of an evening I puffed and bubbled merrily away.

The Road south to Shiraz

Isfahan to Shiraz, Iran

We left in the morning to drive south. I had said goodbye to Alireza reluctantly and had met the guide who would be with me for the next two weeks. It was not to be an altogether happy partnership for either of us; his old womanish, fusspot ways drove me quite insane as I knew would be the case from the moment I laid eyes on him, and he undoubtedly thought I was his worst nightmare come true. Our first stop was Yazdikhast of which Ibn Battuta had written;

".....a small town substantially built, and with a fine bazaar; the congregational mosque in it is a marvel, built of stone and with arcades of stone also. The town is on the edge of a valley, in which are its orchards and its streams. In its outskirts there is a ribat in which travellers are lodged; it has an iron gate and is of the utmost strength and impregnability, and inside it there are shops where everything that travellers may need is on sale."

Bridge over the ravine which if removed, effectively sealed off the town. Ibn Battuta used the Moroccan/Maghreb word 'ribat' meaning "fortified monastery" when usually in Iran he used the word 'hospice' meaning caravanserai. It is possible given the size of Yazdikhast, that this had at one time been the entrance to the ribat he mentions and that the town was further along the edge of the cliff as its ruins still are today.

I found a bridge 'over a chasm' but the door was wooden although there were iron pieces in the stone wall. The door was clearly the only way into the now-ruined village, and indeed had the bridge been removed, the village was impregnable with defensive ramparts having been built around the spur of rock to which the village clung. The door was tightly locked shut so the guide, to my complete amazement, climbed up a rock face and over a gap in the wall and I followed, abaya and all. We then walked through the town, most of which was in a parlous state, and found the mosque although it did not appear to have been built of stone - the village consists of houses built of adobe and those actually hewn from the cliff. The whole time we were there the guide fretted; it was forbidden, we did not know who was watching, he could lose his licence - the litany of dire possibilities that surely awaited him never varied for the next two weeks. I became convinced he had been arrested and tortured either by Savak or by the post-revolutionary 'Robespierres' - I could imagine no other reason for such perpetual fearfulness.

Of Fire temples and Chicken Sacrifice

Isfahan, Iran

“My lodging at Isfahan was in a convent which is attributed to the shaikh Ali ibn Sahl, the disciple of al-Jonaid. It is held in great veneration and is visited by the people of those regions, who seek to obtain blessing by visiting it.”

In this convent Ibn Battuta had a momentous moment; he was elated to be initiated into the Suhrawardi Sufi taqqiya, the Sunni school of Sufism founded by Abu an-Najib as-Suhrawardi. (The more famous, or perhaps infamous, as-Suhrawardi was Shahad ad-Din who founded the Illuminationist school, a fusion of Zoroastrian, Platonic and Islamic philosophy, for which he was executed in 1191, his views being considered antithetical to Islam.)  We went off in search of the monastery. Predictably, the people working in the tourism office had never heard of it and had no idea where it was although they told us their director knew everything there was to know, but he was not there. Fortunately its location was in the guidebook...........

The lovely tree-shaded monastery Ibn Battuta would have seen although the adjacent hammam with its tiling has gone.

The Cat and the Raven and the Assassination of the Vizier

Isfahan, Iran

When I was in Isfahan, Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad decided to visit. The Naqsh-e-Jahan square was closed as he was due to make a speech near the Blue Mosque. Early afternoon we watched as crowds of people started making their way towards the square. These were the followers, the believers; the women were all chador-clad, troops of khaki-uniformed Revolutionary Guards ran down the center of the street carrying flags and banners, shouting “ya Hussein”, traditional battle cry of the doomed, some marched more sedately in the shaded avenues leading to the square, while buses were parked everywhere having disgorged the party faithful to the event.

Alireza would not let me take pictures, “these people are very fervent and anything can set them off - it’s better to stay out of their way”. Earlier we had seen a black cat and a raven fighting on the rooftops at the shrine of an Imamzadeh - I thought of Bush and Ahmedinejad.  The raven was squawking loudly and hopping about, flapping its wings to get rid of the cat which was aloof, dismissive and unconcerned. Many Iranians think Bush and Ahmedinejad are the same; both engage in saber-rattling designed to whip up people too lazy or oafish to think overmuch for themselves into a suitably nationalistic frenzy, and both appeal to religious fundamentalists. There is however one glaring difference - Ahmedinejad is a bona fide war veteran.

Giant Posters of the president were everywhere during his visit.