Pioneer Mind

Wikipedia: Rud-khan castle (also Rood-khan castle), is a brick and stone medieval castle in Iran.

Located 25 km southwest of Fooman city north of Iran in Gilan province, it is a military complex which had been constructed during the Seljuk Dynasty by the followers of Ismā’īlī sect. The Castle is built on two tips of a mount, with an area of 50,000 square meters. Its architects have benefited from natural mountainous features in the construction of the fort.

Rudkhan Castle sits at the two peaks of a mountain at elevations of 715 and 670 meters and contains strong fortifications and battlements at a length of 1,550 meters. The castle’s 42 towers still stand intact.

Well, well, well. After this short introduction to Rudkhan Castle, I’m going to write about our trip :D. I have to say, north of Iran (actually better to say Gilan) is something very usuall for me, because my parents are both from Gilan and I can say, I had more than a thousand trips to there. The nature of Gilan is extremely beautiful specialy at the end of the spring. But this time, was somehow different. Because I met new people and my companions where some of the best people I’ve ever seen.

It was a tour scheduled by a travel agency. As always it was Soofieh who found it for us. The program was to visit Masuleh, stay a night at a hotel in Fooman and leave for Rudkhan Castle next day. This time our group was a bigger one, consisting of my colleagues and their friends. We - Armen, Emil, Jila, Soofieh, Vahid, Nooshin and me - registered for the tour almost a week before it starts. We were supposed to go by bus. Our bus left Tehran, at about 6 am, on Thursday, from Vanak square. Soofieh joint us, in Karadj. Because we were seven, one of us had to seat alone. And that hero wasn’t any one other than Emil (Don’t be happy Emil, cause I’m going to say we changed a lot during the trip :D).

During the early hours of the trip almost every one was sleeping because we all woke up early in the morning. Until the stop for the breakfast. It was a road restaurant, which served egg plus butter, honey and tea. It was not the best but it was delicious. After breakfast, our next stop was in Manjil, by Sefid Rood river, near dam. As you know Manjil is famous for the strong winds that blows over there. They even use the power of winds to produce electrical power.

We continued our trip to Fooman, traffic was almost low and we arrived at Fooman after approximately 5 hours of journey without any special trouble. We ate lunch at a local restaurant. It was a very normal and almost bad meal. After lunch the bus took us to the hotel located at Fooman (Ofcorse if we could call it a hotel). But you know these things happen in trips like this ;). The team was going to have a rest during after noon and at leave Fooman for Masuleh at 6 pm.

They gave our team two rooms. One for boys and one for girls. Armen, Emil, Vahid and me were in a room with four beds and Soofieh, Jila and Nooshin in a three beds one. Girls came to our room and we spoke and laugh a lot. Drank tea, ate ice cream and snacks and have a little rest.

At six o’clock we were ready by the bus. Actually every one in the tour, except two girls. Two special ones (Just people in the tour know what I’m saying :D). We waited a lot for them but after about half an hour we left Fooman. It took about 45 minutes to reach Masuleh. Masuleh?!! Lets do some wikipedia :

Wikipedia: Māsūlé is a village in the Gilan Province of Iran. Historical names for the village include Māsalar and Khortāb. It was founded in the 10th century AD, and its current population is estimated to be around 800 persons.

Masuleh architecture is unique. The buildings have been built into the mountain and are interconnected.

Courtyards and roofs both serve as pedestrian areas similar to streets. Masouleh does not allow any motor vehicles to enter, due to its unique layout. It is the only village in Iran with such a prohibition. However, the small streets and many stairs simply also wouldn’t make it possible for vehicles to enter.

The spectacular architecture of Masouleh is well-known as “The yard of the above building is the roof of the below building”.

Okay. So you can imagine how beautiful this city is. Every team in the tour had to give a visit to the city during two hours and return to the bus. We went to bazaar of Masuleh, ate some traditional cookies, bought some stuffs, took many pictures and returned :D.

Masuleh also has a famous waterfall which is almost at the end of the city (Ofcourse it depends on where and in which directions you started visiting city. So if you are planning to go there, don’t look for what I said, the end of city. :D).

After returning to the hotel, we had to prepare dinner. So Vahid, Armen and Emil went for shopping and I took the stuffs with the girls to the rooms. There were a wedding ceremony at hotel that night. A bunch hip hop and rap musics (specially Sasy Mankan who I felt a close connection with :D) and a lot of power disconnections. I forgot to say that we bought a Dart game in Masuleh to make ourselves some entertainment at hotel.

