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Arg - e - Rayen
Rayen Citadelwith Mt Hezar - Notice the snowMonday morning was madness but thanks to Ruthy was finally in the money and making an insane dash to the Oman's Seeb International Airport, its amazing what a cabbie will do for an extra $5.
I am honestly amazed at the lack of compassion for my difficult circumstances from fellow westerner traveller and was disappointed at the middle aged Australian couple who went on and on about how there son got stuck in the Sudan for two weeks without money but offered me no help. Yet dozens of Arabs and Indians have shown the type of kindness that is unknown in western countries, Jill you hit the nail dead on the head, Australia aint what it used to be in regard to helping others.
By 12.30 I was in Dubai and catching a cab back to the Lapaz in Diera. A few years ago when we were in Prague they had this weird cow thing where painted cows were scattered all over the city, in Dubai its horses and camels.
I went into the souk looking for a bag so I could off load as much stuff as possible before heading to Iran with the idea of storing
it at the hotel till I return in June, it didnt cost much and it lead me too a pizza bar, man havent eaten so much in ages.
The night before I flew to Iran I was not sleeping very well and woke at 1.35am and misread the clock I thought it was 7.05am and I was going to miss my plane bit embarassing when I got to reception screaming for taxi, only to see the clock above the reception desk, I think they thought I was crazy, I got a wake up call at 5am just to make sure LOL.
The flight on Iran Air had only about 50 passangers and fortunately I struck up a conversation with a young Iranian from Dubai, who helped me out a bit, not many people here speak English so I will be in for a tough time. He offered to help me get a taxi to the bus station, the problem was I had no Iranian currency and there is no currency exchange at the so called International Airport, so he had his cousin take us to town where they found a good currency exchange place before putting me in
the cab. It seems he is a big fan of the Aussie cricket team.
The taxi driver talked to me all the way (not that I understood anything he said) until he picked up a young girl he then spoke to her, on arrival at the bus station the girl took me by the arm and lead me to the bus counter got me a ticket then took me out and stuck me on a bus that was taking off. Luckily to where I wanted to go.
It was a big comfortable one although it got cold after a while due to the 20 gigawatt aircon. Made a couple of friends on the bus even though the only word we all knew was disco and arrived in Kerman 7hrs later. The hotel I went to was middle range and is comfortable if not a little expensive for this country but I am going to slum it Yazd so its no big deal. Went to the in house restaurant and I was fed enough for me and three Ruthies, looked as fat as the old days after that.
Forgot to change the time on my watch so got
up earlier than necessary this morning, my driver arrived about 9am to take me to Mahan and Rayen, Rayen has a magnificant mudbrick citadel which is about 1700 years old, although saddly it is only about a quarter of the size of Arg-e-Bam which was levelled in the 2003 earthquake (26000 dead including some pretty unlucky backpackers).
Its an incredible sight, if I can find somewhere to post photos you will see, I also went to a garden in Mahan which is a few hundred years old and a very old Sufi Mosque where I climbed up one of the minarets and took some fantastic photos of snow capped mountains and beautiful desert. Now days they dont climb up the inside of minarets because there is no need, new mosques are designed without crawl space because they have loud halers to wake you at 4.30 in the morning, where as in the past a Muezzin climbed up and yelled the call to prey.
I must admit as I was climbing I kept having thoughts of being up there in an earthquake, remember that shaking McDonalds in Taiwan Ruthy?
When I returned from the trip it was early
Arg - e - Rayen
My Gude Mr Medhi afternoon so I set out to explore some of the town and to visit the Bizzare, it took me about half an hour to walk there, and about 5 minutes to find Ruthy a couple more presents, these people dont haggle, I knocked about 1 lousy dollar off the price.
In the bizzare is an amazingly restored bath house you have to see it to believe it (eventually you will) beautifully tiled through out, a sauna, dozens of pools just amazing, its a museum now.
I am now about to head back to my hotel, I am heading further north to Yazd tomorrow (about 400 km) it still has a large population of Zoroastrians and I look forward to seeing the fire temples and Yazd's old city. That is if the pycho drivers dont kill me first and I though Yemen was bad or perhaps I have lost me nerve after the smash.
This may seem strange to many because it suprises, me the women here all wear a head scarfe this is true but their faces are showing and you can see their jeans and stuff underneath the chador it seems this place is not as
strict as I thought.
Till next time keep sending me messages, the blog site doesnt allow me to return messages directly so feel free to email me especially if you want a response.
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Capital
The most fanatical people that make a bad name for everyone else in a country as usually in the capital city so will be interesting to hear about what thats like. It looks so hot and dry there - like a bigger version of the northern flinders ranges. Travel safely mate.