Iran photo gallery
Photos taken in 1998, scanned from prints and negatives. It's a fascinating country, but still difficult to travel -
which is why I went with Exodus
Travels, who proved to be very well organised.
Tehran is a big city - about 10 million - ringed by mountains. Here you can see the mighty Alborz range in the background.
You also see lots of pictures of the guy with the beard, all
over Iran, so here's one to get him out of the way!
Quickly moved out of town, stopped for lunch in
a little town called Firuzkuh; our first exposure
to Iranian roundabout art. These, um, edifices are obviously
a focus of great municipal pride, but look decidedly strange
to a Western eye. Still, it's better than the Elephant and Castle…
Soon onwards to Gonbad-e Qusht,
where there's this thousand-year-old mausoleum tower. It has
a weird acoustic effect, which at one spot makes your voice
sound like you're testing a PA. Spooky. The notice in front
is a guide to suitable women's wear:"this is good,"
meaning the right-hand picture, "but this is better"
(left).
Next stop was Mashhad, but photography
was forbidden in the mausoleum of Imam Reza - and much was off-limits
to unbelievers - and anyway it rained constantly. So on into
the desert! This little town, Koreit, was wrecked
by an earthquake in 1978 and largely abandoned. But it's just
unreal to wander around in!
Then a stop at Tabas, a smashing
oasis town, and more desert, until the amazing town of Yazd.
What makes Yazd really special is the wind towers, a remarkably
effective form of ventilation - stand under one of these when
there's even the slightest breeze, and you get a refreshing
cool down-draught. Brilliant!
Yazd has some more great sights - this is a facade,
meant to be the entrance to the bazaar. Behind it is a real
disappointment! But the facade itself is great. The leaf-shaped
object to the right is a ceremonial coffin, carried through
the streets on feast days.
The Friday mosque in Yazd is something else -
this is the portal, with minarets.
There's also some other great stuff, like this
pavilion, built for the governor of Yazd in the 19th century,
with the tallest wind tower in town.
From Yazd, south-east to Kerman,
and the Towers of Silence. The Zoroastrians used to leave their
dead on top of these for the vultures; they then collected the
bones and stored them in the charnel houses at the bottom.
Even further south-east, there's the walled city
of Bam, abandoned some 1800 years ago. It's
huge! And unique.
Around this part of the trip, I spent a bit of
time hanging with Ali-Akbar and Hassan…
…before heading on towards Shiraz! But first
stopping at a 5th-century hunting lodge in a place called Sarvestan.
They used to hunts zebras and stuff from here.
Next stop: Shiraz! This is the
mausoleum of Imam Reza's brother; a lot of it is quite new,
last 30 years or so. Love the fairy lights! Inside the holy
of holies is totally unreal, all mirrors and chandeliers - real
Liberace stuff. Photography forbidden, alas.
Inside the Homa Hotel, a relic of modern history.
Enjoy the irony of the 747…
Mausoleum of Sa'adi, one of the great Persian
poets.
And only a short drive from Shiraz is the ancient
city of Persepolis. Alexander of Macedon -
don't call him "the Great"! - really did a number
on this place. And what he left, the French looted (it's all
in the Louvre). Still, there's some left.
Near to Persepolis is Nasqht-e Rustam,
the site of the tombs of the Persian emperors. Here we've got Darius II, Artaxerxes and Darius
I.
And this is Xerxes:
Another ancient site is Pasargad,
Cyrus' palace.
Final major stop was Isfahan.
Forget Paris! Isfahan is the most beautiful city in the world.
My meagre photos don't begin to do it justice.
A curiosity in Isfahan is the mausoleum of the
shaking minarets. Yep, you can climb up them and shake them
(like me in the picture). It's probably the world's first bouncy
castle.
Last leg now - a quick stop in Kashan, to
look at a restored mansion.
And finally, the mausoleum of His Holiness Imam Khomeini.
All photos copyright ©2010 Andrew Gilham. All rights reserved. Please enquire for reproductions.