Iran - Andrew Burke [283]
Turkmen immigration staff are friendly but procedures can be appallingly ponderous, even when everything’s in order (two hours to clear six people when we crossed). Beware that Howdan (the Turkmen-side upper customs post, pronounced hovdan) is not a village, has zero facilities and is 25km from the Turkmen lower border gate (Berzhengi Tamozhna). Smart VW minivans charging 150,000M (or US$10 if you’ve forgotten to exchange money in advance) shuttle across this no-man’s land, departing once they have a handful of passengers. After further passport checks here, less plush shared taxis charge 25,000M per person to any address in Ashgabat (whose city limits start 7km further north).
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SEMNAN
0231 / pop 129,000
Capital of an eponymous region, booming Semnan lies on the northern edge of the vast Dasht-e Kavir desert, 240km east of Tehran. Since Sassanian times it has been a key stop on the silk route, attracting wealth and regular destruction in equal measure. At first glance it’s a diffuse, nondescript city of low-rise modern buildings and wide boulevards. But around the appealing covered bazaar is an interesting complex of historical buildings. A short drive to Shahmirzad reveals an impressive hinterland of arid mountain peaks.
Information
Aras Coffeenet (Qods Blvd; internet per hr IR6000; 10am-7pm Sun-Wed)
Semani Coffeenet ( 333 8010; internet per hr IR6000; 8am-10pm Sun-Wed, 8am-8pm Thu) Separate male and female sections.
Semnan Miras ( 332 1602; www.semnanmiras.ir; Tadayon House, Taleqani St, btwn 3rd & 5th Alleys; 8am-2.30pm Sun-Wed, 8am-1.30pm Thu) They speak minimal English but offer bilingual pamphlets and Farsi-only maps from a lovely Qajar-era mansion with Semnan’s finest surviving wind tower.
Sights
OLD SEMNAN
The key sites can all be accessed from within the unusually tall covered bazaar via the log-pillared Takiyeh Market Hall. Most impressive is the Imam Khomeini (Sultani) Mosque founded under Fath Ali Shah in the 1820s. It’s one of Iran’s finest surviving buildings from the Qajar period. Two of its four courtyard iwans offer perfectly measured use of restrained coloured brickwork. There’s no such restraint in the dazzling blue tiling of the contemporary Imamzadeh Yahya. The extraordinarily high, if austere, west iwan of the Jameh Mosque dates from a 1424 rebuild, but the mosque’s most lovable feature is the gorgeous 21m brick minaret (11th century?). Leaning and kinked it still dominates the town and is floodlit at night in incongruous electric green.
Between vaguely comical tilework portraits of Qajar warriors in the northwest corner of Takiyeh Hall, a doorway leads into an attractive 1452 bathhouse. Within is the Hazrat Museum ( 333 1204; admission IR2000; 8am-noon & 3.30-6pm Sat-Thu) displaying 3000-year-old pottery from the nearby archaeological site of Hissar, plus some pretty photos of Semnan Province.
Around the bazaar area, the construction of makeshift car parks and somewhat brutal redevelopment has bulldozed heartbreaking holes into the fabric of the old city. Only a small percentage of mud-built traditional homes remain, mostly in back alleyways. Several of these have crumbling Yazd-style wind towers (Taleqani 1st and 13th Alleys, Hafez 31st Alley, Ghafari 30th Alley, Abuzar Sq).
Near Abuzar Sq, Ghafari 9th Alley leads down to the lumpy ruins of the city’s ancient mud fortress.
OTHER SIGHTS
Spiked with blue-tiled baby minarets, Darvaza-e Arg (Arg Sq, Taleqani St) is Semnan’s dinky but iconic Qajar-era city gate. Around 500m northeast there’s an old cistern (Qods Blvd) beside what appears to be a fortress tower, but was actually a decorative element from a now demolished cotton factory.
Activities
Some 5km east of Semnan, the Shabdiz Tourist Complex ( 335 3123; Damghan Hwy) is a 20-horse equestrian centre where tourists can rent horses and guides for trips into the nearby desert and mountains (around US$100 per day; call ahead). A