[desertblues]

Folks; excuse the delay:not everywhere internet in the desert and now a bit sketchy. Also excuse the typo's *

Sunday,8th of may.
We're in Central Iran now and now here I am, sitting in the lounge of the hotel and feeling so exotic: when I look out, I see mudbaked, light red/brown circular huts and behind the enclosures of these I see the desert, as far as my eye can reach. Through a haze there are sand-and rock mountains. Yes, Kashan started out as an oasis city.Still: in winter the temperature may vary between -15 C and +45 C.

Fin Garden:the oldest typical Persian symmetrical garden is in Kashan;designed by famous mathematicans. It dates from 825 AD. Fountains with springwater,600-year old cypress trees, pomegranates, roses and flowing water everywhere, except in the parts reserved for rest(afternoon's sleep).
There is a huge bath-house, a haman, in this complex. Stark white curved ceilings and on the walls mosaics of bright and dark blue tiles. Geometrical holes make a pattern in the wall like an embroidered window, carefully aligned to please the eye.*
Amir Kabir, a famous and beloved prime- minister, was murdered, bled to death in this bath-house some 154 years ago.It is re-enacted with objects and dolls in the haman.

The natural spring water in the fountains contain mercury, which is slightly poisenous. To counteract this, people drank pomegranate-juice.
The ceilings are decorated with birds, roses and scenes out of the Qoran,Bible and other worlds famous books;all painted with natural colours;from walnuts shells, indigo. Many borders on the ceilings have a gilded cader.

This region is also famous for its production of rosewater. The roses have to be picked at sunrise, when their petals give the strongest smell (may/june). In Niasar I saw how roses were boiled and distilled through thin pipes-water-into rosewater.We had some rose icecream:lovely. It is boiling hot today again under the veil.
A gipsy(quite a few of them in Iran),with black eyes, huge moustache, dressed in black with a high hat,sold pink rose garlands to gigling teenagers in black chadors. Imagine the contrast with those beautiful eyes the girls have, and then the pink roses on their *black veiled heads....*
In the same village is a huge waterfall, that comes crashing down from high up the mountains; ice cold water for us.

The archeological site we saw next was around the excaviation of an Zigurat. This one was three stores high and build by the people that came down from the mountains to live on the plateau in the 9 th till the 6 th mill B.C. The Zigurat was build to be closer to the sun, so they could worship their gods better ( no names known from either people or god). In the office on this site in Silak were some artefacts on show: pottery mostly, as that seemed to be the speciality of these people. The rest is in the Louvre at Paris (look under " Kashan").The skeletons that were found, show that it was a very tall race; well over two metres.

Lunch was in a traditional 200 year old merchant house,of which we would see more later on. We had our meal lying on a low bench, on an oriental rug. I had a traditional eggplant-dish and a salad.*
These houses were all build about 200 years ago and before, in the same symmetrical architecture, called Hijab.An extended family of about 30 persons would live in it together.Cool secluded inner gardens.
The knockers on the door of these, and other traditional houses are round and fat(men)or long and thin(female), so that in the old days the women were be able to tell who was knocking at the secluded doors by the heavy or light sound of the knocker. A woman without a chador could open the door, when she heard the thin knock.

At the end of the day; a visit to a 500 year old haman, that was so solidly build, that it withstood two major earthquakes. Yes, beautiful azuro/dark blue tiles and handpaint decorations. People used to stay the whole day in the hamman; in the women's baths-socializing, gossiping, checking out the girls that could be a bride for a son, and for the men's bath- *the socialising and wrestling games.

An hour or so in the bazar, and we're done(in).
No energy to eat out: dried fruits, nuts and water it is.

BTW: Yesterday an old lady detached herself(she wanted to see more; against our advice to stay with us) from our little group of three women, when we went into the holy place at Qom. The two of us searched for three hours, our driver got fined by the police for exceeding his allotted time and the old lady got to pay that fine, 50 US dollars. Rightly so; we all were worried to death and somewhat unhappy about it. Well, we move on from here.

The next day; on to Abyaneh, a small village on the foot of Mount Karkas(3899 mt).
On the edge of the desert-towns is a lot of building going on on: hotels, large houses for the happy few, appartment buildings for the less fortunate. People are moving to the cities, in the hope to earn a living.

A two hours-drive through a deserted, desolate landscape. Sand,rocks and mountains;that's all there is to be seen. Nothing seems to move in this light brown/red desert,but us. All life is hidden behind the sparse grasses or crevices in the rocks.
And then: a sudden police-check, which take some time. Iranian families give us the thumb-up sign when we're allowed to pass through. We will be staying in an hotel near Atanze, the place where nuclear research is being done; that might be the reason for this check.

This mountain-village, Abyaneh, is at least 1500 years old. The older generation still speak Middle-Persian, a language that was spoken before Farsi.There is but the one hotel were're in and one restaurant(in the hotel):traditional decorated with oriental rugs to lie on and decorated with big shiny copper samovars, waterpipes and cloths/ rugs everywhere. Geometric patterns of zick-zack, crosses,abstracted flowers in the carpets, in dark brown/ beige/stone red/yellow and black. Two beo's and an big ara parrot are whistling( beo)and chattering ( both in Farsi)away in the lounge. As a young woman I used to live in a house with such animals; this afternoon I tried to learn them to whistle the first notes of Beethoven's Fifth.
No lunch today.

Though this village is on Unesco World heritage,because of the lattice-windows and red mud-houses with wooden balconies. But it is just is a sad thing to walk through. Only old women, wearing a white scarf with red roses and old men, who ask if they may have my pen or Moleskin reporter-notebook; without even being very friendly about it. This attitude seems to be due to the century's isolation of this region. But it is strange after the welcome we got before.*
Most of the reddish mud-houses are derelict. The streets have the Middle Aged pattern of a wide open sewer in the middle of a narrow road. Now there only runs water from a small mountain river through these sewers, which are filled with garbage and debris, red mud.
No curiosity for tourists, but infifference. Once a day several busses with Iranian, and some other tourists arrive, flock to all these narrow streets, making photo's on the way and that seems to be the village life. Hardly a shop, let alone a café, to make some money out of the tourist. I didn't see any economical activity whatso ever in the village itself. The younger people work some lands, surrounding the village though.*
Through the Unesco-status there is some restoring program going on, but it will take a very long time.I would like to return there to see it.

Dinner: some nice barley soup and some salad and water. Outside of Tehran, there is not much in the way of restaurants. When we find some, mostly the menu does not exceed the usual lamb/beef/ chicken-kebab with rice, soup and salad. Once in a while there is an egg-plant dish. Often we are far away from a citycenter and then we eat in the hotel, with a limited choice of food.