Iran - Andrew Burke [143]
* * *
Mo’allem Kalayeh
0282 / pop 4700
Sometimes called Alamut town, Mo’allem Kalayeh is the Alamut Valley’s one-street district centre. It’s a useful transport staging post for the region but not a sight in itself. If you get stuck here, Haddodi Restaurant ( 321 6362; tw/6-bed IR80,000/140,000) rents two very simple rooms. It’s on the main street 50m east of the eagle statue. The town centre, where rare buses and savaris loiter, is 600m further east. Savaris to Qazvin (IR25,000) are an hour quicker than the dreadfully slow bus (IR15,000, daily except Friday) that departs once feeder buses from outlying villages have arrived. For Gazor Khan taxi charters cost IR40,000, or IR80,000 including a side trip to Andej en route. Or take the returning school bus around 11.45am.
ANDEJ
The 8km road-spur to Andej passes beside three truly awesome red-rock side-canyons, somewhat reminiscent of the Olgas (central Australia). The turning is just northwest of Shahrak, which has a prominent (but not Assassin-related) castle ruin.
Gazor Khan & Alamut Castle
0282
The region’s greatest attraction is the fabled ruin of Alamut Castle (admission IR4000; dawn-dusk), Hasan-e Sabbah’s famous fortress site. The site is a dramatic crag rising abruptly above the pleasant, unpretentious little cherry-growing village of Gazor Khan. The access path starts about 700m beyond the village square and requires a steep, sweaty 25-minute climb via an obvious stairway. On top, archaeological workings are shielded by somewhat unsightly corrugated metal sheeting. But the phenomenal views from the ramparts are unmissable.
Several tempting mountain hikes start in Gazor Khan or Khoshkchal village, a steep, 15-minute 4WD ride beyond. Route suggestions are extensively described in a helpful travellers’ tip book at the charming Hotel Koosaran ( 377 3377; dm IR30,000). That’s effectively just the guest room in Ali Samie’s family home. It can sleep up to five, curled up on cotton mattresses on the floor. Simple but tasty meals are available (IR15,000) if you ask ahead and the flat roof facing Gazor Khan’s village square makes a great people-watching perch.
Managed by a Grimm’s fairy-tale crone, the Golestan Inn ( 377 3312; room/’suite’ IR120,000/150,000) offers rather tatty accommodation amid trees on the slight rise that directly overlooks the stairway to Alamut Rock. The ‘rooms’ share a decent kitchen and a grotty squat toilet. The ‘suites’ are a pair of semi-detached concrete houselets with run-down balcony seats amid overgrown foliage. Kabab meals cost IR30,000 (by pre-arrangement).
Hotel Farhangian ( 377 3446; tr IR160,000) is a converted former school whose ex-classrooms now form reasonably well equipped though not luxurious ‘suites’ with kitchen and bathroom. Beware that the place gets locked up when the receptionist (a small boy) goes home for his meals! Bring your own food. There’s no English sign, but it’s tucked behind the Alamut Research Centre, up a short driveway that heads south from, castle trailhead. Don’t rush to believe locals who tell you it’s closed.
Savaris usually run to Qazvin at around 7am (IR30,000, 2½ hours). At the same time there’s a bus to Mo’allem Kalayeh (school days, IR3000, 45 minutes). Both leave from the village square outside Hotel Koosaran.
Trekking Towards the Caspian: Garmarud to Yuj
Crossing the Alborz on foot from the Alamut Valley to the Caspian hinterland is geographically compelling, scenically stunning and culturally fascinating. You’ll be one of just a handful of foreigners since Freya Stark (1930s) to make such a trip, but hurry: road builders are slowly extending tracks further and further into the isolated mountain villages and a whole way of life revolving around donkey transport will soon be a thing of the past.
The route described here isn’t especially arduous, though a guide and/or mule-driver is recommended to