Iran - Andrew Burke [271]
On Fridays, the minibus from Zabol runs all the way to Kuh-e Khajeh. At other times it will probably stop in Kuh-e Khajeh village and you’ll have to walk the last 4km along a flat, straight road that turns into a causeway at the edge of town. You’re unlikely to be troubled by traffic. The minibus runs every 45 minutes or so, takes about 40 minutes and leaves from Mir Hosseini St, just south of the junction with Kargar Blvd – opposite and a bit south of where the savaris from Zahedan stop. If you don’t fancy Zabol, ask the savari from Zahedan to drop you at the turn-off to Kuh-e Khajeh – it’s on the left about 6km south of Zabol, just before a bridge.
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MIRJAVEH
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Anyone travelling between Iran and Pakistan by land will pass through Mirjaveh. Locals assure us there is little that interests them in Mirjaveh, so there won’t be anything to interest travellers. And they’re right. There is a hotel if you’re desperate, though barely anyone actually stays here. The ITTO-run Mirjaveh Tourist Inn (Hotel Ali; 322 2486; s/tw IR50,000/90,000; ) was described by one reader as looking ‘like a ghost hotel’, it was so quiet. But it is cheap, and you will be desperate, so the room will be welcome. Overlanders can park up in the gated yard for IR40,000.
From Mirjaveh, there is always something about to go to the border or to Zahedan (bus/minibus IR6000/7500, 1½ to two hours, 96km), from where buses go to almost every major city in Iran.
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Northeastern Iran
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WESTERN MAZANDARAN
SARI
AROUND SARI
GORGAN
AROUND GORGAN
GONBAD-E KAVUS
AROUND GONBAD-E KAVUS
BOJNURD
QUCHAN
AROUND QUCHAN
SEMNAN
AROUND SEMNAN
DAMGHAN
AROUND DAMGHAN
SHAHRUD
AROUND SHAHRUD
MASHHAD
AROUND MASHHAD
MASHHAD TO SARAKHS
KALAT (KALAT NADERI)
DARGAZ
THE ROAD TO AFGHANISTAN
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Sandwiched between the vast desert emptiness of the Dasht-e Kavir and the steppes of Central Asia, northeastern Iran has a spine of mountains that become more lushly forested as you head west. East of Minudasht the wilderness has been declared the Golestan (Paradise) National Park. Above the overdeveloped Caspian coast rise more forests and the grand Alborz Mountains. A trio of beautiful but busy roads take you across that dramatic range but there are lesser-known alternatives that get you into more remote, less spoilt zones around Alasht and Baladeh. Historically, the area developed as Khorasan (Where the [Iranian] Sun Rises) and Tabarestan/Mazandaran (the southeastern Caspian littoral). Millennia of culture reached a zenith here around 1000 years ago, producing many of the era’s great scientists and poet-philosophers. But the 13th- and 14th-century ravages of the Mongols and then Tamerlane were so complete that Tabarestan’s settled civilisation was virtually wiped out. Even now the sites of several once-prosperous cities are mere undulations in the steppe. A few marvellously over engineered towers, most astonishingly at Radkan and Gonbad-e Kavus, are the last witnesses of former glories.
The 16th-century Safavid regime’s move towards formal state Shiism was a major factor in the growth of Mashhad from a shrine-village to the region’s foremost city. Mashhad’s extraordinarily grand Haram-e Razavi complex surrounding the tomb of Imam Reza remains Iran’s holiest site and draws millions of pilgrims each year. Mashhad is also the logical staging point for visiting Afghanistan or Turkmenistan. But rather than face the bureaucratic hassles of the latter, consider exploring northeastern Iran’s own culturally Turkmen areas north of Kalaleh or Gorgan.
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HIGHLIGHTS
Feel the emotion of pilgrims at Mashhad’s glorious Haram-e Razavi, the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza
See the magnificent