I took another pass at the bazaar and mosques in the morning, but my heart wasn’t in it – I was ready to leave. I ended up reading in the hotel lobby while waiting for my noon flight to Tehran. At the entrance to the airport I stepped up to the x-ray machine expecting to [...]
One of the main reasons travelers come Shiraz is to visit Persepolis. The city was the capital of the Persian Empire and was burned to the ground by Alexander the Great, some say in revenge for the Persian’s burning Athens. Anyway, all that happened in the 3rd century BC. I had arranged with the hotel [...]
Free Again When I arrived in Shiraz I noticed that there were black flags throughout the bazaar and even in some mosques. When I inquired, I was told that they were in observance of the death of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, in 680. One night as I was lying in my room, [...]
It’s less than 3 hours by car from Kerman to Bam. We made it nonstop. For the first time Moghadam chose to stay with the car while I toured the city. Bam is an abandoned mud brick city. Visitors rave about the solitude of the place. The day I was there a conference going on: [...]
The morning’s excitement was when Moghadam discovered that he had forgotten his beloved mobile phone and we had to dash back to the hotel to get it. This put him in a foul mood and for a while he passed everything in sight. Finally when we got into the desert he slowed down a little. [...]
The Unwanted Tour On the trip south there seemed to be police checkpoints every hour or so. I wouldn’t have thought much about them except my driver, Moghadam, would turned the tape player down and sat up a little straighter. We were always waved through except at one as we neared Bam in the southern [...]
I wanted to make one last attempt to see Chahar Bagh. On my way out in the morning I walked by again. There was no one around but the door was ajar. I pushed it open and stepped inside. I found a guard sitting there and he just looked at me. I walked over and [...]
After breakfast I headed out to look for a place to exchange some money. The street rate is significantly better than the official bank rate and my guidebook suggested an exchange office that was nearby. On the way, just around the corner in fact, was a theological school I wanted to visit, Madrase-ye Charar Bagh. [...]
It was my first full day in Isfahan. As I was wandering the magnificent Emam mosque, two young Iranian girls came over to talk to me. They were maybe 14-15 years old and their lovely, smiling faces were framed by their black chadors, that all-encompassing garment that most woman wear in Iran. “What’s your country?” [...]
