Iranian Rappers And Persian Porn (33 page)

It was the same routine as before, and I was asked to introduce myself but by now I was really getting the hang of this teaching lark and said confidently, although a little tongue in cheek, “Please be seated class. My name is Mr. Maslin, I’m from England and will be answering your questions for the next fifteen minutes, so please fire ahead. Who’s first?”

They reeled off pretty much the same queries as before, which I answered as best I could. I was in the zone now and managed to get the class laughing on a number of occasions. It was great fun, and I felt like I was a comedian on stage. There was another knock on the door and in came Mr. Nasser Khan. All the class, including me, stood up. Nasser took a seat nearby and listened to the rest of the questions, one of which was, “Have you learnt any Farsi?” After going through “hello,” “goodbye,” etc., Nasser leant over and whispered, “Tell her she is beautiful,” so I did.

“
Shoma khoshgelly
,” I said, mustering up a look of sincerity. Everybody was in fits of laughter and began applauding. I was encouraged to do it several more times, which I did and received the same response. I was really getting into the swing of it all when there was another knock on the door. It was the same staff member who now wanted to take me away again. This wasn’t popular, and there was a near-rebellion in the class with all of them begging to let Mr. Maslin stay.

When it was all over, I was taken downstairs to meet the school’s head honcho who shot from the hip with his first question. “Which teacher was the best, and which teacher was the worst?”

I loved the irony, as teachers from my old school would be mortified at the thought of Jamie Maslin, of all people, being asked to critique their profession. Although the thought of playing school inspector for them would have greatly appealed, this was Iran, where classes were filmed—probably to keep an eye on the teachers as much as the pupils—so I didn’t want to put anyone in it, and answered that both were exceptional teachers with very good English. The principal seemed satisfied.

Mr. Khan, the Poles, and I caught a cab back to the center of town, where we wished each other well and parted company. Minutes later, I was in my hotel. I requested a morning call for 5 AM and went to bed. I got bugger all sleep though, as for some reason, just like in Maku, I was paranoid that the call wouldn’t come. When the phone finally rang, right at 5 AM, I was exhausted.

Fifteen minutes later, I was in a cab with Ian on the way to the bus station. We arrived there around five thirty, but for some reason the early bus was cancelled and we had to wait until 7:10 AM. It had been one big waste of a lie-in.

The scenery on the way there was awesome, with dramatic hills in layers of rusty red and murky cream, made all the more beautiful by the pink tinge of the early morning sun. I was pleased now that we’d traveled later; if we’d traveled in the dark, we’d have missed much of this wonderful landscape.

Ian and I chatted away on the journey there like old buddies and told each other about our trips and experiences in Iran. Ian worked for an airline and thus got cheap flights, so he had done a lot of traveling, and although Canadian, had been educated for a time in England. He was only in Iran for two more days and, if I remember correctly, had spent about a week here visiting the north of the country. On the way to our destination, the town of Kaleybar, we passed through a town where every vehicle, without exception, was an old style Land Rover. There were rows upon rows of the things all over the place. I’d never seen so many in all my life. We started counting them but gave up when we got into the hundreds.

Kaleybar was a sleepy little isolated town in the heart of Iran’s rugged Azerbaijan region. It was surrounded by steep green mountains, the peaks of which remained unseen, shrouded in a slowly drifting alpine mist. It was a great location and once again so very different from most people’s perception of Iran—not dry and parched like its central deserts, but as lush and green as merry old Mother England.

Ian and I were both hungry, and since we had many hours of hiking ahead of us, we went to a café to fill up on carbs. After our breakfast, we went looking for a taxi. On the way, we were invited into a complete stranger’s house but as we were already well behind schedule, we reluctantly had to decline. We caught a cab up to the start of the trail.

The trek started along a twisting forest trail past a number of abandoned campsites, which, sadly, were strewn with trash. It was a real shame as it was a stunning piece of scenery, which clearly the people who’d camped out here had come especially to see, but for whatever reason had seemed determined not to leave that way. Past the campsites, the trail meandered uphill through the trees and along a boulder-riddled riverbed, toward the looming cloud-capped mountains in the distance.

All was going well on the hike until we arrived at a waterfall next to a steep craggy rock face, to which the path appeared to lead up. We were both unsure whether this was the correct route, as the rock face was steep and dangerous as hell. Ian didn’t like the look of this one bit or the prospect of climbing it. Since he was built more for chopping trees down and I was built more for climbing them, I volunteered to scramble up the rock face and check it out, whilst Ian backtracked to see if there was another route.

To me, the climb seemed a little hairy, although perfectly doable if taken slowly and carefully. I didn’t find it too hard and got to the top without drama. At the summit, the path skirted around the waterfall and connected to a much more gradual and safer track leading through the forest. As I descended to pass on the good news, the clip attaching my water bottle to my belt gave way, sending the bottle careering toward the ground, bouncing off and smashing into jagged rocks as it went. This did nothing to encourage Ian, who the water bottle just missed, that the climb was a safe one. Surprisingly, the bottle was in one piece.

Ian hadn’t found another track, so the choice seemed simple: either he did the climb or we went back to the start again and located the easier route.

There was no point in him trying something he wasn’t comfortable with, and what’s more, we were in a very isolated location along a deserted mountain path and should something have gone wrong, than it could have gone wrong badly.

We started the depressing walk back, but a minute later, Ian fortuitously spotted another trail going all the way around the rock face and waterfall. We took this and in no time were both looking down on the waterfall. The path then led along another boulder-strewn riverbed toward a rocky peak jutting majestically out of the forest hundreds and hundreds of feet above. It looked like the location where the castle was perched, although it was difficult to tell because a thick curtain of mist obscured the peak. The mist would part tantalizingly for a fraction of a second, leaving Ian and me straining for a glimpse of the castle before it closed again and enveloped the mountain. What we saw was mesmerizing. It was stunningly beautiful, like some mythical enchanted fortress out of a fairy tale or
The Lord of the Rings
. I couldn’t wait to get to the top.

