Iran Trip Report - Day 10
Day 10 – On the Road: Yazd to Esfahan via Nain
Last night after dinner a few of us were sitting round smoking and telling lies when Mosem came over to have a chat with us. It would be fair to say that our relationship with our guide-cum-minder had had its ups and downs over the past 10 days – at the beginning I think he was slightly aloof: he had a job to do, and he was going to do his job, and no more. After a while, though, he warmed to us and we to him, and he shared the odd off-colour joke with us, talked about his family in Tehran – it would be fair to say that we became sort-of friends. So when he came over we invited him to join us for instant coffee and a few laughs. He looked around the room, and then leaned in and in a conspiratorial whisper asked us if we wouldn’t fancy something a little stronger.
We were surprised, to say the least. As I have mentioned before, Iran is a dry country. Selling (and presumably consuming) alcohol is strictly forbidden, and before leaving England we had been given stern warnings about what would happen to us were we to be foolish enough to try and smuggle in a bottle of anything stronger than Evian. It was rumoured that alcohol was available to non-Muslims (the Armenians can get it), but where and how to go about getting it was beyond our abilities (which is saying something, given that one of our number has managed to conjure up a bottle of some quite-potent local firewater while camping in a yurt in Mongolia, several hundred miles from the nearest bottle-shop).
As it turned out, the hotel owner had contrived himself a still in the basement and was happily distilling moonshine in flagrant contravention of the law. For this reason I’m not going to be foolish enough to mention the name of the hotel we were staying in – well, you never know who reads this stuff, right? The owner appeared with a tray bearing a teapot and a number of glasses, which he passed around. From the teapot emanated a slightly viscous liquid which smelled slightly reminiscent of pear syrup or nail-varnish remover. It was suggested that we mix this hooch with coke or lemonade – wise counsel, as on its own it was pretty rough.
Apparently this practice is widespread in Iran – although the government comes down hard on alcohol consumption, there is a certain amount of blind-eye turning when it’s done behind closed doors and you’re not trying to corrupt people with it. Sure, if you get caught, you’re in trouble, but as long as you do it quietly and discreetly then you can get away with it.
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I said "Goodbye" to the cat and we saddled up for the long drive across the desert to Esfahan. Along the way we stopped at an old caravanserai, a place where travelers in the olden days would stop to rest. There were well-defined routes that the camel caravans used to travel, and the caravanserais tended to be situated at set distances from each other, based on how far a caravan could travel in a day. It was not recommended to camp out in the open at night, for fear of bandits and thieves, so one might imagine that the caravanserais did a brisk trade. They tended to be well defended with walls and watch-towers, and had facilities for stabling camels and horses as well as places for the people to sleep.
The one we stopped at had been co-opted by a local farmer, who had converted it to stabling for his camels and sheep.
He had also set up a little garden plot for the cultivation of vegetables and things.
“But Teej!” I hear you ask. “How does he water his crops in the middle of the desert?”
Well, if you had been paying attention in Yazd then you would know that these desert-dwellers have any number of ingenious ways of getting water. While these days they can often have it delivered by tanker on a regular basis, not so very many years ago they needed to rely on underground reservoirs called qanats. The caravanserai had its own water supply, access to which was via this tower structure.
As you can see it is similar in structure to the khan, with thick walls and a door set high in the wall, so difficult to access without a ladder. Presumably the bandits weren’t just looking to steal goods from the traders, but also water, which is perhaps the more valuable resource.
We also stopped the town of Nain.
Nain’s mosque is one of the oldest in Iran, dating back to the 11th century. Its interior contains some stunning artistry in terms of plasterwork and woodcarving,
and some photogenic architecture
We also went to visit a chap who weaves camel wool into the distinctive brown robes for the imams.
He reckons that he had been weaving since he was 14, and he’s about 80 now – when he was a young man he was able to weave 8’ a day, although apparently this has dropped off a little now. He smokes a pack of cigarettes a day (the empty cartons were stacked up against the wall of his workshop) and sits all day in a kneeling position in front of his loom. Just looking at him sitting there made my legs feel quite numb!
We had a little time to ourselves before lunch so I wandered around, snapping pictures.
I had been looking for good examples of double-knockered doors. Traditionally, houses in Iran have double doors that open on to the street, behind which is usually a courtyard, on the other side of which are the living quarters of the family. While at home with her family, or if only in the company of other women, a Muslim lady is not required to cover up. So imagine, if you will, this scenario: a lady is at home doing whatever she’s doing, not wearing her chador. There comes a knock at the door. Now, normally she would put on her chador and go to the door. But that will take some time, by which point the caller might have gone away again. And if it’s a female caller then she has no need to cover up. What a dilemma. Hence the invention of double-knockered doors.
Each knocker has a distinct shape, and therefore a distinct tone when it is knocked. One knocker is for use by women, the other by men. Based on the tone of the knock the lady of the house knows whether she needs to cover up because a man is at the door, or not, because it is one of her girlfriends. Equally, if a man is knocking he knows that by using the male knocker the lady will spend some time covering up, thus saving embarrassment on his part and immodesty on hers, and so he’ll wait for a while before figuring that she’s not home. Ingenious, no?
Down a little alley between some old houses I found what I was looking for.
You can just see what I mean in this picture
And here are some close-ups
I think the round knocker is for men and the other is for women (Shimist?).
After lunch we’re back on the road again to Esfahan, and that’s another day. Suffice it to say, There Will Be Pictures.
Comments
The mosque is gorgeous and pretty well-preserved. Is it a heritage site?
Also the idea of the double-knockered door is indeed ingenious. Alas, most people do not possess the honesty of those folks, so we're stuck with iris scans and CCTVs!
Despite all developments, living in Kavir is still really hard and people gather very little and can not live good life. But this kind of living still keeping alive many hand arts, people making handicrafts even can gain more money if they have foreign tourists visiting their cities.
You have already visited Isfahan and you have seen all those magical stunning handicrafts which is very profitable market itself for people producing them.
In reply to Brown Suga, During Shah regime Alcoholic Drinks where distributed freely in almost every corners of streets and people where freely boozing and getting drunk, and they cause many damages to others belongings, hurting people, and disturbing women. During those days you could never imagine to go out in to streets late nights since dangerous drunk people could be founded everywhere and no strong law was there to prevent people getting drunk.
After Islamic revolution, all of those shop where closed and strict Islamic law against drinking alcohol was established but people are still able to purchase those beverages in black market.