I unfortunately have to rate this a bit low even though it is kind of interesting. I don't think living in cave houses is that special though, I saw it in Shaanxi the first time albeit a bit different style, but there goes my “oh wow these guys are old school rock house people, that's hardcore!” that should have been evoked on arrival. Dwayne Johnson doesn't even live here, what a bummer!

I wasn't the only tourist but I got the usual taroof and he waved me through as I got all over Iran. The Iranians driving right inside were charged promptly. I gave the nice old man the 30,000 riyal on my way out anyway, sitting out there in the cold all winter plus it goes to some benefit of village upkeep rather than his smoking habit, right?!

You see most buildings right near the start, the school, the old bath, the houses of course, then when you get to the center of the village you find the fire temple. Venturing further is not necessary but also not very far. Many houses were closed as in winter the inhabitants migrate to a warmer place. This also meant the fire temple was closed unfortunately.

As I said before, the idea of having your house carved out of a cave doesn't do it for me, especially when you see the power lines all over the place. The inhabitants clearly have a “real” house inside with basic kitchen and everything. There are only a few attractions outside the houses and they are described well in both Farsi and English. In fact signage was the best here including an excellent town map to show you each building and an index for finding it. I can see how this was sold as OUV to the committee with the history attached to it of how long it has been inhabited, but again, not a top place on my list. I also saw no indication that there is more to the WHS than the village.

When I read that the people move away in winter I was concerned it may be snowed in or incredibly cold but I think it is just not very comfortable in the cave houses at the region's winter temperature which is mild compared to the north of Iran. It was windy but not a problem as the village is in a valley. The road leading to the village is also in excellent condition.