Iran Day 4

Day 4- 13 November 2018

The longest day this was going to be, Adrian already pre-warned us.


Khajou Bridge


The VIDEO





Waking up to a cold morning of about 4-5 degrees at 3:40am to gather at 4:15am, the whole group moved out in taxis to the Khajou bridge 1.7km away from Zohreb hotel.

When we arrived there it was dark but the warm tungsten lights coloured the brick walls of the bridge very vividly.

There used to be a flowing river but it had since dried up over the last two years. We made our way in the dark with the little light from the lamps on the bridge and gingerly treaded to the dried up river bed. The vantage points were quickly secured and a beach head was assembled. Adrian directed the firing range and all stood by with tripods and cameras to grab both the foreground and background elements.

Photo: Serene

“Ok guys, you have to quickly catch the shot of the bridge with the rocks as your foreground first then go in to take the tunnel under the bridge. We have limited time because after a certain hour they will turn off the lights,” Adrian said.

It was cold. But with all the layers we had, it didn’t turn out too bad. I noticed soon everyone was heading towards different sections of Khajou bridge to explore his/her view points.

Some of us were up on the second level of the bridge taking Serene walking with movement blur, which I later term the ‘ghostly figure of Khajou’. We had fun. But more was to come.

The 'spirit' of Khajou Bridge

“It’s the blue hour already,” reminded Kong Wan. “Let’s quickly position ourselves for the sunrise.”

I guai guai complied. As the sky brightened up the wall of Khajou bridge turned an interesting hue of red with the sky becoming blue.

“Ok guys come to the middle part of the bridge,” whatsapped Adrian and we all gathered.

Photo: Serene

“Ok here you all will see the structure of the bridge and the dome shaped openings which you all can make use of to frame the people who will start to walk pass.”

Panorama of Khajou bridge. Photo: Serene Gan.

“The last time Mevin and U were here we stationed ourselves right at this point and took the lady with the black dress.”

Adrian proceeded to show Shun Jie that vantage point where the lady in black was shot. I turned the other direction and decided to that viewpoint instead.

It was about 6:30am and the sky was already rather bright and older men running in groups shouting and laughing together.. enjoying their morning exercise in the cold. Some young modern looking ladies in high heels and leggings and older ladies in their traditional black long dresses were also beginning to walk across the bridge.

The older women were camera shy and would avoid the lenses. The men were all very openly friendly and greeted everyone and smiled.

“Aiyah.. look at the hill far away. It’s so misty. Looks like there is not going to be a sunrise because it’s all cloudy,” pointed out Emily. That was very logical, as the sun rays were being filtered off.

It took me a while before I got the angle I wanted and the subject I wanted and quite a few attempts before I could capture one or two that I felt was satisfactory. After that I decided to go in and shoot from inside under the bridge, capturing the subject as a silhouette within the frame of the dome.

As always, the final product by a professional photographer look so beautiful, as if it were a spontaneous act of simply raising the viewfinder and pressing the shutter. But we all knew behind that one single shot was hundreds of failed ones. On this day I was merely happy with a couple of satisfactory pictures. It wasn’t easy, not only because of how conservative the locals ladies in black shawls and long dresses were in being photographed, but also because the juxtapositioning of the lady against the architecture of the bridge needs a lot of luck.

The uniqueness and the degree of difficulty photographing the local Iranian veiled ladies, young or old, made them highly sought after subjects for many of us on this trip.

Kathy, Shunjie, Emily and I were standing in a group with our cameras aimed at different directions.

“We really have to pretend not to be looking at the ladies as they approach,” I remembered Kathy reminding me that.

And Emily and I ended up chit chatting and quietly looking and laughing at her handphone, while our other hands were secretly pressing our shutters when the ladies in flowing dresses walked passed, hoping that they were distracted my our apparent staged attention on the handphone.




