in Isfahan again
Day 9: Saturday 27 May 2000
The day begins with a trip to the Menbar-e Jonban, a Timurid mosque also known as "the Shaking Mosque", on the outskirts of Isfahan.
Small and beautiful in itself, it is renowned for the fact that if you stand in one minaret and rock it backwards and forwards, the other minaret also shakes. In fact, the whole mosque shakes quite violently, with large cracks opening and closing altogether alarmingly. A rather Timurid-looking young man, clad in back, gives us a demonstration. Mehdi swears that the tower will not fall down, but I am not so sure that one day it will not happen.
We drive on a little and climb the very steep hill to the Ateshgade, leaving Mehdi in the cool shade below. Two-thirds of the way up, having salaam'd each member of what looks like a university outing coming down, we pause while Cat takes off her chador, which I then wrap, pirate-like, around my waist. We make it to the top for great views over Isfahan which from here looks like a collection of orchards. Too fagged to make the final push to the ruins themselves at the very top, we creep down, sweating and exhausted.
Mehdi drives us to the bazaar, where we change $200 "en plan negro" and buy a miniature of a hunting scene from one Hossein Follahi, whose mentor was, it seems, patronised by both Churchill and Konrad Adenauer, amongst others.
We traipse around looking for wooden doors (wrong directions from Mr Bean don't help) and finally fetch up at a decent shop selling tiles, mirrors, jewellery and so on. We buy a few small things and then retire to the hotel for lunch and a deep sleep. Later, we go to the carpet shop near the Masjed-e Jameh and bargain for an hour with the man who will become known as "El Vampiro". In fact, he bears a striking resemblance to a boy named Jamie Cameron who was at Stowe. After the full spiel, he gives us prices on two carpets that I quite like, but are not too fussed about, but which Cat is not keen on. She beats him down from $1,100 to $700 (including shipping) on one, and from $850 to $500 on the other. We then leave without either of them.
We buy Neli some gold earrings and return to the mirror man. Just as they are wrapping the mirror that Cat has decided upon, in walks El Vampiro! He tries to get us into his other shop over the way, but this is plainly only for the sake of form - having seen the way Cat bargains, I feel we are not the sort of customers he particularly wants.
We buy some dervish and bandari music in a little shop opposite the hotel and, after dinner under the stars, turn in.