The Wandering Scot

An occasional travel journal.

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Zoroastrian Yazd

The city of Yazd is the main remaining Zoroastrian center in Iran.  Zoroastrianism is (along with Christianity and Judaism) one of the three recognized and protected religious minorities under the Islamic Republic’s constitution.  So worship and pilgrimages are officially  tolerated, although probably not exactly encouraged.

ZoroastrianTower of Silence

"Tower of Silence" near Yazd

I hired a car and guide for the trip out to the Zoroastrian shrine at Chak Chak.  We stopped first at one of the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence atop a steep hill near Yazd.  The Zoroastrian religion forbids the polluting of the pure elements (especially water, earth and fire) with a corpse.  So both cremation and earth burial were disavowed.  Instead, bodies were exposed to be devoured by vultures in these “towers of silence”.  This is an odd inversion of the normal Christian or Muslim customs: the emphasis is not on preventing disturbance to the body, but rather on preventing the body disturbing the elements.

The tower was much lower and flatter than I expected.  It is really a circular wall, around 15-20 feet high,  around a raised platform.  This example is about 180 years old.  According to my guide, after the bodies had been devoured by vultures, the bones were collected in a central hole and then periodically dissolved by nitric acid.  It is now disused: the modern practice is to perform burials in concrete lined tombs.

Road to Chak ChakThe Chak Chak site is about 73 km from Yazd and is revered as a miraculous place of refuge for the pious daughter of the last of the Zoroastrian Persian Kings.  In 640 AD the Princess and a few retainers were fleeing in despair from the Arab invaders, across the Iranian desert.  According to the tale, they were close to death from thirst when the Princess tapped her staff on a rock and miraculously a tiny drip-drip of water appeared.  That drip-drip, in Persian “chak chak”, gives the name to the site.

The Chak Chak  ShrineThe site is on the side of a forbidding craggy mountain, a long drive from Yazd across an arid gravelly desert.  The mountain side looks entirely dry and desolate. I can well imagine that after emerging from the desert, the discovery of an entirely unexpected tiny spring, literally only drips, may have well seemed like a miracle to the pious.

The shrine, at the top of many steep steps, is covered by a fairly recent dome and protected by a modern stone wall and stout bronze doors.  Tree trunks grow sideways out of the wall in front of the entrance.  Inside, there is still a drip-drip of water, now being caught in silver bowls.  It is a small site, but it is both simple and charming.  The shrine is the target for annual pilgrimages each June and various Zoroastrian communities have built their own hostels near the site, to shelter their pilgrims.

Yazd Zoroastrian AteshgahBack in Yazd, I visited the Zoroastrian Ateshga, or fire temple.  The current building dates from only 1934, but the holy flame is reputedly the continuation of a flame that has been kept burning since 470 AD.  The flame burns in an urn in a separate room, and we may only view it through a protective glass window.  To complement the fire, there is a large water pool in front of the temple.

Zoroastrian Holy Flame, YazdSigns on the walls carefully explain to visitors that Zoroaster preached monotheism, and they emphasize similarities with Judaism/Christianity/Islam.  We are assured that Zoroastrians do not “worship”  fire, but merely use it as a convenient focus for worshiping Ahura Mazda, the universal god.  (Well chosen messages for friendly co-existence in an Islamic Republic.)

The Darvaza Gas Crater

The Darvaza Gas Crater is the debris from a disastrously failed Soviet gas well. After the failure, the escaping gas was left to burn itself out. It has been merrily burning for over 30 years now.  (More Davaza photos.)

Through StanTours, I had arranged a 4WD, driver and guide for the trip, about 150 miles North from Ashgabat across the Karakum desert. The Karakum desert is known as the “black sand” desert, but I’m afraid the sand looked regular sand colour to me. Most of the desert was scrubby desert, with occasional small shrubs, like the outer parts of the Taklamakan.  But there were occasional sections of pure sand.

We visited three craters. The first was a deep crater with a pool with green water at the bottom, with small bubbles of gas bubbling up.  The second was another deep crater with a pool of mud at the bottom, bubbling merrily and emitting gas. This was quite interesting.

The third and by far the largest, was the Darvaza gas crater itself, eight km east of the road. This was about 40 meters across and perhaps 20 meters deep. The sides and bottom were lined with flames from many fault lines in the rock. It was bright daylight, so it was all relatively subdued, but it was still very cool.

There was a dull roar of sound from the fires and much heat from the crater. I walked around it and when I was downwind, it was oven-like. I could see pipes leading into the top of the crater, so my suspicion is that this was a working gas hole, which blew, destroying the top section. But perhaps the deeper drill pipe hole is still open, which is making it easy for gas to get near the surface and it then percolates up through the loose rock in the crater?

