It was a very windy sleepless night and the toilet tent has been blown over.
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| a surprising sight on Iranian roads |
We arrive in the later afternoon in Esfahan and are taken to a pizza / burger café by the UK to Oz local contact. I have pizza, but it has no tomato sauce on the base. 5/10.
Our hotel is very basic, with four of us squashed into a double room with added beds. It does have air conditioning, but it’s rattling is quite disturbing. There are also the obligatory portraits of the Ayatollahs (the dead Khomeini and the current one, Khamenei) in the lobby.
It does have a courtyard to hang out in and there are a couple of Europeans here who are travelling by bike. We had met them in Pakistan too. These guys are Dutch and German, I think. I remember being asked by someone at the border when we went into Iran whether I was German, so it seems Iran is quite popular with them. There is also a heavy French influence, with most of the cars that don't date from pre-revolution being Peugots, Renaults or Citreons, Paris being where Khomeini had taken refuge from the Shah's regime.
At night the tiled mosques of the main square (Imam Square) of Esfahan are stunning, with pockets of light coming out of the concavities. Unfortunately my camera, the second of my trip so far, is not the expensive kind and my pictures don't capture it.
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| A busy Imam Square |
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| a bazaar at night |
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| street entertainment |
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| Caz demurely waiting for dinner |
Tonight I at last have some food new to me. Sitting on cushions around a low table in a traditional but elegant restaurant in the connecting buildings coming from Imam Square, I try the local Biryani, which is a dry sauced sweet curry served with flat bread. It’s a culinary highlight of the trip so far.
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