From Bandar Abbas to Charak. The exits from Bandar Abbas are far more congested than the Tehran-Karaj highway — only here, instead of passenger cars, a torrent of trucks and trailers floods the road. Everything else is just like everywhere: ugly concrete barriers between the highway lanes, acting like Alexander's Wall, blocking the view of oncoming traffic and the scenery on the other side; and stenciled slogans on the walls of roadside buildings and the concrete barriers. Apparently, contrary to the theory of a rift in our society, there is somewhere a remarkable unity and cohesion that has rendered the cities and roads of the country uniform from east to west and north to south — like smallpox scars that sometimes cover a face so thoroughly they appear even and monotonous. Fortunately, the torrent of trucks and trailers suddenly veers right near the Shahid Rajaei port, and we do not follow; the highway ahead abruptly empties — completely empty, clean, newly built; but it does not last long. The road quickly becomes two-lane and its asphalt full of potholes. On this desolate, deserted route, Bandar Khamir, Bandar Kong, Bandar Lengeh, and finally Bandar Charak lie ahead — the latter now providing maritime travel services to Kish in place of Lengeh. Bandar Pol, which has a bypass, is the destination for those who want to ship their cars to Qeshm, and surely follows the same pattern as all Iranian cities, just like the ports of Khamir, Kong, Charak, and even Lengeh. The only intercity road in these "cities" connects directly to wide, deserted boulevards, much of whose adjacent land is barren, with scattered buildings either completed or under construction. It seems the only secret behind Iranians' fondness for these boulevards is the rising land prices around them. In any case, in the centers of the numerous roundabouts along these long boulevards, statues and sculptures of animals have been erected. The boulevards eventually lead to the central streets of the city, which apparently emerged from the expansion of rural settlements along roads and still retain parts of their old fabric, with wind catchers visible behind the newer buildings along the street — built in the same styles that are common throughout Iran. Additionally, in nearly all of them, parks have been built along the new boulevards leading to the waterfront, featuring gazebos with sloped roofs of red tile. Even Bandar Kong, which is no bigger than the palm of one's hand, has a Mellat Park. I once thought the popularity of these roofs among Iranians expressed a yearning for rain in our dry land, but on this trip it occurred to me that perhaps they evoke a collective historical memory of tents — both those of Iranian nomadic tribes and those of the Arabs. In these port-cities, even in Lengeh, the largest of them, cars are few, and alongside some houses, boats are parked. In Bandar Khamir, the considerable number of restaurants, a "shopping center" under construction, large single-minaret mosques, and the abundance of air conditioning units attest to the prosperity of this port's residents. The driver says that here, as in all port cities, the main occupations of the residents are fishing and, of course, smuggling. The Hormozgan cement companies and several other cement firms, an industrial park, and finally a terminal are other signs of the town's wealth. The presence of the municipality and its beautification efforts in Khamir, which is fortunately clean as well, is surprising — as is the presence of Romani people who have camped near the city. The driver says the Romani come from Kerman to these parts.
