By far one of the coolest places we ended up visiting was the small village of Abyaneh. According to wikipedia at the 2006 census, its population was 305, in 160 families. Since it was winter I believe the population was half that size. A lot of the younger children travel to Tehran and the surrounding cities for work and warmer climate. We got there late at night around 10 or 11pm. Small snowflakes was falling from the sky. The air was cold and you couldn’t hear anything or anyone in the village. We managed to find our hotel and ended up having the entire place to ourselves since there was no one else there.
The front desk receptionist was a super awesome elderly woman that had been working there for many years. We asked her about the village and the places we should be visiting the next day. Got our keys and headed towards our room. After putting our bags and luggages down we opened up the window to have a nice view of the entire village. It was pitch black with some snow still falling from the sky. You could see the lights of a small shop beneath us, but there seemed to be no one inside. We decided to head to bed and wake up early next morning to go explore the village.
Woke up early and had a really nice breakfast downstairs. Fresh eggs, cheese, jam, and some nice warm bread. Everything a man needs to start of the day right. Headed out on foot and went walking through the village. Everything had a earthy red tone to it. It felt like everything was stuck back in time, and nothing had changed. Most of the homes were made of mud on the slopes in the mountain side. As we walked further inside the village we met up with some locals and started talking with them. The elderly women there make their own dress, and hand made crafts. We bought some delicious lavashak as usual, and asked them about their hand made dresses. I will never forget my experiences and the people that we met there. We helped Fatmeh Khanoom in the village. She needed to use our phone, so we ended up calling a bunch of different places for her. The people were humble, and grateful.
This village was a reminder of how simple life can be so rewarding in many ways. I choose to live a more simple life, and can’t wait to be back to learn more about this beautiful place.
