The Young Jeremiah Chronicles - Istanbul to Cairo Part 1

The year after Thailand, myself and my friend Eoin Ryan decided to head to the Middle East.  It had been something I'd wanted to do for years.  As a kid I used to annoy baby sitters by appearing in the living room after being put to bed, kept awake by nagging questions concerning Tutankhamen's genealogy.  Apparently.  

Later in life, I'd become obsessed with T.E. Lawrence, somehow making it through 'Seven Pillars of Wisdom' twice, not to mention a book of his letters and several biographies.  I'd familiarised myself with a fairly large number of ancient alphabets, and had recently taught myself to read Arabic.

Jerry And Eoin 2004

Yet I kept putting it off.  I think it was only Eoin's madness in saying he'd like to come along that made me take the plunge.  It was quite a risk at the time.  Iraq had only recently been declared 'At Peace' Bush had landed on his aircraft carrier and declared 'Mission Accomplished', and so, war still raged.  

But looking back at it now, we were blessed to go where we did, when we did; At the time of writing, Syria is completely inaccessible due to the Civil war, but back in 2004, Syria was friendly, disarming, and continually surprising, the highlight of the trip.  A great country with a warm people, I hope they manage to rid themselves of that Bashar worm once and for all.

But anyway. The past.  Jeremiah is on summer break from studying Archaeology and off to visit places hes dreamt of visiting since hes been a child.  Heres the collected Correspondence.

31/7/2004 - The Beginning

Hey everybodyWell this is my 1st email, so I'm not gonna say much, just wanted to let everybody know I'm still alive.

 

The View from where I sat

Where I sit now on the rooftop cafe of the orient youth hotel, I can see on my left hand the huge mass of the converted basilica of Haggia Sofia, that big reddish mosque with different styles of minarets, to my right lies the Bosporus, the ancient Hellespont, gateway by sea to the black sea, but for me, on land, crossing it means leaving Europe and entering Asia, giant trawlers continuously trawl its flat blue surface and far off in the distance I can just about make out the strip of land that leads down to the Dardanelles, that's where I'm off to in a couple of days, but firstly Istanbul awaits. Had a bit of trouble with the plane yesterday, Prague is insanely beautiful.

Eoin and I had flown to Istanbul via Prague where we'd spent a day.




Its as if the richest nations of the world all conspired in the crafting of every last building on every last street, insane riches poured into it, only for it to be left as a giant tourist attraction in a land that has seen its part played in world history. Well it seems so anyway.

Confused in Prague

Anyhow, the flight to Istanbul from Prague was delayed for about 3 hours, we had to switch planes and everything due to a technical fault, and were security searched both times. So we arrived into Istanbul at about two o clock in the morning, and got to bed about three after finding out that none of the arrangements for booked accommodation had been registered by the hostel. We got a room anyway, albeit a more expensive one, anyhow, headed to the Syrian embassy today, but arrived too late for anything, so back again tomorrow.

Somewhat sceptical in the Middle East

Thats about it, Istanbul really eastern but a bit western as well,its being pulled in all directions at once, and its a bit of a melting pot really. Anyhow, more later. Eoins grand anyhow, chatting someone up as we speak, no arguments yet. Hes a bit culture shocked I think, which is funny, still thinks he knows best though, but thats just Eoin. Anyhow, see ye all


From Far far away




Jerry






After a day in Istanbul we determined we would have to head inland to the Turkish capital, Ankara.

The Road to Ankara

02/08/2004 - The One after the Beginning

 Hey all from probably sandy Ankara

Guess where I am? not in Troy; not in Gallipoli, not even still in Istanbul, nope I`m in Ankara, political capital of turkey, the future Eoin calls it, to me it looks like Athens, what with the pantheon-like Mausoleum of Ataturk sitting atop a hill overlooking the city, strange that the Turks have a capital city that appears like the symbol of those who traditionally held great enmity towards them, I mean the Greeks and Turks are like the English and Irish, imagine if the Queen woke up one morning and decided to get Tony to make London look more like Dublin, they'd put her away they would I tell you truthfully. Its odd too that as Turkey, the ancient home of Troy (which we`ll no longer get to see) has a capital similar in monumental look to the ancient home of the Acheans, but then again I haven't actually seen the city properly yet as Its pitch black and we've only been here about 20 minutes,  but no doubt, ye are all starting to hold great enmity towards me for going on about the resemblance Ankara has to Athens so I`ll just shut that whole line of writing down pronto. 

Damn I hate this keyboard, if the i`s are showing up all funny its not my fault, ummmm oh yeah, why in Ankara you don`t ask yet still have to listen to the answer as you just can`t stop reading this unstoppable prose? Well I`ll tell you then since you dýd,nt ask so kindly, this not being a two way conversation and all.

A quick contemporary apology for the terrible prose of the past.  All I can say is that I must have been dreadfully tired...

