AUTHOR’S NOTE
THE EVENTS IN THIS SECTION ALL TOOK PLACE IN 1986
THE BULK OF THE TEXT IS AS I WROTE IT THEN – SLIGHT ADJUSTMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE IN THE AID OF CLARITY NOW

Thursday, July 24th, 1986

Distance travelled 0 kilometres

The next morning I was roused from my slumbers, at an appallingly early hour, by the ululating cry of a Muezzin being broadcast from the Minaret of the Blue Mosque by a (very) loudspeaker.

When I got up I was very stiff indeed. In the chaos of Istanbul, I had almost forgotten that the day before I had been sitting in the dust wondering just how badly damaged my bike was going to be. In retrospect, it had probably fared better than I had.

In my nice little room was a good shower, what bliss (it was actually more than just a dribble). I could not yet detect any bruises, but I was certainly aching nicely. Time for a short break from riding, I thought.

In the early daylight, the street outside the hotel was, weirdly, less busy !

So it was that I spent the next two days exploring the ancient city of Istanbul on foot. I do love riding, but it WAS nice to take a break from it as I had now done over 3,200 kilometres (2,000 miles.

Then I had another of those strokes of luck. As I sat in a cafe, drinking a “chai” (which I had become quite fond of) I was approached by a teenage girl. She introduced herself as Raki (which, retrospectively, I doubt was her actual name as “Raki” is the local word for some kind of brandy). She said she was a student and, like most of the Turks I met, she was keen to improve her English. She offered to guide me around the city for the day. I had reservations about being seen around with a young and obviously Islamic girl. She assured me that Istanbul was secular enough for this not to cause offence and was persuasive enough for me to accept her offer.

It was a good choice, as her English really needed no improvement and she was extremely easy to understand. She kept up a continuous and highly informative commentary on everything we saw. She did not hesitate, for instance, to outline, in graphic detail, the atrocities committed against “her” people (the Moslems) in the past by “my” people (the Christians) and vice-versa. In truth modern day Istanbul seems to be a mixture of Christian and Moslem people that co-exist quite happily, with (seemingly) few of the tensions that exist elsewhere, for instance in Beirut. There were “Christian” churches too …..

The large, grand Mosques, particularly the Hagia Sofia, are singularly impressive and well worth a visit. As long as you remove your shoes before going in, nobody cares what faith, if any, you might adhere to. The skill and labour that went into their construction and the often exquisite internal decoration is simply stunning. They are beautifully maintained as well, both inside and out – a stark contrast to many churches (and even cathedrals) in the UK. Sadly, I was not sure about photography etiquette, so if you want to see inside, you will need to go there yourself ….

Everywhere you looked, there was evidence of various phases of the city’s two millennia of history..

Each little, more local, mosque (and most of them are small) appears to act as the social and cultural centre for the surrounding district as well as being its spiritual hub. The downside of that is that it was VERY difficult to get a “proper” drink anywhere except in the hotel bar.

That evening, it was in the bar of my hotel that I witnessed the somewhat weird site of “The Onedin Line” (a VERY popular nautical serial in the UK at the time), dubbed into Turkish for the local TV….. Surreal !

There had also been a “Royal” wedding the previous day, of the Queen’s second son, Prince Andrew, to Sarah Ferguson. The hotel receptionist felt compelled to let everyone know that I was English and this led to me receiving a great many goodwill beers. These were naturally accompanied by detailed questions about both the Royal Couple (who they all assumed I must know personally …) and, surprise, surprise, Gary Lineker !

I chiefly amused myself by teaching everyone to say “Andy and Fergie, OK, YAH !!” in a plummy accent (which was, at the time, considered a complete hoot in the UK). It was becoming a bit of a wild night and the whole place was quite manic. Things were suddenly interrupted when a big guy at the bar pulled out a pistol and shot out a window (yes, you ARE reading this right !) I assumed that we would soon be inundated with Police and, as a foreigner, it would somehow become my fault. But I need not have worried, no “Midnight Express” for me, the guy with the gun was the local Chief of Police …… Apparently, this was not the first time he had done this as most people did not even stop talking when the shots rang out ….

I took the opportunity to creep off to bed where I fell asleep wondering if the floor would stop a bullet.

Friday, July 25th, 1986

Distance travelled 0 kilometres

The following day was spent sightseeing again, but without my companion of the day before. Thus it was, that where Raki had guided me easily and without hesitation through the maze of streets that was the old city, I contrived to get myself totally lost in just a few minutes.

I did find the water though, the “Golden Horn” of legend as this early attempt at a panoramic view shows.

The ancient streets were an almost surreal mixture of seemingly absolute poverty and squalor, right up against evidence of considerable wealth. Some houses looked decrepit, even by medieval standards and the inhabitants thereabouts were so shabby they might have been medieval too – but there were large numbers of shiny and obviously brand new Mercedes Benz cars parked in the streets – and they were not base-line models either.

It was also noticeable, if I paid attention, that a lot of what appeared to be poor women often had a small fortune’s worth (judging by the prices in nearby shops) of gold jewellery in the form of bracelets that covered their wrists …. Weird.

Food WAS very cheap though. A peach, which was bigger than my fist, cost less than the equivalent of three pence and a kebab, which in this case was a loaf of bread containing what appeared to be a whole sliced sheep and accompanied by about half a pint of yogurt, less than twenty pence.