South-east

Above: Mosaic work at Jame Mosque, Kerman.

We rose early at 0600 and were down for breakfast at 0700. It was the same breakfast except the jam was now a carrot jam which was new to me, but I liked it!

We were in a taxi to the airport at 0800. We spotted a few embassies along the ride, notably that of the Holy See (Vatican). We arrived at Mehrabad Terminal 4 with time to spare and waited for check-in to open at 0900 for the 1030 flight to Kerman in the south-east of the country.

We boarded an Airbus A300-B4 at a remote gate. The aircraft wasn’t fitted with centre lockers but it wasn’t an issue as the flight wasn’t very full today. During the take-off roll down the runway, several cabin crew ran up the aisle to take their seats. Presumably they had gotten carried away chatting in the rear galley during the taxi.

The 1h25 flight landed in Kerman where we hopped into a taxi which we think was sent by the Akhavan Hotel. We weren’t quite sure but it worked well for us. Staff at the hotel were super-friendly. The room was nice but the bathroom simple.

After a rest we took a taxi to Shohada Square and we wandered around to the Jame Mosque where it was very dusty and unphotogenic due to restoration works.

Jame Mosque in Kerman.

We continued by foot to Bazar-e Vakil. I attracted more attention and greetings than Kim. Obviously they don’t see many east Asians. We stopped at Chai-Khaneh-e Vakil, an underground tea house that has been converted from a hammam. It was very nicely restored inside with patterned brickwork dotted with some blue and turquoise ones.

Here we met a Japanese man who was travelling for a year from Bangkok to Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. I’m so jealous.

We found a functioning hammam next. It was the cheapest in our travel experience and gave the longest treatment experience of about 20 mins. I was scrubbed completely, lathered and scrubbed again. It’s certainly not meant to be a treatment to be repeated several days in a row unless you want to be scrubbed raw. Towards the end Mr Scrubber rode Kim like a surfboard.

Kim was very apprehensive about the place and I understood why afterwards. Visiting the toilet after my treatment, I realised the toilets were absolutely medieval. He had visited it beforehand.
We had a Zam-zam Cola afterwards before walking back out to Shohada Square to find a taxi back to the hotel. We got accosted by someone who wanted to know about migrating to New Zealand.

Text continues after this gallery.

Back at the hotel, we had washed ourselves. We were wary that the scrubbing mittens had been used on thousands of people before us, and we had lay on the hammam floor.

Over a cuppa tea at the lobby, we arranged with the hotel for transport to Mahan and onwards to Bam. We ate inhouse tonight, enjoying an Iranian “buffet”. Actually, it was served by course but we had more than enough food. All the delicious food came to only IRR35K (NZD8).

• Salad with a delightful sweet dressing with yoghurt
• Bread
• Yellow flat bread
• Aubergine, carrot and cabbage
• Minced greens, meat and bean curry
• Meat patties
• Chicken kebabs with a very delicate sour and spicy flavour
• Rice topped with some saffron rice, and
• Watermelon for dessert.

Big dinner at the hotel.