IranTravels 2000
These images come from the first leg of my 6 month 'winterless' journey across Asia in 2000/2001. Technically, the journey started in Turkey, but only because flying to Istanbul and racing across Turkey by bus (two buses, 36 hours) was the cheapest way to reach Iran. I first became interested in Iran in 2000, the year a solar eclipse swept across north Asia and southern Europe, just skirting where I lived in the UK. Iran was supposed to be the place with the likeliest chance of totality. In the end, I didn't make it that year, but bought a book called Teach Yourself Persian, learnt some farsi (Persian for 'Persian'), and set off a year later.
The Ayatollahs
The first of many images of the two great Ayatollahs of Iran, Khomeini and Khamenei.
Ayatollahs
Another giant image of the Ayatollahs, peering over barbed wire fencing. In this image, they seem quite jovial.
Ayatollahs
The Ayatollahs look beneficently on as boys play football below.
Ayatollah Khomeini
Another image displaying the beneficence of Ayatollah Khomeini.
Honouring the Dead
A motorbike rides past a poster displaying some of the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq War. Ayatollah Khomeini is also in attendance.
Traffic
A quiet street in Tehran. The Ayatollahs are again looking down at their people. There is also another giant mural honouring some of the dead from the Iran-Iraq War.
Doorway
A doorway in a church in Esfahan.
Shahi Bazaar
Light streaming through the rooftop of the bazaar in Esfahan, with two Muslim clerics chatting in the foreground.
Si-o-se Pol
The Bridge of 33 Arches. One of the eleven bridges of Esfahan, it is an example of Safavid bridge design and dates from 1602. During the time I was there, the river was dry, and the famous tea house located in the bridge extended to the lower arches.
Mosque
A mosque undergoing repairs in Esfahan. Seen from the window of my guesthouse room.
Jameh Mosque
The Friday Mosque in Esfahan.
One day...
The blue box in front of the poster is a donation box. I learnt some Persian before going to the country,
and was quite chuffed at being able to decifer the poster's main message:
منه, روزی پیر میشویم
One day we will all be old.
Turkish woman
While in Esfahan I made some friends, with a group who prided themselves on being Turkish nomads. They were no longer true nomads, though they did speak a Turkish dialect. This is the mother of one of them.
Doorway
A series of arches in a mosque.
Pots
I came across these pots lying outside during one of my wanderings.
Persepolis
Detail from a crumbling stairway in the ancient capital of Persepolis, near Esfahan. The figures represent subjects of Darius the Great, who came to Persepolis to make offerings the emperor.
Persepolis
A bas relief showing a Persian soldier.
Tomb of Cyrus the Great
The tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae. I travelled here with my new-found Turkish nomad friends. They were very apt at cadging lifts around the country (they would stop trucks and try to speak to the driver in their Turkish dialect, getting aboard if he understood), and also free accommodation through a network of Turkish friends.
Crossing
A street in Tabriz. I like the shot for the composition: the three men all walking in different directions.
Graves in Esfahan
Graves honouring those who were martyred in the Iran-Iraq War.
Arg-e Bam
Located in Bam, southeast Iran, Arg-e Bam (the Citadel of Bam) was formerly the largest adobe building in the world. An earthquake in 2003, however, razed most of it to the ground, though the Iranian government plans to rebuild it.
Mountain ranges
The Zagros Mountain Range, seen from the ruins of Persepolis.
Delhi Deadlines by Sheldon Smith
A washed out journalist, posted to India to cover a bloody election campaign, uncovers truths about his son's life - and death - in the country, truths that test loyalties forged in the war zones of Bosnia and Rwanda. A fiercely evocative narrative of modern-day India, filled with the clamour and hot stinks of its capital, this is a novel of death woven through with life.
"The writing is very very good... the mysteriousness of Wyndham's death and the narrator's involvement will entice the reader to keep reading." - 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) Expert Reviewer
