Tehran to Yazd
Day 1: Friday, 19 May 2000
We arrive at the airport in Tehran for the flight to Yazd. The sweet, but insistent, Mr. Najafi introduces himself and insists (by repeating it about eight times slowly and verbatim) that we must have dinner with him and his wife the next evening. As he speaks almost no English and, I gather, his wife apparently none, this sounds dire. Friendly, but dire. I feel slightly ashamed at giving him a misleading address in England, especially since he simply wishes that we should become "very very very very very very very good friends".
On the flight to Yazd, there is a certain amount of turbulence in the clear air rising from the desert plateau. The chief stewardess is a hatchet-faced but strangely rather handsome woman who you wouldn't have dared to ask even for a glass of water. We are the only Westerners on the plane. Landing at the airstrip, one's immediate impression is of blasting heat and dust. The heat is intense but when the wind blows, it is even hotter. We meet our driver, Mehdi, who is to be with us until we leave Iran. He has a rather old, but apparently still serviceable, Toyota Corona into which we pile and drive to the Hotel Safaiye to freshen up before setting off for a brief explore. Yazd is a low built town, slightly reminiscent of Mandalay, but much nicer and more historical in feel. The hotel is pleasant enough with trees and "ecstasy" seats (see also under 'Philippines') overlooking a fountain that plays only in the morning and the evening. Having showered and had a brief sleep, we set out to explore again.
First, we head for the Bagh-E Doulat, a set of pretty gardens with a 100-foot badgir (a wind tower) and beautiful stained glass windows. There is nobody else there apart from a family holding a sheet underneath some of the trees in the orchard. We go over to see what they are pulling down; they look like raspberries, but we later learned that they are mulberries. The family offer us some, which we try and find that they are delicious. We stop for tubs of cherry-flavoured ice creams on the way back into town and then go onto the Amir Chakhmagh complex near the centre of the old city. This is for the most part a simple frontage with two soaring minarets which we climb to the highest available point and enjoy fantastic views over the whole of Yazd and the desert and mountains beyond. There is beautiful blue and yellow tile work on the slender minarets, all dating back to the 14th century.
From there we move on to the Masjed-E Jame, or Friday Mosque, the big mosque of Yazd. Again, this is a fantastic spectacle and not crowded at all. We wander round the main courtyards and hallways of the mosque and then go down to a cool chamber underneath the main courtyard, all made of brick arranged in herringbone style. At the other end of the courtyard, we go down a very deep passage, about 100 feet deep, and find a restored ghanat, an artificial underground stream used for irrigation, carved by hand from the rock many centuries ago. This particular one runs at that level, 100 feet down, for approximately 60 kilometres.
As we come up again, Mehdi persuades the caretaker to let us on the roof for some wonderful sunset views over Yazd and the jagged peaks on either side of the town.
Driving back to the hotel, we dine rather unpleasantly on oven-blasted and off chicken which we switched for a rather decent steak. There are two old English boys (?gay) staying in the hotel who keeps themselves to themselves and the usual motley collection of French and Dutch elderly tourists, all on collective tours. Mehdi has a mild fever and headache so we give him some aspirin. We then go to bed properly, for the first time since 5:30am the day before. We sleep well, only briefly disturbed by the Dutch slamming of doors.