From Kerman train station we took a taxi into town and arranged a little tour into the desert to see the natural sand castles. The guy who organised it for us was really friendly and very helpful, he showed us to a place for lunch and then organised a driver for a good price (although he did end up asking for a $10 tip). We eventually met our driver, a big partially deaf ex English teacher who was very sweet, he took us into the desert in time for sunset.
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| From Kerman Sand Castles |
We had an hour and a half to wander round the dunes/castles in the late afternoon light and it was incredible. The place was deserted and so so quiet, we walked, climbed and skidded down the castles which were crunchy and easy to climb or loosely packed sand and filled up our trainers.
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| From Kerman Sand Castles |
Having had our fill of the desert we climbed back into the car for the city and after paying the friendly yet persistent for tips arranger we met Atefe our host in the city for the night.
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| From Kerman Sand Castles |
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| From Kerman Sand Castles |
Atefe was a large bubbly excellently spoken married Iranian women, she had just come from a two hour crying session for the 3rd Imam (the one all the celebrations were for which we were sure were over) she fed us heated up food from the 'cryathon' and was ready to take us on a night tour but let us sleep instead. At some point during the night there was an earthquake somewhere close by, not that it woke us two sleeping beauties up and happily Atefe didn't wake us up to experience it either.
The next day she had to go to university and so arranged for her brother to take care of us for the day. He took us out to some gardens where we sat and had tea before driving us to a small restaurant where they didn't believe in the cleaning the rooms for people to eat in more than once a day, so we had lunch accompanied by the remains of other people's dinner, lovely. It was then a rush to collect our drying laundry from the house and then head to the train station to head back to Tehran to collect our Indian visas which were finally ready. The car ride to the station was pretty intense and he told us about the government which was in power only through rigging the elections and keeping “disturners of the peace” quiet and/or in prison which sounded horrific. Atefe's brother had been in prison for a day after protests about the name of the Persian Gulf (to keep it that way and not have it recognised as the Arabian Gulf), no direct protests against the government, who also wanted to keep the name of the gulf and yet he was put into prison like plenty of others and beaten regularly. He spoke of his friends who were also on prison for crimes like expressing their opinion, of a journalist who had forgotten to address the fraudulent president as 'Mr President' and was therefore deemed not to agree with his being in power and so bundled off to the slammer.
So much progress had been reversed and changes made since this government first came to power that it has created what is called the brain drain. Lots of young and well educated adults are leaving Iran to live elsewhere in freer, more liberal societies which is such a shame because I suspect that most of them love their country. Iran has a huge, interesting history and cultural heritage and the people are the warmest, friendliest, most generous people and so well educated.
Djalma and I said goodbye to him and wished him luck and Djalma promised to put the word out there about hat was happening in Iran, but so far no pen to paper!
We got the night train up to Tehran and spent the whole of the next day getting our visas, which at the time still wasn't certain – despite calling and speaking to the helpful girl who had received our applications they couldn't confirm our visa until we'd had an interview. After two minutes with the consul he said he would give us single entry six motnhs tourist visas and we danced out of the room, booked bus tickets to Yazd and waited for our bus.
We spent the next day at the same hostel we'd stayed in before, talking, using the internet and drawing designs for my tattoo before getting the train to Bandar Abbas which left and arrived on time.
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