Lengeh is the largest city on this route, and in its entrance boulevard, the half-finished building of the Azad University — built inexplicably of concrete rather than the ubiquitous yellow brick — confirms the city's importance. The city also has beautiful old mud-brick buildings that testify to its prosperity in the relatively distant past, when Lengeh was a center for the trade of pearls and commercial goods, connected by sea to other ports of the Persian Gulf and beyond. One of these is the Tourism Organization building. The people of Lengeh, like all the people of Iran, are deeply attached to their past and take pride in it. The dilapidation and current state of affairs — well, it is obvious whose fault that is. Lengeh is the only city on this route that has a hotel. The Diplomat Hotel was formerly the Tourism Hotel, now purchased by a Lengeh native who resides in Dubai. The hotel has an internet cafe and high-speed internet, and friendly, well-mannered staff. Well-dressed, comely young women handle the reception. Lengeh, like all cities in this region, has many immigrants from Shiraz and Bastak. On this year's trip to the area, we spent a night at this hotel; the room furnishings are old but serviceable. Strange that the hotel grounds, facing the sea and in need of much work to be more attractive, have been left entirely neglected. The hotel's architecture, like all tourism hotels, is sensible and simple, showing that in the era when Ahmad Mahmoud was writing his excellent novel "Story of a City," Lengeh — despite being an exile destination and a ruin (as depicted in the novel) — was still important enough to be on the list of cities with tourism hotels. Yet the interesting point is that in Mahmoud's book, too, the severed connection between the people of the Persian Gulf coast and the sea is well depicted. Mohammad Rafi Mahmoudian, in an excellent article about the literature related to the Persian Gulf coast (in Negah-e Now, issue 84, winter 2010, page 48), has expressed this reality very well. In any case, the transfer of Kish maritime services from Lengeh to Charak certainly does not help strengthen the connection between the people of Lengeh and the sea, and the people of Lengeh are deeply displeased about it. It is said the main reason is that Charak's coast is more suitable for docking ships. But the captain of the Tavous Beheshti passenger ship says that even in Charak, the failure to dredge the coastal waters creates many problems for ship docking. Despite this transfer, Charak has a forlorn, deserted look. Last year, it was possible to go to Kish by the boats of local boatmen from the city pier. And God forbid bad days: the shore of the "Charak pier" was covered with plastic water bottles, and we had to make our way through a mass of garbage, bottles, and juice cartons toward a boat that
the boatman, with his trousers rolled up, was pulling toward shore. We too, along with 9 other passengers, had to wade into the water with our trousers rolled up. In response to my protest, the boatman had to place a gasoline canister under our feet. On the boat, we put on stained, dirty, and even punctured life jackets so the maritime patrol would not fine the boatman. Now, however, these local services have been suspended, and travel to Kish is officially only possible by the ships of the shipping lines, which take passengers at Charak and the half-built Aftab port, 35 km from Charak (whose design was presented in Memar issue 61). These ships operate only once a day, before noon. Of course, there are still local boatmen who illegally take passengers to Kish from deserted shores, but it is not suitable for women! If you are a woman and miss this one daily ship — as we do this time — there is nowhere to stay in Charak except a so-called guesthouse. A young girl, dressed like all young girls, is in charge of reception. The reception room has an old desk, a bed like an examination table with a few unfolded blankets, and a chair whose seat leather is torn. I ask the girl how late she works. She says until 11 pm. Then she says she sleeps in the same room. I asked if she is a local, how her family has allowed this work. She says: "When you have no choice, you have to do whatever work there is." One night's stay in this guesthouse costs 15,000 tomans, and the infinitely dirty rooms — with only a few spring beds with used sheets — are on the second floor. The next day we catch the Tavous Beheshti ship. The minimal pier facilities are visible in the photographs; the ticket sales hall and waiting room are the same familiar shed that everywhere temporarily — but for a long time, perhaps decades — makes do with problems. Passengers are taken to the ship's berth by minibus and vice versa. In the pier area, aside from some modest curbing separating the roads, nothing has been done, and there seems to be no plan for improvement — apparently because everyone has been convinced that this one-trip-a-day shipping service between Kish and Charak deserves nothing more, and there is no plan for it to become two trips or more, or to extend to other ports of the ever-Persian Gulf. The ticket costs only 12,000 tomans, and only 25 percent of the ship's capacity is filled. Its equipment for a short sea voyage of a few hours is very good: restrooms, a small stand offering hot and cold drinks and snacks, comfortable seats, a television in each row to keep passengers entertained. Only strangely, there is nowhere for passenger luggage. Everyone has to pile their bags in a section of the ship's entrance.
