St Paul’s Trail, Turkey.

Part two of my BBC Radio Report broadcast Sunday.

 

10 mins and 30 seconds in…

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038bhzh

Thank you and good night

Let’s get it right this time

First:my family
Who had the belief to let me go wandering for 3 months when I should be getting a job.
Thank you. Xx

I know from comments ive had that everyone else i mention reads this blog from time to time so :

Mr John Millnik : A young man who will one day do great things. You read it hear first.
John.., thanks for being a mate in Bangkok when I was on the point of losing it. And sorry I was so quiet.

Lulu and Sean : what a lovely platonic couple. Sean literally carrying Lulu when she couldn’t walk. Lu Lu : Do you really know how much he is devoted to you? Thanks for the motorbike tours and the hot springs

Erica and Gregor. Thanks for a fun night in Yangon. Was he really a drug baron? (I’m writing this in the sky Bar – and Gregor – its 5000 for a Myanmar beer! And the expat night in The Strand was interesting! ( Dont forget i want an invitation to wedding. )

Colin: kanchanaburi : not my best place. But thanks for your companionship i hope you find peace

Brian in Kanchanaburi : go back and find her.

Usman: I know you don’t speak English but your fish farm accountant does and he has this blog address. I hope he tells you how much I owe you for rescuing me in the hills when I was lost I have never been so happy to hear a truck …

Abdul : I was on the point of quitting in the hills and had spoken no English for 3 days Can’t remember the village name but thanks for finding me food and a room and football on the TV

Therese, Steve, Pete and Roger. Yes we were an odball group but it seemed to work. Born To Be Wild!

Roger…I finally remembered the resemblance. Jaret Reddick : Check him out.

Martyn the Czech “kid” : thanks for showing me how to dodge the tourist fees… we fought the law – and won !

Maxim: are you still wandering ? Are you still alive ?

The young French couple on the Perenthian islands. Is the money still lasting ?

Akexander the Great and Greater : thanks for the tea on my first night on the trail when I thought I’d made a terrible mistake. But I did warn you it was muddy …..

Martina: have you stopped laughing yet ? 🙂

The Aussie couple and their Dutch friend who took me to that “nightclub” I remember giving you the blog address but buggered if I can remember your names! But it was ….surreal !

Trude: No matter where , there’s always someone from Holland ! Penang was fun
Fatih on Abrahams Path

And finally …to that petty minded twat of a railway clerk who refused to sell me a ticket at 4am in Mandalay because I didn’t have US dollars …you were the only jerk i met in Burma (ok so he doesn’t read this blog but I wanted to vent my spleen)

Raindrops keep falling

I am aware that I have been bragging to friends back home about the weather here.
Well the chickens well and truly cane home to roost today.
It’s rained most days but normally there is an intense downburst and it’s over
Today it rained all day Stop and start. Usually it stopped when I managed to find some cover
And started when I was out in the open trying to get to another of Georgetowns attractions
I did manage to find shelter under an awning in Little India but it was next to a video store which kept playing loud music on two speakers next to me
It was like bring stuck in a never ending Bollywood musical scene.
But it did at least allow me to observe the behaviour of the chap with the Indian wedding shop across the road

Several times he emerged from the doorway , rang some tiny handbells and lit incense sticks and little piles of paper on the pavement
I assumed he was appealing to the Gods. Begging them to stop the rain so the customers would come, presumably

Didnt work cos I’m writing this in the magazine of Fort Cornwallis built on the site where Francis Light landed in 1786 and declared this to be British territory.
Ah the good old days when you just sailed up river , stuck a flag in the ground and nicked someone’s country.
Actually there was a bit more to this. Light was an illegitimate son of a Suffolk woman who was mysteriously adopted by a wealthy landowner in Melton
No one really knows why. I suspect I do..
Light is put through school , becomes a naval officer and then the sort of freebooting adventurer who made the East India company the economic powerhouse it was. and by doing so he expanded the jolly old Empire.
He ends up fighting the local Sultan here because the sultan was miffed the British wouldn’t help him fight the Siamese
Well the Siamese were huge trading partners and making a lot of Brits very rich so that plan was going nowhere
The brief war ended with an agreement that the Brits get Penang and the Sultan gets six thousand Spanish dollars a year
Oh and all the slaves who escaped during the conflict are returned to their owners
Got to love the old days eh? Profit before freedom

There’s a bronze statue of Light in the fort. It was cast in Burton in 1936 and was based on the features of his grandson
One part is missing though.
The sword was nicked by the Japanese when they invaded in ww2 and melted down to help make weapons
What goes around ….

