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When a guest in someone's home, how do you know when you have probably stayed too long�? My hair had grown visibly and a baby had learned to both walk and talk�. It was time to leave Istanbul. Caroline and Gurkan: you are heroes!
Turkey (24 November 2001)
Roundtheworldbybike2005-11-17 20:34:53
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When a guest in someone's home, how do you know when you have probably stayed too long�? My hair had grown visibly and a baby had learned to both walk and talk�. It was time to leave Istanbul. Caroline and Gurkan: you are heroes!
Arno the Frenchman had been to visit - we slept rough in sewage pipes and abandoned mansions, drank tea (cay) with old men and wallowed in deep Turkish baths. I was rested and ready for Africa. I crossed the Bosphorus, waving au revoir to Istanbul's wonderful skyline and to Europe. If all goes to plan the next crossing of that water will complete a circumnavigation and prompt a spectacular level of celebration (from me at least).
The Muslim call to prayer rose up the forested mountainside from the village mosques. Echoing and sliding around the autumnal cliffs, the singing was a beautiful sound. But the magical silence that followed was comically broken by a Public Service Announcement from one of the mosques: "bing, bong, BING, BONG, would Mr. Ahmet please report to reception" (or something like that!).
I stopped to eat in Beypazari. Before I knew it Mr. Youssef had invited me to his home for the night and I was whipping his sons at basketball. Cross-legged we feasted around a low table. A great evening, except for the agony of folding my legs beneath me as we ate. There were perfectly good chairs all around!
The next day we misjudged distances and spent the night trapped in suburbia (a horror that happens for life to many people�.), camping in Ankara beneath high-rise tower blocks. Four youths high on solvents pestered us late at night, for money, for alcohol, for cigarettes and, saddest of all, for the glue from my puncture repair kit. Plastic bags puffed full and empty in your face by frantic 15 year olds looking for escape is a deeply depressing experience. The prospect of their return later was not conducive to restful sleep either.
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See photographs from:
Turkey Gallery
