Читать книгу The Silk Road and Beyond - Ivor Whitall - Страница 13

It felt surreal, as if I was entering a Len Deighton thriller novel. The barrier raised and I eased out into a pitch black night. Behind, in the mirrors, I could see the bright lights of the Austrian border, ahead, an inky blackness where the only light was that carved out by the main beam of my truck.

The map had shown Maribor to be the first large town. Luckily, I’ve spotted a sign in the headlights. It’s unlit, faded and off to the side. Maribor, and it’s probably a good analogy of what was hidden behind the Iron Curtain; poorly lit and faded. I was tired now. It had been a long day and within the hour I was parked up alongside a few other trucks and rolling a smoke. It was midnight and, setting the alarm for six o’clock, I fell asleep feeling quite proud of my achievements so far. Where was Damien?

Six forty-five and I awoke with a start. I must have been out like a zombie and not heard the alarm. Splashing water over my face, I put the kettle on and ate my last rather stale and now sorry-looking bochwurst. Now I was out of Western Europe and didn’t have a tachograph, I was a ‘free agent’. The only restrictions were going to be self-imposed ones and, of course, those applied by any police that might wish to interfere with my progress!

Looking out of the window at my first view of the country, my initial thought was, what a dump. It looked so untidy and unkempt. Rubbish lay strewn about and what little hardstanding was left in the lay-by had been virtually destroyed by the countless passage of heavy vehicles. It was a mixture of dried mud and broken tarmac.

“I must have been out like a zombie and not heard the alarm.”

The road down to Zagreb, my next target, wasn’t too bad, and on reaching the outskirts I picked up TIR signs that divert heavy goods vehicles in a large arc around the north of the city, to re-join the ‘E5’ on the southern side. The next 440 km to Belgrade were an eye-opener as to the road conditions that might lie ahead, and tested the mettle of man and machine to the limit. Straight enough to have been constructed by the Romans, I don’t think that other than a thin top coat of tarmac, the underlying strata of cobblestones had had any repair work done since! The whole journey down was a vibration-led ‘thump and crash’ of mechanical noises as the poor old DAF, and my spine, struggled to cope with what was a main road in name only!

“I pulled off onto a large parking area that would have done credit to the Somme!”

My stomach was now telling me it required nourishment and, spotting a rust-scarred camping sign with a knife and fork emblem, I pulled off onto a large parking area that would have done credit to the Somme! At the back corner was what looked like a restaurant. Manoeuvring around the minefield of ‘bomb craters’, I pulled up next to another British-registered lorry. He was just drawing his curtains and I recognised his face from yesterday’s train journey. Winding my window down, I introduced myself to Morrie.

‘Going for a wash and some breakfast mate?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I’m starving.’

‘The Trees’, as I came to know it, became another of the legendary stopping points on the way down, and it wasn’t all to do with the ‘quality’ of service in the restaurant. Other services were also on offer in and amongst the trucks. Mind you, most of them wore welly boots instead of high heels, such was the state of the parking area!

Sitting down at the lino-covered table, we were just about to order when, ‘’Allo boyo’s, ’ow’s it doing?

It was the unmistakeable sound of a Welshman in song. Introducing himself as Taffy, he inferred that, as he was fluent in Serb–Croat, he’d order our meal of ham, egg and chips.

‘Garçon,’ he called across to a bemused waitress standing in the corner. No response.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he called again, once more eliciting nothing other than a shuffling of her feet. With that he called again, including a wave of his arm. This did the trick and she ambled over.

‘Ham, egg and chips three times please love.’

‘Thought you spoke Serb–Croat?’ commented Morrie, as the woman looked at us nonplussed.

‘Just a bit rusty is all,’ he laughed, standing and doing the old chicken routine while clucking loudly. Her face lit up in a flash of understanding as she pointed at each one of us.

‘Si,’ said Taffy, ‘and tri pivos (beer), grazie. There ’ew are boys, dun job innit. Be ’ere toute suite.’

Half an hour later, after a couple of pivos, our ham, egg and chips arrived, looking remarkably like boiled chicken and boiled potatoes. We all burst out laughing.

