Picturesque Palangan

Early in the morning we drove two hours west from Kermanshah through dramatic, stark mountain scenery to reach Palangan, a small Kurdish village near the Iran-Iraq border in the Zagros Mountains.  Palangan’s flat roofed stone houses are stacked one on top of another and climb the steep sides of mountains which converge to form a valley.

Our van was met by a group of village men, interested to see who had arrived.  As we walked between the houses clinging to the steep mountainside, we were careful not to loose our footing on the rocky path.  More villagers came to greet us and a group of four girls appeared and shyly said hi. They agreed to pose for pictures and were pleased when I showed them their photo.  

A woman colorfully dressed in blue wanted her photograph taken with me too.  Somehow my headscarf had fallen down (again) and she laughed at me before tightly tying it so it would not fall off again.

At 10 in the morning the village was noisy.  Roosters crowed from all parts of the village, an echoing commotion of cock-a-doodle-dos.  We walked down winding stairs to the center of the village.  Next to a small stream, a group of boys kicked a soccer ball around and an older man with a donkey walked by.  Milad and Amin joined them while another group of boys sat nearby on a bench posing for photos.

 

Eventually we began walking back up the stairs to where our van is parked.  An older woman sitting on a bench showed us how she spins wool by hand.  Another woman showed us her small shop.  Cows mooed behind closed barn doors and a donkey stuck its head out of a window as we passed by.  After a few hours in Palangan, we begin our long drive to Isfahan.

And it is a long drive, well over eight hours.  To pass the time, we chat and Milad answers questions we had about living in Iran.  We also listen to an eclectic mix of Iranian and Western songs.  Amin makes sure we stop often for tea and bathroom breaks.  Eventually we arrive at night and it is dark.  We will have to wait until the next day to see the grand city of Isfahan.