Iranian Rappers And Persian Porn (28 page)

When we arrived there, I was asked to be as quiet as possible, as the rest of the family was asleep. They led me inside the front room, where about eight people were all lying on thin mattresses on the floor. I assumed I would be doing the same, but Iranian hospitality being what it is, I was shown instead to an empty room that I had all to myself. I didn’t want to try to refuse their generosity and risk waking someone up, and what’s more, there would have been no point in trying anyway, so I just whispered a quiet thank-you. Reza brought me a similar mattress to the ones the family were using and a big thick blanket. He closed the door and bade me goodnight. Moments later I was asleep.

In the morning, I was introduced to the rest of the family, who were all female and, apart from their mother, were much younger than Reza and Ashkan. Being the men of the household, the brothers didn’t lift a finger at breakfast, which was served for us by their adorable little sisters on a plastic mat on the floor of the main room. We had boiled eggs, bread, real honeycomb, yogurt, and olives.

After breakfast, I was keen to go sightseeing, but I didn’t want it to seem like I was setting the agenda, so I waited for the brothers to make a suggestion on where to go and what to do. Their suggestion was to go check out their PC in the room next door and for them to give me a full demonstration of how it worked.

What was it with young Iranians and their computers?

The computer was clearly their pride and joy and was fully rigged up to the Internet. They had downloaded loads of music videos and other crap, like fake WWE wrestling, all of which they were determined to show me. So my introduction to Yazd was not a tour of its splendid cultural and historical sights, but a couple of hours of watching stupid redneck wrestling nonsense and the likes of Britney sodding Spears shaking her butt about. This was all very kind of them to show me some prime examples of refined American culture, but it wasn’t really what I’d come to Iran or to Yazd for. I’d come to Yazd because it was the country’s quintessential desert city, sandwiched between the Dasht-e Lut desert in the south and the Dasht-e Kavir desert in the north. As deserts are one of my favorite environments, it appealed greatly. It is also home to the biggest Zoroastrian community in Iran, and has the country’s finest old city, which is still inhabited. Yazd was described by Marco Polo as, “a very fine and splendid city and center of commerce.” Yazd has always been renowned as a weaving town and was famed for its wonderful silks long before Marco Polo journeyed through on one of the multiple silk roads. After the Arab conquest, the city became a major stopping point along the caravan routes to India and Central Asia, and as a result its goods and crafts traveled far beyond the borders of Iran.

I eventually managed to convince the brothers to show me some of this fascinating city, and after I showed them the photos of Yazd in my guidebook, they agreed to take me to a Zoroastrian fire temple. We all piled into the Land Rover and headed off. It was another roasting day with a big blue cloudless sky that seemed to stretch for eternity. What I saw of Yazd on the way to the temple I really liked. It had leafy tree-lined streets, beautiful and strange-looking buildings, and was neither an overcrowded chaotic city nor a quiet deserted backwater.

We arrived at the Ateshkadeh Fire Temple just as Mr. Private Jet and the rest of the British pensioners from the Persepolis tour group were leaving and boarding a private coach outside. I waved a quick hello but didn’t want to enter into a conversation with them so walked on past.

The temple was a modest-looking building set in a small garden with a little circular pond out the front and a Zoroastrian winged symbol above the main entrance. The attraction of the place was its “eternal” flame, which has reportedly been burning since AD 470 and is situated behind a big glass case. In 1174, the flame was moved to the nearby desert settlement of Ardakan and then onto Yazd in 1474. It is kept going by attentive priests who regularly feed the fire with almond and apricot wood.

Although I found the temple mildly interesting, I can’t say I was taken aback with amazement at the place. We were confined to a small hallway overlooking the fire and, apart from a few paintings of Zoroaster on the wall and the flame itself, there really wasn’t much else to look at.

