Silk Route

Day 49 - Sat 03 May 08

Yazd

Feeling a bit better after last night but I still have a headache I think it might be due to dehydration, so I'm going to try and drink as much water as I can. Headed out to do the city walking tour, the water museum is a highlight and has a Quant underneath it. The room is so lovely and cool. I head for a bank and manage to change another US$100 into 919,000R. So with the rest of my Iranian cash I'm now a millionaire!

Headed into the old town and saw a fabulous bakery. The oven has a great circular conveyer belt, raw dough is loaded on one side and it comes out the other side beautiful tasting flat bread. Saw the Alexander prison and the Merchants House, somehow I manage to get the information place to book me a seat on the 08:00 bus to Shiraz tomorrow!

It's 14:00 by the time I get back to the hotel and everything is closing day for lunch. I managed to get into the Water Museum for free and even managed to get a cup of tea with the bloke who runs it. All the other museums seem to charge a flat fee of 2000R, a fifth of what the LP says it should be costing me. I can only assume that tourist prices have been abolished.

While in the old town I saw a kid who could have been no more than three riding his bike (with stabilisers). He cycled up to the local bakery grabbed his shopping bag off the handlebars, pushed up to the front of the queue, handed over the cash and collected his bread. Could you imagine a kid in the UK doing that?

Out in the afternoon to see the Zoastrian fire temple, interesting but you can't get a photo of the fire as it's behind a sheet of plate glass so all you get a get is a reflection of yourself. They say that the flame as been burning since 470AD. Then decided to head out in a taxi to the Hills of Silence, where the Zoastrian's left out their dead. The taxi driver wouldn't take any cash from me, in the end I had to force some money into his hand!

Oh I Forgot, I also managed to get a good hair cut for 15,000R!