Laft

Laft is an old harbour town on the northern coast of Qeshm Island, facing the mainland across the narrow channels of the Hara mangroves. Its skyline is a forest of windcatchers, badgirs, the square towers that catch the sea breeze and send it down into the houses, a traditional answer to the heavy heat of the Persian Gulf summer.

Laft's houses climb from the harbour up a low hill, packed close together along narrow lanes. Fishing boats and wooden lenj rest in the harbour, and the town has long lived from the sea, from fishing, trade and boat-building. Laft was registered as a national monument of Iran in 2006, and in 2021 it was given the status of a town.

Behind the town lies its other wonder: a field of wells known as the Tala wells, dug into the rock to collect and store rainwater. Tradition says there were 366 of them, one for each day of a leap year. Their age is uncertain, and claims that they date back to Achaemenid or Sasanian times are not proven, but they show how carefully every drop of rain was gathered on an island without rivers.

Laft is at its best in the cooler months, from late autumn to early spring, when visitors can wander its lanes, climb to the old fort above the harbour and watch the sun set behind the windcatchers. From the harbour, boats run out into the Hara mangroves, which lie only a short distance to the west.