Читать книгу Beyond Paris - Paul Alexander Casper - Страница 15

11:55 AM, April 18, 1970

It was late morning when we arrived in Istanbul and, of course, it was pouring rain. After asking around on the train we had gotten a lead on a place to stay, the Pera Palas Hotel. It wasn’t a short hike from the Sirkeci Train Station, but the rain did stop for a brief while as we made our way through some of the most crowded but interesting streets I had ever walked. We had crossed from West to East, geographically and culturally. At the hotel we arranged for our baggage, left at the station, to be picked up the next morning.

Istanbul was a world away from American everyday life, with the sounds, smells and landscape utterly foreign. I had made some progress in Paris with the French language, but there was no way to begin to get comfortable with Turkish. But the people were friendly, and there were certainly a lot of them.

Doug and I explored from morning until night. We saw the amazing Hagia Sophia, which once was one of the most significant mosques of Islam but was now a museum. The Hagia Sophia was the largest church in the world until Michelangelo built Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

We were also able to go into the Blue Mosque, one of the largest and most prestigious mosques in the Middle East. It is almost impossible to visit when the call for prayers is not going on. But we lucked out and were transported to another world, amazed by the design and architecture of a Muslim mosque, so different than a Western church. Nonbelievers, as we were, were only permitted to enter through one special door, our shoes deposited at the entrance. (I did worry that we would ever be able to find them again, and it took a while to search through all the shoes, but we did eventually retrieve them.)

Upon leaving, we went to the Topkapi Palace, home to the Ottoman sultans for hundreds of years. The Palace was not far away, and as we began to walk, a sign informed us that we were walking on the same bricks and stones that Roman soldiers did a millennium ago. The Crusaders had also trod this road, using Istanbul as a jumping-off point in their bloody campaign to take back Jerusalem, a city that has changed hands half a dozen times over the last 1000 years.

As we walked along some of the old streets of this city, with its exotic smells and sensuous music everywhere, we came to one of the largest, most confusing and mysterious covered markets in the world, the world-famous Grand Bazaar. Almost 400,000 visitors a day passed through the market’s almost one hundred covered streets with over 3000 shops. We were completely fascinated. Some of the shops were no bigger than a closet, with everyone trying to negotiate price with us before we even showed interest. It felt like we could have bought anything in the world somewhere in that huge and colorful place. I imagine it is the same way today—you can buy anything, even if you may need to go to a secret backroom for privacy. We often saw suspicious characters ducking into dark corners as we explored.

The Grand Bazaar houses two mosques, four fountains, two Turkish baths, and several cafés and restaurants. In the center is the high-domed hall of the Cevahir Bedesten, a jewelry market, where the most valuable items and antiques could be found during our visit and still are today: furniture, copperware, amber prayer beads, inlaid weapons, icons, mother-of-pearl mirrors, water pipes, watches and clocks, candlesticks, old coins, and silver and gold jewelry set with coral and turquoise. The Bazaar has always been known for its hand-painted ceramics, carpets, embroideries, spices and antique and clothing shops. Many of the stalls in the Bazaar were grouped by type of goods, which ran the gamut from simple necessities to priceless jewels. The Bazaar has been an important trading center since 1461, and its maze-like vaults feature two domed buildings, the first constructed between 1455 and 1461 by order of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. The Bazaar was vastly enlarged in the 16th century, during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and in 1894 underwent a major restoration following an earthquake.

Doug and I spent a spent most of the day exploring the Bazaar and sitting in one of the cafés. We bargained with shop owners and watched the crowds pass, savoring the romantic ancient atmosphere of old Istanbul. Doug lingered over hashish pipes, some of the most ornate I have ever seen. While he was negotiating, I wandered the streets nearby, where I came upon a very young Turk, maybe thirteen years old, with a medium-sized live elephant.

He greeted me: “As-salamu alaykum.” Then he bowed.

Proud of myself, I nodded my head and replied, “Wa-Alaikum-Salaam.”

