Aegean Coast 2024: Part One - Türkiye
Sometime in 1986
I first went to Turkey by accident; I had no plan to go there. University had finished and I was desperate to get away, so I interrailed to my favourite stomping ground Greece to meet with various people in random places. I think it was an Englishman in the Navplion Youth Hostel that persuaded me: Turkey was just like Greece but much cheaper, the people friendlier, the archaeological sites better and the markets sold stuff that you actually wanted to buy. Faced with the prospect of returning home and finding a job, I used the last two days on my pass to head to Turkey.
Back then, the train to Constantinople (as the Greeks stubbornly still insist on calling it) took 36 hours. That’s impressively slow for a journey of just 1,100 kilometres, but the Greeks weren’t interested in making it easy to get to Turkey back then, nor now might I add. I found a compartment in which there were two guys, who smiled politely. They were quite dark skinned which wasn’t how I imagined Turks to look, having never met one before, and they wore loose green trousers which looked a bit like pyjamas. They had beards and appeared about the same age as me.
They didn’t speak any English but seemed pleasant enough, declining my offer of a boiled egg, but giving me one of their biscuits, which appeared to be the only luggage they had. We endured the first night well enough, then a very, very, slow journey from Thessaloniki, reaching the border at a place called Pythion about ten at night. The engine absconded west and just two carriages were left stranded in the middle of nowhere. They collected our passports and told us to wait, which we did, for four hours.
Eventually a Turkish engine turned up from the east and they summoned us into a one-roomed shack where the passports were dumped on a table and we were invited to take our pick. I found mine easily enough, but the ones for my travel companions were missing. “Where are you from?” asked the official. “Libya! Libya!” they said in panic. Oh shit, I thought, because a few months earlier the Americans had bombed Tripoli, killing Gaddafi’s infant daughter supposedly, and they had taken off from British Air Bases. Revenge had been sworn, I believe.
The train trundled across the heavily-mined border into the night, then made an unscheduled stop on the other side. A guy got into our compartment with a huge backpack, presumably full of footballs: “Hello! My name is Mustapha!” he said boisterously. “I am a student. I am Turkish, where are you from?” He was in his mid-thirties and built like a brick shithouse. “England,” I said as quietly as possible. “Oh, you’re British!” he said very loudly. The Libyans started to whisper to each other angrily “British! British!,” realising they could have achieved their mission much quicker and more easily by simply killing me last night. Mustapha said something to them in Arabic and they quietened down.
Thus, Mustapha simultaneously blew my cover and saved my life.
Mustapha preceded to pretend to snore loudly as I tried to get some sleep, but for some reason I could not. Every time I opened my eyes the men were staring at me with hate in their eyes.
In the morning, the Libyans down the corridor looking for an escape route, Mustapha said to me seriously: “I think you should go to the front of the train.”
My last sight of the Libyans was on the platform of Istanbul Railway Station. They ran past me as fast as they could, chased by Mustapha and six other burly secret agents who all looked like Kerim Bey. I calmly found my way to the Youth Hostel.
That was my first experience of Istanbul. Anyway, that’s where I’m going tomorrow.
London to Istanbul, 10th May 2024
I wake at 5am because it’s getting light. I need more sleep but the alarm’s going off in half an hour anyway, so I can’t. Intending to get a train I stare at my tea for an hour then think, sod it, I’ll get an extortionate Uber.
For the extra £20 you pay for hold luggage I'm gifted Wizz Priority. Unfortunately, so is everyone else. The guy at the counter asks if I have any electrical items in my suitcase such as speakers. ‘They’re very weeny,’ I say. ‘How big?’ he demands. I indicate with my index finger and thumb. He makes me take them out along with several other things with lithium batteries I’ve failed to declare. My new combination lock is so tiny I can’t read the shiny silver numbers so it takes ages. Then everything falls out of the case.
Gatwick is rammed with hen parties and rugby tours. I can’t open my nicotine patch which requires scissors so I go to Boots, but logically they don’t have any. Spend the next hour trying to rip it open until I remember I have keys that can do the job. Eventually. Can’t sleep on the plane, obviously.
Istanbul airport is huge! It takes 25 minutes to taxi from the runway to the terminal (I timed it) and we aren’t going slowly. It’s 80 square kilometres I’ve just found out, although surprisingly efficient and uncrowded and I’d have been out of there quickly if it hadn’t been for the four km walk to the baggage claim.
Istanbul is grey and some 6c colder than London. I was here 14 years ago last and seem to remember the airport was a pleasant 15 minute trip to the centre of Sultanahmet. But of course, they've built a new one since then and sited it in Bulgaria.