Our neighbors at hotel were three Kurdish girls. They were all good girls and the closest team to us in that trip. We made a lot of jokes together that night ;). I have to speak more about them later, specially one of them. May be even a post in my blog. They were good girls, but for me it was not a very good experience getting close to them. It happens during the next two weeks after the trip. It seems it always happen after my trips. God helps me for my next trip (Who?!!! :D). But to be honest, despite all the bad things happened, I’m happy getting familiar with them :). That night after eating dinner with the girls of our team, playing some dart and destroying the wall of our room, we went to bed :D.

Friday, in the morning, we all (I mean boys) woke up about 8 in the morning. We ate a good breakfast at the hotel and then we left for Rudkhan Castle. Again it didn’t took more than 45 minutes to arrive there but it took more than 3 hours to go there and return. More than a thousand steps. But it was all full of fun, the jungle and nature was extremply beautiful. We all wish that we had more time and we could spent a night over there.

Almost all the way Armen, Emil and me were together, Soofieh and Vahid together, and our atheletes - Jila and Nooshin - individually. And about other teams in the tour, only our Kurdish friends and some other reached to the Castle. Armen, Emil and me were the first people arriving at the castle. Castle was really gloriuos. It was impossible to imagine how they built such a castle over there in that elevation. And impossible to imagine how enemy armies could find it and reach there. After almost seeing all the parts of the castle we returned. Armen, Emil and me almost ran all the way down the mountain. Except some stops which in one of them I gave some first aids to a man :D.

Unfortunately our arriving to the bus was with a lot of argue with tour leaders and other passengers. Because they all stayed in the bus, in a hot weather, waiting for the teams who went up there. Almost all passengers agreed that it was tour leaders’ fault. After that we all safely get in the bus, we returned to Fooman for eating lunch. Second day’s lunch was a lot better than the first day’s meal.

Next plan was going to seaside. We went to Bandar Anzali, to see Caspian Sea. We had almost one hours there. We walked by the sea, rode boat and played with rocks throwing them to the see. I remember that I spent a night by the sea in Bandar Anzali, with my family. It was a very nice night. But to be honest I prefer Persian Gulf. Our Kurdish friends built a sand man (Actually a sand face) in the beach. A nice one. But it was such a pity that it didn’t last so long ;).

It was returning time. After Bandar Anzali, our bus left there for Tehran. On our way we had a stop in Rudbar. Rudabr is famos for it’s olives and olive oil. Almost every one bought some olives. I didn’t cause my dad goes to Gilan almost every month and he knows when is the best time to buy olive. Instead of that I had a conversation with my Kurdish friends. I have to say I’m interested in Kurdish Culture. They told me alot about their culture, language and the place where they came from. They spoke about a city similar to Masuleh in Kurdistan (Even one of them emailed me it’s pictures later).

During the way to Tehran we had a lot of fun. We danced, sang, told jokes, solved riddles and had conversations with our new friends. We even drank fruit juice together.

Tehran highway had too much traffic. We almost arrived Tehran very left. After two days of fun, we were all, almost tired. I left the team near Azadi square with vahid and our Kurdish friends. We took taxis to our home and the trip finished.

And some more pictures…

I just decided to write a book of my travels. So may be some day in future it reminds me of some of the happiest times that I’d ever had. Or may be it motivates my blog readers (If there is any :D) to start traveling instead of seating at home thinking about trips. To be honest, I, myself, always thought that I can’t have fun or go to a good trip in my country, Iran. Because of many problems that exist. But I started to see the glass half full, so suddenly I realized there are many beautiful places that you can have fun at them with your best friends.

After this introduction I’m going to start my Travelogue with Kish. Let me introduce the most beautiful island in Iran.

Wikipedia: Kish is a resort island in the Persian Gulf. It is part of the Hormozgān Province of Iran. Due to its free trade zone status it is touted as a consumer’s paradise, with numerous malls, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and resort hotels. It has an estimated population of 20,000 residents and about 1.5 million people visit the island annually. The area of the island is 91.5 km². Kish Island is the purported to be the third most visited Western-oriented cities in the Middle East, after Sharm el-Sheikh and Dubai. Foreign nationals wishing to enter Kish Free Zone from legal ports are not required to obtain visas prior to travel.

Now about our travel. We - Armen, Roham and me - started our journey after a hard work at office. Our plane took off from ‘Mehrabad Airport’ in Tehran. We went there just after our work. It was a great day, and we all were very energetic because of our up coming trip. The trip took about one hour.

The island tends to be hot and humid most of the year. We could feel this fact once we arrived at Kish. We took a taxi to bring us to the place which our company prepared for us. Thanks to Mr.Shayandeh, it was a very comfortable place, with almost anything that we might need. I have to say if didn’t have this place to stay, we had to pay a lot of money to rent something similar.

