Day 86 On the Road Again
SYNOPSIS: This is about getting a massage, leaving Yazd, and visiting Na’in, a quaint village on the way to Kashan with another old mosque. Mohammed the self-appointed guide lives here. Old, older and oldest - what calendar are we using?I could have stayed in Yazd forever, but I know better than to succumb to such a silly notion; there is little time left to linger. I realize that I could easily spend another 30 days in Iran if I wanted to even just get a superficial idea of most of the regions. But I have to get back to work the spring and summer semesters and only 14 days of travel remain! I am beginning to panic.For days I have been plagued by a sharp pain in my shoulder which has hampered my style considerably. For a couple of days I could not even breathe properly, but my travel pharmacy kept me going. Before leaving today, I asked for a massage which was advertised at the hotel to see if that would help. One of the kitchen workers at the hotel does massages on the side for the female clients. That was a funny experience. The massage room is a cold bathroom with a marble slab on which you lie. For heat, the hot water shower is turned on, which indeed heats and steams up the small room in no time. For additional warmth the marble slab is soaked with a bowl of hot water once in a while. At times, I was not quite sure if I was getting a bath or a massage. I guess it was really a bit of both.If I have not mentioned it yet, aside from the rock hard pillows that seem the standard in Iran, hard beds seem to be typical, perhaps even preferred? We have had hard beds from the get-go, Nicola can attest to that. But never have I had a bed as hard as the one at the Silk Road Hotel. It was not even a bed, but a wooden box with a “mattress” less than an inch think, through which I could feel every plank of the box. Coming from my very uncomfortable nights on the stone floor in my cave at Meymand, I cannot pretend that I have had much fun at night lately. Perhaps, that’s even where my shoulder injury comes from. Various spots on my body are turning sore. To see that even the massage table was a slab of marble was a big disappointment, but you take what you get.The massage lady did a loving and enthusiastic job of scrubbing and pounding me top to bottom, but it was very clear that she had no idea of anatomy and that my shoulder would hurt as much coming out as it did going in. She spoke no English, so I resorted to a hands-on demonstration. I pointed to my shoulder blade and then worked on her indicating that I wanted knuckles and elbows used in that particular spot. She was a willing learning and tried her best. I got some relief after all.Most all of the original crew of young people I met a week ago had left the Silk Road Hotel by now and the final bunch left today. That made it a little easier for me to leave, too. I got attached to Yazd and this historic hotel just as I had gotten attached to “my” khan at the old souq in Aleppo. The advantage in Yazd is that the call of the muezzin is a gentle, much appreciated indicator of time, not the deafening blast I had endured in Aleppo. But instead of being woken up by the muezzin, here I frequently got woken up by my hard bed… You just can’t have it all. I learned that Shiah Muslims, even though they share the same five prayers with Sunnis, only call for prayer three times a day. That is very kind from a visitor’s point of view. I wonder how this affects the overall quality of life and productivity. After all, the Sunnis in Aleppo had to do with about 4 hours of sleep every night while the Shiahs here can enjoy a full night of rest.There were lots of good bye hugs at the Silk Road Hotel until we all were on the road again. With a taxi, I left for the bus terminal at the outskirts of town. We hardly reached the terminal when some guys yelled “Esfahan?” I nodded and they whisked me and my luggage along, running to a bus which was already rolling away. Before I could blink I was on the bus and going. My destination was not Esfahan, but a small village on the way, called Na’in. What a moment on the road when 45 minutes into the bus trip we passed a young couple on their bikes. Benjamin and Nora from Switzerland! There they were, paddling along. They had left the hotel yesterday. My hat is off to them. They did not see me waive. I feel so honored that I met all these people. They are such an inspiration. Not your stereotypical, spoiled, demanding TV generation X; but very special human beings going their own independent ways. Perhaps, I will meet some of them again at some point in my life. I very much hope so!Architecture is my love of all of the fine arts media and in pursuit of special or different, old, older, or the oldest of some architectural type, I will walk or drive for miles if I have to. After the oldest mosque at Fahraj, I am trying to get a sense of some of the sequence that followed. Na’in has an important 10th Century example and just a few kilometers outside of Na’in, there is a 6-7th Century example – so the guide book said. But then I read again: 6-7th century of the Hegira, or 7th Century AH – oh! I get it. That makes it the 13-14th century; not quite as old as I thought, but old enough to not be missed. The Islamic calendar is based on the trip Mohammed made from Mecca to Medina. It is referred to as the Hegira. To match it with our calendar you have to add 630 years. In Shushtar, Nicola and I were able to see a 9th Century mosque; that was 9th Century AD. The key determination is that these mosques have to be pretty much unaltered in order to be valuable teaching material. Too many of the early mosques have been “updated” which make them worthless for me. Na’in is a pure example. That’s why I am here.I had not walked for more than ½ hour in Na’in, when Mohammed, the self-appointed local guide mentioned in the Lonely Planet, found me. He offered some valuable insights into what to do tomorrow and I got an invitation to his house to watch his wife, a local master weaver, make a Na’in carpet. Na’in has been famous for its hand-woven woolen carpets with special symmetrical medallion designs done with Persian, versus Turkish knots. But this sounds like I know what I am talking about. I don’t. But it is what Mohammed told me. He must snatch every tourist off the street as he claims that over 8000 people have been to his house over the last 30 years. I had to sign his guest book. I had the distinction of being the first entry in this year’s book – remember that his New Year just started a couple of weeks ago. And so went another day.Good night.