All of Iran is filled with little mud villages of great poetry. They will spring up at you in the middle of the desert and disappear just as quickly. They have wells for water, of course, but very few trees give protection from the cruel sun. The houses are built around a central courtyard, the walls of which are also made from mud, with bits of straw mixed in for consistency.

And so the country side rolls by, deserts punctuated by mud villages with their mud mosques and mud caravanserais. Men speed through the alleyways on bicycle (any two-wheeled vehicle is forbidden to females in Iran, except as passengers), the heat makes your mind brittle. And then you come to Bam. Bam is the quintessential mud city and was abandoned five hundred years ago by all but the ticket seller (a whopping 15,000 Rials for one visit, when you really need two).

The town which must have housed 30,000 in its heyday is surmounted by a large mud citadel which gives a remarkable view of the surrounding mountains which are as dry and un-welcoming as bones with the odd oasis thrown in. It is as though the desert were launching a challenge at human kind: here's an oasis, can you take the rest of me? Human kind answered yes, and the oasis's are islands of majestic green; the surrounding desert slowly tamed and chartered.

But the real charm in the old city are the ruins. Entire areas have been left to wind and the occasional rain and look like they were built from brown sugar. Roofs have long since melted, leaving only the occasional archway.

Alleyways lead to the bazaar and with a little imagination you can hear the merchants and priests and whores going about their daily business. Sunset on the citadel is worth all of Iran, with reds and violets and oranges which leave you wondering if you are really seeing them or have simply gone mad and taken an entire landscape with you.

The new city of Bam is also made of mud, with houses surrounded by high mud walls, protecting gardens of palm trees and vineyards. The Lonely Planet recommends the Legal Guest House, but it is an airless dive and Phillipe and Loare complained of catching bedbugs there. We stayed at the Akbar Guest House, a little further out of town.

The rooms surround a sunken garden of great grace and wind catching wonder. Akbar and his son and nephew are wonderful and I can never thank Akbar enough for his hospitality and invitation to his home on Marie-Do's birthday to meet his wife and partake in Iranian culture. To him, then, I dedicate this poem.


O

sweetest wonder walking
night the
palm trees singing
spring song
narrow streets
mud of gold
the straw bits
shimmering under
stars
so old.

the grace of their
slender arms
women
lithe and wise
in night
stand and wait,
justified.

inside gardens
of brown
privacy
they grow
get fat, strong and happy
joyous their fruit
heaven's own
heavy bough.



From Bam we continued East, the car re-packed to take Philipe and Laure, a French couple we met in Esfahan, and we headed in the direction of Pakistan.

Arriving in Zehedan is like arriving in another world. Although nominally still in Iran, it is home to the Balutch tribe, and really their exclusive territory. The entire place is given over to the smuggling of drugs and petrol and the desert is alive with races between smugglers and the army, all of whom drive around on jeep gun-mounts like the desert rats of WWII.

They say that Zehedan is so dangerous that your car can be stripped while you eat your kebab, and so we decided to head off for the next town which sits literally on the border, Mir Javeh, and which is supposed to be safer. It was safer, but the hotel, the , is a disgusting expensive dive - home to a whole new breed of cockroaches and the most stupid and incompetent staff East of the British Isles.

But the next day we were to pass another frontier and enter into Pakistan. Once again we were faced with the thrill of the border, of a new language, a new currency, food and people and all that makes travel a shimmering a vivifying thing, all that makes travel a way of life.

It was Marie-Do's birthday, and she was sad at having no wine to drink and being forced to share the occasion with cockroaches. But Phillipe and Laure and I promised her that our first night in Pakistan, come what may, there would be beer for her birthday. And so there was.