My last destination with the MAdventure group was Yazd – a desert town renowned for its well-preserved, mud-brick architecture and fascinating “Badgirs” (wind-catchers). I didn’t think it was possible to get hotter than Esfahan and Persepolis, but I was absolutely wrong. Yazd is something else in the heat stakes – 43 degrees for the duration…
For many people, the highlights of Iran (apart from the people) are the mosques and medrassahs and the blue tiles that adorn such buildings. However, much of this architecture was built after Timur (Tamerlane) cut swathes through the region, and given that he had his capital in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) the most impressive examples are actually…
I started my Day 2 in Esfahan (see here for Day 1) wandering around the parklands that border the River Zayendeh. Then, after my aborted attempt at visiting the Shah Mosque, I decided that I’d make my way out to the largest mosque in Iran, the Jameh Mosque of Esfahan (the main mosque in each town is called…
The first few days in Iran were spent driving and then hanging out in Masuleh. After all the time and expense to finally get to Iran, none of us had any clue why we spent so long in Masuleh – after all, there was nothing to do there except relax and enjoy the slightly cooler…
One of the highlights of southern Georgia is Vardzia – an extensive cave monastery (500m long and rising up 19 tiers) that was largely built in the latter part of the 12th century. We had 2 hours to explore the site so I decided to spring for the $5 for an audio tour and set…
Besides Yerevan, the only other things we had time to see in our extremely short sojourn in Armenia were two monasteries. Haghbat Monastery (975AD) This is a medieval monastery complex with several structures, the largest of which is the cathedral of Surb Nishan. With its dome supported by 4 large pillars, it is a typical example…
If I ever again hear anyone complain about how Canberra is a planned and dead city, my response is going to be: “Go to Ashgabat”! The capital of Turkmenistan is a truly bizarre experience. Completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1948 that killed a large fraction of the population (though the Soviets denied this…
Turkmenistan is, in a similar fashion to North Korea, a very closed country, which can make it quite difficult to visit. We needed Letters of Invitation (one of our group was refused this because in his photo he wasn’t clean-shaven and yet didn’t have a full beard … just a 5-day growth) and Visas, both…
The Uzbek Som is a crazy currency. At the time of writing, the official exchange rate was USD$1 = 3790 Som, which is not necessarily problematic, until you realise that the most commonly used note is 1000 Som. And although Uzbekistan is quite a cheap country to travel in, even something that costs $5 suddenly…
The drive from Samarkand to Bukhara is a seemingly never-ending display of agriculture and what would appear to be Russian commission houses (all identical). Along both sides of the road, an irrigated, green region fans out to a width of a few kilometres, but look a little further and you can see the arid hills…