the day, including the tombs of renowned Iranian poets Hafez and Sa’di.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In the center of Shiraz is a most remarkable building. Standing timelessly amongst the city’s bustling streets is a vast sand-colored ancient citadel called Arg-e Karim Khani. It’s not the sort of thing you expect to see in a city center and looks instead as if it should be situated amongst rolling sand dunes being used as a desert stronghold. Constructed in a vast high-walled square, its basic but imposing structure is beautifully accentuated on each of its four corners by forty-five-foot high circular towers embellished with decorative patterned bricks. On its southeastern side, the fortress’s tower has an interesting architectural anomaly, in that it leans over at an insanely sloping angle, reminiscent of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It is said, although I’m not sure I believe it, that experts from the more famous leaning tower once visited Shiraz to offer their expertise to help correct it, but after a thorough examination, the Pisa boys admitted defeat as the slope was just too great for them. It was the first site that Verity and I stopped off to visit together.
Inside the fortress was a sign announcing, THE EXALTED STATURE OF KARIM KHANI CITADEL AMUSES EVERY NEW TRAVELER FOR A LONG TIME WHO ARRIVES IN SHIRAZ. The structure had previously been used as both a prison and part of the royal courtyard, although not at the same time. I quite liked the idea of its dual use, and whilst walking around imagined a similar scheme in Britain, where maybe the royal family could use the exercise area of Wormwood Scrubs Prison as a courtyard at weekends and a group of inmates could go stay at Buckingham Palace—something I’d be all in favor of.
Although the citadel contained little of interest within, its vast internal courtyard was a welcome sanctuary away from the bustle of the streets outside and had many attractive exotic plant displays. After a good gander at these and around the building, Verity and I got a cab to the Aramgah-e Sa’di or Tomb of Sa’di.
This was a lovely place dedicated to renowned Iranian poet Sa’di that contained a charming mausoleum set in a picturesque and peaceful garden. It had a relaxed and very reverent atmosphere despite the fact that it was crawling with Iranian tourists. Sa’di’s marble tomb was attractive, as was the building it was housed in, but it was more a place to come to relax and soak up the atmosphere rather than stand in awe at the architecture.
It had a nice selection of books on Iran at a little kiosk, which Verity and I browsed through before heading into what for me was the star attraction of the place, a little underground tea shop. This was beautifully decorated and had a delightful fishpond in the center. Its interior was wonderfully cool, which was more than welcome as today was blisteringly hot. I had a cool pomegranate juice whilst Verity indulged in a very strange Persian dessert. It consisted of that classic combination—ice cream, Jell-O, and soft squidgy savory noodles. I gave it a try but didn’t like it one bit. But taste, or lack of it, was no reason to eat or abstain from something as far as Verity was concerned. So long as it had a cleansing effect on her negative toxins, she was happy to tuck right in.
After two juices for me and more strange culinary combinations for Verity, we headed to the coach station so I could prebook a ticket to Yazd. I would have flown, but according to my guidebook there was no airport in Yazd (or so I thought until I got there and discovered one had been built since the book’s publication).
The bus terminal was heaving with people, and as I walked through its crowded interior, loads of bus operators tried to steer me in the direction of their particular company’s travel counter. I wasn’t having any of it and was determined for a bit of luxury on this trip so went straight for the Rolls Royce of Iranian bus companies and over to the Seir-o Safar counter. The helpful man there was dressed up like an airline pilot and spoke good English. He was the bearer of bad news, though, and informed me that all his coaches to Yazd were fully booked tonight.
This wasn’t what I wanted to hear; the last thing I fancied was spending the night on some death trap of a bus for such a long and arduous journey. He recommended another operator and said that their coaches were “okay,” although obviously not up to the superior quality of his. I wasn’t going to take his word on it, and before booking the ticket, I got the guy behind the recommended counter to confirm for me that the bus I’d be getting was the same as the nice modern Volvo pictured on the wall behind him. I repeated the question three times to be on the safe side. He was so determined to convince me he was legit and that I’d be getting a Volvo, that he got up from behind the counter and walked me out to where the coaches were parked. He pointed out the relevant one and said, “Volvo, yes?” It was indeed. I booked a ticket with him a moment later. With this in hand, Verity and I got on the move again.
We strolled to the town center via the city’s ancient bazaar, which was full of weird and wonderful sights. I particularly liked the shops selling sugar, which had chunks of the stuff purposefully solidified into phallic objects that looked for all the world like big sugar lump dildos.
We stopped by a man with a huge silver urn selling tea so Verity could get herself one. Never one to pass on a
Not far on, we popped into a bookshop for a browse around. On the spur of the moment, I said to the shop assistant, “Modern Tacking!” and was led to a huge section of the store dedicated to Germany’s answer to the Beatles. There was an array of Modern Talking material on offer, ranging from quality hardback books to cheap photocopied pamphlets with terrible spellings and rather dubious translations of their lyrics. These were hilarious and had vast sections edited out, presumably because they were deemed inappropriate. One song’s title had even received a seeing to and only “My ****, **** *****” remained. It must have been a racy number, because nearly the entire track was blanked out as well, making it almost indecipherable. Verity and I flicked through a couple of these pamphlets and were in stitches at some of the lyrics.
I couldn’t control myself and bought one of these and one of their sturdier Persian-to-English translation books. They were both outstanding.
I took this literature, along with my copy of Hafez that Pedram had given to me, to the tomb of the great man. Like the tomb of Sa’di, Hafez’s resting place was situated in a lovely garden that had a very tranquil atmosphere. His mausoleum was more modest in size and was an octagonal pavilion structure with an internally tiled decorative dome in a kaleidoscope of patterns and colors. The most amazing thing about the place was the absolute reverence with which people treated his tomb. It was as if a revered saint were buried here, not simply a poet who had strung a few ditties together. People would walk up and bow their heads, touch their hearts, and reverently place their hands on the tomb. Iranians sure do take their poetry seriously.
We both sat down in the park, and to fully appreciate Hafez’s work, we had a look at his book together. Now I mean no disrespect to my Iranian friends, and maybe the translation of the book was incorrect, but the verses seemed to all rhyme in a very similar fashion to Modern Talking’s lyrics. To test this theory, Verity and I selected a passage from each book, which we read aloud for the other to guess which one it was from without looking. It wasn’t easy. Perhaps this accounted for the huge popularity of Germany’s finest in Iran. And I wondered if, in years to come, Iran would have a mausoleum dedicated to Modern Talking, where thousands of pilgrims would flock to pay their respects and sit and read their lyrics. It wouldn’t surprise me, and I’ll bet good money on there being one for Chris de Burgh just as soon as he snuffs it.
It is said that if you want to know your destiny, you should open a copy of Hafez and it will be revealed to
