Bam: an ancient city, recently destroyed

I first heard of Bam back in 2003, when I read a piece in the International Herald Tribune about its destruction in an earthquake. I knew nothing of Iran, and was pretty surprised to learn that such a place as Bam—an ancient citadel with roots as far back as 500 BC, and with most of the surviving mud-brick buildings dating from the Safavid era (1501–1736). I promptly forgot about Bam, but I was reminded of it when I started to leaf through my Lonely Planet and trying to figure out what I should see in Iran. And, in truth, the memory of that news report probably gave me false expectations, as in my mind I had conflated the modern town and its casualties with the ancient town, and come away with impression that Bam had been a town where people had continued to live in ancient buildings until the quake. This false memory was reinforced by a rather vague description in Lonely Planet, which describes that the quake's destroyed the mud brick homes in which most people lived, and forced them to build steel-framed buildings to replace them, but failing to mention that these mud-brick homes were less than 50 years old.

Anyway, the reality is that most of the older buildings below the citadel were in ruined or semi-ruined condition well before the 2003 quake, and that only the citadel itself was in good repair at that time. The same is true for nearby Rayen, which was largely spared in 2003.

From Kerman to Bam

The bus station in Kerman is a bit of a mess, as it is unusually spread out, with different ticket offices in different for different companies and destinations. There are also touts outside offices trying to get people onto their buses before they leave, which can be slightly confusing. Buses to Bam run fairly frequently, but I ended up waiting for about an hour for mine to leave.

Bam isn't a major town, and almost all buses will be running through to Zahedan, so the de facto bus stop is a roundabout on the south edge of town. From there is a a few kilometers to Lonely Planet's highly-recommended place to stay, Akbar Tourist Guesthouse. Akbar's may actually be the best option in Bam, but given the dearth of options I don't think that's saying much.

Mr. Akbar's Tourist Guesthouse

I arrived at the guesthouse at about the same time as a couple of Iranians who arrived by car, but we were both stymied by no one being there, so we waited in the courtyard. It was well over an hour before anyone arrived, and the Iranian pair checked in first. I received a bit of a shock when I was told that the price the cheapest room was 300,000 rial, as the recent Lonely Planet suggested the price should be about 130,000 rial—clearly he was doing something like Vali and boosting his prices.  Of course, this was especially shocking given that the triple room in Kerman had been a total of 270,000 rial.

Akbar said he would give me a discount to 250,000 rial. If he had been there when I arrived, I probably would have walked away and returned to Kerman in the evening, but it was now late afternoon and I wouldn't be able to see the Arg before it got dark. So I ended up agreeing to stay.

In all honesty, his place was pretty rough. I know there was an earthquake, but it happened nine years earlier, in 2003. Construction was ongoing and the stairs were completely open on one side, with not even a railing for safety. The rooms were already quite dingy and dirty, with stained carpets. The shared bathrooms had inoperative toilets and showers, and were full of mosquitos. They also lacked hot water, so after I had dropped my bag Akbar let me use one of the bathrooms in a nicer room, but I had to chose if I wanted to use it in the evening or the night. As someone who showers in the morning and the evening, this sucked. In all, it was pretty unimpressive, at any price.

But whatever. I headed out to see the Arg, which was another three or four kilometers north of Akbar's. Outside of the historical areas, Iranian cities aren't especially attractive, and Bam was even uglier than most. No doubt this is a harsh assessment in light of the 2003 earthquake (but given the Iran's huge population boom—half the population is under 25—and concomitant building expansion, this isn't as unfair as you might imagine), but the area between the Arg and the highway has a very industrial feel.

The Arg at dusk. None of the area pictured here was accessible to tourists when I was there.

A little later, a little darker. This is about as god a view as you can get of the Arg.

View from the southwestern edge of the Arg complex. Thee walls are one of the few sections of town aside from the citadel that had been reconstructed.

The naming of the Arg is a bit confusing, as Arg (or Ark) is usually used to refer to a citadel, but in Bam the entire ancient city complex is referred to as the Arg-e-Bam. The ancient city itself contains a citadel on the northern end, which makes it a little difficult to differentiate whether you're talking about the citadel within the ancient city, or just the entire ancient city complex.

A model of Arg-e-Bam as it appeared before the earthquake. The citadel is at the northern end, on the right. Almost all of the domed structures in the bottom half were destroyed in the quake, though the two domed structures at the upper left have been somewhat reconstructed.

Modern Mary & Ancient Merv

The train arrives in Mary at around 2:00 in the morning, and we I pile off the train with a bunch of locals. It's quite cold, and at first I'm a little worried because no one exits through the station building, but from the ends of the platform. On the western edge of the station building is a small, semi-enclosed area full of vendors selling hot snacks, and I stop there to grab a fried pastry.