Ashgabat: Much Strangeness

Turkmenistan is by far the strangest of the ex-soviet Republics.  The late President Niyazov (aka “Turkmenbashi”) ruled as an absolute monarch, with a personality cult that would have made Stalin blush.   Strange relics of his reign still dot Ashgabat.

Arch of Neutrality

The Arch of Neutrality is a 75 meter tripod tower, adorned with a 12 meter golden statue of the late God-King President Niyazov.  The golden statue rotates through the course of the day, so that the God-King President is always facing the Sun and so that he dispenses his blessings equally to all points of the compass.

Earthquake Memorial

Ashgabat suffered a devastating earthquake in 1948, killing perhaps as many as 100,000 people, including President Niyazov’s mother. But miraculously the infant Niyazov survived.

The earthquake memorial, in a rather nice piece of symbolism, shows a bull tossing the earth in its horns.  Writhing figures mark Ashgabat’s location.  However, fear not, all is not lost!  A dying mother lifts a golden infant, the future god-king President Niyazov to safety.  (Alas!)

Lenin

The local statue of Lenin is comparatively modest.  It is however distinguished in having an impressive tiled plinth, in a Central Asian style with Lenin’s name in flowing Turkmenistan letters.

Ashgabad’s new city area has broad avenues of tall white “marble” apartment buildings. It clearly aspires to be futuristic, but it looks like a 1950’s vision of a Soviet Model City. I much prefer Astana’s more daring vision.

“The World’s Tallest Flagpole”

“The Great Plunger”

Astana is Kazakhstan’s new post-Soviet capital, in the Northern steppes.  The faces on the streets seem mostly Central Asian, so it seems to have succeeded in attracting a large ethnic Kazakh population into what was formerly an ethnic-Russian part of the country.  That may not have been President Nazarbayev’s sole goal, but it has certainly helped to cement a Kazakh identity in the North.

I hiked around the large, dazzling, new government area.  This is like a Pudong on the Steppes, struggling on a smaller scale to represent a bold new City of the Future.  I love it.  While the buildings are individually smaller than the giants of Dubai or Pudong, the overall architectural style is even more aggressive, bold and dashing.  And yes, genuinely futuristic.

Baiterek Tower

105 meters tall and purely for fun.

Presidential Palace

A rather bland Presidential Palace, which is ably defended by two giant Golden Daleks, and backed up by a giant pyramid.

"Palace Of Peace and Concord" + Independence Column

Nominally intended for meetings of world religious leaders, it doubles as a conference center and has a large concert hall in the basement.

"Transport Tower"

32 stories tall. Locally nicknamed the “Cigarette Lighter”.

Inside the Peace pyramid, looking up at the apex.

Astana Circus

A flying saucer, unconvincingly pretending to be a circus.

With only a few exceptions, the former Soviet Republics inherited a mix of either very bland 1930s style official buildings or mostly very dull “modern” concrete boxes. So it’s good to see an outbreak of genuinely creative architecture. I do wonder how well some of these buildings, with their bright metallic sheathings, will age. They look like they will require significant maintenance, which is often harder to find money for than the first brash conception. But all the same, I’m happy to see them! Hurrah!

Hong Kong’s Dark Tower is one of my favourite buildings.

It is officially called “2 International Finance Center”, but that seems very poor camouflage for such a mighty command post, obviously destined for World Dominion.  I find it both wonderfully elegant and distinctly sinister.  I particularly love the claw-like fingers gently cupping over its peak.

I suspect it is from the same architects who designed Orthanc.

Kashgar, April 30th 2008

The only road between China and Pakistan is the Karakoram Highway (KKH) which goes over the 4730 m (15,500 ft) Khunjerab pass at the border.    It is a spectacular journey, over a wild road, across the Western edges of the Himalayas.

The pass is closed in winter and nominally reopens on May 1st each year. I was duly in Kashgar on April 30th, hoping to catch either a jeep or the two-day cross-border bus via Tashkurgan (China) to Sost (Pakistan) the following morning.  But at the Chini Bagh Hotel, I learned from the redoubtable Ali Tash of UighurTour that there were problems crossing to Pakistan.  First, the bus company was unclear about whether they would start the bus service tomorrow or not.  It is the multi-day Chinese May 1st holiday and there was a natural lack of enthusiasm for starting the bus service on the holiday.  Sigh.  Second, the Chinese authorities have changed the regulations so that any independent jeep drivers going across the border now need a passport, not simply their Chinese ID and right now there aren’t any drivers available who have all the needed paperwork.