All property is theft

I am sitting in a Karaoke bar in Kuala Lumper

On my way here I was approached by two inappropriately clad young ladies who seemed very friendly.
I politely declined their offers of company and told them that despite the heat here they’d catch their death when it rains unless they out on more clothing.
A ten hour flight on Turkish airlines to get here – and Ryanair it ain’t
Those 3 bottles of very agreeable Turkish red went down very well.

Bye bye Turkey
Almost a month of contrasts. Hills. Lakes, forests , tiny villages. Sleeping on floors, mosques and camping by a river
Then there’s Istanbul
I spent the last day doing the Blue Mosque. And Topkapi Palace.
I have a friend who is big in tiles
He should get himself to Istanbul because the 15th and 16th century examples of Ottoman tiling are simply breathtaking
Certainly the French seemed to appreciate those tiles perhaps more than most
Let me explain
Down a little noticed side road next to the Hagia Sofya mosque lay some mausoleums with the signposts bearing those two words which always bring joy to me
Free Entry.

They are the tombs of a dizzying number of sulltans and their families all decorated with those beautiful tiles.

Except one

As I was taking off my shoes I saw a notice in English explaining that the 60 panels of tiles at the entrance were not in fact the 16th century originals
In the 1880s there was a restoration project run – and I still don’t know why – by a perfidious Frenchman by the name of Albert Dorigny
For some reason not explained he told the Turks it was essential to send this stunning Iznik masterpiece back to, er, France for proper restoration.
“But effendi Albert, your countrymen will look after them will they not?”
“Mai oui mon ami, c’est no problem”

So this work if art is duly shipped to France and when it returns all is not well.
As the notice puts it ;”in Sevres counterfeits were made and placed where originals one laid”

What were the French thinking? That no-one would notice?
The notice board gets even more splenetic on the subject. You can almost hear the writer gnashing his teeth..

“This is a complete abuse of trust and an example of art theft”

And in minute detail it goes on to pinpoint the current location of the stolen tiles

“The original tiles are currently being displayed at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France under the section called Islam Art with the inventory number 3919/231-2.

It says that the Turkish authorities have made many requests to the French culture ministry for the return of the tiles but adds rather forlornly
“Unfortunately we have not been able to get a positive request.. ”

I felt rather sorry for them. Until I saw the obelisk of Theodesius in the Hippodrome. And that was nicked from Egypt by the Byzatines.
What goes around comes around

On the road again

For the last couple of days I’ve been walking part of Abrahams Path in Southern Turkey
It’s the idea of 3 Harvard University academics with the aim of bringing the 3 Abrahamic faiths together.
They also want Western hikers to bring economic benefits to some of the poorest villages in Turkey.

The path goes through Kurdish areas where some families live on a dollar a day

You stay with local people and some of the money you spend goes directly to them. And they need it.
Illiteracy and incidents of domestic abuse are rife.
So I’ve been staying with local families and the hospitality has been humbling.
The path goes through Gobleki Tepi
No, I’ve never heard of it either

The German archaeologist who gave me an interview explained how it’s changing our understanding of ancient religion
They’ve unearthed large monoliths not unlike that thing in2001 space odyssey.
But instead of emitting ear splitting noises that drive apes crazy , these are covered in carvings of animals

And men

With what the information board describes as “greatly exaggerated male penises”
Nothing ever changes I guess
Stone Age Carver 1:” er, Uggie, is that thing strictly accurate ?”
Uggie:” “of course, doesn’t yours dangle below your knees?”
Stone Age Man 1:”err yeah of course…just wanted to check …”
We stayed at Yuvacali , the home of our 20 year old guide Fatih
Behind his house is a large mound which turns put to be at least as old as Gobekli Tepe. It’s never been properly excavated although the authorities carried out a sort of dig when they carved a road up to the summit when they put a village water tank up there
A nice gesture you’d have thought.

