Breakdown in Turkey
I got from London to Istanbul in a half-empty and very old bus driven by Kevin, a cheerful Australian with a bushy red beard. In Istanbul he sold the remaining seats to a group of American college students, let loose in Europe for their long vacation and - true to stereotype - brash and loud. They wore surprising little clothing considering that they were setting out for the Middle East.
Once he had driven us out of Istanbul beyond city prices, Kevin was prepared to let us splurge on a hotel every second night, as long as we saved money by sleeping in the bus on the intervening nights. With every seat occupied this was less comfortable than it had been in Europe. The matter was quickly resolved as the old hands opted to spread sleeping bags on the roadside. I pulled my rabbit-skin ‘fun fur’ from the bottom of my pack and converted it into an admirable mattress. We left the bus seats for the newcomers to stretch out on and they were grateful because they were scared to get off the bus in the dark.
Once he had driven us out of Istanbul beyond city prices, Kevin was prepared to let us splurge on a hotel every second night, as long as we saved money by sleeping in the bus on the intervening nights. With every seat occupied this was less comfortable than it had been in Europe. The matter was quickly resolved as the old hands opted to spread sleeping bags on the roadside. I pulled my rabbit-skin ‘fun fur’ from the bottom of my pack and converted it into an admirable mattress. We left the bus seats for the newcomers to stretch out on and they were grateful because they were scared to get off the bus in the dark.
At first crossing Turkey was easy and fun. Hospitable cooks beckoned us into restaurant kitchens and let us point to what we wanted to eat in the pots on their stoves. We loved the spicy meat and vegetables served with rice or flat bread. After a couple of days we were comfortable on the bumpy Turkish roads. Unexpectedly, as we crossed a mountain range in Eastern Turkey a tall blue mountain rose above the plateau with its head covered in snow and cloud. “That’s Mount Ararat over there,” Kevin called over his shoulder.
I thought of Noah, coming safely to rest on the top of that very mountain and I looked around for the olive tree that the dove took the leaves from to show Noah they were reaching land. Kevin told us that there were tribal Kurds living in those mountains and that the previous year a lone traveller had been murdered, just for his boots. As we crested the top of a hill and looked down on plains soaked in late afternoon sun, we heard an alarming grating-grinding noise under the floor of the bus. The engine roared and stopped.
Kevin climbed down from his seat, and – not for the first time – lifted the bonnet. Then he crawled around underneath the bus and stayed there for a long while. He came out covered in oil and declared the situation serious. “But that town down there, Dogubayazit, the town we’re going to sleep in, is right at the foot of the mountains. We can freewheel all the way down. She’ll be right.”
We rolled down the hill with the ignition turned off and his foot on the brake pedal, hearing the wind steaming past instead of the engine. If Noah had found safety at the top of that hill, surely we would do the same at the bottom.
We slid into the main street of Dogubayazit just as the sun set, very tired and very hungry. We spotted a restaurant across the street and rushed over. The owner was about to close, but he looked pleased to see so many unexpected customers. We ate quickly and some of the group were already paying for their meals before the Military Police arrived. They seemed very angry. We had already worked out that there was a curfew operating in the town. They told us in elementary German that we should know this and not be out after dark; they shooed us outside. I was delighted that they wouldn’t give me time to pay for my meal. They herded us back onto the bus, refusing us permission to go to hotels. We had no choice but to sleep sitting upright in our seats. I sat in my usual place, in the seat directly behind Kevin, who had to try to get comfortable with his head on the steering wheel. I passed him my rabbit-skin coat to make a pillow.
In the morning we were all stiff and little cranky. But we assured each other that Kevin was out looking for a mechanic, and that as long as it was all finished by midday we would have plenty of time to reach the border with Iran and leave this unfriendly town behind before another curfew closed in. But Kevin didn’t find a mechanic. It was National Day and a public holiday. All businesses were closed and it was quite hard even finding breakfast. After a snack of warm flat bread from a bakery and a stroll around the streets, we fanned out to get rooms organised in small hotels. If we had to spend a second night in town we wanted to be more comfortable and we knew enough to beat the curfew this time. Every enquiry yielded the same result: no free rooms. We didn’t believe them and we began to feel increasingly unwelcome in this town. A second night on the bus was unappealing, but where else was there to sleep?
