Series
It started out as a loop to Western Iran: the goal was to visit the cities of Hamedan, Kermanshah and Sanandaj. An excursion into Kurdish territory. 1200km in 3 days, not entirely unreasonable. I set out with Karim in Shahriar's car and headed west until we reached the caves at Ali Sadr. While it was very cold outside, the temperature was a comfortable 16C in the caves — surely the effect of the water. There are kilometers of waterways and walkways in there, and the cave is up to 40m high in places — very impressive.
The town of Hamedan itself was a bit of a disappointment. Bu Ali Sina, better known to us as Avicenna, famous Persian philosopher and physician wrote the Canon Medicinae in the 9th Century which served as the reference on medicine in Europe until the 17th Century. His Mausoleum, however, was built in 1954 and was not particularly interesting anyway I tried to see it. The modern city of Hamedan is built over the ruins of the ancient city of Ekbataneh, the summer capital of the Mede and then Achaemenid empires. Unfortunately the remains are nothing like those in Persepolis: a bunch of trenches that were dug by various archeological expeditions that really don't tell much of a story to the neophyte that I am.
On the way from Hamedan to Kermanshah were the Achaemenid bas-relief in Bisotun. These dates back to 520BC and are some 60m above street-level, up on the cliff. Having decided that we really couldn't see them from the lookout point, we proceeded to climb up the cliff. It turned out that when we got there we couldn't really see them either, we were too close... About half-way down, the police noticed us and started blowing whistles, which certainly increased the pressure on us but didn't make us come down any faster... Eventually Karim was able to smooth-talk us out of that one.
Kermanshah left me a good impression, probably because people were so nice and hospitable. But really the city doesn't have much for itself, being only 300km from the Iraqi border it got pounded pretty heavily during the Iran-Iraq war. Its been reconstructed hastily, in the cheap and practical concrete-all-over style. There were nice Sassanian bas-relief in Taq-é Bostan, a beautiful park in middle of the town with pretty amazing rocks. Unfortunately by then it was pouring rain...
On the way between Kermanshah and Sanandaj, we were driving through some attractive rock formations, and since the rain had relented for a while we decided to take a break from the driving. It turned out to be some tough climbing: the rock was brittle and wet, I had no proper shoes or helmet — let alone a rope. But we had fun until once again chased by rain. In Sanandaj itself there isn't much to see; but I noticed the highest concentration of pretty girls in any place in Iran (Kurdish mostly). Also, the meat was amazing and I had the best Kebabs so far. The return trip was long and slow due to the rain, and I discovered lots of Iranian pop bands... I realized how hard it is to drive here, with cars coming at you from every possible direction, including towards you on the wrong side of the road.