He looked surprised for a second but continued in very good English, “Only $25, this elephant is for you. You can ride it out of here today.” I have to say I thought about it for a minute; it would be cheaper than the trains I had been taking. I was tempted, just to be able to say I’d bought an elephant in Istanbul for less than a pair of good boots would have been worth it. And I would have liked to have experienced riding one, but reality got the better of me and I declined, even after I got him down to $19. We had been told to watch out for black market items, and it was obvious the elephant was black market—and could I really ride this elephant in the streets of Istanbul? The young man, Emre I believe he was called, did give me a lead on where to buy black market American cigarettes, which I desperately needed.

He also described a restaurant shop I should go to. He said a lot of golden-hairs like me hung out there. Emir indicated that if I was a traveler, I needed to talk to some of the other travelers who gathered there daily. Doug was still set on buying pipes and wanted to see if another store might offer better wares or prices, so he took off in one direction as I left the Bazaar to look for this “meetings” shop.

It wasn’t far. Though small and with few patrons, Tale Pastanesi, just as Amir had said, did have some European patrons. The funny little shop turned out to be the historic and iconic starting point of the famous “Hippie Trail,” the travel route taken by young European and American travelers, eventually called “hippies,” from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s between Europe and South Asia, through Iran, Afghanistan, Kashmir, India and Nepal.

In later years, this place would change its name for a most unforeseen reason. It seems many travelers could never remember the restaurant’s foreign name, but because many of them remembered and liked the various puddings offered, they started calling it “That pudding shop in Istanbul.” Finally, the ownership gave in and put up a sign: The Pudding Shop.

Although their puddings played a large role in the recognition of the spot, it also became known as a place for travelers to get information. There was a large bulletin board with news about the comings and goings on the hippie trail, with information about destinations including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kathmandu, India, and even farther east to Thailand and beyond. Many, if not most, who ventured east had to make their way through this important hub for travel ideas, shared rides, personal connections, advice, country news and alerts.

The hippie trail was the name given to a migration of young people from across the globe who felt a need to go east and find something different. Typically, it was an overland journey from Europe to India and or beyond. Most of the journeys passed through Istanbul. There were a few routes from Istanbul east. One took travelers through Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan to India. Another route could take people to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran and then to Pakistan and eventually India and Nepal. By far the most travelers stopped in India, but some continued east farther into Southeast Asia and even the Far East.

Young people’s desire to travel to the east was greatly influenced by the Beatles, who famously spent time in India in the 1960s. That eastward flow stopped rather abruptly in the late 1970s with the Islamic revolution in Iran and the war between Russia and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Many also traveled for access to drugs such as hashish. Others looked for spiritual enlightenment, and many more wanted and needed a type of freedom in everyday life that wasn’t available in the United States or Europe. Some went just because other people were doing it, and a few simply had adventure in their blood and were curious to see more of the world.

Most traveled the 6,500 miles by bus. Some of those bus trips were organized by young entrepreneurs who took a few or many per ride, depending upon whether the bus was a VW van or a large, fifty-person vehicle. Others traveled by car or motorbike; some even tried to hitchhike. Planes were too expensive and trains scarce and unreliable. There were many horror stories about all these forms of transportation breaking down at different parts of the journey. And often the outcome was either sit a month in the desert waiting for parts or, if the driver just gave up and walked away, walk however many miles to a town and wait for someone to pass through who would give you a ride east.

Years after I was there, The Pudding Shop did get a lot of international attention when it was included in the scary, based-on-real-events movie, Midnight Express. Billy Hayes, a young American played by actor Brad Davis, was initially caught with drugs in Turkey. The police gave him an opportunity to help his cause by wearing a wire and going to The Pudding Shop (where he had made his original drug connection) to see if he could identify those involved or shake out any others. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t succeed, and he ended up spending a long harrowing time behind bars.

One night, at about 10:30, Doug and I were sitting in the bar of the Istanbul Hilton after a pleasant American dinner of hamburgers, fries, Pepsis and apple pie. It cost us more for this meal by far than any other Turkish meal we’d had, but that hamburger was my first American meal in two weeks and it was worth it. It also helped that after fourteen days of straight rain, it was sunny.

Earlier that day I had gotten my hands on some recent copies of the International Herald Tribune, the English-language paper readily available when you were traveling overseas (It was renamed The International New York Times in 2013.) I was happy to get news about the States, especially sports news, but a comic strip called “Rip Kirby” also caught my eye. Kirby was an adventurer/detective looking for the elusive Elysian Fields—the mythological home of an afterlife where Greek heroes were given immortality and vast treasure—Rip was looking for the treasure.

