Whitcomb's Overland Trip continued - June 13-15, 1963

June 13, 1963

                We got off early.  The Iranians know how to save their water and every time there is any water at all there is a lovely settlement with tall cypress trees and green fields.  So refreshing after hours of scorching heat, miles of sand dunes, prickly bushes, sand eddies and not a living soul. 

                At noon we got to Kerman and bought nan right out of the oven at an interesting bakery.  We watched them put it in with long shovels into the furnace and then when it comes out they throw it down on the hearth to dust off the ashes, then set it up on a rack.  Everyone buys and carries it off.  The cities all look alike.  Suburbs of high walled houses, trees showing over the walls, clear water running in the ditches on the road sides.  There are wide roads, lovely squares with cypress trees, gardens, fountains, shops all around the square.  We met a young student who spoke good English who showed us around.  We went to the post office and sent telegrams that we were delayed.  Looked at an old mosque our guide wanted us to see.  He wanted us to come to his home but we went on.  We stocked up, watermelon, tomatoes, bread, Cokes and gas.

                Out of town a way a stone flipped up and cut the tire and we had a blow-out.  We changed it and get in to Rafsangan around 3 or 4 p.m.  Tried to buy a tire.  It would have cleaned us out of Irani money so we stayed till the bank opened.  It was hot in the car, a crowd formed staring at us, and we felt awful.  We parked outside the bank, there was a flower garden inside.  Got out of town finally and found a lovely cool canal to camp, three lined, cold and swift.  There was a wind and semi-dust storm blowing.  There were people at the road and they offered to let us stay in their house and asked for medicines.  They were gracious and kind.  Apparently all the buses and trucks stop here for water.

June 14, 1963

                Off at 7 a.m.  About 10 a.m. we came to an old fort on both sides of the road.  It looked really ancient.  We found a big, round well full of brittle green weeds, water clear as crystal but salty.  We sat and drank our tea and cookies and went on refreshed.  The scenery is all the same, sand and stones with bare colorful mountains on the horizon and corrugated road.

                Came into Yezd at noon.  We went into a restaurant into the back room and ordered rice, anan, kebabs and orange soda.  We saw the men drinking liquor in small glassed.  The we ordered tea and found out that it was hot tea in fragile, little glasses, served with a lump of sugar which you dip in the tea and suck. 

                We went on.  About twenty miles out of Yezd the car began acting up.  Stopped at an open room like a mosque and Daddy cleaned the air filter.  An old man sleeping on a lovely old rung woke up and offered us a seat on it, hospitable and kindly.

                At 6 p.m. the car stopped dead.  Everything seemed to have shaken loose; the oil cap had fallen off.  A truck driver stopped and looked at the engine with dad.  He said motor “thaman,” electrical system – or something “not thaman.”  Daddy flagged down a Volkswagen of men going into Nain.  We all sat in the van, in the dark, scared stiff and ate a supper of dry bread, canned deviled ham, apricots and condensed milk.  We put the lantern in the back window and Johnny and Bobby went to sleep.  Patty and I were wide awake.  At 9:10 p.m. daddy came back with a curly haired little mechanic in a Jeep with a driver.  Everything in the engine was loose.  They fiddled with it and the mechanic coaxed it into starting and we drove into town.  Daddy had bought us a big sack of nougat which we ate for countries to come.

                We got into the town about midnight, terribly sleepy and tired.  A restaurant owner cleared out his back room with lovely Persian carpets on the floor where we spread out and went to sleep.

June 15, 1963

                I forgot to say we saw several Persian cats wandering the streets as we drove in the night before.  Nice long haired ones.  We woke up to find ourselves in sort of a bus station.  Busses were parked in back.  The yard was filthy and the bathroom behind was unspeakable.  Mother would not let us use it.  “Curly” and his assistant showed up and worked on the van while we breakfasted on yogurt and cleaned the car, inside and out.  We took everything out, swept out the dust and tidied up the load in back and on top.   By then we had put the van back together and the mechanics paid, about $10 for everything.  We were out of Nain by 9 a.m.

