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Takab
friendly local university students who invited me into their home for tea Kurdistan. You're ready to take more sexy daily snapshots. But locals drop everything they're doing just to see you get off your bus. Their jaws drop when you light a cigarette. All school classes come to a halt as kids pour out of their classrooms to see if you're really a fellow human being. Masses of youngens approach you for your autograph while others timidly just snap out there camera phones. Only if you're Eastern Asian in Iranian Kurdistan.
I've never been stared at like I had a tulip growing on top of my head, but anything's possible here I learned, alongside uber-cheap gasoline, tulips and illegal whiskeys. Feeling like Elephant Man tiring of crowds, I was 360 degree camera-phone conscious with kids tearing at my clothes while they mimicked Street Fighter Oriental 'Achooooooooooooou' karate howls. Sadly 'Fire Ball Wind Dragon!' and such other mystic phrases aren't part of daily japanese. I did have some difficulty explaining in my limited farsi that japanese uses some chinese characters after being asked about my signature.
Earlier, I'd left the a city in the Lorestan province called Khorramabad, famous for it's Sassanian fortress Falak-ol-Aflak (The Heaven of Heavens). This amazing structure
kids at a Kurdish village
the pussies who dared not approach us directly....girls. also happened to have a dehumidifier system from 1800 years ago, as the architects were aware of the changing climate of the area. Residents could take shelter in the underground chambers during the scorching summer months. Although the castle has been used by different rulers throughout the ages, it's original architectural form has remained the same til this day. The climb up to the highest point of Khorramabad takes a few minutes, and then numerous other steep stairways (did Sassanians have such long legs to deal with such steep steps, or are my asian legs just extremely short?).
Today, the fortress houses a 'museum of nomadic peoples'. Um, so it's like Madame Toussauds gone nomadic. Here, you can check out the numerous displays of brilliant life-size wax figures doing activities such as baking bread, weaving carpets, dancing, living in tents. But why do all the female manequins look so angry? Is it because they're furious to know they're made of wax, nomadic, or both? You can also sample tribal music and dancing (men holding hands and skipping in circles - looked similar to Greek zorba dancing minus the ladies) watching the videos shown on flatscreen TVs.
French tourists.
kids at a Kurdish village
classes come to a halt, people pour out of their homes just to check out the asians. They're a fun enough bunch I suppose, who will always say a friendly 'Bonjour' (NB. not 'Hello' or any equivalents in local languages). I came across very few groups, but I have a question. WHY do they sing their national anthem, or 'Champs Elysees' out loud as a huge group in the middle of Kurdistan, checking out Sassanian fortresses or ancient ziggurats in the scorching heat??? Out of all places, why? A friend of mine said the same about a bunch he came across in an Uzbeg nomadic settlement at 1 in the morning.
And now onto the town of Takab in the Kurdistan province. It's a little place with only two proper hotels, and Lonely Planet tells you that there ain't much to do there except that it's conveniently located by the famous sightseeing highlights of Solomon's Throne and Prison. The little hotel I stayed at that night was a cute nook in the wall but equipped with its own shower (without curtains of course) and a squat toilet which cleverly acts as a drain during bathing.
What does one do when dinner ends early, and there ain't much of a nightlife in a little town, and
Falak-ol-Aflak
climbing up the steep path up to the top sleep isn't coming around for a while? You drink, talk, drink and pass out. This option applies even in 'dry' Iran, where you cleverly finds a fellow traveller who's managed to smuggle/purchase alcohol somehow. Hours passed as an elder mosaic-designer buddy shared his fine brandy that night and I gave him his demand of japanese snacks and local pistachios.
About to pass out, I remember debating whether if the sheets looked clean enough to use. I decided it wise not to sleep under them, but over them. Stupid decision regardless, as the next morning my entire body was ridden with over 30 bedbug bites and more from mosquitoes. I looked diseased, but continued on Kurdistan...slapping my ass every three minutes, trying to battle the itchiness. I hope none of the locals thought it a Japanese custom.
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