Yazd

Mud brick town.

The last day in Shiraz I want to buy a bus ticket to Yazd. At the bus station this guy helped me book the ticket and ended up inviting me to dinner with his family later that evening. He had family in Stockholm and he and his family interrogated me about sweden, swedes perception about Iran while serving delicious food. After that we went to play football in an indoor sports hall till about 24 a clock (se pictures) - awesome.

The next morning I took the bus to Yazd. It took 6hours but it was air conditioned and really comfortable and costed less than 4euros. After checking in at the LP (loney planet) hotel of choice, me and two other guys from england and china explored the old city in Yazd. It consists of a huge labyrinth of old mud brick houses. We managed to climb the buildings and navigated us around on the roof tops. We walked around for several hours just looking and talking to the locals who didnt leave us alone:). Kuriosa: Its been claimed that Yazd is the oldest living city on earth, guess thats hard to prove but its widely believed that the site has been inhabited for over 7000 years.

The hotel is great, I think it inhabits all the backpackers in the city. Theres seven of us and we all live in a dorm for $5 per night.

Today we hired a guide who took us to small villages, shrines and other sites around Yazd. While visiting a Zoroastrian site built in to a mountain wall we stumbled across a group of women from Tehran on vacation. They had stripped them self from their Hejab and were booming the sound system of their car while dancing to Iranian pop music. Quite an interesting scene to see in Iran. They invited us for tea and sweets and were amazingly friendly, interested and curious. I quietly asked why they didnt wear Hejab and they answered laughing "government not here!" - pretty telling of how contradictory this country is, the law doesnt at all reflect what people think or what they do when not being watched.

On this guided trip we also had an Iranian student, Muhammad, who accompanied us. I met him and his friends late the other day when I was taking pictures of mosque (in the webalbum). They came up and started talking - Iranians love to talk politics and really want to tell you about their history and the conversation quickly took this turn. It was only muhammad who knew english but he continuously translated the conversation to his friends. After a while there was a crowd of young and old people standing around me and Muhammad who all wanted hear and participate in the discussion. Muhammad frenetically translated what I said to english and what the crowd said in farsi to me. It lasted for about an half hour. Muhammad had just had his final exams and hence he was keen on coming along on our excursion. Which was awesome since he also could translate everything the locals said when visiting the sites.

Fun fact: Zoroastrianism is oldest monotheistic religion known, its prophet was Zoroaster or Zarathustra and is believed to have been born about 1000-1500BC in the region - no one ones exactly. He called the invisable God they worshiped Ahura Mazda, supreme being. Today there are about 5500 Zoroastrians left in Yazd and 150 000 around the world. Their priests were called Magi and its believed that the Three wise in the bible actually were Magis, and hence the the origin of our word Magic or Magician. Det visste du inte Anger!

Yazd is a small and very conservative city and I didnt think I would hang around here very long. It proved me wrong and Ill be around for at least another night. After Yazd Im going to Esfahan. The city is said to be the most beautiful city in Iran, packed with historical artifacts from all period in Persian history (slagit upp artefakt an sara? ar detta en dugligt anvandning?).

So far ive seen nothing of the unrest in the country, however from what ive heard Tehran is supposed to be a pretty unsafe and violent place these days. This is confirmed by an email I just recieved from the Swedish embassy in Tehran, asking me where I am, if Im ok and when Im coming to Tehran. How nice of them!

New pictures added to my WEB ALBUM