1 Chapter 1. Beginnings

On May 11, 1976, I boarded a ferry from the port of Pythargoreio on the island of Samos, bound for the Turkish port city of Kuşadasi. I watched the verdant Greek coastline turn grey and misty, then white and uneven like weathered baseboards. The rough sea rhythmically threw our ferry up, then down, in the watery trough. Tossed in white spittle for two-and-a-half hours, we at last pulled into the Turkish port.

Only days before, I had bid farewell to the young Swiss woman I’d met and with whom I had fallen in love. She was flying home prior to leaving for Zambia, where we planned to meet again early the next year after I had travelled to India. But now I was on the ferry.

I remember little of arriving in Kuşadasi. It seemed to me small and crowded, and like all such ports, a mix of diesel and dirt. Its enclosure provided no means of imagining the journey before me—five countries in all, varying in size, origin, and complexity: Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and finally India.

Despite the port’s appearance, everything brimmed fresh and new. Even its ancient dirt seemed rife with novelty. I collected my thirty-pound backpack, including a blue sleeping bag, a change of clothes, books, and a small camera. I slung it over my right shoulder and headed for a bus station.

As I left the ferry at Kuşadasi, I was decidedly, and intentionally, alone. My decision to travel alone fit my personality—I have always enjoyed being on my own. Solitude eliminates clutter: it brings with it a certain purity of experience. I wanted to have inner space for my own reactions and thoughts, absent the distractions posed by the need to interact constantly with companions. At the same time, I wanted to immerse myself as fully as possible in the new culture I was experiencing, which comes far more naturally to an individual who is isolated from others. This isolation isn’t anti-social but meta-social.

I had in my possession, as I left the port at Kuşadasi, a map of Turkey, but with no particular destination in mind. So, buoyed by a lack of geographic intention, I took a minibus north through the parched and yellow countryside, past myriad commercial signs and trailer camps, to the nearby town of Selçuk. There, I stopped to eat breakfast at Mustafa’s restaurant, a place to which I returned later that day for supper and its ambience. The restaurant had a ledger of names of people from around the world who had previously eaten there. Some had left personalized poems; other’s stories and pictures of Mustafa. Someone had written, not too originally, “Mustafa been a beautiful baby.”

I made a side trip the next day to the impressive ruins of Ephesus—once a great port on the Mediterranean. But that sea was now six kilometres away, the result of isostatic rebound, as I later learned. I remember being intrigued by what seemed like a walk through architectural time as the buildings on the main road leading to the sea proceeded first in Grecian style, then Roman, then Byzantine, before disappearing into a silt bog.

Leaving Selçuk, I travelled southeast to the city of Antalya, on the coast of the Mediterranean. At the time, the city was in the early stages of a major tourism development project, intended to capitalize on its inviting expanse of soft, sandy beaches. I described it as “big and bustling,” a place of “building and tearing down.” Later that evening, I took in a Turkish film at a movie theatre, and the next day headed east to the ancient port city of Side.

Quite apart from its own supply of exquisite beaches, Side is home to numerous Greco-Roman ruins, including an enormous amphitheatre and a temple to Apollo. It was busy and full of tourists. Seeking a moment’s respite, I stopped at a chai shop where I got into a conversation with Ayhan, a history student, and Metin, a biology student. Both attended Ankara University, the first institution of higher education founded after the Republic of Turkey was born, in 1923, and both were politically active. The country had experienced two military coups, in 1960 and again in 1971, the latter followed by a period of severe political repression of the Turkish left-wing, including the declaration of martial law in certain parts of the country. Although elections had been held in 1973, Turkey remained in the throes of political unrest, and universities were flashpoints of protest.

My newfound Turkish friends and I carried on what I wrote was a “heated discussion about communism and fascism.” I would later meet other politically engaged, but similarly frustrated, university students in Diyarbakir. These young people were angry about ongoing repression and the failures of the state to address serious social and economic issues, as well as with what they perceived as the undue influence of the United States on Turkish politics. In the coming years, unrest would devolve into violence, as clashes between the capitalist, fascist right and the communist left intensified, culminating in a third military coup in 1980.

Probably very few Western travellers at the time knew much of the region’s politics, let alone of deeper histories and cultural tributaries. Certainly, I didn’t. But to the extent that we took time to absorb our surroundings and talk with local people, at least some of us did broaden our understanding of how others perceive and interpret the world. Looking back, I can attribute much of my future interest in international politics to encounters such as those I had with Ayhan, Metin, and others.

