The Highest Minarets in Dar-es Islam
Location: ITTIC Tourist Inn, Yazd, Iran
Date: 2nd May, 2008
After a late start, we toured the sights of Yazd today, starting with the Zoroastrian Fire Temple. I was a little disappointed as the atmosphere wasn’t overly spiritual, blame the tourists for that and the fact that the flame, the “Ateshkadeh”, was burning behind a piece of glass. The flame has been burning for over 1500 years, which is quite impressive. I imagine the High Priest has many alarm clocks!
Still, it was interesting to see a temple of the worlds oldest monotheistic religion, to which Judaism, Christianity and Islam all owe a debt.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m reading Paul William Roberts book, “The Journey of the Magi“, which is ideal ready for a journey through Iran. It’s particularly interesting if you’d like to know more about the Magi, who were Zoroastrian, and the influence of Zoroastrianism had during the early days of the three major religions.
We also visited the “Highest Minarets in all of Islam”, at the Jameh Mosque. At almost 50m high, and soaring up from the beautiful tiled portal, it does send quite a message – and as it was also built over a Zoroastrian Fire Temple after the Arab invasion, I suppose that was the idea…
After a quick trip to the water museum, which was crawling with tourists and is quite basic, we visited the Amir Chakhmaq, a takieh that you can climb for great views of Yazd, where it’s possible to see dozens of windtowers. I felt a bit like I was in a game of “Assasins Creed“, but I declined to take the “Leap of Faith“, and made my way down the narrowest and steepest staircase I’ve ever climbed.
After a quick bite at the Hamum-e Khan Restaurant, a converted bathhouse, or Hammam, in the bazaar, complete with all the original blue and white tilework, we returned to the hotel for a well deserved siesta.
Shh! In the Tower of Silence
Location: ITTIC Tourist Inn, Yazd, Iran
Date: 1st May, 2008
An easy day today, through the desert from Garmeh to Yazd. We arrived in Yazd just as daylight was fading – a perfect time to visit the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence. Nice light, but anything but silent – a group of very friendly and very noisy Iranians made it more like the Tower of Babel! Still, after they left talking to Kristy with their 5 words of English, I was left alone in the Tower where once upon a time, the Zoroastrians left their dead to be picked over by vultures – and thus not polluting any of the primal elements (earth, fire, water, air).
My messing around taking low-light photos unfortunately got us all locked in to the compound. And the 80-something year old guardian is obviously as deaf as a post! Amir came to the rescue by climbing over the 2.5m wall, and unlocking the gate. Top bloke!
The Absheron Peninsula
Location: Babayurd Yurt Camp, Near Pirguli, Azerbaijan
The day started with Hertz delivering our “Full Size 4WD” vehicle, a Honda CR-V! Apparently, Hertz Azerbaijan has a fleet of six vehicles so I’m not complaining. We need some wheels to get around off the beaten track, and that’s just what we’re doing – though my advice to you whenever renting a vehicle outside of North America or Western Europe is to very carefully check the vehicle, not just for bumps and scrapes but also that it has a jack and wheel-brace, the wheel nuts are in place and tight (I once had one with 4 nuts, and one of those was loose), and that the engine bay can pass a visual inspection.
We checked-out of the Radisson (miffed that they quoted us a net-rate though), loaded up and headed out of Baku. Advice to Azerbaijan – use some oil money on road-signs! We have a GPS, but only for compass functionality and trackback. Getting out of Baku was a bit of a nightmare, heavy traffic and construction. Still, all we had to do was head North-East-ish and we finally got out of the city.
Everything east of Baku is on the Absheron Peninsula, a great piece of land shaped like an eagles head sticking out into the Caspian Sea. It’s also your de-facto Soviet wasteland. I reckon one sight of a place like this would convince most people to drive less. I guess the USSR didn’t have a place in it’s 5 year plans for the environment. I imagine it’s much better than it used to be, a lot of the old smoking factories have closed down, but it’s still a little shocking. The whole place smells like a refinery!
There are gems out in Absheron though, and first on our list was the Ateshgah Fire Temple, a Zoroastrian temple with permanent fire fed by natural gas. Without a single sign, we asked a friendly cop (who didn’t have a non-gold tooth in his head), who promptly jumped in the back of the car and took us half-way. Once on the right road, it was pretty easy to find using the map in our guidebook.
We had the Temple to ourselves. It’s arranged as a caravanserai, with rooms on the outside of a courtyard with the temple surrounding the permanent fire within. There’s a small exhibition in some of the rooms, and you can also climb on the roof for a better view of the temple and the town around.
Next up, the search for Yanar Dag – the flaming hillside. Here, since 1958, part of the hillside has been on fire, fueled by natural gas. It is a truly strange spectacle. You also have to watch for the wind, a quick gust and you’ll loose an eyebrow! There’s a teahouse right next to the site, we though we’d support them by having some tea – they said it was AZN 9 – over $10! We made our apologies and left…
Next we turned west, and headed off the Absheron Peninsula and onto the Azeri mainland. We’re heading for Sheki, but planned to spend the night about halfway near Pirguli. Just off the main road we’d heard about some “mud volcanoes” at a place called Perekishqul, basically piles of mud with methane bubbling through water to the top. Just south of the road, just after KM38 (if you’re heading west, turn left at the signposts on a sweeping right-hander). We drove around 600m up a gravel road, passing a huge flock of sheep and a surprised sheepdog (which I didn’t even see, Kristy tells me it was an Anatolian Sheep Dog, looks just like a sheep), to the top of a hill. The funny shaped volcanoes (only a few feet high), are easily visible to your right. We parked up and had a wander around. I stuck my finger in (they’re cold), and regretted not having a lighter! It was strange to see the mud bubbling up, looking like, well, at least what I imagine, a fart would look like… 
Finally, we made it to a cool campsite at about 3500ft up in the mountains consisting of 3 or 4 Mongolian Yurts (gers) – the Babayurd Yurt Camp. We think it’s early in the season as we’re the only ones here and have not seen any tourists today (and only 3 or 4 since we arrived). Anyway, as I write this by lantern (my Macbooks keyboard gives off more light), we can hear the rain lashing down on the hopefully watertight roof…