We arrived at a fork in the road, with both paths leading up the rocky peak in different directions. Ian favored the one to the right; I favored the one to the left. We decided to go check out our favored tracks and report back to each other a few minutes later before making a decision. A couple hundred feet up my trail, I became convinced it was the right one. I was just about to yell out to Ian and tell him this when he beat me to the punch and shouted to come back. I found him with a group of six or so Iranian hikers. They spoke little English but indicated that Ian’s path led to the castle, and since they’d all just come from there, they were obviously right.

Another half an hour on and we came to the very steep rocky mountainous section. It was one hell of a place to build a fortress and would have been bloody difficult to attack as the hike up there was no stroll in the park. Sadly, we still couldn’t see the castle clearly, such was the mist blanketing the summit. The Polish guys who’d recommended this route had described similar weather conditions and had said that, suddenly, out of the blue, the clouds had completely parted for them, revealing the castle in all its glory above. Ian and I waited for a while hoping to get the same awesome view from below but the clouds remained steadfast.

The Poles had also told us that it was possible to get a drink at the top, which seemed a bit unlikely given the castle’s inaccessible location up an isolated mountain in the middle of a forest. Jokingly, in stupid overexaggerated upper-class English accents, we shouted up toward the cloud-tipped peak, “I say, would someone be kind enough to put the kettle on up there!” and other inane although quite amusing nonsense. It echoed around the valley for miles.

“I hope there’s no one who understands English at the top,” said Ian.

A little farther up, we came across another path that joined onto ours, coming from the direction of the one I’d first favored. It was almost certainly the same trail and had led up to the castle after all. Being a bit of an outdoor enthusiast, I felt relieved to know I hadn’t got my navigation completely wrong.

From out of nowhere, the strange sound of a large group of males singing harmoniously emanated from the castle’s still unseen, cloud-covered peak. Suddenly, a boulder came crashing down the side of the mountain, accompanied by several shouts. We yelled up to let the choir above know we were down here. A couple of minutes later, a group of about twenty Iranian kids of around fourteen years old came down the mountainside, along with an adult who looked like their school teacher. They were having a great time and looked like they were on a school outing.

They went crazy when they saw us and all came over and shook our hands enthusiastically. They were a great bunch and hyper-energized. Ian told one of them he was from Canada and they went berserk.

“Canada! Canada! Canada!” they chanted together at the top of their voices, which echoed repeatedly all around the valley.

“Iran! Iran! Iran!” Ian yelled back.

“Canada, Iran! Canada, Iran! Canada, Iran!” everybody, including me, started to yell for no other reason than it was bloody good fun and we were all enjoying it. By this stage, they’d all assumed I was Canadian too and were giving me little pats on the back whilst enthusiastically shouting, “Canada! Canada! Canada!” again and again. I responded with “Iran! Iran! Iran!” It was insane and pointless but a great laugh.

After the chanting, a number of them produced cameras and we all lined up for some group photos. Every time we were about to part and go our separate ways, a couple of the group would run back to shake our hands again or to have one more snap taken with us. This happened about ten times before they finally headed down and disappeared into the mist below. Although out of sight, they were far from out of earshot, and for the next few minutes, the surreal sound of “Canada, Iran!” echoed all around the mist-shrouded mountains of Iran’s East Azerbaijan Province.

Eventually, we got close enough to the castle to see it through the clouds. It had taken a good couple of hours but was well worth the effort. The castle was perched right at the top of a near-vertical rock face accessible only via a steep twisting path that led to the summit. We climbed this and were delighted to find the place completely deserted.

Although what remained of the castle was a ruin, many of the walls and structures were intact, several parts of which were roofed. Others were in the process of being rebuilt, but I kind of liked using my imagination to try to picture it back in its heyday.

We had a good look around the site, then sat with our feet dangling over the edge of a section of walling with a massive drop below. We waited here, hoping upon hope that the curtain of cloud would draw, even if just for a second, so we could glimpse the glorious vista we both knew was all around us but could not see.

Although Ian and I had the place to ourselves, it would have been a different story had we been here in late June. At that time, the castle and the surrounding area would have been packed with several tens of thousands of people coming to commemorate the birthday of Babak Khorramdin. Babak Khorramdin was a ninth-century Zoroastrian Iranian nationalist who fought fiercely against the imposition of Islam and the Arab invasion of his country. He was based at the castle, and it was later named after him.

The celebration of Babak Khorramdin’s birthday is a rather disorganized event and follows no particular official program, with Iranians turning up and congregating in small groups for discussions, poetry readings, lectures, musical performances, dancing, and to campout overnight at the castle. The Iranian authorities have been none too happy about the gatherings in previous years, in large part because of what Babak Khorramdin symbolized as a popular nationalist who promoted an Iranian religion and fought against Islam. Some mullahs have criticized the participants in the birthday celebrations, saying that it is unethical to commemorate someone who killed Muslims. According to some reports, there have been multiple arrests at past ceremonies by the security forces.

Ian and I stayed at the top of the castle exploring around for a good long time, still hoping that the clouds would clear, before making the decision to head back. Whilst looking for the easy path down, we came across the “café” mentioned by the Polish guys where you could get a drink. It consisted of a couple of big urns, a gas burner, a box of tea bags, and a couple of kettles. It was all kept under a tarp and was deserted today. We considered getting the gas burner on the go and leaving some money for a
chay
, but decided against it when we couldn’t locate any cups.