Time Travels in Persia

By Heidi Noroozy

Don’t you wish you had a time machine?

I do. But until someone invents one, I have to travel back in time vicariously through books. One of my favorite time-travel novels is Blackout (and its sequel, All Clear) by Connie Willis. These stories, and the others in the series, feature time-traveling historians from the year 2060 who visit England during World War II to observe history in the making. Because they must blend in while observing the “contemps” (short for “contemporaries”), they take jobs and new identities: a shop girl on Oxford Street during the London Blitz, an American journalist at Dunkirk, and a maid in a country manor that has become a shelter for children evacuated from the bomb-ridden cities.

Clearly I was born many decades too soon. Wouldn’t it be cool to travel back in time and see history in the raw—and experience the events than never made it into the history books? But if I had a time machine, I wouldn’t travel back to the Blitz. (How crazy is that?) I’d set the dial for Persia and seek out some of the happening places in the ancient and not-so-ancient world. Here are my top 3 picks for a historical adventure:

A valley in the Alborz Mountains

My first stop will be in 1930, the year that the British explorer, Freya Stark, embarked on her famous, and often hazardous, trek through the Iranian back country. She was searching for the elusive Alamut Castle in the Alborz Mountains, stronghold of the Nizari Ismaili mystics, also know as the Assassins. (A few years later, she also traveled to Lorestan, a region in the Zagros Mountains, near the Iraq border. In The Valleys of the Assassins, Stark’s account of her Iranian adventures, she describes the area as “that part of the country where one is less frequently murdered.”)

It sounds ominous, I know. But along with the bandits, shifty-eyed tribal chieftains, and policemen whose “protection” bribes were only a few cents less than that those of the outlaws, Stark encountered the last vestiges of traditions that even then were starting to die out. She describes breathtaking landscapes, and that exuberant Persian hospitality that Iranians are still famous for today. Equipped with letters of introduction from authorities in Tehran, she charmed her way past the suspicious natures of people unaccustomed to trusting strangers and ended up documenting the Alborz range’s remote valleys for the Royal Geographic Society. Apart from witnessing history as it unfolds, it would be thrilling to watch this fearless adventurer in action.

The problem with time travel is that you can never say goodbye to your new friends. So after we trek back to civilization from the Alamut Valley, I’ll have to slip away to my time machine and set the dial (or maybe it uses a switch—who knows) for another era. I’m heading far into the past, 2,500 years to be precise, to the time of Cyrus the Great.

To blend in, I’ll need a job, so I’m off to join the chapars, those swift relay couriers who carried the mail throughout the vast Persian Empire, crossing from one end to the other in a matter of days. They rode from one chapar-khaneh (courier house) to the next, which were situated as far apart as a man could ride in a day without stopping to feed and water the horse. And at each stop, they switched to a fresh horse and continued the journey.

I’ll need to brush up on my horseback riding skills. But I’m surely in good physical shape now after trekking through the Alborz Mountains in 1930. Wouldn’t the Persian Pony Express be a great way to see a vast and prosperous empire? True, I’d probably take in little of the landscape, galloping across the country at top speed. But surely I’ll get to rest at the end of the ride and, with a little ingenuity, even sneak a peak into the mailbag. Maybe I’ll discover a story or two that never made it into the history books. To get an idea of what my life as a chapar will be like, check out the blog I wrote about Cyrus the Great’s postal service.

Entrance to the Isfahan Bazaar

After these two heart-stopping adventures, 17^th century Isfahan, my final stop on the way back to my own time, will seem almost dull. Or maybe not. It’s not for nothing that Isfahan is called nesf-e jahan (half the world). In the 1600s, after Shah Abbas I built his glorious capital in the Iranian desert, Isfahan became a major stop on the Silk Road. Its squares and bazaars were thronged with people from all over the world. The arts flourished with everything from carpet weaving and miniature painting to bookbinding and calligraphy to tilework and the lovely architecture that still characterizes the city today. Maybe I’ll even get a glimpse of the silk, gold, and silver Polonaise carpets that Abbas commissioned to promote trade with Europe.