Thankfully, the station building was open, and there were lots of people milling about inside, presumably waiting for the next train. I find an empty bench and sit down and lean back to get some sleep, but a security guard approaches me. I figure he's going to tell me I can't sleep here (none of the locals seem to be asleep), but in reality he's just telling me to watch my stuff to make sure no one takes it. I'm a little surprised by his concern, but thankful.

It turns out that I could have taken an early-morning train to Bayram Ali, which is the town just south of the monuments at Merv, but since my plan was to exit to Iran via Serakhs the next day, I was planning on staying in Mary for the night, as it supposedly had a cheap hotel. A few hours later, when the sun was up, I set out to find the Hotel Caravanserai, which was described in the Lonely Planet. unfortunately, the map of Mary in the LP was almost as bad as not having a map at all, as it included streets that didn't exist, and pointed to the Hotel Caravanserai as being in the wrong location. I ended up wandering around some random streets until I ultimately got within a couple of blocks of where the hotel was supposed to be. When I though I was on the right street I asked some local shopkeepers where it was, but they hadn't even heard of it. Thankfully, a passerby heard my inquiries and told me they would take me there. It turned out to be on a small side street, less than 200 meters from the shops where I had been asking, but it had no sign on the outside and appeared to be just another house. Inside the compound, it was really arranged almost like a modern caravanserai, with rooms around around the perimeter of a courtyard (admittedly this is a pretty common layout in many places in the world).

I thanked the good Samaritan, and as I entered the hotel to try and find the receptionist or proprietor I was greeted by a couple of guys staying in one of the rooms by the entrance. They invited me to stay with them in their room, and they told me that I could stay with them for free. I later understood that this meant hiding me from the owner, and pretending that I wasn't there, which meant I had to sneak to the bathroom which was located further into the main courtyard. Well, that was fine with me. After dropping my stuff off and having a quick shower, I left to take a look around Mary and go to Merv.

How to get to the Hotel Caravanserai from the train station. There are reports that the hotel may be closed, but that may also just be local misinformation.

The local workers (welders) who invited me to stay in their room in Mary.

I didn't see too much of the town, but I found out from the bus station (just across from the train station) that there was a bus going to Bayram Ali at 11:45.

Bus schedule from Mary. The 6:00 bus to Bayram Ali is convenient for those not staying in Mary (the local train at about the same time is probably even more convenient). Gonur is north of Bayram Ali, so those buses probably come close to Merv and may even pass near the entrance gate (but it's also possible they turn north before reaching Bayram Ali/Merv).

Fare sheet, showing the distance in kilometers followed by the fare in manat. 400km to Ashgabat is 8 manat (same as the sleeper train), or about $2.80.

I hopped on the slow 11:45 bus and we dawdled our way east to Bayram Ali. As we got closer and closer, I was increasingly alert for any signs of old walls or any indication where I should get out. I eventually made the right call and got out just before the bus was about to make a turn into Bayram Ali, not far from the Abdullah Khan Kala (infuratingly, the LP map shows the edge of the Abdullah Khan Kala but doesn't show the adjacent roads which would illustrate just how close Bayram Ali is to the sites).

Once again the Bradt map trumps the LP version (though it still doesn't show canals that may impede or prevent progress). The bus from Mary turns right at the corner by the bazaar, on the road headed to Turkmenabat, and that's where you should get off. Taxis back to Mary leave from about where the arrow to Mary is.

Merv

Merv owes its existence to the Murghab River (a different Murghab River than the one we say near Murghab, Tajikistan), which brings water from the Afghan mountains and unceremoniously dumps it into the arid Karakum desert near Merv. Because the Karakum is flat, the Murghab River spreads itself into a wide delta here, and this fertile delta is what is responsible not only for Merv but for the even older Bronze-Age site of Gonur Tepe to the north (possibly the birthplace of Zoroastrianism, the first monotheistic religion), as well as the modern cities of Bayram Ali and Mary.

However, because of the flatness of the desert, it's easy for delta channels to dry up and new channels be formed. These wandering channels led to wandering cities, as settlements would follow the water over time, with the result that instead of cities being rebuilt on top of each other, we have a succession of ancient cities being built next to each other. There are two such cities in Gonur Tepe, and five different cities in Merv.

One of these cities is the Abdulla Khan Kala, a Timurid city founded by one of Tamerlane's sons after the end of Mongol rule. Abdullah Khan Kala suffered from a lack of attention after the Timurid king decided on Samarkand as his capital. There's a moat surrounding the Abdullah Khan Kala, which is basically a huge square compound, of which nothing remains except the brick-faced rammed-earth walls: inside there is just a vast expanse of dirt and some hardy weeds, and maybe the odd goat or two. Even less remains of the the Bayram Ali Kala—the last of the five ancient cities of Merv and which was a western extension to the Abdullah Khan Kala—as apparently it was being used as a source of bricks when the Russians arrived in 1885.

The western walls of Abdullah Khan Kala, from near the Bayram Ali bazaar.

Maybe "moat" is the wrong word. It's more like a ditch.