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Soltaniyeh, Iran
Wednesday, Sep 07, 2005

Family Stay

David Murray
2007-02-21 19:56:09

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We had seen all there was to see of Zanjan, and the hotel we were staying in was a right shithole. No air con and the fan needed to be clutch started, and I mean around ten minutes of hand spinning before it would start !!!!! So we both wanted out of there. The next stop was a place called Soltanyeh. Just a mausoleum, built by this guy who wanted to be known for something. The dome on this thing is actually the largest brick dome in the world, so it sounded impressive so this was to be the place to go. We were then going to catch a bus to Qazvin, home of the local gay population, or so all the jokes have us believe !!!!!

According to the locals in Zanjan, the place to catch a minibus is to far to walk, but they are Iranians and never walk, so we walked and in 15 minutes, we were where we needed to be. I grabbed an old lady, and in my best Farsi, I asked her if this was the place that we needed to be at, but she did not understand me and she grabbed a couple of young girls. They asked me what was my problem and I told them that I needed to get to Soltaniyeh as I wanted to go to see the mausoleum. They said that the minibuses were slow and I should take a taxi. I explained that as I am not from Iran, the drivers would rip me off. One girl said that as she was going our way, she would come with us to make sure we would pay the right price. Bargain. We had a new best friend. After about half an hour, we arrived, swapped emails and sent her on her way.

We walked through the gates and was accosted straight away. This guy, as usual wanted to talk English and drink tea, but we were on a mission to see this mausoleum, so we declined and had a walk around. Realistically, it was covered in scaffold inside, but the sheer scale of this building is amazing. There were loads of colourful tiles to be seen, but then we were accosted again by a group of students. One girl had an Aunt who lived in Sydney and she really wanted ...