We got back in the Land Rover and drove to a far better Zoroastrian site just outside of the town called the Towers of Silence. Here in the dusty barren desert were two huge circular towers on top of adjacent rocky hills. In days gone by, these had been used by Zoroastrians to place their dead so the vultures could feed upon them. It looked an ancient and delicate site, but that didn’t stop the brothers burning around doing doughnuts in the Land Rover, whilst I got out to look at the towers.

There was a fantastic view from the top, with mountains and desert in one direction and the city in the other. Also of interest at the site were the remains of several other ancient buildings, including a big well with a domed roof, which was scrawled with Persian graffiti. Next to this were two towers called
badgirs
.
Badgirs
, or wind towers, can be seen all over Yazd and are an ancient means of air conditioning designed to redirect the slightest of breezes down into rooms below. The towers consist of a main chimneylike trunk which houses a number of ingenious shafts, special air shelves, and flaps that direct hot air out of the building and air cooled over a pool of water into the building. Although not as effective as modern air conditioning, the
badgirs
do have a discernable effect and are far healthier than the modern equivalent as they keep fresh air circulating and don’t use electricity.

I had a good look around the main site and clicked off a load of snaps before going to look at the domed well where the
badgirs
were situated. Leading into the side of the well’s dome was a little pitch-black tunnel. I moved along inside this almost completely blind as my eyes had yet to acclimatize to the darkness after the brilliant sun outside. I stopped just in time before the tunnel ended abruptly and dropped straight down into the well itself. It gave me a bit of a shock. I flicked some pebbles down to see how deep in went. It wasn’t huge, but it was more than big enough to break a leg or two. I thanked my lucky stars I’d stopped in time. I went back and found the brothers, who were now launching the Land Rover off a natural ramp-like mound of earth. It’s a wonder it didn’t kill the suspension such was the force they were landing with—a fine testament to good old British engineering.

We drove back to their house, where Ashkan dropped Reza and me off and explained that he had to leave us for a few hours so he could go do some studying. Inside, Reza treated me to more fun and games on the computer, this time in the form of a DVD of female American wrestling. It was terrible and so clearly faked, but Reza loved it and asked me sincerely, “You think real?”

I think not.

When his sister came into the room he immediately turned it off and sent her out.

“For woman, it is not allowed,” he said to me with a smile.

After a painfully long dose of “wrestling,” we settled down to a late lunch prepared by Reza’s wonderful mother. I was very grateful for her kindly preparing a meal, but my heart sank when I saw what it was—vast industrial quantities of kidney and liver chopped up and mixed with rice. Now I’m not a fussy eater, but I absolutely detest both liver and kidney. And I don’t just mean that I’m not particularly enamored by them, but that I bloody loathe the stuff, nearly to the extent of gagging at the very thought of eating it, let alone actually eating it. But as much as I detest liver and kidney, I wouldn’t dream of turning down a meal so kindly prepared, so I took a deep breath, tried to compose myself, and had my first tentative mouthful. I tried to swallow immediately in an attempt to stop contact with my taste buds, but it was simply impossible to get the stuff down without a good few chews to break it up. Even then, it seemed to wedge in my twitching gullet and travel down at an agonizingly slow speed.

It was simply disgusting and I felt seriously ill. I did my best to give little fake smiles to Reza’s mother as if to say, “Yum yum, this is good.” It wasn’t easy. In an attempt to help the stuff on its way, I took huge swigs of cola with the kidney and liver and masticated it all into a squishy pulp before swallowing. This made things a little easier going but not much, as believe me, a liver and kidney “cola float” is a far from a refreshing beverage. Coca-Cola may have occasionally flirted with the idea of cherry and vanilla flavors, and even that weird Tab Clear stuff, but I don’t think the powers-that-be at Coke PLC will ever detect a niche gap in the market and consider bringing out “Liver and Kidney Cola,” perhaps with the slogan, “It’s offally good!”