Despite the growth of commercial tourism, it was still possible to find quiet spaces. The next day, I sat on a near-deserted beach, reading De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821), which I had bought the previous day. In the afternoon, I began exploring the ancient walls above the beach:

The walls ran for miles and there was a mill in good shape. It was hot. I wandered into a field where I spotted a young, grubby-faced boy sitting under a tree surrounded by clothing, pots, and pans. He was clearly the guardian of the wares.

I had earlier that morning had a successful, if limited, conversation with a goat herdsman named Hussein and decided to press my luck with the boy. He stared at me blankly. I picked up a small watermelon lying nearby and asked if it was good. More stares. I began walking away, but finding another melon, cut it open with a jagged piece of porcelain that lay on the ground. I ate the red, juicy pulp, seeds and all, then looked back on the boy who now had a slightly amused look. As no melon had ever tasted so delicious, I grabbed another one, but it was hard and raw. A core of white moss greeted me as I opened it.

The boy pointed to another, a larger melon. I split it, and it was good. I offered him some, but he demurred, content it seemed to simply watch this curious stranger. I devoured the lush fruit, first half, then all, casually tossing the skeletons away. The juices ran down my knuckles. Particles of pink pulp clung to my fingernails. I wiped my beard and mouth on my arm, then looked back on the boy, who had witnessed the entire orgy. His look now was of puzzlement, as though he had seen a visitor from another planet. I hurried away, but not before waving goodbye and saying “Teşekkür ederim” (“Thank you”).

The days slipped by. I spent time walking the beaches and reading. I was also trying to learn some Turkish, convinced as I was that speaking another person’s language, however badly, when you are in their home is a sign of respect. Indeed, many of the people I encountered seemed genuinely pleased when I attempted to speak Turkish. At the same time, given the ubiquity of English in urban settings, it was all too easy to fall back into it—or to discover that Turkish speakers were themselves trying to learn English and preferred to speak that. But I persisted. Especially in smaller, more rural communities, where many people knew little, if any, English, being able to make myself understood in Turkish was a definite advantage.

A few days after meeting the boy, and after a substantial breakfast of bread, jam, and Turkish coffee, I set off armed with my camera and a water canteen and hiked into the countryside to the north of Side:

At first curling through the thick and thistly underbrush, I emerged at last into a semi-desert of sand and scrub, florid with tiny purple and pink buds, and shoots like onion tops springing from the ground. There were bits of stone, some marble, everywhere littered with the shelled remains of curious slugs. With every step, my past ones seemed to disappear, swallowed into the desert. The sand, the heat, the eternal ruins. It was disorienting. I walked on.

At last, the blue sea rose a hundred metres to my right, and soon appeared the remains of an old fortress, several arches of which revealed it to be Roman. Like so many other ruins, it was being slowly devoured by the patient landscape. Much of its walls had already been confiscated, and the sand had made substantial forays into the inner courtyard. Small, spiny plants hovered at the fortress’s borders.

I continued on my way again, this time coming on to a creek overlooking a verdant pasture where several tethered cows were chewing, Descending the slope, I took a path through a glade of trees where at once I was aroused by the weighty scent of pine. The cones were scattered on the ground, but the wind was feathering the aroma skyward. I stood and sniffed the air again, but the moment proved ephemeral.

A little further on, an old Turk reclined beneath a tree. I think he believed me lost but quickly made clear his reluctance to have me in his presence, so I waved and moved on in the direction to which he pointed. He was perhaps directing me toward civilization and, soon enough, I heard the barren drone of a tractor from a nearby wood. Nearby, a winding river ran, the trees on each side embracing to form a perfect canopy. I stood on the bank for a few minutes, then moved on again.

A side road took me back along a series of farmer’s fields, until expanding at last into an asphalt highway and, from there, the city. The desert, the flowers, the ancient ruins, the cows, and the old man receded into the past.

I remember fondly each of the people I met, but except when I was exploring the sand dunes and ruins, I never felt at home in Side. It seemed to exist for the sake of tourists. I woke every morning to the duet of a rooster and the muezzin’s call to prayer, which would then set off the counterpoint of cows mooing in the street below my window. Never entirely certain of the time, though I knew it was early, I would seek out breakfast, then try to think of some way to spend my day. I could read—I was now enjoying Henry Miller’s Colossus of Maroussi (1941)—or I could practice Turkish, but the city’s headlong pursuit of tourism left me feeling disconnected and out of place, as if I were being forced into a role I did not want to play.