The free wi-fi demands a password obtained from a machine, my passport number, details of my children etc. so I reluctantly turn on my data roaming because it will only last five minutes before Talkmobile demand more money, thanks to stupid Brexit (yes, I know Türkiye isn’t in the EU) and there’s a plethora of WhatsApps from my pre-booked taxi about how his car’s broken down, he’s sent a mate instead, and how sorry he is, so much that he’ll buy me champagne and chocolate if I book him again. His friend doesn’t bother to make himself known and speaks no English.
It used to be that Istanbul stopped at the Byzantine Walls, but now there’s so much construction the city’s threatening to invade Greece. It’s not that nice ether, indistinguishable from the outskirts of Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or any other big city. Once you reach the centre it’s a lot more interesting with markets, small cafes and carts, but it’s rush hour now and the traffic is horrendous.
The place I’m staying in is called the Social House. The kids running it are lovely (they help me buy a ferry ticket from a site that won’t accept British cards), but the place isn’t very social as everyone stays in their rooms rather than using the communal spaces, and the only company I have on the windy roof terrace is a nesting seagull. It feels like home though, in that there’s always someone in the toilet when you want to go.
The mosque singers strike up as one and I’m reminded where I am.
I’m so tired but don’t want to sleep early. I go to Tripadvisor’s highest rated restaurant in Istanbul, which is 20 metres away and much like every other restaurant I’ve been to in Türkiye (for that is what it's called now). It's very friendly though and amazing what a couple of Efeses can do to lift your spirits.
Istanbul, 11th May 2024
I have a terrible night’s sleep because the street’s too noisy up until 1am and then it’s too quiet. It’s board game weather so I decide to get shopping out of the way. Where might there be some shops?
I’ve never liked the Grand Bazaar. It’s too large, you don't know where to find anything, nothing’s priced, there are pickpockets everywhere and you’re constantly hassled. Actually, it isn’t like that at all this time. It’s relatively unbusy, I find the jewellery street first off and nobody hassles me at all as I peer at all the gold. I feel quite put out - is it the way I’m dressed?
I couldn’t find what I was looking for because, I find out later, conservative Islamic law forbids female belly piercing, and the antique Ottoman soap dish I’ve been looking for doesn’t exist. So I decide to get out, which isn’t as easy as it sounds.
In both 1986 and 1988 I went solo to Istanbul twice - as a point of entry and exit to Turkey, interspersed with 6-8 weeks travelling. I apologise in advance for the frequency of making reference to them, but these were the most important two trips of my life. After 1988 in particular, having toured the borders of Syria, Iraq, Iran and the Soviet Union, I came home feeling I could do anything. So, any building that I previously stayed in, any place I ate or drank in is going to make me nostalgic. I look for them but they’re not there anymore. The Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque are, of course, as is the little park between them where in 1988 part one I sat nursing a bottle of raki to ease the pain an unusually large tick had inflicted to my eyelid the night before. A pharmacist and his friends befriended me and brought me ointment and water melon.
The truth is I don’t really like Istanbul, or any of the other large Turkish cities. Some things I’ve experienced here have been unpleasant and I cant relax. I used to think it the busiest and most overcrowded city in the world until I went to Hanoi. However, I should see at least one new sight before I escape.
In 1988 part two, having taken a ferry from Trabzon in the East, I had to wait here two nights until the Monday to obtain a Bulgarian transit visa. It was the height of summer, the Youth Hostel was full and they directed me to one of those very cheap hovels where backpackers sleep on unsheltered roofs next to someone else’s vomit. I never intended to get involved with Astrid but two days later, me with our passports and her money at the Bulgarian Embassy, she happened to pass the entrance to the Yerebatan Sarnici (Basilica Cistern). It had only opened to the public the previous year and the Turks forgot to tell anyone. The guy on the door said she could enter for free and, the only person there, she said it was incredible. I also tried to gain free entry that day, but I wasn’t a 17 year old Norwegian schoolgirl who preferred to wear as few clothes as possible.
Moving on nearly 36 years, the queues stretch for hundreds of metres. A friendly carpet shop owner, who of course is not trying to sell me anything, says if I buy a ticket for 1,000 TL (£25) rather than the normal 800 TL (£20), I can be fast tracked. He directs me to a plain-clothed tout. I have my suspicions but buy the ticket anyway and, to my surprise, am allowed to go to the front of the queue.
There are thousands of people in the cistern, scrummaging for the best selfie positions. I mean, it’s quite big and impressive for a structure built in the 500 ADs as you can see from the photos, they change the colour of the lights every now and then to big ‘whoas,’ and there are various works of modern sculpture in the ponds. Is it worth £25? Well, thousands of others think so, although most of these are Turkish school children and probably paid nothing.