Should I look for the Elysian Fields? At dinner, Doug and I tossed around possible new travel plans but becoming a Rip Kirby didn’t make the list. Going east was out; we had already decided that. Traveling north looked almost as bleak, since we would have to cross Bulgaria again. We couldn’t risk meeting our border guard, Borislav again, giving him another chance to lock up those two American spies. Going back the way we had just come seemed so “been there, done that.” That left south, down to Athens, one of the most historic cities in the world, then perhaps on to the Greek Islands. Then maybe I could become a Rip Kirby—my own Elysian Fields adventure could be waiting for me in Greece.

But I had no money. I had arrived in Paris with about $950, enough, I thought, to last me a month or so before I started collecting a paycheck. I had figured if Jake Barnes could get a job, so could I. That was the plan, and there was no Plan B. It never crossed my mind that I would fail. With only a one-way ticket to Paris, there was no room not to succeed. It was becoming apparent that I was kind of naive—stupid—to have made a bet on myself like that.

Well, Paris was history, as was my brilliant (I still think it was brilliant) idea to become a clothing entrepreneur, letting me extend my stay in Europe indefinitely. Although I had been frugal, Paris is one of the most expensive cities in the world. And although our accommodations on the Orient Express were, for the most part, less than satisfactory, the trip from Paris to Istanbul had taken almost a third of the cash I had come with. After some quick calculations, I realized that if we decided to take another train south to Athens and stayed for even a few days there, I would have barely enough to get to an Icelandic departure city and buy a cheap ticket home.

My plan had been to live in Paris; the more likely scenario was I that would be returning to the States after a month in Europe. With failures at every turn, going back the same person I was when I left was looking inevitable, I was going back with no adventures and no stories to tell about them. No living the life of Jake Barnes or Larry Darrell, no apartment overlooking the Seine, no path to India and enlightenment. I was in this world of crusaders and hippies, running out of money, with few prospects. I could’ve bought an elephant, but what would I do with an elephant…?

As I drank my beer and continued wallowing in self-pity, I glanced over the shoulder of a patron at the next table who was reading a Turkish newspaper. I got Doug’s attention and pointed—incredible! On the front-page were pictures of what looked to be the safe landing of Apollo 13. We couldn’t read the paper, of course, but there sure were a lot of smiling faces in those photos. Just the wonder of it cheered me up and sent me back to trying to figure out a plan.

Doug and I ordered more beers and went back to planning our next move. Doug felt Monday would be the best day for us to head south. He had decided which guy in the Grand Bazaar had the best hashish pipes, and he was sure he had negotiated the best price. But the Bazaar was closed on Sundays, so we had to wait two days to leave. We would buy our tickets Monday morning, then go to the Bazaar and buy some pipes. Doug had been urging me to buy a couple. Hashish was not my thing, but I could see they were unique. If I could get them home in one piece, I could probably sell them for a lot more than we had paid.

Before we returned to our hotel, I questioned Doug again about our decision not to try to get to India. I filled him in on some news I had gathered at the Pudding Shop. We could possibly get a ride in a truck or a Volkswagen bus to India, I had learned, although a couple of people indicated it could take three weeks to two months for the trip. And that was if whatever vehicle we started out in made it all the way. One couple from Spain, just back, said they were stranded in Baghdad for a month waiting for a truck part. Doug was intrigued: “Maybe we should reconsider?”

I believed Doug had it in him to travel like that. He had spent about a week at Woodstock, dealing with that craziness, the year before. When I had seen the pictures on TV of that miserable mess they gave me the shakes. How could those people stand it, all packed together, dirty, smelly, hungry, drugged-out day and night? And it rained most of the days the music was playing! I didn’t have the desire to go anywhere near that. Give me a nice suit, a crisp, collared shirt, and good leather shoes, worn in a nightclub with a drink in hand instead.

And so, in the end, after even more beers, we made our final decision. Forget India and go south to Athens. I’m pretty sure Rip Kirby would have gone for trekking to India and adventure, but, maybe, just maybe, adventure was waiting for me in Athens.

