Towers of Silence

Travel admin

The clocks went back one hour last night with daylight saving finishing, so I woke “early”.  I chatted with an Australian man who had a zinc mining business near here, and his Iranian wife.

I needed some more Iranian rials.  Banks here open at 0730 but it was still early.  I went to Bank Melli for this but had to wait till around 0820 before the rate became available.  Someone upstairs authorised the transaction and I finally got my money downstairs.

After some time at the internet cafe, I went to the Iran Air office to reconfirm my flight since I could have been bumped-off from the go-show.  The officer gave me a printout afterwards which provided an added assurance.

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Good chats

I taxied back to the hotel and chatted with other guests in the courtyard:

• Ada from Hong Kong had travelled from Pakistan. She loved Pakistan and the Hunza area came highly recommended.
• Jan who had studied in China (and his mother Sue) had travelled through the various “-stan” countries.  He was very knowledgeable and very deep.
• Sue is hoping to end up in Cairo to go to the “cairo-practor”.
• Yanni, a Greek Cypriot, had a good sense of humour. He thinks people are nicer and friendlier on the Turkish side. He loves going over but is limited to three day stays.

Towers of Silence

Jan, Ada and I wanted to go to the Towers of Silence where corpses were once cut up and left to the vultures.  While hailing and negotiating for a taxi, two sisters offered to drive us.  We later realised that they had rescheduled an appointment to take us.

Shahrzad and Moshghan (meaning eyelashes) were Iranian Bahais touring the country.  They suffer discrimnation and even though Moshghan is trained as a lawyer, she has trouble getting a job.  But I suppose the discrimination isn’t to the extent that she couldn’t get into university.  It’s a good eye-opener anyway.

It was a little hike to get up and down to each of the towers.  We timed it quite well to coincide with the sunset.

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Dinner and after

Sue joined the three of us who had been to the towers, for dinner.  We returned to last night’s Malek-o Tojjar.  Due to a cholera outbreak, some juices containing milk were now off the menu.

I chose a Yazdi stew, potato, lentil and lamb on rice.  Walking back, I treated myself to a very big and tall serving of ice-cream in a cone.

After a leisurely shortcut through the alleys we climbed on to the hotel rooftop.  We chatted over Chinese tea and enjoyed the glowing turqouise glow of the nearby dome against the black velvet desert sky.  It was a heavenly sight and a nice way to finish my stay in Yazd.

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Change and Money

From my travels in Cambodia, people pay for big items in USD and small items in KHR (riel).  When they give small change, they just use sweets.

Likewise in India and Pakistan, change may be given in sweets or other small products.

But in Iran, they over-change you if they’re short!  Not short-change!  On the bus in Mashhad, they give you extra tickets for future use if they don’t have change.