So I bought a bus ticket and headed back to the north, this time to İzmir, a city known by its Greek name, Smyrna, until well after the First World War. In 1919, Greek armies marched into the city, setting off the Greco-Turkish War, from which Turkey emerged victorious in September 1922. Very shortly after the Turks regained control of Smyrna, a catastrophic fire broke out that burned for ten days, during which the Greek and Armenian quarters of the city were completely destroyed. Although some of the tens of thousands of refugees managed to escape to Greece, many others were massacred or expelled into the interior, often to die in harsh conditions.

I knew little of this history at the time, however. On a scrap of paper, I wrote my impressions of the countryside approaching İzmir:

The mountains deal in strange, inky blotches of shadow that give one a false sense of where the sun must be, but isn’t. The mountains are so tall and contoured, yet seem as hasty afterthoughts, dragged in and plopped down on the monotonous plain; and they are grey, with bushes strewn in broken lines horizontally, the appearance of typewriting or cuneiform, perhaps a message written on the wilderness, decoded only by shepherds and a few vagrant poets who rediscover the parched testament.

The ride had threatened to be a long and dreary one, but toward the end of the trip a young Turk got on the bus and sat beside me. His name was Esat and he was about to write a history exam on Europe. As his English was even more limited than my Turkish, it was the latter in which we managed to communicate for the next hour.

“Your Turkish very good, good Turkish,” he said at intervals. He told me he hated Greeks because they slit Turkish throats. Because I kept scribbling things in my notebook, he thought I must be a writer. This impressed him.

He invited me to stay at his sister’s place in İzmir, which I accepted. He then paid the cost of a dolmuş to the location, but at the door he discovered he had no key, so back through the blinding lights of Saturday evening traffic we went.¹ Esat clearly felt bad and bought me a sandwich. He then hailed another dolmuş to take me to an address I had been given in Side, but no one was home at that location. He invited me to visit his parents two days later, after his exams, but I thought it best to turn the offer down.

I was wearing my khaki shorts, my jeans packed away in the backpack still slung over my shoulder. I set off once more in search of a hotel, first down a side street that led past a block of apartments and nowhere, then back to what could only be described as İzmir’s slum section. In bewilderment, I encountered first a vendor and in turn was accosted by three Turkish youths who wanted to converse with me and help me out. We went first to one hotel, but it was full. At 11:00 at night, everything is full, and so we went to a second, a run-down joint beside a train station. I motioned that I’d even take a space on the floor, and that is what I got for ten Turkish lira.² It was a shabby place, walled with photographs of Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish version of a Sears-Roebuck calendar. The manager, a dubious sort, unshaven and unsteady, hustled up a couple of stuffed blankets. These he lined on the floor as a mattress. Nearby, on three beds, two gentlemen and a baby already nestled, sleeping. I changed into my long jeans, and then taking my valuables, went off with the Turkish chaps who wanted eagerly to take me for chai.

I made it a quick night even though I was not overly tired, mainly because the overt friendliness of everyone was wearing me thin. I thanked the boys warmly and entered my room, but not before relieving myself in a can down the side stairs of the hotel that was already swimming in piss and water and sundry waste. My roommates were all snoring (except for the baby) as I bunched up my mattress and threw my valuables under a leaf of it. Using my jacket as a pillow, I slumped off to sleep. There was a faint light from the lobby and the familiar smell, though not unpleasant, reminding me of every foot that ever stepped in the place. I lay awake on the mattress (it wasn’t cold), sniffing the blends and listening to the sounds around me. Half an hour later, a train whistled and rocketed by my head, vibrating the windows. Soon after, I fell asleep. I woke often to roll over and once in the early hours to crawl under the torn sheets as the room had cooled off, and then slept successively as the boarders grumpily took their leave. I arose fairly early and in a jaded state of confusion decided to leave the hotel.³

Soon I was on the autobus to Bergama, a name I picked out at random, as I still had no map, but realized was somewhere north and at least in the general direction of Istanbul.

Bergama, which is about 80 kilometres north of İzmir, is the site of the ancient Greek city of Pergamum, ruins of which still stand. There, I stayed at the Merkez Hotel, room 7, which I described as “big enough only for the brass bed, but comfortable.” I also noted that it cost a “relative pittance” (12½ Turkish lira). The next day, I bought a cheap carrying bag from a carpet dealer who then showed me some alleged antiques that he said he would sell to me real cheap. But I left with only the bag and headed to a shoe store:

I dash in and in five minutes have new shoes for 75 lira. I probably should have bargained. I don’t think they will last long. And while they do, they may murder my feet. The salesman was carefully wrapping up my soulless Hush Puppies, which gave me an opportunity to use my scant Turkish.

