avicenna – Pao's Journey

همدان

On the sixth day, after eating a wonderful Persian breakfast, we took another day trip, this time to Hamedan only an hour driving from Malayer; the city is one of the oldest ones in the world and the oldest one in Iran. We started with the tomb of Baba Tahir, one of the most important poets in Persian literature, he was born and lived in Hamedan, but nobody knows the exact date of his birth and death. Inside the monument and around the tomb some of his poems (written in Hamedan dialect) are exposed; it was a shame that I wasn’t able to read them, but I had my personal translator boyfriend that did it for me.

Second stop: Alaviyan Dome, when we arrived to the place there was a man that sold the tickets to us, then as a kind gesture he accompanied us to the Dome and gave us an explanation of the place (here my personal translator was so useful); he was also so grateful to see someone from a very far away country so interested in Iran. The place, was initially a mosque built by de Alaviyan family during the Seljuq era (1038-1118) and later became a family crypt.⠀⠀⠀

Third stop: Hegmataneh, it was the ancient city of Hamedan that use to be the capital of Iran in the 8th century BC; the 50 acres terrain contains the remains of the city, museums, archeological areas and historical buildings. A funny thing happened to me in this place, when we were visiting one of the museums we met a group of 12 years old girls who were doing a school visit. At one point we felt that they were staring at me while saying things to each other; then, one girl came and asked: “where are you from?” I responded: “Colombia” and we continued with our visit. However, I began to feel a little bit nervous because they were following us all around the place; my boyfriend found out that they had already forgot my country because the rumor was that I was from Turkey or Japan. In addition, they began to shout at me: “hey miss, do you love me?” (My boyfriend explained me that it was one of the only phrases they knew in English) so I really didn’t know how to react. At the end, they wanted to ask again about my country, as it was a general confusion on the subject.

A similar thing happened a couple of hours later when I was waiting for my boyfriend outside the bathrooms. A group of 6 years old girls began to gathered around me saying a lot of things in Persian, as my personal translator wasn’t available I had to handle the situation by myself; so I asked: “Salam, Englisi baladi?” which means: “Hi, do you speak English?”, as a response a little girl started waving her hand. I thought: “thank God” and ask her: “Hi, how are you?” but she just remains in silence and then respond to me in Persian; fortunately my boyfriend came to my rescue telling me that the girl was just at first level of English lessons. The whole situation was so strange to me, I was feeling like a famous person, and then I understood that those girls wasn’t used to see foreigners.

After my fifteen minutes of fame we headed out to the next place: the Mausoleum of Avicenna, a complex dedicated to the Iranian polymath Avicenna, the father of modern medicine and one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age. His most famous works are “The Book of Healing” and “The Canon of Medicine”. It was an amazing exposition, so interesting and educative, and the main building, the Mausoleum, a beautiful piece of architecture.

At that point we were starving, since we haven’t eaten anything since breakfast; so we went to the last site: Ganjnameh, famous for two trilingual cuneiform inscriptions (as the one we saw at Bisotun in Kermanshah) carved in stone and a beautiful waterfall. The legend says that the inscriptions reveal the place of a hidden treasure. The place was 12km away from Hamedan, so the first thing we did when we arrived was searching for some food; I tried the Persian version of pizza (living in Italy I eat a lot of pizza) and I must say it was amazing! (I know Italians won’t agree with me). Once with our stomachs full and happy we went to explore the place.

Finally, after a very long but beautiful day, we drove back to Malayer and in the middle of the way, the funniest thing happened! We saw a flock of sheep walking on the middle of the street, I felt like an excited little girl watching the sheep went by. Lastly, we arrived home and for dinner, I tried another Persian version of the Italian cuisine: the lasagna, this one was delicious too!

Tag: avicenna

FOURTH STOP IN IRAN: HAMEDAN