The sky begun to lit up and blue hour’s was over. Khajou bridge was quite a nice experience, to me, not only because of the actual interaction between ourselves and the many male Iranians who waved and greeted us, but also because of the interaction between all of us within the team. Our jokes, our bouncing composition ideas off each other, our comments and our kao-beh-kao-boo-ing whenever the perfect lady with the long flowing dress came to the right spot but only to be spoilt by another subject.


I finally rediscovered the joy of photography in a group. All over again.

“I’m very surprised to see you coming for a photography trip,” said David as he looked at me from the steps below, both of us cameras on tripod while waiting for subjects. “Especially you.”

“Huh? Me? Why me?”

“Because you haven’t used your cameras for such a long time already mah.”

“Hahaha.. David. One cannot have too many a hobby leh. I can only engage in a few hobbies at a time. But I am really happy to be able to come on this photography trip with you all, David.” I sincerely admitted.

The Chehelsotun Museum

We first visited the Forty-pillar Palace. It was actually a twenty-pillar palace but because of the reflections in the water, the twenty pillars became forty palaces. It was built 400 years ago, and it was for reception of the neighbour kings. Many of the portraitures in the palace reflected battles between Persia and the Ottoman Empire, the Indian and the Turkmenistan.

It was a simple little museum. What I appreciated about this was the mural paintings depicting various important scenes in the history of Persia.

We all 'chut pattern' again. Photo: Adrian Loh.

And we were all at our nonsense again, lying on the floor right in the middle of the museum trying to capture the ceiling as symmetrically as possible.



From the long rectangular pond outside, the pillars were indeed duplicated.



Towards Sar Agha Seyed Village

“Guys today we have been told that the road to this faraway remote village, though snowy, is not blocked nor snowed in. So I have decided to bring you all to shoot this village. It’s not in our itinerary but something extra for you all, because some years when the roads got snowed in, this village is totally inaccessible,” announced Adrian in the morning to our delight.

10:30pm. We headed southwest away from Esfahan towards the small town of Chelgerd where the snowy Mount Kouhrang would be awaiting.


The sun was unrelentingly beating down upon the coach. Wah when the sun shines in Persia it really shines. Our coach meandered along the mountain passes and though not high I could already feel the pressure building up in my ears.

“What’s the altitude your Garmin says now?” I asked Kong Wan, about 15km from Chelgerd.

He took a look at his Fenix and said: “About 2200m.”

“Behind this mountain range will be the snowy mountain of Kouhrang,” answered Mohammad.

Lunch at Chelgerd



Bought food as charity for the villagers.



The simple folks at Chelgerd

While we were queuing up to use the toilet, a man asked David Wu where he was from, to which David asked: “Where do you think we are from?”

A question that I thought was a clever one. “We are not from Japan, neither are we from China,” continued David Wu.

When the clueless man couldn’t guess finally David gave him the answer. From the slight puzzled look on his expression I could sense that this man still didn’t grasp where on earth Singapore was.


Such was the rarity of visitors from the Far East to these parts, that the people of Iran in general were still very curious and friendly to us. A fact that deep in our heart we knew would one day change when more far easterners started travelling here.

Like what Jian Ting said to me during lunch: “We are very lucky to be coming here now because they are still new to visitors. When the investors (from the huge fat east mainland) start coming in in hoves their attitude to us will change.” and she was absolutely right.

Here in Chelgerd we changed from our coach to two mini buses in order to navigate the mountain roads.



We were fortunate to have a respectable-looking elderly driver who was in the perfect inner state of mind and body to navigate this broken down little minibus up the mountain passes. The ascent gradually became more palpable as the air became crispier and the mercury dipped slightly southwards.


Frozen snow covered range on both sides of the slushy road allowed pockets of prickly shrubs to peek out from the snow layers. The vegetation has changed. Fann’s Garmin Fenix showed the altitude to be slowly climbing from 2500-2800m.


Mohammad tapped me on my knee and said: “Look ahead. That’s the village of Sar Agha Seyed. We will be there before sunset.”


Everyone was starting to pile in their layers, anticipating a dip in the temperature.



The snow-capped Zagros range was beautiful and the setting sun hit the peak with its golden rays as we neared.