‘Well done Taff, at least it’s food.’

1975. Londra Camping and on the way to Saudi with my favourite girl. She may have had only 226 horses under the bonnet but she never let me down.

1975, and off to Kuwait on my very first trip. The stamp at the top of page left was my very first Turkish ‘visa’ at Kapikule, dated 20 April 1975. By the time I called it a day I’d filled quite a few passports with border stamps.

And it was, basic at best, with potatoes that looked a bit grey round the gills, but at least it was edible and at 10 Dinar, when there’s 30 to the Pound, it’s as cheap as it’s likely to get. We decided to run down to the Turkish border together and it’s amazing how the idea of having company on my first trip lightened my mood. On top of that, these guys weren’t the bullshitting kind I’d already been unfortunate enough to meet.

‘Right,’ said Morrie, who’d been to the Middle East numerous times. ‘We’ll have a good session, stop for a coffee, then crack on to the Bulgarian border. How’s that grab you?’

And that was settled, Morrie was our resident ‘expert’, so he was in charge. The three of us had a whale of a time convoying it down to Belgrade, even though the road surface was atrocious. Traffic was light and what transport there was consisted mostly of small grey-bonneted lorries called TAMs, often pulling a small covered four-wheel trailer, also grey, at about 25 mph. Everything about this country seemed grey! Overtaking was complicated by the fact we were right-hand drive vehicles driving on the right-hand side of the road. However, Morrie soon got the hang of keeping us all together. He would indicate to pull out and overtake, staying on the wrong side of the road until either we’d all overtaken or a vehicle came the other way. It was an adrenaline rush as we blasted past trucks and minibuses at 60-plus mph, cabs bucking and bouncing across the rough potholed road. Anything in the cab that wasn’t secured landed in the passenger footwell!

Stopping on the outskirts of Belgrade for a bite to eat and a cuppa saw us transiting the city on Yugoslavia’s only undamaged stretch of tarmac! But this wasn’t to last long, as once we’d climbed the hill out of the capital, the road to Nis was almost as bad as the one from Zagreb. Edged at irregular but numerous intervals by religious icons commemorating the death of some unknown Turkish family, it was a concrete nightmare. Cracked and broken, many of the huge ‘plinths’ had settled and didn’t always match the height of the next one; in fact there could often be a difference of a couple of inches! Our foot to the floor driving style continued unabated, the law demanding you keep a gap of at least 100 metres from the truck in front fastidiously ignored! Morrie was on a mission and we’d better keep up or ship out . . . I was learning a new style of driving, on the job.

“Morrie was on a mission and we’d better keep up or ship out . . .”

Past Nis, our pace was forced to slow, as the E5 wound its way through the tunnels, valleys and hills of the Balkans, until eventually, at two in the morning, we arrived tired but elated at Dimitrovgrad, the Yugoslav–Bulgarian border, now a very long 1550 miles from home. We were the only vehicles there and 10 minutes saw us cleared out of Yugoslavia and moving our trucks the 50 yards or so onto Bulgarian territory. Processing the carnets didn’t take too long but acquiring Taffy’s transit visa – me and Morrie had already got ours – was a little more time-consuming, in fact one and a half hours more time-consuming! Finally, at three thirty in the morning, passport in hand and the compulsory diesel vouchers purchased, we were once more ready to roll. We were tired, but we were young and tired; a totally different exhaustion to fifty years down the road!

‘C’mon,’ said Morrie. ‘Let’s go, we’ve already wasted enough time here.’

And it was another 200 and odd mile crash, bang, wallop of a drive through dark unlit towns and villages, easing up only for the static police checkpoints that Morrie obviously knew existed. The black moonless night slowly gave way to at first a hint of grey early morning light that gradually changed through the spectrum to a yellow haze, growing in intensity until, BANG, there it was, the sun’s forehead attacking your senses as it breached the horizon, sending your hand scurrying around the dashboard in search your sunglasses, which were now with everything else in the passenger footwell! At 11 o’clock we arrived at Kapitan Andreevo and joined a small queue of trucks awaiting entry into Turkey . . . And there it was, 200 yards ahead, gateway to the mystical Orient. Entry into another ‘dimension’ and the old Ottoman Empire! For a truck driver, it’s a world as different as you could possibly imagine.

