Bam, Gone

I am grateful to the earthquake that took 20,000 lives and 70,000 homeless only for this: my dear friend M. had already left Bam, two and a half weeks ago. He told me that the place he stayed when he visited Bam was highly recommended on Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree message board, because the proprieter Akbar always took people into his guest house as though they were part of his family.

His guest house was destroyed, he lost his son, and reportedly 18 other members of his family. One British tourist died in the guest house. The Bam citadel, carefully restored over the last thirty years, whose tourists were the basis of the local economy, is gone. This rural city, the first inside the border with Pakistan in a wide expanse of desert, has to rebuild from the dust.

Here is Lonely Planet's "The Thorn Tree" news about Akbar in Bam.