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.