But they had to do something. Because the river that presumably helped establish this village 12,000 years ago had gone, victim of another dam project

Driving the track to the summit of that mound has uncovered pottery , flints, bits of Roman walls.

What treasures must lie awaiting a proper dig

Currently in Istanbul. Crazy city

Father Abraham

Over the last few days I’ve been tramping Abrahams Path in southern Turkey. More of which in another post.
But back in the 1920s a British travel writer mentioned the shepherds and their tough cloaks of wool or goat hair.
He even speculated that it may have been the sort of cloak St Paul asked to be sent to him while he was doing another stretch of jail time.
The cloaks are so tough and impervious to rain and the cold that they can stand up when removed.
Nowadays they may cover them with sheeting but apart from that things don’t appear to have changed in 2000 years ..

Moved by Urfa

They say every town and village here will have a story about Abraham/Ibrahim.
That pool I saw last night is part of the legend.
Abraham was condemned to death and thrown into the fire from the cliff. But the fire turned to water and the sticks and logs became the fish which are still considered sacred today. Anyone who kills a fish is bound to have bad luck.
So people spend all day feeding them. Hence the ridiculous size they attain

Spent a lot if the day walking around the bazaar. The covered alleyways are split into sections : clothes, shoes pots and pans.
Alleyways where men hammer away making decorative tin plates or tailors toil over 50 year old sewing machines

Nearby I saw men scouring recently skinned sheep hides. Bales of wool hung up for sale. A man on a motorbike with a trailer full of cows’ heads
It feels like another place in time

Today I visited the cave where some believe Abraham was born.
Tomorrow I start to walk Abrahams Path

Urfa

Urfa

Wow. Just wow

What a beautiful place. This doesn’t feel like the west any more

I appear to have arrived in the middle if a religious festival because the area around the mosques are packed with families and lovers just strolling around.

And what an area to stroll in. Once again it’s vast arena of greenery, lighted pathways , pools and streams
The main pool alongside one of the mosques is connected to the story of abraham falling to earth when cast into the fire
It’s a couple of hundred yards long well stocked with huge fish
The old city walls and mosques are illuminated tonight. Waking around you come across hidden marble courtyards with yet more ancient buildings

You can smell the spices wafting from the bazaar. It really feels like I’m in the East. Which I am really

But not all the women here have their heads covered . The cafes are full of very glamorous women in western clothes and make up.

It is so beautiful here tonight I’ve literally got goosebumps walking around the place
Only downside is I have no-one to share this with …

I’ve just deliberately walked away from the only Western tourists I’ve seen in nearly 3 weeks.
Will try to explain why later.
I’m not sure it makes sense.

Moving on

Farewell then Adana
Sad to leave this city of contrasts
In 1935 there was one Main Street which became a muddy quagmire when it rained.
Well it’s changed a bit.
The traffic is a bad as you’ll see in London
But there are beautiful, well-watered parks with fountains and lakes.
I wandered the grounds of the museum where I chatted with the director and saw some of the best roman statues I’ve ever seen.
There’s a dodgy downtown area – where I naturally stayed – with the occasional sleazy bar full of ladies of questionable repute. Apparently.
But there’s also a more hip, trendy area with decent bars and restaurants. Even, inevitably, an Irish “pub”

It was in one of these I met TJ, a waiter who has a partner and little girl back in Hull.
He spent two years there and tells me Hull City have just been promoted..

He also gave me a brief history lesson if ancient and modern Turkey.
Not sure how many waiters could or would do that back home.

And he tells me a story of Abrahzm Think that’s going to happen a lot in the next few days.

Tonight I’m in Urfa in Kurdish Turkey

Taurus mountains from train