“No, no,” I said, making a gesture as if I were lighting a match: “Kibrit—poof!”

The salesman and his attendant thought this quite funny.

That same day, I met on the street a Turkish youth who spoke reasonably good English. He told me much about Bergama and about himself—rather too much about himself as it turned out, proudly informing me that he had three testicles, a revelation evidently well known to three of his admiring friends whom I met later that afternoon. Did I think it unusual to have three testicles? Nonplussed, but not wanting to offend, I replied, “Yes.”

That introductory conversation out of the way, our troupe walked up a street, stopped at various chai shops, and passed the students’ garden, situated above main street. Everywhere, I was greeted with endless introductions and handshakes and was bought tea and pastry. Finally, I was invited to the young man’s home, where his father cooked up a stew of tomatoes and eggplant, with yogurt on the side. I was something of a novelty, if not a celebrity—a wandering hippie.

The unusually well-endowed young man told me he was a singer in a band playing that night for a wedding party in the local cinema. He invited me to attend as his guest; in fact, he said he would place a chair on stage where I could sit with the band.

I arrived at the cinema that evening about 9:30 p.m., clad in my blue jeans and an old jacket. Not wishing to attract attention, I sat down on a creaky wooden chair in the front row of the central section of seats. I was surrounded by an assemblage of older women in traditional dress and meticulously groomed children in suits.

Immediately, a titter ran through the crowd. My new friend came down from the stage and explained that the middle seats were reserved for the families of the bride and groom. There ensued a short dispute as he insisted stubbornly, against my wishes, that I join the band on stage. In the end, I relented.

On stage, I sat beside a large audio speaker and the bass guitarist, who benignly smiled at the crowd that in turn smiled back at me. Shortly after, the bride and groom arrived, and the musical set began. After an opening dance number, the band burst into full stride, thumping out its brand of up-tempo pop. No longer the centre of attention, I relaxed into my honoured role, from which I could survey the audience. As I expected, the sexes stayed strictly apart, though mimicking as best they could the dance steps popular in the west. One young girl, dressed in blue, imitated a go-go dancer. The scene briefly reminded me of junior high sock hops. I was briefly tempted to join in the dancing but thought better of it and quickly retreated into my assigned role as invited guest and more-or-less discreet outsider.

My role completed, I snapped a couple of night pictures of the band using the flash-cube in my camera and left the wedding. It was around 11:00 p.m. I stopped briefly for chai at a café on my way back to the Merkez Hotel, then continued my walk.

On the way, I looked through the window of a furniture store where two television sets were on, one of them showing a soccer match. The owner spotted me and came to the front door. The game was the European Football Championship final between Czechoslovakia and West Germany, and he invited me in to watch. It quickly became apparent the owner had two addictions, football and tea, and he ordered two more of the latter. He said he drank countless cups of chai in a day, and before the night was gone he had ordered me another, and himself two more, and me a Coke.

The German squad, trailing two to one, had been very unlucky, which allowed me at one point to use the Turkish word “kismet” (fate). The store owner immediately broke into a huge smile and shook my hand. (In fact, he shook my hand maybe fifteen times during the evening, always smiling as if I were a prodigal son returned.) In the end, the German team lost the game on penalty kicks. We shook hands once more, and he reminded me to send him a picture of myself, as he had given me his. I remember fondly that couple of hours, a nearly wordless moment in which a very human connection was made.

To a person, the Turks I met were generous and friendly. As I boarded a local bus bound for Istanbul, I was in high spirits.

1. A dolmuş (pronounced “dall-moosh”) is a shared taxi. The term comes from the Turkish word meaning “stuffed,” which accurately describes the experience of passengers.

2. The official exchange rate at the time was about 16 Turkish lira to the US dollar, so 10 lira were worth a little less than 65 cents.

3. This was not my last experience of sleeping in crowded and less than hygienic circumstances, though I did not make it a regular practice. When I did, it was usually the result of arriving late, of limited available space, or of personal finances. For some travellers, however, this was standard practice, paid accommodation being the less occasional choice, as Ollie Cooper put it, “in order to freshen up.”