It is good, at the end of this section of the trip, to also mention the scenery along the route, especially between Lengeh and Charak, which is picturesque here and there thanks to the wind catchers and the white ponds resembling conical caps, and the countless single-minaret mosques visible in the distance. Sometimes a village has several mosques, indicating the tribal structure of these villages. On a stretch of the route, about 50 km from Bandar Lengeh, without our noticing, the dominion of the desert gradually recedes, the mountains draw nearer and nearer, and suddenly the "ever-Persian" Gulf appears on the left in a brilliant turquoise blue. The narrow road has been cut at the foot of the mountains, overlooking the sea. The vista of the turquoise sea and the white and colorful mountains in this area is quite beautiful. And of course, we should not depart for Kish on the Tavous Beheshti without mentioning the village of Moghuyeh, between Lengeh and Charak, because in Lengeh we were told that in
Moghuyeh, we could see historical remains. Moghuyeh is not far from the main road, but perhaps this very distance has helped preserve the two historic buildings we saw there. One is the old fortress of Sheikh Soltan Mazrouqi. It is closed. The residents, attending a funeral gathering at the Moghuyeh mosque, give us the caretaker's mobile number, but we cannot find him. The beautiful old fortress is crumbling. There is also an old house behind the fortress that, immersed in an extraordinary silence and calm, with trees drowning in blossoms, in the pleasant winter sunlight of the south, has a delightful and at the same time strange atmosphere. But a mural near this house is stranger still. It is unclear who in the local administrative apparatus conceived it.
Kish. The Kish Free Zone, the "Pearl of the Ever-Persian Gulf," can be described in two words: shopping beach. Therefore, if we consider the extraordinary Iranian fondness for shopping — and, of course, selling — as well as for dolphins, that noble marine animal whose statues we have erected in the middle of roundabouts throughout the country, and for excursions into nature accompanied by music and song, further investigation into the reasons for the extraordinary recent interest in Kish will be unnecessary. Of course, one might also consider, as a secondary attraction, the boulevards of Kish adorned with flowering trees, and its eye-catching villa neighborhoods that strikingly resemble Florida cities. Kish's downtown is a wide but not very long boulevard, on one side of which numerous shopping centers are lined up, and on the other, which has more of a neighborhood feel, all manner of small shops — fruit vendors, groceries, bakeries, and so on — sell their wares at twice the normal price, on the pretext of shipping costs to the island. Near each Florida-style villa neighborhood, there is usually a small shopping center comprising a supermarket, bakery, fruit shop, dry cleaner, and so on. On both sides of the central boulevard and on the adjacent boulevards to the north, south, east, and west, countless hotels are lined up — all as postmodern as possible, each as strangely shaped as possible. The feverish activity in these hotels is a spectacle. Porters struggle, with the help of husbands, to pull enormous suitcases out of elevators and into vans bound for the airport; wives, holding their headscarves with one hand and carrying plastic bags of lighter goods with the other, run after them issuing commands; and children scurry underfoot. Touring these hotels and observing these travelers — as well as the uniforms of some employees, with colorful pieces hanging from caps stuck to their heads, resembling flight attendant outfits — can be one of the interesting pastimes on Kish. Another pastime is certainly browsing the shopping centers and seeing the Chinese salespeople
in some of the shops selling Chinese products, who even speak Farsi. The rest of the shops may not have Chinese salespeople, but they are full of Chinese goods. One shopkeeper, in response to our repeated questions about the origin of the goods, impatiently replies: "In this shop, only I am Iranian; everything else is Chinese." And the stores are literally brimming with the cheapest Chinese merchandise, although it is said that better goods are also offered somewhere. The shopping centers, to stoke the enthusiasm of buyers — which seems strong enough — organize raffles and entertainment programs. We participate in one of them. The emcee is a young man with a full beard. He first thanks, on behalf of all those who work hard for the market, and thanks the shoppers. Then he adds: "We are at the service of your joyful spirit. Let us have a nice round of applause for yourselves and your loved ones. Please also observe Islamic decorum. Cheering, whistling, and