What I’d really like to find out, though, is whether there was a tunnel beneath Naghsh-e Jahan Square, connecting Shah Abbas’s Ali Qapu Palace to the Sheikh Lotfallah Mosque. A guide at the mosque once told me it existed at one time, but I’ve never been able to confirm the truth of his words. It is said that the mystery passage was built to allow the shah’s wives to pass from the palace to their female-only house of worship without being seen. Since I’m unlikely to get into the palace (or the mosque) to find the tunnel, I’ll have to suss out the secret from the gossips at the bazaar.

So that’s my whirlwind tour of history. What about you? If you had a time machine, where would you go?

View From the Top of the World

Mount Damavand, Iran
Photo by Arad Mojtahedi

My husband and I have a personal joke. Every time we plan a trip to Iran, I ask him, “so this time, we’ll go on a camel ride through the desert, right?”

He just rolls his eyes.

There is a story behind this joke. On my first trip to Iran, our plane landed in Tehran just after midnight, and the next morning I was eager to rush out and explore the city in the daylight. I stepped onto my in-laws’ balcony, expecting to see an exciting and unfamiliar urban world rushing through the streets below. But what caught my attention was a gorgeous mountain off to the left, its snow-capped peaks a mottled vision of blue-gray shadows and sparkling white flanks against a perfect blue sky. It was my first glimpse of Mount Damavand, the jewel of the Alborz Range.

I rushed inside and dragged my husband out. “Look!” I pointed at the mountain. “They have snow here!”

My husband, Tehran native that he is, was underwhelmed by my enthusiasm. “So you expected to see nomads riding camels among the sand dunes?”

Well, not exactly. I’d seen pictures of Iranian nomads, and they were mainly herding sheep and weaving carpets. Not a camel or sand dune in sight. But even my knowledge of the real Iran hadn’t prepared me for just how damp Tehran can be in March: rivulets tracking down the rocky cliffs at the north end of the city; water gushing through the joobs (gutters) lining the streets; and heavy fog hanging over the city as Damavand’s snow cap melts.

Since that first trip, I’ve visited many parts of Iran, and the country’s natural beauty and vast biodiversity never cease to amaze me. Mountains, rainforests, rivers and lakes, marshes and farmland—and yes, even a few deserts—this country has a bit of everything.

But as far as I’m concerned, Iran’s mountains are its best feature. The country boasts the tallest peak west of the Afghan/Pakistani Hindu Kush (Damavand, north of Tehran, at 18,600 feet) and diverse climates ranging from arid to semitropical. I’ve stood shivering in gusts of snowy wind on the slopes of Mount Tochal near Tehran and sweated in my own personal sauna beneath the obligatory Islamic scarf and tunic in the sweltering heat of a Caspian summer day.

On every visit to Tehran, I like to drive over the Alborz Range to the Caspian Sea, and my preferred route is along the Chalous Road. It’s a five-hour, hair-raising journey along a two-lane track of hairpin turns and dark tunnels carved through the mountain. Sections of the road pass below wooden avalanche barriers built as protection from falling snow. They look barely sturdy enough to withstand a stiff wind, let alone hold tons of snow, ice, and rock at bay.

But once I get over the heart-stopping fear of plunging over the edge of the road, the sheer beauty of the landscape takes my breath away. Pockets of snow cling to rocky crevices on the left, while the cliffs on the right plunge into nothingness except for the deep ravines the ancient rivers have cut into the stone. I can always tell when we’ve past the crest of the range because the sparse vegetation starts turning greener and lusher with each passing mile. And when you drive through that last long tunnel and pop out into the sunshine on the other side, the Caspian Sea stretches to the horizon, a deep Mediterranean blue meeting a pale sky.

At sea level, the Caspian coastal road clings to the southern shore of this landlocked salt sea, but the best views heading west are on the south side of the road, where tendrils of mist weave through the forested hills. Farther west, the landscape flattens into rice paddies, pastures of grazing cattle and horses, and knobby green fields of tea.

