Iran - Andrew Burke [144]
The hike starts in pretty, canyon-framed Garmarud village, 18km east of the Gazor Khan turning, where the Alamut Valley road’s asphalt ends. Whether you walk or drive, the route goes via picturesque Pichebon hamlet and across the 3200m Salambar Pass beside the small, partly renovated (but deserted) Pichebon Caravanserai. Fabulous views. On foot from Garmarud it took us 5½ hours to that caravanserai (with a guide, short-cutting through flower-filled meadows and beneath a waterfall). From the caravanserai it’s another three hours to Salajanbar, descending very slowly through pretty thorn shrubs and fields of yellow iris. If you follow the jeep track instead of the walking path, take the right-hand fork an hour beyond the pass.
Wonderfully picturesque Maran is the last village en route with no semblance of a road. Walking there from Salajambar takes three hours and requires fording a stream twice. While not that hard, it’s potentially dangerous when the water’s high: slip and you’ll be washed over a waterfall to certain doom.
Another three hours’ downhill hike from Maran brings you to an un-asphalted road below pretty Yuj village set in flower-filled meadows.
SLEEPING
In Garmarud a hotel is under construction: if completed that will make the village a great base for shorter hikes. Mr Sardeghi’s tiny Grocery Shop ( 379 4008, 0912-682 8991) sells biscuits and might help you arrange qotr (mules) to carry your bags.
At Pichebon, grassy meadows are great for camping – ask permission in the village.
In Maran village, Nematullah Mansukia ( 0192-282140) can provide a simple homestay with great home-cooked meals (around IR40,000 per person). By pre-arrangement he can also organise mules from Yuj (around IR120,000) or even Garmarud (around IR300,000). The village has a tiny, super-rustic hammam.
GETTING THERE & AWAY
To reach Garmarud, a dar baste (closed door) savari costs IR100,000 from Qazvin or IR50,000 from Mo’allem Kelayeh. From the end of the hike in Yuj, a savari to Tonekabon supposedly departs at 8am (IR25,000, two hours). Otherwise get someone to phone the savari driver Shabani ( 0911-394836) from Yuj’s village telephone. Hopefully he’ll arrive to pick you up within a few hours. Yuj has an informal baker but no shops so keep some snacks in reserve for the wait.
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SOLTANIYEH
0242 / pop 8700
Little Soltaniyeh (‘Town of the Sultans’) was purpose-built by the Ilkhanid Mongols as their Persian capital from 1302. But less than a century later in 1384 it was largely destroyed by Tamerlane. Fortunately three fine monuments survived. By far the most dramatic of these is the magnificent Oljeitu Mausoleum (Gonbad-e Soltaniyeh; www.sultanieh.ir, in Farsi; admission IR5000; 8am-5pm), now a Unesco World Heritage site. Almost 25m in diameter and 48m high it’s the world’s tallest brick dome. Inside, renovators’ scaffolding can’t hide the enormity of the enclosed space. A ground-floor exhibition illustrates the ongoing restoration process. Spiral stairs within the hugely thick walls lead up two floors to a terrace with panoramic views and fine stucco-work vaulting.
The building is named for its sponsor, Mongol sultan Oljeitu Khodabandeh. Oljeitu changed religions as often as a film star changes wives. During his Shiite phase, egged on by a favourite concubine, he had planned for the mausoleum to re-house the remains of Imam Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. That would have made it Shiite Islam’s holiest pilgrimage site outside Mecca (instead of Najaf, Iraq). However, Oljeitu couldn’t persuade the Najaf ulema to give him Ali’s relics and eventually he was buried here himself in 1317.
The mausoleum approach crosses