Iran - Andrew Burke [149]
Takab to Bijar
The 84km road to Bijar offers some scenic vistas across the high plateaus and towards a variety of dry mountain-tops. It passes two notable villages of mud houses: Sadbil (17km from Takab) and Qizil Belakh (25km). Some 35km from Takab, an unasphalted side road leads about 10km to Qom Choqa (Ghamchoghay). This dramatic nose of cliff overlooks the Shahan River and was the site of a fortress thought to date back to the 8th century, though it is now virtually invisible.
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BIJAR
0872 / pop 51,000
Cradled between arid hills topped in rocky crags, Bijar is a fairly diffuse junction town, but is more scenic and has better transport connections than Takab. Tohid St is the main north–south axis. The town centre is where Tohid St meets Taleqani St and almost-parallel Imam St one block further north. A block west of Tohid St is handily central Click Coffeenet (Taleqani St; s/tw IR20,000/23,000; 8am-10pm).
Mosaferkhaneh Moqadam ( 422 3260; Shahid Ardalon St; s/tw 40,000/50,000, shower IR5000) has simple, unexciting rooms with big ceiling fans, wooden-board beds, maybe-clean sheets and shared squat toilets. It’s an Escheresqe maze of stairways reached through a subterranean restaurant on a quiet tree-lined street between Bank Melli and the small brick-vaulted bazaar. That’s one block north and west of the Imam/Tohid St junction.
The much smarter Iran Bam Hotel ( 423 3160; Sanandaj Hwy; tw 300,000) is a modern three-storey circular building of blue glass with a decent restaurant and café. Rooms are fully equipped and have fancy sash curtains but the thick pile carpets are already looking soiled. It’s about 3km west of town, 800m beyond the roundabout at which Imam and Taleqani Sts converge.
Near the Taleqani St petrol station (1km west of the Coffeenet) is the kitschily atmospheric teahouse Sofrakhane Ferdin (Taleqani St; qalyan IR6000; 8am-11pm).
Getting There & Away
The main terminal, 4km northeast of town handles all minibuses (last at 3pm) and buses plus savaris to Zanjan (IR25,000), which depart regularly till dusk. Minibuses to Hamadan (IR15,000) depart at 7.30am and 8am only.
Savaris for Takab (IR15,000, one hour) and Sanandaj (IR22,500, 1¾ hours) depart until dusk from outside the Iran Bam Hotel. A taxi from the terminal costs IR5000 dar baste.
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SANANDAJ
0871 / pop 358,000
Even by Iran’s super-hospitable standards, Sanandaj is a remarkably friendly city. It’s the capital of Kordestan province, a good base for visits to Palangan and a great place to learn more about Kurdish history and culture. You’ll see plenty of men wearing traditional cummerbunds and baggy Kurdish trousers. Yet it’s a modern, noticeably prosperous city with a large, fashionable population of students ever anxious to try out their English. In Sanandaj’s Sorani-Kurdish ju-an means beautiful and deso hoshbe means thank you.
History
Originally known as Senna (as it still is to local Kurds), the city was of major importance in the Middle Ages but withered to nothing in the chaotic post-Chaldoran era. A dej (fortress) was built here in the early 18th century and Senna-dej slowly developed into Sanandaj. From here the powerful Ardalan emirs came to rule the last autonomous principality of Iranian Kurdistan up until 1867. Under the Ardalans the town developed many fine 19th-century buildings, though most have since been lost to rapacious 20th-century development.
Orientation & Information
Busily commercial Ferdosi St links the twin centres Enqelab and Azadi Sqs. From the latter, Abidar St slopes up into the folds of a rocky ridge that was the city’s historic defence and is today the pleasant Abidar mountain park. The delightfully helpful, multilingual Cultural Heritage Organisation of Kordestan ( 225 5440; www.kurdistanmiras.ir; Habibi Lane; 8am-2pm Sat-Thu) offers beautiful brochures