It took a long while, but I eventually cleared the plate and finished the last mouthful with a sigh of utter relief. I smiled at Reza’s mother as if to say, “Thank you, that was delicious”—big mistake! She grabbed my plate and then, to my abject horror, started piling on an even larger second portion. I have no words to describe how my spirit dropped on seeing this, but I guess winning the lotto and then losing the ticket must be a close feeling.

It was far harder to get through than the first portion, but eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, I made it to the end. This time, I purposefully left a little on my plate to indicate I was full. After the meal, I felt so bad I had to brush my teeth and lie down for a good hour to recover. Luckily, Reza was having a siesta anyway so no suspicions were aroused.

In the late afternoon, after Ashkan had returned with the Land Rover, Reza and I ventured out again, this time accompanied by his little seven-year-old next-door neighbor, who wanted to tag along with the big boys. He sat in the back of the Land Rover with a big smile from ear to ear. We stopped at one of the architectural highlights of Yazd, and one of the most distinctive buildings in Iran, the Amir Chakhmaq Complex.

The Amir Chakhmaq Complex is a three-story structure with two towering minarets, many beautiful sunken alcoves, and sparkling white and blue tiles. It is used as a sort of grandstand to watch theater performances in the square below of the Ta’zieh, or passion play, commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hossein. It is situated in the heart of Yazd across from a little park containing a pond and a fountain. Reza dropped me outside the complex and told me to meet him in the park opposite in half an hour, after he’d found a place to park.

I bought a ticket and went inside the towering structure. It didn’t really have any internal rooms, as it was an open-fronted building from which to observe the world below. Not only could you climb up to the structure’s open roof on the third floor, but also to the top of its massive minarets. To scale these, I had to negotiate, in near total darkness, a painfully narrow spiral stone staircase twisting all the way to the top. I stepped out onto a rather rickety-feeling platform at the summit and was bowled over by the breathtaking and unforgettable view. I could see for miles all the way across the ancient city’s mud-brick houses with their distinctive
badgir
wind towers to a vast sea of rolling sand, which looked as if it was straight out of the film
Lawrence of Arabia
. The dunes led to the base of a sprawling and rugged sand-colored mountain range many thousands of feet high. This was all bathed in the orange glow of the descending sun, which was just disappearing over the horizon. The evocative sound of the call to prayer rang out from the many mosques of the city, creating a vibrant and tingling atmosphere. Down below in the park, children were playing, people were chatting, and a group of soldiers reclined on the grass using their backpacks as pillows. Everybody looked so very happy, and there was a subtle yet perceptible feeling of contentment in the dry desert air. This seeped into and saturated me to the extent that I felt I could stay perched up here forever. The whole scene was so magical, but it was also so typical of the Iran I had come to love. I stood up here and wondered if, when I got back to England, anyone would believe me that this was the real Iran.

I spotted Reza and his little friend sitting in the park eating ice cream, so I headed down to see them. I bought myself an ice cream and joined them just as the colored lights of the square were turned on. Here we sat enjoying the atmosphere and just watching the world go by.

One thing I really wanted to do in Yazd was to go out into the desert and, if possible, to spend a few nights there under the stars. Yazd was going to be my final destination in southern Iran before I started the long journey north again, so I was keen to make it a good one, and was more than willing to splash out on an expensive desert tour. This was something it was wise to pay a little extra for, as the last thing I wanted to do was end up on a budget desert excursion that wasn’t properly prepared. Before leaving the U.K., I had read that the Dasht-e Kavir desert was one of the hottest in the world, and that it had nearly finished off Alexander the Great and his army, so it was not a place to take lightly by cutting corners on cost. Reza said it was possible to book desert tours through the Yazd Internet café and agreed to take me there.

After sending Ricardo a quick e-mail to find out where he was, I inquired about the tours. The Internet café only did local day excursions, but I wanted to get right out there and into the thick of it, so they directed me to a nearby hotel where there was a guide who organized longer trips. The guide was a friendly young chap who spoke perfect English and explained that he only did overnight tours for groups of four or more, so I would have to find three others who also wanted to go.