The Agia Sofia’s also 1,000 TL so I don’t bother. Been inside before. And the Blue Mosque is closed so three random young men tell me at different points. I'm going there anyway. It’s a scam, of course, although I haven’t yet worked out what it’s about.
Back at the Social House the seagull swaps nesting duty with her mate.
In the afternoon the weather changes from being cold, wet and windy to just cold and windy. I venture out again, but I’m not in the bar quarter of Istanbul, if one exists. I go on a long, aimless walk through the back streets, up and down many steep hills, thinking I’m in the old Armenian quarter, although most of the houses are hotels now. The sun comes out and, suddenly there are loads of Russians everywhere, even the restaurant menus have Russian as their third language. I find myself in Gülhane Park which used to have a great beer garden. It’s gone now but the park’s pleasant enough. I eat at the same restaurant as last night because it was okay and I still have their wi-fi password.
The other ‘sight’ I vividly remember in Istanbul 1988 part 1 was this steep street next to the Galata Tower. On the train from Thessaloniki I met this German guy 20 years older than me who was going to Istanbul to pick up and drive home his mate’s lorry because he’d been arrested. Hans was an ex-merchant seaman with four kids who used to joke he was probably my father. He insisted I called him ‘Dad.’
The street in question was the Istanbul brothel, guarded by armed policemen to keep the tourists out and sort out any trouble. I said I didn’t want to go in but Hans insisted we wouldn’t enter any of the four-story Ottoman houses. We slipped by the guards.
It was like a scene from Gormenghast - the sun blotted out from the sky by roller shutters. On the steps of the Ottoman houses stood bored mainly Eastern European women in shabby underwear, aged between thirty and sixty, and in the narrow street were hundreds of young, cash-strapped Turkish men on their lunch breaks, their hands busy in their pockets. Half way down the hill was a toilet block and, I swear to you, there was the most disturbing smell I’ve ever encountered in my life.
An older woman spots Hans and rushes into the street, grabs his long beard and screams ‘I will give you for free! I will give you for free!’ The Turks bawl with laughter as he fights for his honour, but two onlookers relent and gently release him from the madame's grip. I sink into the shadows and we go for a çay.
Given all the changes in Istanbul and the new moral high ground adopted by Erdoğan’s AK Party, I suspect this particular street is no longer with us either.
Istanbul to Çanakkale, 12th May 2024
Another terrible sleep, this time because the smoke alarm was flashing all night like a mobile disco. I shower and wait an hour on a comfy settee in the communal area and finally get 30 minutes of uninterrupted kip before they wake me to tell me the cab’s here.
It’s a 15 minute drive to Yenikapı, the taxi driver does it in five. The ferry terminal is almost empty. I have a terrible machine cappuccino and borek which costs £4 and am mercilessly harangued by a fearless kitten trying to lick up the hot fake milk.
What a difference a bit of sunshine makes. It’s only 17c and last night I wished I’d bought my thermals, but here you can sit outside and smoke, pleasantly absorbing sunburn. Of course I’ve arrived far too early, the Turks only showing up a few minutes before departure, and it's an interminable wait, but the ferry’s on time and the picture of a boarding card on my phone miraculously works.
Some guy has nicked my reserved window seat, but I’m not going to make a fuss and there’s a good view of the water either side. We are told to remain in our seats for ‘take off,’ but the ride is very smooth on a windless day and feels like a train in water. I try to imagine how the ancient Greeks must have felt, powering their triremes through the Sea of Marmara, wary of enemy fleets, but there’s just cargo ships and ferries now, and loads of them. The TV plays the Turkish version of You’ve Been Framed, Maradona’s handball against England in 1986, and then tons of adverts, all on a reel. I watch Clarkson’s Farm on my iPad.
I’m as relaxed as I’ve felt for ages.
That changes when we reach Bandirma three hours later. There were more people on the boat than I expected, and all their relatives have cars to pick them up, as do the ones dropping off for the return sailing. It’s chaos. Most of the bus stations in Türkiye are now located by the motorway, several km out of town, which is great if you’re an Amazon package, but not for a traveller. I follow a young German guy, the only other foreigner on the boat, but he’s heading for the train station, which they’ve conveniently put by the harbour. I realise the boat was 15 minutes late and my bus may or may not leave in half an hour.