                The road lay up over a mountain ridge, 2,000 feet or higher.  We went up to 7,000 feet valley between 8,000 foot peaks, past pretty little villages, wheat field and stone fences.  Pretty and picturesque.  Coming down into the plain again we went past a lot of heavy construction machinery, roads being constructed, very dusty.  We found an irrigation ditch and washed up as best we could outside Isfahan.  

                The town of Isfahan was fabulous; a big city set in garden fields, tree-lined streets, a garden paradise.  We drove into the downtown square, founds, ringed by flower beds, a road circling the square and surrounded by old blue domed mosques, colonnaded buildings and other beautiful old buildings.  We found a restaurant right off the square.  They would not let us in but motioned us to go across the street.  There we were shown into an upper room and food was brought to us – rice, nan, kebabs, yogurt, and water cress.  It was hard to communicate at all but they served what they should we should have.  Such interesting shops.  Lots of tourist curios.  I spotted a shoe store.  Lots of modern shops too.

                Julfa is across the river from the main city.  We got across to it and drove up and down for two hours asking for the address we had and using the little map we had which was wrong.  Met a Geman and others who spoke English.  We had given up till we found the German man and he got us on the right track.  Just as we turned in a little lane with high walls and big doors.  Mrs. T. came out  and mom recognized her immediately as Sarkies’[1] mother.  We piled out of the van joyfully.  Just them one of the tires went flat, our only flat of the whole trip.

                The house was so interesting. You enter through the big door and into a courtyard.  It had several fruit trees, cherries ripening, other fruit too.  Flagstones on most of the courtyard around the trees.  Small rooms to left and right of the entrance and then her rooms, up a flight of 12 or 15 steps.  There  was a balcony with a railing, and a dining and living room with her bedroom behind.  The kitchen was just a small boarded space.  There were lovely, colorful Persian rugs, fine heavy lace curtains.  The nice furniture was immaculate and polished.  We were welcome by lots of family members.  An uncle and his youngish wife, a girl cousin, and a young man cousin, Caro, a real doll.  He spoke fluent English and was the curator of the Julfa cathedral and Armenian museum. 

                Caro took us to the cathedral and we met the old Metropolitan who could speak some Hindi, saw many papers, old Bibles, costumes and weapons.  We were given tea every time we turned around.  Back to the house for more tea, cherries, cucumbers peeled on a fork and delicious lemon pound cake.  We were never given an opportunity to more than wash faces and hands in full view of the family the balcony.  There was no bathroom, just a little open latrine in the end of the courtyard.

                After a bit Uncle Minas took us out again to see the sights.  We went to the square and to a park with a hall where the old shahs used to old audiences.  It was beautiful, all marble with huge wooden pillars.  Paintings with gold lead inside like we had seen in the cathedral which was covered with paintings right to the roof.  The garden here was full of roses and green grass with reflecting pools.  One pavilion had twenty pillars and is called the Pavilion of Forty Pillars because of the reflecting pool in front of it.  We were taken out to the edge of town to see a little mosque with a shaking pillar.  It was pretty ramshackle.

                Back for more tea and we sat and visited with the relatives till time to eat dinner (9:30 pm).  Lucy and her husband and daughter were with us.  Lucy is Sarkies’ sister.  She has two sons in California, one studying pharmacy.  Also there was Uncle Minas with his wife and son.  The niece spoke English and had a lovely beehive hairstyle. Dinner consisted of nan, rice, roast meat, roasted potatoes, salad, and stewed, mixed fruit for dessert.  We were a big crowd around the table.  There was lovely china and silver.  Mrs. Toomikian had bedding for us – snowy sheets, heavy quilts all covered with white sheets and pinned in, big thick pillows and heavy mattresses.  The beds were laid out on the Persian carpet. 

                The lower rooms were all rented out and the renters came in quietly and left their shoes at the door to their room.  Each had a water jug nearby.  The well was under the corner of the living room.   Cool water was brought up in a sort of basin.

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[1] Sarkies Tommikian was a student of my grandfather, Mason Vaugh, at the Agricultural Institute in Allahabad and still lived in India.