We slept until noon the next day. Doug needed to find some things for the next leg of our trip. I had decided that besides the handwritten journal I was keeping about my trip, I should buy a sketchbook so I could draw some of the wonderful things I was seeing. After I bought one at the Bazaar, I wandered into a beautiful hidden park with benches offering a clear view of the Blue Mosque. Before I started drawing, I copied a couple of poems I had written on scrap paper while on the train. The sketchbook’s graph paper background was perfect for both.

After an hour or so of sketching the mosque, I had begun to draw a crowd. Maybe as many as ten to twelve men, women and children had decided to stay a while and vocalize their opinions, good and bad, on how I was representing one of the great masterpieces of their city. Two women brought chairs over and sat right beside me, engrossed in a conversation, knitting, but stopping to check my work, either nodding and smiling in with approval or making faces, obviously thinking the opposite. The afternoon went quickly until the Muslim call for prayers echoed from some of the mosque towers close by and my audience left. I was alone as the sun started to slowly set in the west.

I met up with Doug after lunch and we spent a couple of hours talking with several pipe vendors in the Bazaar. Doug finally picked one and began serious negotiations. I enjoyed the banter so much that it was impossible for me to keep composed while negotiating. I inevitably started to laugh at some point; the whole experience was so different from buying something in the States. I had to walk away occasionally for fear of having our Turkish pipe dealer kick us out. I let Doug continue the battle while I looked for something to drink. I finally found something in a bottle, presumably safe to consume, and sat down on some folded rugs being readied for shipment. A Turkish teenager sat down beside me.

He leaned over and said, “English, my name is Zeheb. I am like golden for you; I have just what you want; you need to come with me, and I’ll show you.”

Caught off guard, I asked him, “And what do you think I want? We’ve never talked before.”

“English, you like the women, don’t you? I have a woman for you. She is just right, perfect for you.”

“Really, right here, in the middle of the bazaar, you have a woman? What are you trying to sell me? No, no.”

“English, this girl is beautiful; you won’t be sorry.”

“Listen, Zeheb, I’m leaving Istanbul later today on my way to Athens. So sorry,” I replied, trying to end the conversation.

“Not just for an hour, English. This girl is yours forever for the right price. I want to sell her to you; she is my sister.”

“Are you crazy? You can’t sell your sister.” I thought with horror of my sisters at home.

“Yes, English, I can. I already sold one sister last week. Now, do you have $50? I will show her to you.”

“No, I don’t want to buy your sister! I have to go and meet my friend, sorry,” Exasperated, I got up to leave.

“How about your friend, would he want a woman? Or if not, English, maybe you want a Kalashnikov?”

“Do you mean a Russian machine gun?”

“Yeah, English, just like brand-new with many, many ammo for you.”

By the time I was able to extricate myself from Zeheb, I was offered four different kinds of animals, three of which I believed were on the endangered list. One of them needed a cage, which he said he didn’t have, but if I bought right then all I needed to do was just give him twenty minutes, and he’d find one for me in the Bazaar. Zeheb was persistent; you must give him that.

Doug had found me and handed me a bag with a couple of pipes he had bought for me, and even returned some of my money. Doug was apparently a very good negotiator.

As we walked through one of the huge doors leading out of the Grand Bazaar, I turned around and stared for a minute or two. This truly was a different world. I couldn’t imagine another place as interesting, exotic or potentially dangerous. For thousands of years, some of the most fascinating characters in the world had bought, sold and stolen almost anything and everything inside those walls.

We rushed back to our hotel to pack for our trip to Athens. Looking at the pile in front of me I knew I had to decide about my clothes. I still had two bags I was dragging around on my shoulders. I had abandoned a few things in our Paris hotel room, but it didn’t make any sense to carry around what was left. I again had to make some tough decisions as I departed my hotel room, to discard another sport coat, some dress slacks and more than a couple of starched dress shirts. Although my big duffel bag was now considerably lighter, I still grimaced when I had to carry it for any length of time. My smaller carry-on also had gotten a little more awkward with the purchase of the 14” x 8” sketchbook

After checking out we taxied to the train station. We got some good news when we bought tickets; apparently, we could even get our own compartment. The bad news was we had to hang around until 9:30 p.m. when the train was scheduled to depart.