A friendly encounter

At the end of our first day in Kashan, we walked through the bazaar. It was not quite what I expected which was a enumerable little shops under a huge roof somewhat like some of the indoor flea markets you would find in the USA.

Not many folks in this picture at the bazaar which gave me an opportunity to take a picture

Kashan’s bazaar was a series of small storefronts on either side of a single long street. Each shop seemed to specialize in one type of item: small electrical appliances, jeans for men, dresses for women, toys for children, spices for cooking, cloth for sewing. The shops overflowed with goods, lining the walls from floor to ceiling. When the day was over, the shopkeepers would pull their merchandise inside and close and lock their doors. Some doors were simple doors. Others were more elaborate roll-down doors which covered the entire store front.

And the people. People everywhere walking, shopping, talking, looking. Looking at merchandise and looking at us, obviously western.They stared quite openly. And SH observed later back at the hotel that the women were staring particularly at me.

Fresh bread

When we had walked a long way inside the bizarre, we turned onto a side street that led away from the shops and onto another street, a two-lane road for cars, still lined with shops, but more open and less crowded. We walked by a shop with people standing in a long line waiting to buy freshly baked bread. The bread was sold in huge stacked circles of flat bread, somewhere between a cracker and puffy pita bread.

We walked by lots of families with young children outside playing on the sidewalk. One brave young boy (maybe 10 years old) came right up to me to say, “Hi. Where are you from?”

We had a short conversation.

He insisted that I take his picture with his father and two younger siblings. Then I opened the small bag of sweets I had brought for just an encounter like this because I had read that children accost visitors with questions. They each selected a peppermint or butterscotch and the boy solemnly declared he was taking two so he could give his mother one.