I decided to leave "Fawlty Towers" number 2 when the water decided not to work this morning and moved into a nearby hotel that was half the price and who were rather more friendly and helpful. After some argument with the sour owner of the Hotel Iran I managed to get some money back and stormed off in a fairly foul mood.

I met Patrcik at 8.30am and we decided that we would not take the ridiculously priced hotel "tour" of the Assassin's castle but we'd go it alone. The fact that no public transport reaches the castles, due to the fact that they were purposefully built to be inaccessible, we chartered a taxi for the day. Our driver, Bayran, was in a lively mood and for $30 took us on a 12 hour trip of the two most accessible castles a hundred kilometres away. To call him a driver is a somewhat restrictive term, as he insisted on playing Afghan music, full blare, into the surrounding mountains  while attempting to shake his shoulders and click his fingers attempting to provide us the tradtional dance to the music. Needless to say his hands spent a worryingly low amount of time on the steering wheel and twice we nearly careered off the road. He seemed totally unworried and as we shrieked at him over the music to "be careful" he just waved his hands at us and jerked his head to one side saying "no problem" before resuming his dance that we had obviously interrupted.

I should just briefly explain who these mysterious Assassins were and why we were taking a trip to see what is now mostly rubble and the odd tower. The Assassins date back to the 11th and 12 centuries and were Ismaelis who were simply a mercenary force that lived in remote and impregnable castles in the Alborz mountains of modern day Iran. They put the fear of God into anyone who messed with them and even Saladin is supposed to have left them alone. The reason they gave their lives in sacrifice to the organisation was in fact simply a trick that the leaders played on them. They would give them copious amounts of hashish, get them high and then lead them to a beautiful garden with lovely young maidens. There they would experience "paradise" for a while. When they came back down they were told that if they sacrificed their life for the fighting force they woudl go to paradise such as they had just experienced. It obvioudly didn't take much for them to agree. On account of this, Marco Polo described them as Hashashins from where the modern name, Assassins, has evolved.

After a good hour and a half of drinving, we arrioved at the first village - Razmian. From there wer scrambled up the crag on top of which the castle of Lambiasar once stood. Although not much more than a few towers and the odd wall remains, it was possible to get an impression of the extent of the castle and just how difficult it would have been to attack it. On almost all sides there was a vertical drop. The surrounding green, luscious scenery looked more like that of Scotland than Iran and was an addedd bonus. It wasn't long before Patrick and I played amateur archaeologists discovering bits of painted, but broken, pottery that we decided had to belong to the Assasin's period. Whether or not they did we don't knowm but everywhere we looked there were the colourful remains of what looked to be bowls and jars.

We stopped off for lunch at a nearby restaurant and ate Kebab (again - I have eaten enough to last em a lifetime), before ehading off to Alamut castle. This is the most famous castle in the region and was built on top of an even steeper outcrop of rock. It's currently being restored which while good for the castle, meant that much of it was closed ro covered. Still  it was worth the climb for the view. But by now the clouds were closing in and it had begun to rain. We headed back to Qazvin and arrived after dark.

Bayran suggested we should dine at his sandwich shop as his guests. I thought this sounded a delightful idea and asked him how far away it was. He replied with what sounded like "half kilometre" and I suggested we could go back to the hotel, shower and then walk. But he insited on driving us there now, so we just accepted. 10 minutes later we were still driving and had now left Qazvin. "half kilometre" had in fact been "haft kilometre" which is persian for 7 and we finally arrived at a completely different town. Still Bayran offered us delicious sandwiches while we entertained passing local children who seemed amused at novelty of two foreigners arriving in their town.