TEHRAN, Iran — Her hands tightly wrapped around a giant penis-shaped tombstone, Maryam giggles as her friend takes a picture. She repositions herself and, snap, another photo.
She’s one of the hundreds of tourists who come to visit Khalid Nabi cemetery, a place replete with contraditions. In this conservative Islamic country, it is a historic cemetery where male and female genitals are on display for the world to see.
And now, despite being hundreds of years old, it is becoming one of the country's hot new tourist destinations for young people. More than 600 head stones make up the bizarre cemetery, which is 40 miles northeast of Gonbad-e Kavous in northeastern Iran. Despite its long history, the site was only added to Iran’s national heritage list less than a decade ago. And even since then, few researchers have dared to study it.
Visitors from all over the country — and even the world — are now coming to this mountainous area of Turkmen Sahra, which is on the border with Turkmenistan, to see for themselves the collection of stone genitalia. They can book a tour through a local travel agency, and Kahlid Nabi is only a bus ride away.
Getting to the spectacle, however, isn’t particularly easy. The road is unpaved and there are hairpin turns, not recommended for the faint-hearted. But once there, the site doesn’t disappoint. In spring — the best time to visit — endless lush, green hillocks line the horizon.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/middle-east/101111/iran-tourism-penis-tombstones