I’m sure there’s a bus to the station but I don’t have time. Now I’m in Asia, the temperature has suddenly risen to 24c. I spy a taxi rank. Nobody’s in charge, I don’t know the queuing system and nobody wants to speak to me since the novelty of stray tourists in a non-tourist town wore off when they invented smartphones. I wait ten minutes and an old guy pulls up, opens his boot and looks at me. I say ‘otogar’ and get in, with no idea whether he understands me. Oh well, I think, I’ll just go where he’s going.
The only online review of Bandirma I can find describes it as ‘could be worse.’ The seatbelt won’t fasten and cars keep on pulling out in front of us, but the driver maintains an impressive suicidal speed all the way to the otogar where he has the good manners to not rip me off. In the past there used to be lots of competing companies on the same routes hustling for your business, but not at Bandirma. Seems Rome2Rio was right for the first time. I have to give the guy my passport and he hurriedly issues a ticket. I board the bus with minus three minutes to spare which is just as well, as I don’t fancy waiting another 2.5 hours watching the tumbleweed blow past.
The journey is uneventful. We pass the longest suspension bridge in the world, which wasn’t there last time I was here, near the town of Lapseki, which used to be nice. At Çanakkale Otogar I follow others to a bus stop because I assume that’s what I should do. It arrives 20 minutes later and by now it’s rammed. It travels three km in the wrong direction before turning into a deserted business park, goes another km across a myriad of speed bumps, me hanging on for dear life, then finds a roundabout and comes back the way it came. I get off at the wrong stop, because I haven’t been to Çanakkale for nearly 40 years, when it had one tenth of its current population. It’s another 20 minute walk to my accommodation.
The ‘Number 1’ Pansiyon is a grim thin 4-story building in the back streets and they’ve put me in room 101. The little guy communicates via Google Translate and Siri and demands 70 euros in advance. There's barely enough room for the bed, the balcony can only fit one person standing, none of my gadgets want to charge and the wi-fi is weedy. A sign on the wall proclaims: ‘we know we’re not to everyone’s taste, but where in Çanakkale can you find somewhere this clean so cheap?’
I find an actual pub which is rather nice and not expensive, then a fast food place for a kebab. I've no idea what they say to me because there are no foreigners anywhere and nobody speaks English, so I just point to something and get it, whatever it is, because it's food and I haven't eaten for ten hours.
Çanakkale, 13th May 2024
CONBATS (Causes Of Not Being Able To Sleep) last night were: 1. Cold feet; 2. Mosquito; 3. Mosque singer starting at 04:45. I mean, c’mon guys.
I had contemplated a trip to Troy. I’ve never been despite having been in this area twice before, because everything suggests it’ll be very disappointing. Besides, wandering through Çanakkale's extraordinarily fragrant park to the pleasant seafront in the morning, I chance upon a huge model of the wooden horse and a reconstructive model of the ancient city. Apart from some holes that’s all they’ve got at the real site, so why waste £50?
Because it's Mrs Mad's birthday today I'm guilt-tripped into buying some presents she's going to hate. A truly terrible model of the wooden horse that's going to end up in my study. I visit an antique/junk shop. There's a small hand-painted ceramic container that you're meant to put stuff in. 'Very old,' says the shopkeeper. So I haggle him down to £10. I look it up and it's made by some famous Belgian potter and probably worth a fortune, but Mrs Mad's going to hate it anyway.
Nobody has tried to tout a tour of the Gallipoli battlefields to me, which is why all the Anzacs, of which I have seen none, come here. In 1986, wary of going alone, I put a notice on the board of the Istanbul Youth Hostel for a travelling companion. I got two replies. A 26 year old German woman whose name I forget but we called ‘Fishface’ and a 19 year old Jewish Australian Princess (her description) called Hannah. She insisted on going to Gallipoli as this was an Australian rite of passage, even though her family had only immigrated just before WWII. We picked up some random Danish guy at the bus station and this unlikely foursome descended to the town of Gelibolu, finding cheap accommodation in a dorm of a disgusting worker ‘hotel.’
They only did private tours back then, but we met a guy I called 'Bushtucker Man' because of the way he dressed and his dollar a day budget, who haggled a deal. His hatred of the English came partly from Peter Weir’s film but also his Irish ancestry and throughout the tour he barracked me for the massacre of his forefathers. It only bothered me because Hannah joined in.
So do I want to go back to Gallipoli and be mistaken for Winston Churchill? Don’t think so.
So why am I here? My premise for this entire trip is to research the third of my novels in a series set in Ancient Greece that nobody wants to read. This involves a ferry across the narrowest point of the Hellespont (aka Dardanelles) back to Europe and a small town called Kilitbahir.
