Iran 2017 - Part 5 - Isfahan - Half the world

Its been a very very long time since I've done anything with this blog, and here I am, posting in it anew.

Iran's been in the news, and I've been travelling again and so I felt I might as well finish what I started.

The following is slightly different - this is mostly a direct transcription from my journals.  Most of the time I feel I need to elaborate (and I have actually done a bit of that here) to change and redraft the text I carry in my bag for most of my life, but in this case (mostly) is seemed good enough, one might even hazard striking the word 'enough' from that last sentence.  I'd barely started talking about Iran when I ceased writing last time, there is a lot more to tell.

So enjoy the story of a trip a good few years old.  If you're new to the blog please feel free to look at some of what I've already posted.  Who knows if I'll manage to keep this up so enjoy it while its here!

The Buzz and the Beauty

Friday the 4th of November 2016 
I'm sitting in the centre of Naqsh-e-Jahan Iman Square, the pond and the mosques ahead of me and I don't know if it was the fact that I was so long lost in the the Bazaar or that I just wasn't expecting it but... Wow. Words fail.

This Square.  Its one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.  Its so big and ordered and the light seems to intertwine with it. Its an astonishing thing.

Horse carriages jingle around, their bells like distant memories of Christmas, but.. its so Persian, in the true sense of the word, in the old sense.  Its the second biggest square in the world, the biggest: Tienanmen square is a fistblow, whereas this, this space, is lyrical.  I didn't know anything like this survived.

As I said: HORSES

14:45 Mosque Masjed-e-Shah

Happy Customers

I had not gotten too far on the drawing opposite (a sketch of one of the mosques dotted around the perimeter of the square) when I was rushed by a bunch of Afghan kids - they asked where I was from, they insisted on listening to the music on my phone then told me quite vociferously how much they disliked it; one of them asked for a portrait, this took about 5 minutes, happy and hollering, the first bunch left and immediately an old man appeared and asked me to draw one of the kids who had appeared with him, I guessed this was his grandson, this portrait was followed by one of the first kid's sister -  a passing guide was summoned as I sketched, he was an ancient wafting ex geologist - inertia had me organise to meet him the next day at 7:30, as this seemed the only way to disband the sudden crowd I'd conjured - it did the trick and I continued to circumnavigate the square, but before too long I was invited into a carpet shop by a mechanical engineer

One of the Afghan Kids

But I haven't said how I found myself in the square yet -let me backtrack

I wandered into a bazaar entrance I found a stones throw from my hostel - this one  was much neater - much cleaner - and less chaotic then the one in Tehran - I found a big modern rectangular square somewhere beyond this initial maw after maybe 5 minutes of wandering through the arched space - I thought initially that this was the Naqsh-e-Jahan Iman square itself, it was clean and concrete grey, and would have been an impressive civic space in say Croydon or Hull. I felt that I had been oversold on the wonders of Isfahan and went back into the bazaar, continuing to follow the covered over shopping tube -  soon enough the shops with open doors and lights spilling out were replaced with closed shutters and grey, the crowds dispersed along with them and quite quickly it was just me alone in the mustiness of it all, meandering through ancient corridors o'erlit by minuscule circular openings overhead.  Occasionally a motorbike would rattle by.

Persian Mannequins 

Initial Bazaar

It occurred to me that it was Friday, Islam`s holy day.

The bazaar around me aged, as I continued down its throat towards the beginning of it - everything  shut and grey/brown, an almost cobwebby aspect to it,  it felt like I had stepped into a lithograph or a woodcut.  By now It felt much older, anywhere from 1600 to 1800.  There was hardly a soul about.

Late Bazaar

Twenty minutes in a I came to a Y junction in the covered way, here was an American couple, elderly and stentorian, like Jimmy Carter and his wife; the man, pointed and shouted "It's that way" and then they were gone.

By now I was well immersed in the place and I was amazed by how haunted, how abandoned it seemed.  I felt lost in its quiet dusty beauty but then I turned a corner and found all had changed. Suddenly there were signs of life.  The dam had breached without warning and now movement and light were suddenly there again, instantly all the shops around me were open, their baskets and shelves and eccentric goods flash flooding onto the enclosed street.   I had crossed some sort of terminator between night and day and felt very confused indeed.

Standing there I looked to my right through the window of a tobacconist, seeing its colour and clutter and all its difficult to parse tat, beyond all of this, at the shops far side, here was another window, a portal to another world: Vibrant sunlit green, freshly mown lawns in the light of the square.

Emerging into the sudden verdancy was something of a revelation, like creeping squinting from a tomb.  I stood on the manicured lawns and gasped in the sight of it.

Emerging into the light

So then it was the funny Afghani kids, screaming and hollering and suddenly quiet as I drew their leader, then the shy kids with their grandfather, the brother posing for his portrait while his sister stood close and doubled herself over to crane her head back and peer up into my face as I drew - the random geologist with his scrap of paper and his tours of Iranian wrestling.

