Jamie Maslin - Iranian Rappers and Persian Porn

When I got within twenty feet of him, Saddam walked toward me aggressively and ordered me, with a pointed finger and some yelled Turkish expletives, back into the truck. My adrenaline went through the roof now and I was ready to go for him big-time but was still very much in favor of the flight option. Under normal circumstances, in, say, a pub in England, I would have stood my ground, but out here in the middle of a deserted Turkish field, it was a different matter. If I could get away from him then I would and my ego be dammed.

As such, I tried to simply walk around him. This strategy proved to be worthless, as he quickly moved toward me and tried to grab my arm, which I held out blocking his advance. I pulled violently away but with the weight of my backpack, I spun almost completely around. He grabbed my pack instantly and with both hands tried to wrestle it and me to the ground.

I fought wildly to remain upright as he yanked the pack and me from side to side. Its weight and size were a great lever for him, and I struggled to get the upper hand. Through sheer aggression, as opposed to technique, I managed to get him in front of me again, where I now grabbed his wrists like a vice. His face was real close, and the perfect distance for me to head butt, but my backpack, still strapped to me, made this maneuvering impossible.

Instead, I shoved him back with both hands as hard as I could yelling, “Fucking get back! Stay where you fucking are!” There was no need for translation. I stepped backward to create some space between us, in the hope he’d now back off without things getting any worse than they already were. No chance. He reached down for a jagged rock and began to come at me with it. That was it: if he had a weapon then so would I. I drew my knife and really thought I was going to have to butcher the bastard into several Sunday roasts.

I flashed the gleaming blade at him and bellowed, “Drop the stone! Fucking get back!”

He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes going from me, to the knife, then back to me again. I got the impression he was figuring out if I had the balls to use it. And the truth of the matter was, I was very reluctant to do so, but if push came to shove and he tried to batter me with the rock, then I’m sure I would have plunged the weirdo.

I yelled once more, “Drop it! Fucking get back!”

He looked again at the knife then thankfully saw sense and slowly backed off, dropping the rock in the process, before getting into his truck. I didn’t waste time sticking around in case he changed his mind or had a weapon in the cab. Instead, I quickly moved off the track where he could only follow me on foot. I watched as he started the truck up and raced off toward the highway, leaving me alone in the darkness.

A number of stray dogs started barking eerily in the distance. This was not what I wanted. Going as fast as I could, I headed toward the highway. This whole area gave me the creeps; I wanted out of it and quick. I came to an abrupt halt when my path was blocked by a high barbed wire fence on the opposite side of the factory. It looked like I might have to make a long and unappealing detour around it, but mercifully I found a hole in the fence large enough for me and my pack to squeeze through. It was now completely dark, and as I walked toward the highway I wondered if Saddam was still around.

I felt drained, and on reaching the road I hailed the first shared minibus that came along—hitching could wait for another day. I jumped in the back of the partially filled van, and as it pulled away, the gravity of what had just happened hit me. I felt desperately lonely and wanted to talk to someone very badly. But of course not being a Turkish speaker, I remained in silence and just thought things over again and again and again.

As we approached the city, I said to the guy sitting next to me, “Hotel? Malatya?” He hadn’t a clue what I wanted, but a mid-twenties girl a couple of seats in front of me turned around and asked clearly if I spoke English. This was more like it. I explained that I was looking for a cheap hotel in the center of town. If there weren’t any cheap ones then to hell with my tight budget, I was going to spend whatever it cost tonight to get a good bed in a place I could get my head together.

She explained that she and her friend would walk me to a hotel. I thanked her many times and began to relax. As we pulled into a thriving bus station, her friend reached over to the driver and paid the fare for all three of us. I didn’t argue. We got out of the van and now in the light I saw them properly for the first time.

I was taken aback by the English speaker’s friend, whose eyes were almost identical to my ex-girlfriend’s. The similarity was uncanny and I’m sure it was the crazy incident in the field minutes earlier, but I desperately wanted to hold her. Of course I did nothing of the sort. I followed the girls like a lost puppy through the streets and began to think of them as my guardian angels.

The English-speaking girl explained that they were taking me to a hotel that was both cheap and beautiful—it was also full. On we walked through crowded city streets to a second establishment called the Hotel Aygun. She explained that she was leaving now but her friend would do the negotiations for me inside. Farewells and thank-yous were exchanged, and I headed inside with her friend. How well her negotiation skills worked I don’t know, but she got me a room and it seemed a reasonable enough price at the time, although I can’t remember the cost. In the few words of English she spoke, she said, “Goodbye” and “Nice to meet you.” I really didn’t want her to go as I desperately wanted company but, since she didn’t speak any English, it wasn’t like I could ask her to come for a drink or anything, and what’s more, all I really wanted was a hug. I said, “Goodbye.”

Imade good initial progress after leaving Malatya, and had hoped to reach Iran by nightfall but had made the mistake of accepting a less-than-slow lift when hitching out of the Turkish town of Elazig. Here, I was picked up by a kindly old truck driver called Ilhan, whose vehicle was in a terrible state of repair and looked as old as he did. I stuck with him though, as Ilhan was traveling some 220 odd miles along my route to the small town of Horasan, which was only 130 miles from the Iranian border. We spent most of the day on the road but covered a fraction of the distance we should have, since the vehicle was overheating terribly with smoke billowing from the engine as we drove. The farther we traveled, the more fatigued the truck became. It was slow enough on flat straight roads, but when it got to hills, it really began to struggle and ascended these at next to walking pace. This took forever as there were numerous long twisting mountainous roads along our route and every time we approached one of these, we had to jump out and dowse the engine with water from a number of old plastic bottles in the cab.

Whenever we passed a stream or roadside water fountain, it was my job to sink the bottles in the cool water, filling them up for use later on. This procedure, as well as our speed, ate away at our time, and it soon became apparent that I wasn’t going to get to Iran anytime tonight. Realistically, I would probably get there by midday tomorrow. I resigned myself to this and wasn’t really bothered; it didn’t matter to me whether it was today, tomorrow, or even next week that I arrived there, so long as I did arrive.

The farther east we went, the better the landscape became, and we drove through some of the finest scenery I’d seen so far on my journey. Parts of it reminded me of the rugged Scottish Highlands, although there was a slightly different tinge to the color of the hills. Numerous nomadic people lived out here in this vast rolling landscape, as indicated by their tents visible from the road. Although I was hugely excited about being so close to my final destination of Iran, I was so impressed with the scenery in eastern Turkey that I flirted with the idea of stopping off for a few days and trying to befriend some nomads.