Yazd And Still Further Into The Desert - Chak Chak
Posted On Thursday, September 22, 2011 at at 12:20 AM by Alvin
Reluctantly leaving the Persian elegance that was Isfahan, we headed to the Iranian desert town of Yazd. We arrived at 2P.M. and found the town virtually "closed down" with hardly a living soul around. We quickly figured that similar to Southern Europe, Yazd was simply taking a Siesta from the unforgiving sun and dry heat (40C). We did likewise and "hid" inside our traditional hotel which was beautifully restored to resemble a historical palace with a large court yard decked out with comfortable tables and chairs for taking tea.
At about 5P.M. when the sun gave way a little, we ventured out to this interesting city and visited the Water Museum that detailed the famous Quanat - ancient irrigation systems and tunnels dug deep down in to the desert floors and channeled water from wells to all parts of the city - very informative and in fact still used today. The skyline of Yazd was characterised by the numerous windtowers and ice houses where the dry and hot desert air could be cooled to refrigerator temperatures for storing foods and provided a livable environment. Last but not least, the ancient alleys of the old city were built narrow with high walls to minimise the impact of the harsh sun rays - ancient wisdom which we were to come across again in MASDAR, the Green Future City of Abu Dhabi in our later journey. We even walked 10km (passing 5 big round-abouts) to the Towers Of Silence - an ancient Zoroastrian (拜火教) worshipping and burial site - we spent the rest of that afternoon cooling off by having tea in our lovely courtyard ! We spent a morning further in the bone dry desert and visited the Zoroastrian sacred site of Chak Chak and to our amazement, after all this walking in the dry heat, we have each lost 2 kilos !