After arriving at our place we had a short rest, and then started programming our trip (I mean what to see first and next) using the map that we bought at airport and the information which our dear and kind colleague, Miss.Firuz, gave us before the trip.

Because it was close to sunset, we decided to go The Greek Ship. Greek Ship is an old and wrecked ship landed at southwest coast of the Kish Island. It’s famous for the marvelous view which it makes during sunset. But unfortunately we missed the scenery.

After that we went to a famous restaurant, called ‘Shandiz’, to eat ‘Shishlik Kebab’. It was so delicious. There were many singers who sang songs during dinner. They made a very happy environment. Then we went to the seafront. It was very beautiful. Many people were there for fishing. Our next step was going to different shopping centers. They were rather nice and full of stuffs to buy. At night we understood that spent a lot of money for taxi. so we decided to rent a car. And again dear Miss.Firuz helped us.

By the second day we had a car. An Hyundai Accent. It was not the best that we could rent, but it was the best that we could have. I think it was the best decision that we made in that trip. You can’t imagine how comfortable was it, having a car. Our second day started by going to a mall for buying some snacks and food. Then we started going around the island with car. It was so beautiful. In the way we face a traditional reservoir of drinking water. It was not an old one but the building was worst to see. Then we ate lunch by the seaside.

On our way back to the city we saw a big tux there which had a nice view to the see (In front of Eram hotel). As tux lovers we took a lot of pictures there. You could see Darius Hotel from there too.  Our day continued by going to an entertainment center and playing bowling and billiard.

The second night of our trip was one of the most happiest nights that we ever had. We went to an expensive restaurant at top the top of Eram hotel. One of those which rotates all the time and you could see all the island from there. The chief was an Iranian who learned cooking in the USA. To be honest the food was really good. Although it was too expensive for us but we all enjoyed it. The good point was that we were the only people in the restaurant. Actually the island was not so crowded those days. After dinner again shopping centers were our next choice.

The third day was a special day. It was my birthday :D. Many of my friends called me that day for saying happy birthday. Except the most important one who I thought that she was my best friend :D. But who cares?!!

In the morning we went to sea side. It was a real paradise. We all had an agreement that ‘This is the paradise which people are looking for’ :D. The water was so clear and we could easily see through it. Different sea animals were visible. It was so easy to have their attention just by some breads :).

The view was so beautiful that we spent more then 2 hours over there. We didn’t even pay attention to the burning sun shine over our head. Actually I have to say, I’m a sun lover. Before eating lunch at a restaurant suggested by Miss.Firuz, we went for swimming at one of the restricted areas of Kish island. It has different water entertainment facilities but I have to say, In my opinion, it was awful. I preferred to find a place myself for swimming. So we decided to return to our paradise for swimming. We scheduled to stay there as long as we can see sunset.

We had a lot of fun over there. The water was great. As time went by, the water surface rose up. Over there we saw a group of African tourists. They asked us to take pictures with them. They were funny. I gathered some beautiful seashells to decorate a present for a friend. It was there that I found, I have some artistry :D.

At night we visited some ancient places of Kish - ‘Harireh City’ and ‘Harireh Harbor’. It was really interesting because there were no one there. Every were was dark and we were on our own. It reminded me of Sindbad :D. We also went to Green Park to see the oldest tree of Kish. They say it’s probably 500-600 years old.

Our final part of our third day was riding bicycle. Kish has a special bicycle road which goes around the island. I think it takes more than two hours to go trough all of it. So we all rented a bicycle. It was great. Really great. The road was really beautiful. We almost saw all the beauty of the island again.

The last day of our trip was supposed to begin with being at seaside during sunrise. But unfortunately we missed it because of over sleeping :D. So went to an underground ancient city. It was really amazing.

After eating lunch we went for jet ski. It was rather expensive but it really completed our fun. The speed, the cool breeze, water, everything was perfect. It was too short. About 15 minutes for each one of us. But it was so much fun that I still can feel that I’m riding it. I’ll but one for myself in future. We decided to experience underwater diving too, but we got surprised when we have been told that you can’t do it 6 hours before flight. Besides because it was about 3 pm, they said that the water level in now too down. So we drove to see newly constructed entertainment centers of Kish but unfortunately all of them were in their closed hours. After going back to our place and returning the car, we went to airport.

We left Kish that night. I wished we could stay at least two more days but we had to come back to work. To be honest it was one of the best trips that I’ve ever had although I had a very bad week after that, because of one of my friends.