Overland to London - Herat to Isfahan

The mudbrick horizontal windmill at Islam Qala, Afghanistan

Sat 14 March                   HERAT – MESHED                                                                                                                                                                            378 kms

    We depart Herat at 7.45 for the Afghan-Iranian border. The drive was through cold desert-like countryside and near the border town of Islam Qala, a stop was made  at an unusual mudbrick horizontal windmill. Windmills such as these originated in Persia, at least as far back as the 9th century, maybe earlier, and were the first practical windmills used for grinding grain or drawing water. We all just about froze in the wind and I know now that not all deserts are hot, ice was lying in shady areas on the ground.

    We reached the Afghan side of the border at 9.20 and wandered around aimlessly in the freezing wind, until 1.35pm while the Afghan formalities were completed. Then another four to five hours  was spent on the Iranian side at the border town of Taybad, finally getting away at about 5.30. The 230kms drive from the border to Meshed, over rough unsealed roads was made in darkness and we arrived around 9.00pm. We are staying a the Darbandi Hotel where the local beer, Argo, is cheaper here than Afghanistan – 40-50 rials (55-65 cents) per bottle.

 Mon 15 March                          MESHED 

    Meshed is one of the largest cities in Iran and one the holy cities of the Shiite Moslems. The city centre is dominated by the golden-domed Shrine of Imam Reza, the 8^th Imam of the Shia Moslems, which dates from 818. From a distance the mosque looks very impressive but unfortunately access is restricted to Moslems only. In the past, Meshed was an important oasis on the Silk Road connecting the city of Merv, in modern Turkmenistan, to the cities of the east.

Shrine of Imam Reza,, Meshed

     This morning I walked to the Bank of Iran to change money, usually a lengthy process in the east but one that I was becoming used to. As I wandered around the town, a   young Iranian schoolboy tagged along and began asking me questions to ‘help his English’.  For example, he asked me what ‘dark horse’ meant and also asked the English equivalents of the mathematics signs + - x ÷ =. He was thankful of the help and showed me a few of the sights of Meshed. I spent the  afternoon at the Darbandi Hotel, letter-writing and, as Iran was not then an Islamic State,  drinking the local vodka.

 Tue 16 March                  MESHED - GORGAN                                                                                                                                                                             568 kms

    We departed Meshed at 7.30 for the long drive through northern Iran to Gorgan. The semi-desert, between Meshed and Bodjnoord, is  featureless and cold with snow-covered peaks visible in the distance. After the town of Quchan, the tar-sealed road metamorphosed to dust and corrugations and, when it began raining, mud. Lunch stop was made at the town of Bodjnoord, and in the afternoon the going became even rougher with our bus being forced off the narrow road, onto a soft berm, by a local truck.

Off the road near Bodjnoord, northern Iran

Around 2 hours was spent, under a lowering sky, extracting the vehicle from the thick mud. Eventually the local Iranians managed,  with the help of a 6-wheel drive Czech-built Tatra truck and a wire rope, to haul our coach back onto the solid road base. It was an education watching the locals tie a knot of sorts in the wire rope; the knot came undone 3 times, but it did work in the end and we proceeded on our merry way. After a late dinner stop for kebabs and pushing the other coach out of the mud in the dark, we finally reached Gorgan at 12.30am. We camped in the grounds of the Miami Hotel..

Wed 17 March                  GORGAN – TEHRAN                                                                                                                                                                         459 kms

    We left Gorgan at 9.30 after causing two local cars to crash – the drivers were looking at us while we were loading the coach rather than concentrating on their driving; not an uncommon trait of drivers in the east. The morning’s drive was through the fertile Caspian hinterland. Villages flourish in the green and fertile farmland and, I noted in my diary, looked not unlike European settlements. 

A Beach on the Caspian Sea at Babolsar, Iran

        We stopped for a lunch of sturgeon kebabs at a seaside restaurant in  Babolsar on 

the Caspian Sea. The beach at  Babolsar was of rather dirty, and of fine sand which turned to mud a few yards from the water-line. A cold wind was blowing in fom the north, across the Caspian from Russia. A couple of hardy souls in our group, one English and one German, decided they just had to have a dip in the cold fresh waters of the Caspian.  Babolsar, in 1970, had a casino and was a quite expensive resort town.