Kashgar to Tashkurgan, May 1st 2008

Early next morning I check at the bus station and learn there “probably” won’t be a bus through to Pakistan until May 5th.  Sigh.   Back at the Chini Bagh, I arrange a car for the initial hop to Tashkurgan, via one of Ali Tash’s capable henchmen.

View at Kara Kul

We made a fast (under five hour) trip down to Tashkurgan.  The road was through spiky mountains, with some snow caps.  We made a brief stop at lake Kara Kul.  It’s pleasant and scenic, but there is much better scenery elsewhere on the KKH.

At Tashkurgan I checked into the spartan but adequate Jiao Tong (“Transport”) Hotel, which is convenient for buses and customs.   After several strolls through town, I confirmed that the local jeep drivers don’t have passports and thus can’t go into Pakistan and that no jeeps had come in from Pakistan.  Sigh.

Tashkurgan, May 2nd 2008

The Border is Open, but you cannot cross.”

Tashkurgan is at 10,000+ ft and is pleasantly cold after Kashgar’s heat, with clear clean  mountain air.  There are a number of hotels in town catering to Chinese tourists, who come out here to China’s far West to enjoy the scenic views of the Western Himalayas.

At reception, I learned that a bus had come over from Sost the night before and the reception clerk assured me that this meant the bus would go back to Pakistan today and I could catch it “at immigration”.

After a great deal of confused searching, I finally located the “bus station”, actually a ticket counter cunningly hidden in the middle of the custom and immigrations area.  But after hanging out for over an hour, I am officially informed that (a) the border is open and (b) there will be no bus to Sost today.  However, I am assured there will be a bus tomorrow.  Hmm.  We’ll see.

Tashkurgan to Sost, May 3rd 2008

By the following morning several other travelers have straggled in, and seven of us show up at the bus station desk at immigration on May 3rd.  Apparently we now have a quorum, and they duly arrange two vehicles for us, a land cruiser and a small minibus.

A little later a squad of a dozen or so smartly uniformed Chinese frontier police march up in neat formation and then disperse to chat and slowly boot up the immigration PCs.

The frontier police appear to have recently conducted some kind of team self-improvement project on how to improve customer service and they provide a helpful leaflet, in Chinese, Uighur and English, charmingly labeled  “The propaganda“.

The leaflet notes their goals and their key self-improvement resolutions. These include basics such as  “Don’t play, chat or smoke” , the encouraging “Don’t treat passangar coldly, strongly and arrogantly“, the sterner “Don’t ask and accept money“, the slightly worrying “Don’t scold, beat and punish the suspicious criminals” and ends with the wise “Don’t revenge the people who have complained.”  I am very happy to learn of all these fine resolutions.

After the PCs booted, we were carefully and politely processed through.

View at Khunjerab pass

I took the minibus with an Irish couple.  Two Chinese frontier police joined us, carrying supplies for their colleagues nearer the pass.  Alas, our little minibus proved prone to overheating.  We made several stops so the driver could pour icy stream water into the overheated engine.  At one point the engine actually died and we had to push it a short way until it could roll downhill to the nearest stream and get some cold water.

As we drove, I was delighted to see a golden marmot run across the road in front of us.  He was big and plump and very golden.  Later we saw many others off in the distance.

Scotsman at Khunjerab

We stopped briefly at various checkpoints along the way, both Chinese and Pakistani.

The actual border point is at the top of the Khunjerab Pass (4730 meters) with suitable markers.  Like everyone else, we stopped for photos, the clock change, and the change to the left of the road.

The road on the Chinese side of the border was easy and well maintained, but it immediately became much rougher on the Pakistani side.  There were often steep drops on the side of the road. But the mountains are also steeper and more scenic.  We passed many frozen rivers and one major glacier near Passau.

In the Khunjerab National Park we saw World Wildlife Fund signs.  We saw a small group of ibex fording a small river.  We dutifully paid our 35 Yuan park entry fee at the park exit.

We saw no freight traffic and only a few jeeps going the other way.  However at the Pakistani border post there is a notice recording that about 5700 Pakistanis and 8500 foreigners came south in 2006, with similar outgoings.  That’s still fairly light traffic for a major cross-border route.

At Pakistani immigration at Sost we confirm that we were the first foreigners to come south through the pass this year.  Ha!

After some haggling over who went where in what, I shared a taxi with an English couple to Karimabad.   Our driver turned out to be an Ismaili  who among other things was learning Japanese.  He explained vigorously how he was very proud to be Ismaili, because they didn’t hurt anyone!  We applauded this fine sentiment!