Yazd: oasis of wind towers

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Yazd is a small oasis city in southern central Iran, in the middle of the desert. The landscape during the journey from Esfahan did not look like it changed much in seven hours, though admittedly I was not looking out of the window all the time, allowing the bus to rock me to sleep.The city's water comes from underground qanats miles away in the mountains.

Here the women are almost exclusively dressed in chadors and the men a little too friendly! The weather is hot, hot at 35 degrees C, but as a dry heat was bearable as long as you were not too Gilbert and Sullivan about it. Water ran everywhere though. And, like all over Iran, many street corners have their water cisterns where you can refill your water bottle. It is fine to drink! What bliss, cold free water whenever you want, without having to use a plastic bottle every time.

The mazy old city, where we were staying, is made of mud brick and is meant to be one of the oldest still inhabited cities in the world. Streets are full of twists and turns, opening out onto open spaces with ancient table-tennis tables or basket ball hoops. Some of the buildings have half crumbled to dust, and their finely plastered interior walls are open to the hot summer sun. There boys on mopeds swing round the narrow lanes, with women sometimes riding pillion, chadors flowing in the hot air. Women smile and say salaam, one offered me plums and cherries. Wandering round the old streets of Yazd Rita and I met an old Iraqi woman who kissed our hands and cheeks. My few words of Arabic could not express what I wanted to say to her. She mentioned Saddam's name and had obviously suffered under him. It seemed that she was probably a Shi'ite and that she lived here as a refugee?

Yazd is famous for its wind towers; tall badgirs rising out of the golden walls which manage to catch the least puff of wind hot or cold and bring it down to ground level, thereby cooling it. This acted as early air conditioning for the baking inhabitants of Yazd.

We stayed in the Silk Road Hotel , in one of the traditional houses near the Jameh Mosque. The hotel is set round a courtyard with a pool and fountain. Unusually the pool has water in it and the fountain is flowing! It makes a lovely place to relax on large wooden sofas laid out with Persian carpets. It is also a convivial place to meet other travellers. Food is good and breakfast, thanks perhaps to its Dutch co-manager Sebastian, has proper coffee! (This is rare in Iran, even posh looking cafes with proper coffee machines serve nescafe)!

I kept on returning to the 15th century Jameh Mosque at different times of day, to sit and watch and drink it in. Sometimes people were praying quietly. Sometimes you would see a man asleep under one of the fans, escaping the heat of the day. I would sit there quietly having taken my shoes off to walk on the soft carpet. There are no furnishings in the mosques, just tiled walls, carpeted floors and the minbar - the steps up to... nothing, really. I feel at peace here. The tiles are intricate, with each piece of the pattern, whether geometrical, floral arabesque, or calligraphic, individually cut. It feels so ancient, so raw and simple after the sophistication of Esfahan, and then even more so compared to the delicate Iznik tiled mosques in imperial Ottoman Istanbul.

One day I did a tour with a group, travelling to two ruined mud brick villages, one called Kharanaq which brought out the buried archaeologist in me, looking at ovens and living floors and imagining the harsh way of life, precariously perched on a hillside in the midst of the desert. Khraranaq has another shaking minaret. I was on the inside as it was shook, which made for an interesting experience of the earth moving!

We also saw Chak Chak, which is an important Zoroastrian pilgrimage site. They come in early June to meet, pray and drink wine, according to our guide. The actual shrine is dreamy with water coming out of cracks in the rocky cave, lit with an improbably large chandalier. The water is supposedly linked to the legend of the Sassanian princess of Nikbanuh as she was trying to escape the Arabs. The cave is set high up in the mountains, and as you climbed up the steep and tall steps, there was a lot of looking at the view as you caught your breath! Unfortunately the houses built for the pilgrims look more like a souless council estate than anything else. Which for me kinda detracted from the spiritual aspect of the site.

Tour was 210,000 rials arranged by the Silk Road Hotel. The tour guide managed to persuade us to go to Meybod as well for an extra 80,000 but whether that was worth it, am unconvinced. Wouldn't have done Meybod again. Although Narien castle, made out of mudbrick was quite interesting, the pigeon tower with semitaxidermied pigeons was a particular low light!

Spent about three days in Yazd, also visited the Qanat Museum, which was great. A free museum, with a helpful manager who explained some of the objects, showed us a film, and even invited us to tea... The museum explained the importance of the water and how it was brought so many miles underground. It was worth going down to the channelled water under the house just to feel cool in the middle of the day. Before refridgeration, people used to keep perishable food down there.

The Bagh e Doulat Abad was a pleasant garden to sit and chat, as all Persian gardens it is set round a pool. The tallest badgir in Yazd towers over it and the building has some spectacular stained glass. It was some of the biggest stained glass I have seen not in a church or religious building.

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