Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write about on this blog. Essentially the life of a cycle tourer is no different to that of any other person with a routine. There’s an alarm clock, a lunch break and a time when the day’s work is over. Maybe the only difference is my commute continues in one direction rather than travelling between two points day after day. The interesting times come when something breaks that routine, when an event takes place that warrants special attention. For me that means meeting new and interesting people in a chance encounter, so most of my blog posts revolve around exactly that, as do many of those on other cycle tourers’ websites.
Ordinarily this post would continue in the same vein, a heart-warming tale of human kindness, open-mindedness and friendship. For the first part at least, it will.
Yesterday afternoon I decided I had cycled enough miles and began looking for a place to sleep, rolling into a petrol station to stop for a rest. The humble Turkish petrol station is a welcome sight when one appears on the horizon. Its British equivalent isn’t somewhere anyone would want to spend an extended period of time, being full of overpriced confectionery and sandwiches made three weeks earlier, but the Turkish forecourt is something else altogether. A place to rest from the sun or rain, to sit on a comfortable seat and drink tea, receive route advice and on several occasions sleep.
After sharing a couple of cups of tea and asking if the staff knew anywhere I could pitch my tent I was immediately offered a room at an elderly man’s house across the road. I was welcomed into his home, given a drink, made to feel at home and encouraged to relax. A three generation family lived in the single storey building just off a dual carriageway, all working as farmers, with their eldest son, Ibrahim, telling me as soon as he finished school he too would become a farmer.
We wandered round their land, using my phrasebook to communicate as Ibrahim pointed out the vegetables growing in their garden and the fruits soon to begin growing on their trees. I watched the cows being milked, helped round up the chickens into their coop and felt content. Another chance encounter to remember. As the last of the day’s heat subsided we all returned to their living room, six family members and I sitting cross legged round a table a few inches off the ground while gorging on plates of rice, yogurt, chicken and vegetables in the way only someone who has been working outside all day can.
With the absence of a tea room in the village the petrol station across the road was evidently the social hub of the community, where I returned with Ibrahim to slurp tea and relax. As we chatted we were interrupted by his father, who explained that it was no longer possible for me to stay with them, as his wife was uncomfortable with me being in the house. But don’t worry, we’ve found somewhere else for you to stay, they said.
After apologising profusely for making his mother feel uncomfortable in her own home we loaded my bike and bags into the back of a pickup truck and drove to where I would be spending the night, arriving at a restaurant come truck-stop two miles outside of the village. Then things fell apart very quickly. It was immediately apparent the owners of the truck stop had no idea who I was, or why I was there, and they certainly had nowhere for me to sleep. Ibrahim, realising his father had lied about arranging for me to stay at the truck stop began apologising as he walked to the waiting pickup truck ready to drive back to where they came from. For want of a better term, I’d been shafted.
As confused as they were by my presence the restaurant staff did what comes naturally to any Turk: they reached for the teapot and poured me glass after glass of steaming, soothing tea. While I drank phone calls were made, lengthy conversations about me took place between the staff, and chins were stroked. What do we do with him? The answer was to phone the jandarma and see what they had to say.
I’d had another encounter with the jandarma earlier in my visit to Turkey, where they’d stopped me cycling and made me follow them to their base “for my own safety.” After inspecting my passport the man in charge concluded I was Dutch and, for reasons unclear, questioned me in complete seriousness about whether I had parachuted into Turkey with my bicycle.
So news that more of these crack detectives were on their way to have a chat with me didn’t exactly fill me with joy. But it was past midnight by this point, rain was leaking down from the sky and I resolved to smile lots, say please and thank you and hope they would leave me alone to find a patch of grass to sleep on.
With one man guarding the door two uniformed men sauntered in and joined me and the restaurant staff at a table, asking me what was going on, which then involved a lot of hand waving and me rapidly flicking through my phrasebook saying things like. “MAN. VILLAGE. FRIENDS. FOOD. BED. NO. CAR. AWAY.” Again my passport was inspected and questions asked of where I’d been on my bike, leading to the farcical scene of five waiters, one restaurant manager, a chef and two camouflaged men waiting as I took two minutes to blow up the inflatable globe I carry with me in order to illustrate where I have been.
All of this was written down by one of the men, in a statement dictated in hushed tones by the other. So soothing was his whispering voice that the restaurant manager fell asleep. Then like heads of state signing some sort of trade agreement or peace treaty the document was passed round for us all to sign, including the chef, the waiters and the now awake restaurant manager.
“OK, we’re going to drive you to a hotel.”
Usually the prospect of paying to sleep somewhere would induce an allergic reaction in me, but at this point I couldn’t have cared less, I was prepared to take the financial hit. So we loaded Laila and all of her bags into the back of their van and set off down the road. As the blue and red lights flashing on the roof illuminated the night I perched on a bench in the back of the van, the silhouettes of three beret topped heads lined up at the front.
Checked into the hotel I shook hands with the whispering jandarma and smiled. “Nice to meet you.” He said “Your breakfast is from seven.”
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I’m at a loss to explain why the family went from being so kind one moment to hostile the next, and I guess we will never know as I have no intention of backtracking to ask them.
I spent several hours thinking over whether to write this blog post. I wondered if I am doing a disservice to the overwhelmingly friendly people I have met in Turkey by writing about this? Perhaps I am. We often hear that only bad news sells newspapers and people don’t want to read about the true friendliness that exists in the world. But on my website I think you get a taste of what I really believe: that the world is a good place and people are inherently decent. Plus I think I owe it to you, dear reader, to record and write about the most interesting things that happen on this journey. And as far as this journey goes, last night was one of the most interesting.
Finally, to illustrate how wonderful my time in Turkey has been here is a selection of photographs showing some of the kind people I have met. These strangers who became friends. The rest of my photos from Turkey can be found here.