 In Istanbul city of contradictions in conflict (natch, whatever that means) we tried for days to get our syrian visas, the first two days it was closed, and that second day a new worry entered my heart of hearts, (heart of hearts?) we re read the visa chapter in the guide and discovered we might need a letter of reccomendation from the irish embassy, we did, and found the consulate in Istanbul was seemingly no longer there, so this was this morning, since then I`ve had my boots cleaned against my wýshes, been ripped off twice (well they tried and failed) discovered that the train to Ankara was out of service due to that big crash, got the tram and metro to the bus station, and got the most fantastic bus ride of my life to Ankara. Honestly, turkey has the best bus system I`ve ever seen, two free cups of coffee, loads and loads of cups of water, a bun, comfy chairs (NOT THE COMFY CHAIR!) a stopover in the middle of nowhere, and a movie, Bruce Almighty in Turkish (don`t get how Islam gets that) and stewards with waistcoats and little dickie bows, fantastic, now in Ankara, cos of the Syrian visa delay we`ll have to skip the West coast of Turkey and head to Syria early. Hope to make up time and money there. Now to enjoy Ankara. Oh yeah, and sleep

Jerry

Far far away

Me and Ataturks Mausoleum

05/08/2004 - The Mini Bureaucracy Adventure reaches its conclusion

 Guess where we are? (you'll never get it if you haven't already read Eoins email)

Back in Europe, Back in Istanbul, and what a crazy time we had getting here. We were in Ankara yesterday, and the day before struggling to get our Visa for Syria, Ankara is the political heart of Turkey, and as such there's not a whole lot to do for tourists, apart from visiting anitkabir (ataturk's mausoleum) the huge pantheon like structure I mentioned in the last email, with its accompanying museum, there's not much to do, as I said..... Except struggle to get our visas of course.

During the course of our stay in Ankara, we visited the Irish embassy twice, the first time we visited this small comfortable place on the third floor of a gleaming skyscraper, decorations on the wall include Allihies; yep, 'O' Neill's' bar and 'the lighthouse' decorate the walls of the Irish embassy in Turkey. The first visit involved getting letters of recommendation from the embassy for the Syrian embassy in Ankara, basically vouching the Irish governments good faith in Eoin and myself, after that we travelled to the Syrian embassy, and into chaos. Shouting pushing shoving, all done in a distinctly Turkish way, we pushed our way past the edge of the crowd to the barred and barbed façade of the embassy's gates, while we struggled to make ourselves heard over the din, I couldn't help but notice a serene Turkish child of about four, clinging to his mothers veiled head, looking straight at me we huge curious brown eyes, completely unaffected by the craziness of it all, it was at that point I realised I was enjoying myself.

We were told that the visa would cost $50, so we rushed off to get money outta the bank, by the time we returned the embassy was closed, all we could do was forget about it till tomorrow and visit anitkabir in all its Hittite gloriousness.

Anitkabir

 The next day, we reasoned that perhaps things would be easier in Istanbul, so we returned to the Irish embassy to get recommendation letters for there. The embassy was perplexed but very helpful, and I convinced Eoin to give the Ankara embassy another go, it seemed to me like a lotta fun. (Eoin wanted to head back to Istanbul) So we swung by on our way to the bus station, and stayed there for 6 hours. We were helped by an american accented Syrian woman, who shouted directions from behind white steel bars, and we once again entered the queue. We were lucky, we met a number of Turks who later, while we waited for the embassy to process everyone's visa applications, invited us to eat food, most of it unidentifiable, all of it delicious. We exchanged email addresses and photos, at the end of the hot hours under the sun, and returned to the embassy.

Waiting for our Visas

The technique for handing out visas in Ankara is distinctly in need of improvement, basically one window opens behind the barred and barbed façade, and everyone (500 people or more) crowd up to window, listening for the clerk inside to call out the name on the next passport to be passed out.  Eoin watched the bags while I submerged myself in the crowd, hoping to get as close as I could in order to hear our names called out.  It was pretty crazy, and I definitely had more of a laugh doing this then Eoin had minding the bags worrying. I gave him a wave every now and then, but basically enjoyed this crazy game of bureaucracy.

 The Turks ran with the premise, making it a joke, one fellow screaming out each name at the top of his lungs as it was passed through the crowd, the meaning sometimes lost in his laughter, sometimes frustration boiled over, like when a Turkish business man, with a face like old leather, a bristly shock of greyish black hair, and a moustache you could use to scrub your nails, sweating in his tweed business suit, swinging his briefcase, lost his patience and ran shouting crazily as he burst through the crowd, people sniggered, everyone laughed heartily though when he was finally called about an hour later, he gave a triumphant shout as he barged through the crowd once more, a huge toothy grin on his face. Eventually I heard the call of 'Irlanda' and charged up, my pale face and fedora gaining much laughter. I rejoined Eoin, and we savoured our prize, two colourful, page filling Syrian Visas.  

Our Syrian Visas

Triumphantly we headed on to the bus station, and back to Istanbul, Ankara is not the place to relax, Istanbul is, so here we are, back in the same hostel, Haggia Sofia, and the Blue mosque to the left, the Bosporus and Asia to my right, had a sleep in this morning for the first time since we got here, and both of us are looking forward to the adventure dead ahead (now that's cheesy, but I couldn't help myself)

P.S. Annie, and mike, hows the west coast? we're heading to Ephesus tomorrow, How was Troy?

P.P.S. Liz, you back from Spain yet? how was it?

Everyone else, a big ole howdy too

from a battered but unstoppable

Jerry

So, Visas in hand. It was off to explore Turkey!