Tang-e Vashi: Alborz range in Iran
Summertime has always been synonymous with relaxation, adventurous trips & in this regard, Tehran & its surroundings do not disappoint. A few kilometers east of Tehran province, there is a recreational summer spot with plenty of natural attractions such as freshwater lakes, spas & roaring rivers. Situated near the village Jalizjand on the road to Firouzkuh, Tang-e Vashi (or Tangeh Savashi) is a place with tourist attractions.
Its pleasant climate draws a huge crowd of passengers & tourists in the summers. In the Mazandarani language spoken by the locals, Vashi means grass. One of the most attractive parts of one’s trip to the gorge is perhaps passing a river which is located in the middle of a stone valley. This place includes two gorges. At the end of the second gorge, there is a waterfall as high as 15 meters where you can dive into to enjoy a natural shower!
The path to the first gorge includes a deep crack among tall mountains; rocks that in some cases are as high as 100 meters. Even more are the only path to the flat & level track between the two rocks. The height of surrounding rocks blocks the sunlight in most hours of the day while brings you a cool path. It would get even cooler when you have to pass most of the path knees deep through the water.
After passing the 250-meter path in the first gorge, you reach a beautifully flat plain through which, after walking for almost 2000 meters in this gorgeous plain along the river, you arrive in the second gorge.
If you keep walking through the path of the second gorge, you would reach a not-so-high, but the gorgeous waterfall at the end of the path. Due to being located at the heart of the mountain, the path of the second gorge includes small but beautiful waterfalls pouring down the mountain.
The waterfall pours down a rock on which there is a depression that provides the possibility of going behind the waterfall & being surrounded by the waterfall & the rock.
The scarce plant galbanum, which has significant uses in industry & pharmacy, is found in Tang-e Vashi. Because of its scarcity, picking this plant is a crime & would lead to prosecution.
In addition to its beautiful nature, Tang-e Vashi enjoys numerous historical works as well. One of the three famous inscriptions from the Qajar era is in this gorge. The inscription located at Tangeh Savashi is six by seven meters around which the accidents of the Fath Ali Shah era are carved & narrated.
The largest relief of these inscriptions is the figure of the hunting ground with the picture of a horse, a spear & the hunts around which we can see Abbas Mirza, Aliqoli Mirza & Alinaqi Mirza, sons of Fath Ali Shah, as well as his descendants hunting. This inscription, which is almost 185 years old, is carved at the heart of the mountain in a way that it has been immune from rain & sunshine.
One of the souvenirs of Jalizjand village or Savashi is “Five-Herbs Doogh”. This local doogh contains the aromatic herbs of garden thyme, mint, thymus & two types of pennyroyal. Plum sauce & sour Lavashak are among other souvenirs of this region.
“Carter called today, but I saw no point in talking to him. On the whole I talk to no one. I concentrate on the way light would strike filled Mason jars on a kitchen windowsill. I lie here in the sunlight, watch the hummingbird. This morning I threw the coins in the swimming pool, & they gleamed & turned in the water in such a way that I was almost moved to read them. I refrained.
One thing in my defense, not that it matters: I know something Carter never knew, or Helene, or maybe you.
I know what 'nothing' means, & keep on playing.
Why, BZ would say.
Why not, I say.” ~ Curated Excerpt From: Joan Didion. “Play It as It Lays.” Apple Books.
Curated via Tehran Times. Thanks for reading, cheers! (with a glass of wine & book of course)
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Play It As It Lays: A Novel
A ruthless dissection of American life in the late 1960s, from the author of The Last Thing He Wanted and A Book of Common Prayer. Somewhere out beyond Hollywood, resting actress Maria Wyeth drifts along the freeway in perpetual motion, anaesthetized to pain and pleasure, seemingly untainted by her personal history. She finds herself, in her early thirties, radically divorced from husband, lovers, friends, her own past and her own future.
Play It As It Lays is set in a place beyond good and evil, literally in Los Angeles and Las Vegas and the barren wastes of the Mojave, but figuratively in the landscape of the arid soul. Capturing the mood of an entire generation, Didion chose Hollywood to serve as her microcosm of contemporary society and exposed a culture characterized by emptiness and ennui. Two decades after its original publication, it remains a profoundly disturbing novel, an immaculately wrought portrait of a world (California on the cusp of the 70s) where too much freedom...