Sturgeon boats on the Caspian Sea shore near Chalus, Iran

Further along the coast the seashore became rather pleasant and we stopped by some sturgeon fishing boats. The Caspian Sea, at 371,000km², is the largest inland body of water in the world. In 1970, just the Soviet Union and Iran had coastlines on the Sea, and the main freshwater inflow is the Volga, Europe’s longest river. The Caspian Sea is home to the beluga, or great sturgeon – Huso huso – and has been heavily fished for the female’s valuable roe, or caviar.

At the town of Chalus we turned inland over the Elburz Mountains which offered some spectacular scenery. Forests, icy peaks, windy roads and two of the then longest road tunnels in the worl, but unfortunately the latter part of the journey was made in the dark and we reached Tehran, capital of Iran, at about 10.30pm. We are camping at Goh-i-Sahra camp ground.

Thu 18 March                   TEHRAN - ISFAHAN                                                                                                                                                                          442km

    We left Tehran at 9.00am for Isfahan. Hubert decided not take the route through Qom as it would be too dangerous. Qom is the 2^nd holiest city in Iran and today is the Day of Ashura in the holy month of Muharrem.  On this day in 680AD, Hussein ibn Ali, grandson of Prophet Mohammed, was killed during the Battle of Karbala and the Day of Ashura is seen a day of mourning. 

    As we drove towards Isfahan, we passed  several Muharrem processions where young men were beating themselves with metal flails, and we were warned that they could become quite agitated if they saw us taking photos. Self-flagellation is seen as penitence over the murder of Hussein  and 22 members of his family by Yazid I, 2^nd Caliph of the Omayyid Caliphate. Hussein had refused to recognise Yazid as successor to Prophet Mohammed.. Leading these processions is often a flag-standard surmounted by 2 birds representing the story of how two pigeons carried some of Hussein’s blood to his sister, Sekhineh, who lived 140 miles away.

Lunch stop was in Saveh. According to Marco Polo: “In Persia is the city called Saveh, from which the three Magi set out when they came to worship Jesus Christ. Here, too, they lie buried in three sepulchres of great size and beauty.” He goes on: “Their bodies are still whole, and they have hair and beards. One was named Beltasar, the second Gaspar, and the third Melchior.”   Marco Polo was told the following interesting story by the Zoroastrians, a pre-Christian religion based around Kerman and Yezd in Iran and around Bombay in India.

Byzantine mosaic of the 3 Magi wearing 
Persian-style caps

According to the Zoroastrians, three Magi followed a star that was to indicate the birthplace of a new prophet. They carried three separate gifts from which the child would chose: gold, if the child was to become a worldly king, incense for a god incarnate and myrrh for a miracle-worker. The child took all three gifts and gave them a wooden box. When opened all it contained was a stone. Considering this to be worthless, they threw the stone in a pit and immediately lightning descended from heaven and the stone caught fire. Regretting their action, they took some fire with them and since then fire is worshipped in all Zoroastrian temples; an interesting connection between Christianity and Zoroastrianism. A couple of centuries after  Marco Polo’s visit, Saveh was plundered by the Tamerlane and, presumably, these tombs were then destroyed. 

Just outside Saveh we ran into a sandstorm, the first I had ever been in. The wind was  whipping up dust and sand in great clouds. A little later a front tyre of our coach blew and we were stuck in the desert for several hours as we had no spare. Close to where we had stopped were some living quarters dug underground, although centuries of sand storms may have given this impression.  

Mudbrick ruins of a caravanserai on the road to Isfahan

The dwellings had been hewn out of the desert sandstone. The entrance had been reinforced with mudbricks. Air vents were spaced down the main tunnel, which had been hewn into a hemi-spherical shape about 5ft 6in high. The whole structure must have been down to a depth of 15 feet below ground level. One tunnel had another small room adjacent to the tunnel which had evidently been used as living quarters. A stone fireplace was situated in the centre of the room under a smoke outlet. This structure was quite possibly an ancient caravanserai on the Tehran to Isfahan trade route. After a re-arrangement of tyres, we finally got away at about 8.15pm, limping, on three rear wheels into Isfahan at 12.15am. We are camping at back of Apadana Hotel.

text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins 

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My paperbacks and ebooks on my Overland travels in Asia, Europe & Africa in the early 1970s and the experiences of a tour guide on the Asian Overland routes & leading Camel Safaris in Rajasthan in the 1980s are available from Amazon.