5:20pm. We were still slowly traversing the gravelly mountain roads, when suddenly...



Sar Agha Seyed Village

“There! Get your camera equipment and let’s go down!” Called Mohammad. We have arrived.

The little village of mud houses on the slope of one side of the mountain at around 2200m was in deep sleep, gently basking in the quickly setting sun. This village is located in the Zagros mountain range and consisted of a population of about 1500 Bakhtiari, a previously nomadic tribe that had settled down. The only available amenities in this settlement is electricity. The villagers depended on agriculture and handicraft and some families still did partial seasonal migration with their herds.

“Wah this looks like the Cinque Terre of the East,” said David Low as he walked past to set up his camera.

“Ok set up along the side, ISO bump to 400-800, f/16 and 30 seconds!” called out Adrian.

“Cannot. My 24mm cannot. I need to change lens,” decided Kong Wan on my left.

“Yupe. Me too. I’m changing to 35mm.” I made that choice after several shots with the 21mm.

The sun was setting very quickly, whatever little light left was gone and we were left to attempt star busts shots.



Very soon the villagers caught scent of our arrival and a commotion developed further down the road where Benjamin was calling out to Lily for help in distributing the food to the villagers.

“Lilly! Please help me!” I could here Benjamin shouting desperately from down the road as he was being drowned in the sea of village children. Hmmmm... ok, we know sometimes the children could be mischievously overwhelming. Maybe he was being suffocated.

“Ok sao-gong lor!” said Kong Wan. Ok lah. Since all my shots turned out dark dark I also sao-gong lah.

Then that was when our two mini buses were surrounded by the horde of shouting and seemingly aggressive village children and teenagers clambering for a share of the spoils. I stood at the side and was quietly shooting a video and was taken aback when a village boy about the age of nine or ten running towards me, pointed his finger and shouted angrily at me. After he ran passed me, a whole crowd of equally loud and rowdy village girls rushed ran down towards the buses. I could not make out what was going on.


I have never encountered villagers behaving thus, especially not towards visitors who had something to give to them. I was shocked.


They did not appear like the simple, gentle villagers from other remote parts of the world- be they Tuktuk near Baltistan, Lo Manthang in Uppper Mustang of Nepal, and not even the more exposed village children in Myanmar.


This was downright aggressive behaviour. I could not fathom how on earth and why on earth. Fann’s explanation was each was fending for himself and herself for survival and that these villagers may have gone through a lot of hardship to have behave thus rowdy and perhaps this was the only way they knew how to behave. I saw the logic in her explanation and I accepted it, but inside me deeply I was not expecting this, neither could I comprehend. Something wasn’t right about this village and its inhabitants. It was totally incongruent with what I have experienced thus far in Iran.


Anyway. Job done. Shots taken. Some food given. We were herded up our buses. I left Sar Agha Seyed with a puzzled heart. I expected a more pleasant, a more docile interaction but alas it wasn’t to be.



The journey to Chelgerd was lovely and the travel up the mountain passes to Sar Agha Seyed was beautiful beyond words. I kept those deeply etched in my heart. The village, to me, was merely the destination that held way less attraction and significance compared to the journey itself, which was totally unforgettable. I loved that we could actually visit the mountain passes of Iran. Any place as remote as this would forever be a bonus to me.



Dinner at 10:30pm at a town still 60km from Esfahan, by then we were already used to what to expect for meals- beef and chicken kebab plus plenty of rice with butter. That was the usual fare. But I loved it. And even more impressed was I that at this time of the night there was still a restaurant that was opened to serve us our dinner when the rest of the town was dead asleep.



It was cold. As I caught sight of Lionel standing as steady as a rock at the entrance of the restaurant, I asked him:

“Hey wow, Lionel, you take to the cold very well ah!”

“No I don’t,” he said. “I am just well suited up lah.”

That’s true. Being well suited up and being prepared is always the best insurance against any unexpected weather changes.



We finally arrived back at Zohreh hotel at 12:40am, all cold and tired.

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