“We were all shattered, having knocked out over 600 miles on some of the worst roads I’d ever seen.”

We were all shattered, having knocked out over 600 miles on some of the worst roads I’d ever seen. After 28 hours and with only a couple of small interludes to break it up, I was now running on adrenaline. Twenty-five minutes on the Bulgarian side saw our documentation stamped and seals checked on. Then, according to Morrie we had a short wait while the sniffer dogs did their business around the trailer, including a compulsory pee up against the wheel. A quick check of the cab followed, luckily not with the dogs. I’d already heard stories that they sometimes put them in to sniff out ‘contraband’. Can’t say I’d fancy some mutt with muddy paws trampling over my bed. Another 10 minutes found us on the front row of the grid, so to speak, waiting to be called forward. Then we were there, driving through the ‘sheep dip’ into the chaos that is synonymous with Kapikule. Unbelievably, I think the Turkish authorities were concerned that we were going to transfer some contagious disease or other into their country! How incongruous is that thought? Turning left onto the dried mud track behind the shanty town of offices and chi (tea) stalls, we followed the queue of trucks wending its way onto a large open field and, parking as haphazardly as the rest, we locked our doors and went in search of our agents.

‘Bloody hell Morrie,’ exhorted Taff. ‘Wouldn’t wanna be coming on ’ere in the rainy season. Be a right mud bath I reckon.’

It transpired that all three of us were clearing with Young Turk, a very pleasant young man called Suleiman, who had the added benefit of having a father who was apparently chief of customs or similar! Something that’s not going to do your business development opportunities any harm, is it?

‘Listen,’ said Morrie earnestly, as we made our way to his office. ‘When you get your paperwork back, check it’s been stamped up correctly. Especially make sure that your passport has all the relevant details accurately entered in the ‘visa’. Any error here will only compound itself when you arrive at the exit border.’

‘What do you mean mate?’ I asked.

‘Put it this way,’ he said, in even more dramatic tones. ‘If the detail entered in your passport concerning carnet and numbers doesn’t match the actual carnets, you could well be making your way back here from Cizre, and it’s only a round trip of 1600 miles! It’s food for thought, eh?’

Sending one of his team of young assistants out to bring us chi (tea) – it’s a Turkish and generally speaking Arabic custom, chi first, business follows – Suleiman explained what paperwork he needed. Then, courteously asking us to remain with our vehicles, he made it clear that our documentation would be delivered back to us later in the day and the fee for this would be 250 Turkish Lire, around £8 each.

Time for sleep, pleeeease, it’s over 30 hours since I last clambered out of my sleeping bag. As we walked back to our trucks the sun was up and about and, even though early in the year, I know it’s going to give us grief. Of course, though overtired, sleep wasn’t going to come easily as I tossed and turned in the roasting heat.

Someone was thrashing my cab and, rolling over in a slightly dazed condition, I wound down the half-opened window.

‘OK, Mr Ivor, now you can go,’ said one of Young Turk’s lieutenants as he handed me back a pile of documents.

Remembering Morrie’s words of warning, I spent the next 10 minutes checking everything was as it should be.

‘Better get out of this bedlam and find somewhere to stop down the road,’ said Morrie. ‘It’s too easy to get blocked in, then you could be stuck here for hours.’

Somehow I managed to stay awake for the next 45 minutes or so as we navigated the narrow bridge at Edirne and bimbled our way through the town. I was so tired now that I even missed my first minaret. If they don’t pull over soon I’m gonna have to stop on my own, I thought. I’m becoming a danger to myself as my eyelids get heavier and heavier. Luckily that decision was taken out of my hands as Taffy’s indicator light winked on and, totally exhausted, having depleted our adrenaline reserve’, we pulled over onto a dirt patch and, without speaking a word to each other, pulled our curtains and fell sound asleep.