Sep 26, 2012
Flight: Istanbul, Turkey (IST) to Tehran, Iran (THR), Atlasjet, economy
I hung around the hostel this morning, talking with a German guy who was working in Istanbul. Finally around 11AM I headed over to the consulate where my Iranian visa was ready! I headed back to the hostel to book my flights to Tehran and my return flight to the USA. Since my time was now 3 days instead of 5 I also very quickly arranged a tour via key2persia. $280 for the 3 days tour including road transport, hotel and a flight from Isfahan to Shiraz! I hated to do it but decided to skip Tehran in favor of visiting Kashan, Abyaneh, Isfahan, Persepolis and Shiraz. I wish I'd had just one more day. One bad stroke of luck, the Qatar Airlines flight back to Austin was now much more expensive. I ended up booking one back to Dallas and a tag-on flight to Austin instead. More hindsight, I should have booked those once in Iran.. using the 'official' vs black market exchange rate I could have gotten tickets half-price!

I didn't get up to much today, just wandered around town a bit and decided to head to the airport early. I wanted to check with the Qatar airlines office there about my ticket, but bad luck as today (Wed) the office had closed early. That left me a few hours to kill at the airport without lounge access as I was flying Atlasjet. I found an open wifi and spent awhile updating photos before eventually heading down to the gate. The plane at the next gate was leaving for Turkmenistan and the gate area was filled with Turkmen women with huge sacks filled with shopping. The flight left on time about 10PM.

Sep 27, 2012
Hotel: Setareh Hotel, Isfahan, Iran
The flight arrived about 2AM at Imam Khomeini International Airport. Immigration took awhile, not for any bureaucratic reasons, but because the official kept nodding off! His head wuld drop then several seconds would pass before he shook himself awake again. Finally I get through and meet my female tour guide and driver. I wasn't sure what etiquette was with greeting women there but we shook hands and said hello. I changed $20 into 500000 rials and we headed off for the 3 hr drive to Kashan. The roads were modern expressways all the way. We pulled off the road for awhile to have a rest before continuing on as it started to get light. The landscape was extremely dry and the air was hazy with dust.

We finally arrive in Kashan town around 7AM. Kashan is an ancient city, having been inhabited for nearly 7000 years. We first visited the Āghā Bozorg Mosque, a beautiful building. It was very similar to the mosques we had seen on the Silk Road in Samarkand and Bukhara with great symmetry and wind towers in the corners. We then went to a nearby hotel to rest for awhile longer and have breakfast. The narrow alleyways had intricately carved doorways with two different door knockers. One was long and thin, the other big and round. My guide explained that these were different sounds for men and women so the person in the house knew who to expect!

Mosque

The Khan-e-Ehsan was a beautiful traditional house with underground bedrooms around a central courtyard. It reminded me a bit of the hotel we stayed at in Bukhara. We had breakfast of bread and honey. There were a few other European tourists at the hotel.

After breakfast we headed to visit some other traditional houses. Khan-e Boroujerdi, Tabatabei and Hammam-e Sultan Mir Ahmad (bathhouse) had been beautifully restored. The architecture was very unique style. Traditional Persian style arches but the walls were covered with paintings and depictions of animals, usually forbidden in Islamic art. The houses belonged to rich merchant families. The hamam was richly decorated with turquoise tiles and alcoves, I only wish my bathroom had that style!

Traditional House

Hamam

Around town I had noticed all these charity donation boxes with two upright hands. I ended up seeing these all over Iran. Next place to visit was the Sialk hills on the outskirts of town. The remains of an ancient ziggurat are here but there was not much to see. Next we visited Fin-e-Bagh (gardens). There were lots of families here out with their kids. The women were smartly dressed. Most of the younger women wear blue jeans with a jacket and a headscarf.

Iranian Revolution


Alms box


Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader


Fin-e-Bagh

The next stop was the town of Abyaneh, about an hour or so drive south of Kashan. Abyaneh is an old traditional town up in the hills, the weather here was a bit cooler than it had been down below. Some of the residents still speak an old form of Persian. The town was very scenic with red adobe buildings perched on the side of the valley. Old wood beams formed the roofs and floors. Lattice doors let in the breeze while obscuring the view within houses. The doors here also had the dual door knocker system as in Kashan. The town was pretty quiet as most young people have now left for the cities to look for work. There were a few traditionally dressed old women selling dried fruit.





Abyaneh

We grabbed some lunch at a nearby hotel as it was nearly 2PM and I was starving. I had chelo fesenjun, a local specialty of chicken cooked with pomegranate sauce, served with saffron rice, delicious! To drink I had a pomegranate-flavored malt beverage drink, non-alcoholic of course! Iran is a dry country so beer, wine, etc are not officially available.

Isfahan was another couple hours drive. We arrived in late afternoon, driving through the huge Imam Square just before sunset. We checked into our hotel then started walking back down Hafez street towards Imam Sq. Along the way I tried a local delicacy, carrot juice with saffron ice cream. It was very very good. We wandered through the square and bazaar where artisans were busy at work painting amazing detail on vases and plates. The quality of the art for sale here was incredible.. and with the exchange rate there probably would have been some great deals.


Imam Square




For dinner we went to Shahrzad restaurant. My guide just waved down a driver on the street and he gave us a lift to the restaurant. The place was very busy with locals and other tourists. I had the kebab plate served with thin Iranian bread. While we were waiting on a table we started talking with a family next to us, one of them lived in Houston and was visiting Iran. There are very few Western companies in Iran, but Coca-cola is available and bottled locally.



After dinner we caught another cab to Si-o-seh bridge, so named for its 33 Persian arches across the Zayandeh River. The river was dry this time of year. The bridge was beautifully lit with a yellow glow. We next went to another bridge. There was a statue of a lion here, if you stood in a certain spot the eyes would magically glow.


Si-o-seh bridge