Limping into Yazd with the car overheating in the sun, we found our hostel deep within the old mud town.  Similar to the Medinas of Morocco, these old mud buildings are hundreds of years old, baked solid by the sun.  High chimneys stick into the air all around, designed to catch the miniscule breeze and redirect it into people’s homes to cool them during their midday siesta. The whole place has a relaxed, medieval vibe and very little seems to happen at all.  We were staying at the famous ‘Silk Road’ hotel, a proper hostel made from mud, centred around a cool courtyard and fountain; it was filled with the few travellers who go to Iran and it’s a well known jumping off point for overlanders trying to make it across Pakistan.  Soon after we arrived, we heard

“G’day lads, ahh thought I saawh a black cab drive by”

…as a big lumbering Ozzie stuck his head through the door, still wearing the same T shirt, his brow beaded with sweat.  Craig had found us again.

Yazd is the kind of place where you can’t but chill, literally. After waking late and lazing all day I made an attempt to wander the old town and visit some mosques at around 4pm but the relentless sun and 45°C temperature caused me to massively overheat and return to the hostel and lie in front of a fan.  We were stuck there until we got some word regarding Pakistan visas in Dubai, but it was a nice break from the constant driving and staying in a new place every night.

Situated about 70km north of the Yazd is ‘Chak Chak’, home to the Zoroastrian fire temple.  Zoroastrianism is the ancient religion that was the precursor to Islam in Iran.  Their most holy place is the fire temple situated in the middle of the desert.  It contains a fire which has been (apparently) been burning for 400 years and an eternal spring, dripping through its stone walls (Chak Chak literally translates as ‘Drip Drip’).  We pulled together a gang that included Ozzie Craig and two Italian motorbikers and headed out into the desert to check out the temple.  On route, an old man in a beat up car started honking and gesturing for us to follow him.  The Italians spoke to him and it became clear he was going to show us the way to the very well sign posted temple; he was pretty insistant.  All was going well until he pulled over to the side and told us to stop too.  Obediently we waited as he climbed out of his car, grabbed a thermos full of tea, a water container and a big bag of sugar.  He proceeded to shove these through the window into my lap and climbed in, completely uninvited, and told me to drive.  It started to become clear then that something wasn’t right.  He was about 65, and barely pushing five foot tall.  He had stickers all over his chest where an ECG had been attached, a hospital wristband and his left sleeve had a large blood stain on it, as though he had wrenched out a drip.  He started to rapid fire Persian, point to his chest and then made a cut throat motion.  It appeared as though we had inadvertently picked up a dying man who had escaped from a hospital and were driving him into the middle of the desert where he wanted to pray one more time before he died..

Out came a packet of cigarettes and the old man sparked up, right in front of the no smoking sticker in the back of the cab.  Realising his rudeness, he offered them around (there were no takers), spilt ash in Leigh’s ear and then berated me for driving too slow.  Trying to tell him that we were going up a hill in a massively over heating taxi with five people in it failed and he continued to hit me and shout at me for my tardiness.  He would then sporadically break into song in between drags because our sound system wasn’t working.

We arrived at Chak Chak three chain-cigarettes later and parked up.  The temple is at the top of a hill and we started to make our way up.  Our geriatric escapee, however, had other plans.  First we must drink tea; obediently we drank the obscenely sweet black tea and started to get a little bit irritated with our unwelcome and uninvited hindrance and then started for the hill.  Making our way up at a healthy pace the old man immediately lagged behind, looking back I could see him bent double, heaving, minutes away from death.  I went down to join him, he pointed at his heart then coughed and spluttered and started to make his way up, only after insisting I take a photo of his bare-chested ECG patches.

Don't die

We eventually arrived at the temple entrance.  Situated among rows of 80’s architecture platforms for the devoted, we were the only people there apart from the guard. He was sat under a sign that instructed women not to enter during menstruation, he stirred and started to unlock the temple of the eternal fire.  Just before he did so, he turned to us and asked if any of us had a lighter…

Seriously!

Check yourself before you wreck yourself

The Eternal Fire (does anyone have a lighter?)

We entered to find the a cave containing an obviously recently lit fire, and a small drip from the ceiling into a Tupperware bowl.

Mildly disappointed we headed down, leaving the old man smoking away.  The plan was to camp in the desert by Chak Chak and we all got ready to go.  There then came a desperate noise from the steps, the old man was leaping down as fast as his little legs would take him.  We still had his tea in the car.  So we gave to him, he poured a small cup, started to sing again and sat down.  We waved goodbye but again, he had other plans.  We were to drop him back to his car… a 140km round trip from our camp site.  We wanted to give this man as much distance as possible.  If he died in the taxi it would be a real ball ache; we’d lose our awesome campsite and the paperwork would be a nightmare.  Not to mention the secret police not being our biggest fans.  We didn’t want to drive him to his car, but then we couldn’t leave a dying man in the desert… could we?

Could you leave this man?

Driving along the dirt track, he carried on singing, shouting, getting irate and smoking as we tried to tell him we didn’t want to drive back to his car.  A car appeared behind us and I stopped and we flagged it down.  The old man knew the guys (who were driving to Yazd), got out and started spitting in Persian.  Never ones to miss an opportunity we all jumped back in and floored it, stopping, reversing and dumping his tea paraphernalia by the side of the road, then flooring it again.

He was their responsibility now!

We camped and woke up the next morning to check out a ‘famous’ shaking minaret on the way back to Yazd.  It actually turned out to be a very cool celebration of inept architectural achievements, although climbing through its tiny crawl space was an unnerving experience knowing the structural soundness of the building.

Shaking Minaret

That evening I went with a few travellers to watch the sunset over the city from the roof of a mosque.  The heat haze over the mud roofs gave it a beautiful effect, although I couldn’t help but imagine I was playing the computer game Assassins Creed. The group included an Australian girl who had just got a six month marriage to her Iranian boyfriend by an Imam over breakfast, basically allowing them to legally have sex in the eyes of the religious police.  To end it, they have to simply lose the marriage certificate.  Very Iranian…

We finally got the word from our friend in Dubai with regards to our Pakistan visas.  He would not be able to collect them, but if we flew to Dubai we could collect them ourselves.  This was great news, but it involved getting another Iranian visa, a process that would take at least three weeks with a British passport, by which time Johno’s visa would have expired leaving the taxi in the middle of the Iranian desert.  However, we found out that it was possible for me to get an instant 1 week visa at an airport with my Irish passport. 

Assassins Creed-ish

Newlywed in the eyes of Allah

The next day Leigh and I were on a coach to the airport in Shiraz, where we would fly to Dubai to get our visas.  I would then fly back to Iran and drive with Johno and Ozzie Craig to Pakistan, where Leigh would meet us.  Hardly an ideal plan, but it meant we could get to India and the expedition would live another day.

Well that was the plan anyway…

Next up, Leigh and I sample the life of luxury, I get deported from Iran, Johno has the worst drive of his life and our tag along Ozzie starts a fight with a man and his AK47.