clapping are fine, but please refrain from spinning and shaking movements that cause problems for us." Then the raffle begins, accompanied by music performed by a two-person band, while participating shoppers clap in rhythm. The emcee introduces the lucky winners of hair dryers and other goods, or tickets for a scenic boat cruise from which one can "watch the magnificent sunset of the ever-Persian Gulf behind the Portuguese ship," and repeatedly asks shoppers to cheer more for the fortunate winners. The program of watching the sunset behind the Portuguese ship, watching the play and dance of dolphins, and the coral island are among the important entertainment programs of Kish. The Tavous Beheshti ship, on which we go to see this magnificent sunset, is the same passenger ship that brings and takes passengers from Charak and Aftab port, and during its idle hours is rented out for tourist excursions. Two handsome young men, playing keyboard and guitar, perform the program, and once again the gifts of another market are raffled, and once again they request:
"Give yourselves a hand." But the two young men, in all fairness, sing well, and the live performance of memorable songs is more enjoyable than watching the sunset amid the crowd on deck, who are ceaselessly filming and photographing. But Kish, apart from its central streets and Florida-style neighborhoods, also has one or two old neighborhoods and historical sites. One could even argue that its historical sites are nearly as significant as those of much older cities like Bandar Abbas. Apparently, the preservation and restoration of these sites has been part of the plan to attract tourists to Kish. A historic building under restoration, a qanat and underground city — actually the path of an old qanat — which after renovation now also houses a restaurant and cafe, are among these sites. Saffein and the Arab Quarter, which has a Khatam mosque and narrow alleys with white buildings similar to the rest of southern Iran, is the location of a small bazaar called the Arab Bazaar — which is not very old and was probably built on the ruins of the old bazaar. Near this bazaar, a large park has been built with bright red oleander bushes. The residents of this neighborhood are considered the indigenous people of Kish, whose numbers are insignificant compared to the population that has come to the island from elsewhere for work. On one of the advertising billboards, the people of Kish are referred to as "Kishvandan." It is good to note in closing that Kish, for those who are not interested in shopping, watching dolphins, and entertainment programs with music and raffles, also has beautiful natural scenery on offer — and the possibility of swimming in the sea in the depths of winter.
Footnotes: 1- Quoted from Mohammad Rafi Mahmoudian, "The Geography of Existence: Literature of Fear and Helplessness," Negah-e Now Quarterly, issue 84, winter 2010, page 48: "The sea is life. It is full of waves, wind, and activity; vast and open, it opens a horizon of economic and social possibilities to humankind and beckons. The sea, with its mystery, arouses human curiosity and invites the expansion of the realm of knowledge. Bandar Lengeh, too, lies beside the sea. The sea shapes its geographical existence and provides an important part of its economic life through fish and smuggling; it opens a vast and broad horizon and connects the city to the surrounding world. But the sea of Bandar Lengeh opens not a horizon of life and activity but an expanse of death and nothingness. In Bandar Lengeh, the sea is a closed horizon, the end of the world. Here the sea is an expanse in which humans confront not their possibilities but their existential limitations. In 'Story of a City,' from the very beginning, the sea enters the story with the death of Sharifeh. The sea delivers Sharifeh's body to the city. Beyond this, the sea has no serious presence in the book. What symbolizes life in the story — merrymaking, recreation, romantic rivalries, and daily squabbles — all occur at the farthest point of the city from the sea, on the ridge. In Gholamhossein Saedi's 'Tales of Fear and Trembling,' the sea is mysterious, frightening, and boundless. Its calm appears ominous; from it rise winds that can be destructive, and in the fifth story it sinks the newly purchased motor launch of the villagers. In 'Tales of Fear and Trembling,' the sea behaves and has the presence of a living creature, a menacing beast, rather than a part of the region's geography. In the books of Abbas Abdi, too, although the sea is no longer frightening and death-laden, at precisely the moments when one does not expect it, it makes its presence felt through storms and mystery. In Abdi's books, the sea is associated more with fish and travel to surrounding islands."