Meybod is the kind of desert town that rewards anyone who slows down instead of rushing on to Yazd, fifty-odd kilometres to the southeast. It lies on the old road across the central Iranian plateau, a low sprawl of mud-brick and newer concrete with the Shir Kuh mountains on one horizon and nothing but gravel plain on the other, and it has been a waypoint for travellers for a very long time. Ardakan, its twin town, is just up the road.
The heart of the old town is Narin Qal'eh, a mud-brick citadel on a mound that may go back to pre-Islamic times, with layered walls rising like a sandcastle above the roofs. From the top you see the whole logic of a desert settlement: the old quarters huddled together for shade, the gardens fed by qanats, and the long empty road. Close by stand some of the best-preserved pieces of old Persian infrastructure anywhere: a caravanserai built for merchants and their camels, a chaparkhaneh or royal post station where couriers changed horses, a domed yakhchal or ice house in which winter ice was stored through the summer, and a pigeon tower that collected droppings for fertiliser. Seeing them side by side, a few hundred metres apart, is like walking through a diagram of how people lived here.
Meybod is also known for its ceramics, with blue and turquoise glazed bowls and plates made in workshops around town, and for zilu, a flat-woven cotton rug with simple geometric patterns, traditionally woven for mosques. Buying a small piece is easy, and the workshops are often happy to show you the looms.
Riding in, the main road from Yazd is wide, fast and straight, with heavy lorries and long hot stretches where the mirage dances over the tarmac. There is little shade and the wind can carry sand, so a scarf for the face and goggles or a closed visor help. The town is a reasonable size, over fifty thousand people, so fuel stations, small restaurants and shops are easy to find, though as a foreigner you may need help at the pump with the fuel card system. Spring and autumn are the sensible seasons; in high summer, ride at dawn and spend the afternoon in the cool of the caravanserai, which now hosts a teahouse.