Lunch was even harder to find than breakfast and ended the same brown bread, cold this time, from the same bakery, and we had little stomach for site-seeing afterwards. The townsmen were rude to us; the women kept their distance. Children laughed and pointed their fingers. Tessa and I muttered together about the American girls: if only they had looser clothes! If only they would cover their shoulders and arms! Didn’t they realise this was a Moslem community! The few people who spoke with us were old men who had learned German during World War II. Our two German students learned from these old men that the town was under military rule because the Kurds around the nearby boarder with Russia were extremely restive. So this explained the presence of the military police and the curfew.
I retreated to the bus for an afternoon nap in my usual seat. I woke so stiff and uncomfortable that I thought it would be worth making another attempt to find a room. Maybe, if the police were taking a rest too, a room would become available. This proved a lucky hunch and I was able to rent a room with four beds. I went back to the bus, shared my good fortune with Tessa and the German guys. The guys said they would go and find a restaurant for dinner, and collect their packs off the bus afterwards. They felt braver about challenging the curfew than Tessa and I did; we chose to play it safe, especially as Tessa was feeling faint and tired. So they took Tessa to look for dinner, while I hefted my own rucksack onto one shoulder and hers onto the other and started off towards the hotel.
I could hear some local louts calling out to me across the street. I ignored them at first and tried to keep a steady pace, but their footsteps began to catch up with me and I felt a hand on one of the packs. I started to hurry but, hampered by two rucksacks, I tripped and fell. I felt road dust in my face and the weight of two packs on my back. Then I felt more weight: one of the men was kneeling on top of a pack. His hands touched my neck. They caressed the sides and slid smoothly around to the front. The fingers paused at the front and carefully sought my windpipe. They began to tighten.
Just before I choked the man let go. He laughed a deep guttural laugh, stood up and walked away.
I picked myself up, and dragged the bags to the hotel. I gave up on dinner; I was far too frightened to go back into the street. I took off my jeans, found a Bandaid in my first-aid kit, washed my knee and dressed a cut. The hole in my only pair of jeans was rather more serious and needed stronger treatment. I got out my sewing kit and sat down on the bed beside window and started mending them. I heard a noise so I peered into the darkness; on the roof outside two men were sitting and watching me.
All I could do was carry on sewing. Eventually my roommates came back. When they saw the German guys with Tessa they scrambled down.
“What kept you? Why didn’t you come and get some dinner?” Tessa asked.
I told them simply what had happened, making light of it, emphasising the jokey side. For the first time since leaving London I asked myself if I had taken on too much choosing to travel this way.
In the morning we packed our rucksacks and went to stow them on the bus. We found the occupants in a state of subdued panic. Everyone else had spent a second night in their seats. Kevin would have slept with his head cushioned on his arms on the driving wheel except that, because we weren’t there, he’d moved back into Tessa’s seat, while mine stayed empty.
During the night someone came with a rifle and shot at the bus.
We rolled down the hill with the ignition turned off and his foot on the brake pedal, hearing the wind steaming past instead of the engine. If Noah had found safety at the top of that hill, surely we would do the same at the bottom.
We slid into the main street of Dogubayazit just as the sun set, very tired and very hungry. We spotted a restaurant across the street and rushed over. The owner was about to close, but he looked pleased to see so many unexpected customers. We ate quickly and some of the group were already paying for their meals before the Military Police arrived. They seemed very angry. We had already worked out that there was a curfew operating in the town. They told us in elementary German that we should know this and not be out after dark; they shooed us outside. I was delighted that they wouldn’t give me time to pay for my meal. They herded us back onto the bus, refusing us permission to go to hotels. We had no choice but to sleep sitting upright in our seats. I sat in my usual place, in the seat directly behind Kevin, who had to try to get comfortable with his head on the steering wheel. I passed him my rabbit-skin coat to make a pillow.
In the morning we were all stiff and little cranky. But we assured each other that Kevin was out looking for a mechanic, and that as long as it was all finished by midday we would have plenty of time to reach the border with Iran and leave this unfriendly town behind before another curfew closed in. But Kevin didn’t find a mechanic. It was National Day and a public holiday. All businesses were closed and it was quite hard even finding breakfast. After a snack of warm flat bread from a bakery and a stroll around the streets, we fanned out to get rooms organised in small hotels. If we had to spend a second night in town we wanted to be more comfortable and we knew enough to beat the curfew this time. Every enquiry yielded the same result: no free rooms. We didn’t believe them and we began to feel increasingly unwelcome in this town. A second night on the bus was unappealing, but where else was there to sleep?