But back to the engineer, inviting me into his shop for tea - the rest of his crew were packing away their carpets.  I sat on a tiny chrome stool and discussed Cork (which they knew) and laughed and drank tea and chatted about carpet economics and how to make alcoholic beer from the Iran prescribed non alcoholic stuff. (You leave it next to the radiator).

They didn't ask me to look at a single carpet,  It was very pleasant.

I left and came to where I'm sitting now, a blue and gold tiled mosque.  It is as spectacular as it is peaceful but the time has come to move along once again.

15:20 Street Corner
Heres an example of a typical Iranian encounter: As I walked up a lovely boulevard a man came running up next to me, he looked like a spikier bearded Jack Black:

"Hello! Welcome to Iran! Where are you from?"

"Uh, Ireland"

"Ireland! Ireland! Yes! I did some work with your Whiskey company, yes! Jameson's Whiskey company, and also your Dublin University!"

"Really?!"

"Yes, here is my card, I am available if you need any help or with tours, I am also in other countries so perhaps I will see you there"

"Yeah, maybe"

"Yes, nice to meet you goodbye!"

And then he was gone, looking at the card I saw it said that he is a computer specialist but also a 'carpet businessman'

18:55 Ibne Sina Hotel rooftop terrace
From my last encounter I wandered across the road continued south towards the river.  I found myself ambling peacefully down a wide boulevard, under grand old trees that lined the way.  It was not at all what I expected Iran to be.  Wide, expansive, European.  There very few  cars and only the occasional pavement mounting motorbike.  The wind was its perfect height, and the late afternoon came to my senses with a freshness I hadn't expected.  Isfahanis around me sauntered and pulsed, lazing the afternoon away towards the river but the river was dry.  The river bed lay exposed, the surface cracked and yellow, the only moisture were the patches of mossy lichen.

The riverbead

Fearless dolt

A small boat was beached mid river, so I walked out to it and posed then ambled back towards the ancient stone bridge that crossed the river when it wasn't mere dust.  Beneath the 400 year old bridge it was reliably cool, it lay low to the dust and ran across its span in a brace of laser cut arches. Teenagers lurked in the shadows in pairs, whispering and giggling and other things.  I accidentally embarrassed a pair when they backed into my frame as I was taking a shot, the girl murmured something, the boy was stony faced. I imagine its difficult to be a hormonal teenager in Iran.

Awkward

The evening was seeping in.  This bridge was the place to go if you wanted to hold hand with someone you weren't married to, you could lurk in the shadows and gaze into the eyes of someone else, anywhere else it would be innocence personified. 

Obi Wan and Baby Luke cameo

Lonely planet spoke of tea houses built into either end of the bridge, closed down to discourage 'illicit' romance, but humanity is humanity and romance continues - the girls in their styled head dresses, the boys with their slicked back Elvis hair and leather jackets. Teenagers the same as teenagers the world over.  Romance in the dark.

I meandered away, feeling a bit lonely amidst the romance - retracing my steps along the boulevard - I popped into a fast food place - the man at the till, long haired and mustachioed and sunk into his chair like melting butter, didn't look up as I ordered - I had a kebab, which was fine. The restaurant was absurdly small, and I felt conspicuous and large as I perched there munching.  I continued on my way, in amongst the people, enjoying their weekend vicariously.

Back in the square, I lingered for an ice cream.  It was much busier now, though more relaxed.  Families were dotted across the vast expanse on picnic blankets with picnic hampers.  I sat on the grass, blanket less, and sketched some more before attempting to wander back.  It was getting dark and this proved difficult as it turned out that my hotel was further away then I thought.  It was beyond the endless bazaar, which was still shut and now dark, it stretched out to East between me and my hotel like a dead hand.  I dared not wander inside in the black of evening, so I attempted to circumnavigate its bulk until I took a wrong turn and suddenly found myself sprinting frightened down an ill lit alley way of sandstone and mud brick.  Night had fallen very suddenly.

I pressed North into a maze of winding alleyways then through a tunnel, this deposited me unexpectedly into the now pitch black bazaar.  It was a dark and enclosed winding labyrinth that stretched out to both sides, a nightmare place to find oneself, a fever dream, lost in a molasses thick dark.  I ducked out the other side as soon as I saw an opening.  Here, at least, I could see the sky, but I was still lost.

So, I power walked into a run up and along unknown roads and side streets, the down ancient tunnels and back again, always heading north, trying to maintain the pretense, to anyone that might be watching, that I knew precisely where I was going. 

I was suddenly afraid.  I had been, a few hours ago, enjoying the golden sun as it bounced off the cracked surface of the riverbed.  Weekend revelers laughing and sighing around me.  Now I ran in the dark, afraid and alone. 

But suddenly I was out of it.  Emerging back onto the street I had almost crossed that morning.  All I had to do was follow it East and Bingo - there was my original entry point to the bazaar -  it was still heaving as it had been when I had last seen it, people still ducked under the plentiful ranks of deformed mannequins.  All was happy and safe and busy.  Fear was silly again.

Just beyond was my hotel and here I am for the night.

The birds are all a chatter behind me.  Kissing pairs chattering on.