Old Esfandiar Southeastern Iran

Old Esfandiar feels like an Indiana Jones discovery, a virtually deserted tight-packed village of crumbling old buildings – several three storeys high – set behind an amphitheatre of terraced gardens and nestled on the slope of a mountain range. The site is around 2km west of the southwest corner of entirely forgettable (new) Esfandiar, itself 11km west of the main Kerman–Mashhad Hwy. The access road starts around 3km south of the Birjand turning.