Lunch was even harder to find than breakfast and ended the same brown bread, cold this time, from the same bakery, and we had little stomach for site-seeing afterwards. The townsmen were rude to us; the women kept their distance. Children laughed and pointed their fingers. Tessa and I muttered together about the American girls: if only they had looser clothes! If only they would cover their shoulders and arms! Didn’t they realise this was a Moslem community! The few people who spoke with us were old men who had learned German during World War II. Our two German students learned from these old men that the town was under military rule because the Kurds around the nearby boarder with Russia were extremely restive. So this explained the presence of the military police and the curfew.
I retreated to the bus for an afternoon nap in my usual seat. I woke so stiff and uncomfortable that I thought it would be worth making another attempt to find a room. Maybe, if the police were taking a rest too, a room would become available. This proved a lucky hunch and I was able to rent a room with four beds. I went back to the bus, shared my good fortune with Tessa and the German guys. The guys said they would go and find a restaurant for dinner, and collect their packs off the bus afterwards. They felt braver about challenging the curfew than Tessa and I did; we chose to play it safe, especially as Tessa was feeling faint and tired. So they took Tessa to look for dinner, while I hefted my own rucksack onto one shoulder and hers onto the other and started off towards the hotel.
I could hear some local louts calling out to me across the street. I ignored them at first and tried to keep a steady pace, but their footsteps began to catch up with me and I felt a hand on one of the packs. I started to hurry but, hampered by two rucksacks, I tripped and fell. I felt road dust in my face and the weight of two packs on my back. Then I felt more weight: one of the men was kneeling on top of a pack. His hands touched my neck. They caressed the sides and slid smoothly around to the front. The fingers paused at the front and carefully sought my windpipe. They began to tighten.
Just before I choked the man let go. He laughed a deep guttural laugh, stood up and walked away.
I picked myself up, and dragged the bags to the hotel. I gave up on dinner; I was far too frightened to go back into the street. I took off my jeans, found a Bandaid in my first-aid kit, washed my knee and dressed a cut. The hole in my only pair of jeans was rather more serious and needed stronger treatment. I got out my sewing kit and sat down on the bed beside window and started mending them. I heard a noise so I peered into the darkness; on the roof outside two men were sitting and watching me.
All I could do was carry on sewing. Eventually my roommates came back. When they saw the German guys with Tessa they scrambled down.
“What kept you? Why didn’t you come and get some dinner?” Tessa asked.
I told them simply what had happened, making light of it, emphasising the jokey side. For the first time since leaving London I asked myself if I had taken on too much choosing to travel this way.
In the morning we packed our rucksacks and went to stow them on the bus. We found the occupants in a state of subdued panic. Everyone else had spent a second night in their seats. Kevin would have slept with his head cushioned on his arms on the driving wheel except that, because we weren’t there, he’d moved back into Tessa’s seat, while mine stayed empty.
During the night someone came with a rifle and shot at the bus.
They showed us two holes in the windscreen and Kevin pulled two bullets out of his pocket. One had lodged in the fabric of somebody’s sleeping bag. The other stopped in the wadding on the back of my seat. Without the bullets I don’t think we would have believed the story; things like that only happened in movies. We traced the paths the bullets made between the holes in the windscreen and where they stopped. If we had not slept in the hotel, Kevin’s head would have been resting on the steering wheel directly in the path of a bullet.
He was, though, unharmed. He had already been out and the mechanic was definitely expected. We sat in our seats and waited quietly. No one thought about breakfast or went out for a stroll. The police arrived and we showed them what had happened. Their response was simply, “Be out of town before sunset.”
The mechanic arrived. The police seemed to be telling him to get our bus started quickly. Then there was a lot of talk between the mechanic and the Germans. Eventually they translated his poor German into their own poor English, “He say he cannot work in the face of woman.”
He insisted that all the females get off the bus for as long as it took him to do the repairs; I assumed that this meant he would be working on an empty bus. One by one we girls got off. Not a single male followed. We stood on the road and looked into the bus. Not one of them could meet our gaze through the shattered windscreen, they were all too scared.
I pulled on my fur coat over my jeans. It was much too hot, but it obscured the shape of my figure. I thrust my water canteen into my pocket and pulled the collar right up round my ears and held it across the lower half of my face. Only my eyes peeked over the top of my emergency yashmak. The American girls had still not covered their shoulders. I felt I didn’t want to walk with them so I set off alone, inside my fur protection.
I tried to buy something to eat. The shopkeepers refused to sell to me. I felt more confused and frightened than hungry. I could find nowhere to sit down and there was nowhere I wanted to go. I just walked slowly round and round. Gangs of small boys threw stones at me. The adults didn’t rein them in. Luckily they were poor shots and as long as I kept moving they didn’t hit me.