One of the most mystical experiences I can remember was a telecabine (chair lift) ride up the mountain from the town of Namak Abrud. At the top lies a labyrinth of paths beneath dripping trees, where other hikers appear as shadowy figures through dense fog. Kiosks stand at intersections, where you can warm your insides with a bowl of thick noodle soup or toast your chilled feet near the fire and inhale the scent of grilling kebabs.

I may tease my husband with images of nomads riding camels through sandy deserts. But the real images that Iran’s natural wonders conjure up for me are snow-capped mountains, rushing streams, and green fields stretching along a blue sea.

Tehran’s Gateway to the Mountains

Many travel guides to Iran offer this advice when it comes to Tehran: Get out of town as soon as you can. Seek out the prettier spots the country has to offer.

Bad advice, in my opinion. Sure, Tehran is humongous, overcrowded, and noisy. The air is practically unbreathable. Crossing the chaotic streets requires nerves of steel and a strong sense of calculated risk. (Drivers don’t stop just because a pedestrian happens to stand in the way). But Tehran offers a fascinating blend of tradition and modernity, from the chic European-style boutiques on Vanak Square to the traditional (and fragrant) spice markets in the bazaars.

The Tehran neighborhood that best represents this blend of old and new is Darband. Once a separate village, whose name means “closed gate,” this district has long since been incorporated into the metropolis. It is a maze of narrow streets, snack shops, and restaurants wedged tightly between the city proper and the Alborz Mountains. A tourist paradise, Darband is also a popular destination for the locals, particularly the young, hip crowd. But watch out for the enterprising shopkeepers who try to charge for premium curbside parking spots. The fact that the streets are public doesn’t stop them from trying to make an extra, not strictly legitimate profit.

The higher reaches of this sloping neighborhood mark the starting point of a popular hiking trail that winds up the side of Mount Tochal, crossing streams and bordering deep ravines. Tehranis are big on exercise in the fresh air, and nowhere in the city is the air clearer and cleaner than in Darband. Tehran is the only city I know of where you can walk straight from the city into the mountains without driving long distances into the countryside.

Lower down, the trail is lined with restaurants that the locals call ghaveh-khaneh sonnati, or traditional coffee shops. Don’t be fooled by the name; you’re more likely to find tea than coffee served here. The tables, known as takhts, have no chairs, and you sit right on a carpet spread over the top (shoes off, please). Tea arrives on round trays and comes with saffron-scented nabat (rock candy on a stick), and a side of fresh, syrupy dates.

My favorite time to visit Darband is at night, when the lights of the coffee shops on the mountain twinkle far above your head and the air is filled with the crackling of charcoal fires and the smoky aromas of grilling lamb and chicken kebabs. The glow of lamplight from snack shop doorways, where tables are piled high with jars of brined fresh walnuts and dried berries glistening in a bright red syrup, adds a festive spark.

I like to find a takht next to the stream that runs beside the trail and engage in my favorite hobby: people watching. The flow of humanity along the trail is a cross-section of Tehran society: conservative women in black chadors, who amazingly manage to avoid tripping over the hems of their voluminous cloaks and go tumbling into the stream. The young and hip also manage to negotiate the rough path safely in stylish heels, brightly colored headscarves, and clingy, thigh-length tunics—just barely within the parameters of Islamic modesty laws. The lovers at the next table hold hands and feed each other sticky dates (a no-no in an Islamic society where dating is officially banned, and yet couples  routinely ignore that particular rule). Nearby, a group of friends, men and women mixed, share an apple-scented smoke from a ghalyan, or hookah, which is also banned, yet readily available for rent from any teahouse. Rules can be flexible in this part of Tehran.

On a recent trip to Darband, I saw a sight that expressed everything this neighborhood means to me. A donkey, staggering under the burden on its back, stood outside a small refreshment shop. A man was busy unloading its cargo of plastic water bottles for sale in the store, necessary refreshment for those hikers off on a trek into the mountains. It was winter and the mountain trail covered with snow, but I yearned to grab a few supplies, shoulder my day pack, and head for the hills.

Do you know a favorite spot that perfectly reflects the character of a particular city or region?