The car ferry costs 50p and takes 15 minutes. Apart from being a crossing there’s nothing going on in Kilitbahir but there is an impressive fortress which the Ottomans built in 1463 to control the straits along with the one in Çanakkale. 100 TL, why not? Because it’s closed on Mondays for ‘cleaning.’ I mean, how do you clean a castle?
There are lots of monuments to the heroic defence of Turkey as you’d expect, but that’s not why I’m here. In 411 BCE there was a decisive naval battle at Cynossema, also known as ‘the bitch’s tomb,’ because Hecuba the Queen of Troy was turned into a dog and died here. Had the Athenians lost the battle, their access to the Black Sea wheat supply would have been lost and they’d be starved into surrender by Sparta. They won narrowly and hung on for eight more years. This forms the prologue of my next book.
Okay, seen that, must hurry back for the ferry. Don’t want to be stuck here another hour.
The weather changes every five minutes. With the 20c sun out it feels scorching. Then it clouds over, the wind picks up and it’s freezing. It’s a choppy crossing back and we narrowly miss a huge cargo ship, but I guess that happens several times a day.
I’ve warmed to Çanakkale. People look different from those in Istanbul. They have lighter skin and fairer hair, the girls walk around in shorts, sometimes showing off their midriff, and women openly smoke and drink. I even saw a transsexual goth. It’s almost like they have Greek ancestors.
I eat a fish sandwich and then go to a large pub with dozens of tables, £1.50 beer a half-litre and free peanuts. It’s buzzing and playing decent music, and I’m the only person here aged over 22. It’s the kind of place you’d expect to find loads of Australians, except there aren’t any.
Çanakkale to Ayvalik, 14th May 2024
CONBATS last night: 1. Cold knees. 2. Either a mosquito or a dream about a mosquito. 3. Tummy rumblings because I ate too many peanuts.
I leave Room 101 at 9:00, reach the bus stop 5 minutes later and prepare for the 30 minute wait advised by Moovit, but a bus comes immediately. At the otogar, I buy a ticket to Ayvalik, careful not to get one to Ayvacik, which is a completely different town. There’s a 90 minute wait. I buy a çay and some borek which cost £2. The staff are helpful, but I’m sure I hear the Turkish for ‘you could have charged him whatever you liked.’
The bus, final destination Izmir, sets off in bright sunshine, the seat comfortable, warmth on my body, the air fresh. We pass through lush green undulating countryside. My ears pop as we move onto higher ground, and then tunnels, miles and miles of them. Then we’re on the Aegean coast and I can see Lesbos. There’s a road blockade and armed police board and check everyone’s ID. The calm reaction suggests this is an everyday occurrence.
Rome2Rio says the Çanakkale to Ayvalik bus journey takes 3.5 hours. I find that hard to believe given that I distinctly remember Çanakkale to Bergama, 62km further away than Ayvalik (not Ayvacik), taking just 2.5 hours. The reason becomes clear. Whereas in 1988 you only passed through Ayvacik (not Ayvalik) there’s now a 40km strip of shopping malls, multi-story hotels, supermarkets and entertainment complexes that make the Costa Blanca look tasteful, and our bus has to stop at every resort that claims an entity in this hideous conurbation. You can’t even see the sea. There’s even a huge city called Edremit that never used to be here. This dystopian seaside paradise continues for another 20km south.
Reaching Ayvalik (not Ayvacik) Otogar, 6km from the town, there’s no sign of a bus so I’m forced to use a taxi. He drops me on the corner and points down an alley. I find the place quickly as I happen to be standing outside it and the host, who’s called Fatima, rocks up five minutes later.
The Airbnb is gorgeous, really lovely. It’s a 200 year old house that she and her partner have restored and they’ve fitted it with antique furniture. The wi-fi is the first I’ve encountered this trip that gets a higher rating than pathetic. ‘Do you smoke?’ she asks in her so-so English which is still the best I’ve encountered in the past five days, and she takes me to the semi-open room at the back. ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she says, pointing to a cat curled up with a tiny kitten. Mind?!!!! She makes tea and I have a chat with her and another woman (possibly her partner) via Fatima’s translation, and then she gives me the keys and tells me they’re going away overnight and I’ve got the place to myself, and they leave.
But the back streets are actually quite wonderful. They're narrow and old with a market selling huge wheels of cheese, fresh fish, meat, olives, superb paklavas and another speciality of the town - macrons. I buy some beer and a takeaway of freshly-made pide - a kind of Turkish pizza with elastic bread, cheese and a scattering of vegetables. It's delicious and the kitten and his mother agree.
I wonder if I’m meant to clean the litter tray? Doesn't half pong.
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