Eventually, in the early afternoon, the mechanic finished. Kevin rounded us up into our seats and told us the bad news. The big end had gone. It could not be repaired, only replaced by fetching a spare from London. The mechanic had done some emergency work that would allow us to crawl towards the Iranian boarder, but not go any further.
Kevin drove slowly to the border and we did arrive while it was still light. We got our passports stamped and left Turkey. Kevin retrieved the very sizeable vehicle deposit, which he had had to lodge with Turkish Customs on entry. He told us to walk into Iran and look for a bus to the capital. He said that he would hitchhike back to London to fetch a new big end and that his bus would still be there, impounded as it was by Turkish Customs, when he got back.
We passengers thought ruefully of the money-back guarantees that the expensive travel companies gave and reminded each other about stories of these not being met in practice. We convinced ourselves that paying a small fare with no insurance had been the cheaper option. Then Kevin called us together. “Each of you decide what currency you want your refund in.”
“But you’re not obliged to give us anything.”
“Not legally. But I do owe you. You can have pounds, dollars, or Deutschmarks.”
He sat on the step of his impounded bus and handed out bundles of small notes in the currencies we nominated. Honest Kevin! I didn’t see him again, but we exchanged a few aerograms. He hitchhiked back to London to buy another big end, hitchhiked back to Eastern Turkey and - once the engine was going again - collected another group of hippies and carried on driving back and forth between London and Delhi.
We, meanwhile, had to find ways of getting across Iran.
He was, though, unharmed. He had already been out and the mechanic was definitely expected. We sat in our seats and waited quietly. No one thought about breakfast or went out for a stroll. The police arrived and we showed them what had happened. Their response was simply, “Be out of town before sunset.”
The mechanic arrived. The police seemed to be telling him to get our bus started quickly. Then there was a lot of talk between the mechanic and the Germans. Eventually they translated his poor German into their own poor English, “He say he cannot work in the face of woman.”
He insisted that all the females get off the bus for as long as it took him to do the repairs; I assumed that this meant he would be working on an empty bus. One by one we girls got off. Not a single male followed. We stood on the road and looked into the bus. Not one of them could meet our gaze through the shattered windscreen, they were all too scared.
I pulled on my fur coat over my jeans. It was much too hot, but it obscured the shape of my figure. I thrust my water canteen into my pocket and pulled the collar right up round my ears and held it across the lower half of my face. Only my eyes peeked over the top of my emergency yashmak. The American girls had still not covered their shoulders. I felt I didn’t want to walk with them so I set off alone, inside my fur protection.
I tried to buy something to eat. The shopkeepers refused to sell to me. I felt more confused and frightened than hungry. I could find nowhere to sit down and there was nowhere I wanted to go. I just walked slowly round and round. Gangs of small boys threw stones at me. The adults didn’t rein them in. Luckily they were poor shots and as long as I kept moving they didn’t hit me.
Eventually, in the early afternoon, the mechanic finished. Kevin rounded us up into our seats and told us the bad news. The big end had gone. It could not be repaired, only replaced by fetching a spare from London. The mechanic had done some emergency work that would allow us to crawl towards the Iranian boarder, but not go any further.
Kevin drove slowly to the border and we did arrive while it was still light. We got our passports stamped and left Turkey. Kevin retrieved the very sizeable vehicle deposit, which he had had to lodge with Turkish Customs on entry. He told us to walk into Iran and look for a bus to the capital. He said that he would hitchhike back to London to fetch a new big end and that his bus would still be there, impounded as it was by Turkish Customs, when he got back.
We passengers thought ruefully of the money-back guarantees that the expensive travel companies gave and reminded each other about stories of these not being met in practice. We convinced ourselves that paying a small fare with no insurance had been the cheaper option. Then Kevin called us together. “Each of you decide what currency you want your refund in.”
“But you’re not obliged to give us anything.”
“Not legally. But I do owe you. You can have pounds, dollars, or Deutschmarks.”
He sat on the step of his impounded bus and handed out bundles of small notes in the currencies we nominated. Honest Kevin! I didn’t see him again, but we exchanged a few aerograms. He hitchhiked back to London to buy another big end, hitchhiked back to Eastern Turkey and - once the engine was going again - collected another group of hippies and carried on driving back and forth between London and Delhi.
We, meanwhile, had to find ways of getting across Iran.