Iran - Andrew Burke [166]
Information
INTERNET ACCESS
AryaNet (Motahhari St; per hr IR7000; 9am-9pm) The best of several grindingly slow coffeenets around Motahhari/Enqelab Sts.
Shaba-key Sabz Coffeenet (Imam Khomeini St; per hr IR6000; 8am-8pm) Reasonable connection, easy to miss up two floors near Shohoda Sq.
MONEY
Export Development Bank of Iran (Bank Tose-shadarat; Alavi St; 9.30am-3.30pm Sat-Wed, 9.30am-12.30pm Thu) Changes money relatively painlessly (10 minutes) for a flat US$1 commission. Take an Alavi taxi from beside Bank Melli (no exchange).
POLICE REGISTRATION
Police Station No 5 ( 218 2864; Valiasr Ave) For registration (necessary to stay in cheap guesthouses in Khorramabad) ask for ‘Amaken’, present passport or passport/visa copy and fill a form stating where you’ll stay. The office is around 800m from Kyo Sq, entered from an alley beside Ghavamin Finance.
POST
Post office In a yard off the castle access lane.
TOURIST INFORMATION
Hassan Niknam ( 0916-361 1135; niknamhassan@yahoo.com) Dignified and well-informed, Hassan co-manages the Karon Hotel, speaks great English and acts as guide and tourist helper. He can put mountaineers in touch with members of the local climbing federation.
Lorestan Cultural Heritage Organisation ( 221 6718; www.lorestanmiras.ir; Lorestan University, Falak-ol-Aflak Lane; 7am-2pm Sat-Thu) Nobody in the office speaks English, but their beautiful maps and brochures are given away free by better hotels.
Sights
FALAK-OL-AFLAK
This unmissable eight-towered castle ( 220 4090; www.lorestanmiras.org, in Farsi; admission IR4000; 8am-6pm, 8am-8pm summer) dominates the city centre from a rocky promontory. It looks especially dramatic when floodlit at night and offers extensive city views from the crenellated battlements. The entrance weaves up past sellers of tacky Lurish tourist trinkets into a courtyard where you can dress up in Bakhtiyari tribal garb for a posed photo. Above the inviting teahouse (Click here) a grating covers the dizzyingly deep castle well (43m), but there are other ‘falling danger’ spots where a ‘disciplinarian’ watches out for your safety as well as your behaviour.
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KHORRAMABAD STREET NAMES
Official Name Commonly Used Name
Imam Hossein Sq Meydan Shaqayeq
22 Bahman Sq Kyo Sq
Basij Sq Shimsherabad Sq
Daneshju St Shimsherabad St
Imam Khomeini St Alavi St
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The main buildings around the rear courtyard form a very well-presented ethnographic museum showing vignettes of Lurish life accompanied by folk music appropriate to each theme. A video-room shows off regional attractions (English version available) and an exhibition culminates with a hoard of Lorestan bronze daggers and axe-heads recently discovered at Sang Tarashan, around 40km away.
OTHER SIGHTS
If you have time to kill there are several minor curiosities, many very historic but none vastly photogenic. Khorramabad’s unremarkable bazaar sells a lot of colourful scarves and hosts the modern Imamzadeh Zaid-ibn-e-Ali with tiled north façade. The low-key Tavasuli Mosque (Shakaster St) was also photogenic till they built a big mobile telephone tower behind it. Gerdab-e-Sangi (Takht Sq) is a 1600-year-old Sassanian stone reservoir, 18m in diameter, said to be the world’s oldest. Spring water wells up within and once provided the proto-city’s water supply. Behind is a steep rocky slope indented with caves said to have been home to early humans around 40,000 years ago.
In a stone-edged circle beside thundering Shari’ati St is an inscribed stone (Sang Neveshteh Alley) from around AD 1150, apparently setting out details of local grazing rights.
The 20m-high pale brick tower called Minar-e Ajon (Ajon Minaret; Shaqayeq Sq) might look like a chimney but it was actually a 900-year-old signalling point for caravans. Ruins of the ancient Shapuri bridge (Pol-e-Eshkeseh) are stranded in a field off the Khudasht road. Five of the 28 original arches remain intact.
Sleeping
Mehmanpazir Iran ( 221 9529; Shari’ati St; s/tw/tr IR70,000/75,000/90,000,