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Bulgaria’s second biggest city sprawls across the center of the glacial valley up which we had biked for the past four days.  We arrived in the rain.  We ate lunch under an overpass next to cigarette butts and a car detailing service.  The skies cleared as we emptied the bags that had held lunch, so we continued on the damp streets to the center of town.  My intrepid guiding skills led us successfully back to the walking street and posh shopping district.  The young members of FBR found a closed store front against which to lean the bikes.   Netzy, who had been hotel and shower free for several days, sought the solace of a hostel that might let her pay for a shower.  The rest of FBR endeavored to convince shoppers we were good enough to pay.

With the erhu case in front of us and classic FBR hits like “The Tea Song” and “Zombie” reverberating through the commercial streets, people soon began dropping in coins.   I had to avoid laughing at them.  Don’t they know we’re not professionals? I thought to myself.  Professional or not, we kept getting money.  Then the cops came.  “This,” said one, gesturing at the erhu case, “no money” he concluded simply enough.   We took away the erhu case, but continued playing.  We were a bit disappointed, perhaps, but we play mostly for pleasure.  If there’s money to be made, then so be it, but with no money we’ll happily play just about anywhere.

We had been playing for a couple of hours when our show suddenly involved a large amount of audience participation.  A young women with slightly crooked teeth approached me in the middle of one of the songs.  She explained she could play guitar.  We handed her a guitar, and she strummed out an English song none of us had ever heard before.

Before we knew it, a spry man with silver hair had procured Drew’s guitar.  He started singing Sinatra in a deep, gravelly voice that could have been Fats Domino’s.  Wearing the guitar on its strap, he two-stepped in the street.  We accompanied him as best we could.  Soon we had a huge crowd.

Street kids showed up.  Nakia paged through pictures of our journey Pete had put into an album with the street kids.  The silver-haired fellow continued his solo performance.  He caught the eye of passersby and sang directly to them.  One of the street kids, his facial muscles clenched in a grimace for effort, did a tripod on the street.

We found ourselves talking to a Plovdivian with perfect English, also a musician.  Our nearly-octogenarian crooner had moved on to Louis Armstrong.  The homeless kids chatted loudly, but were hushed by a toothless, apparently homeless woman who danced to the songs sung by the old fellow.  She gestured to the harmonica Drew held in his hands.  “I can play that!” she indicated.  Drew handed it over.  She tooted out a few notes and demonstrated her harmonica efficacy, but the key didn’t match the Louis Armstrong song.  She handed it back to Drew.

In the meantime, a man with a classy hat and a huge beer gut had picked up the drum at the insistence of his wife.  “He plays the drum wonderfully!” she had gestured to us.  He accompanied the older musician for a while, but soon moved on.

Storm clouds had come back to obscure the sky.   With the help of the English speaker, we got the old man to give back the guitar.  “He’s been a performer for 60 years,” translated our translator.  One of the street kids asked for money.  One of the other street kids told him to knock it off.  We said good-bye to everyone and packed everything up, just in time to seek shelter from the rain under an awning.

Published in the Enterprise July 15, 2008.

Cyclists Dance Confidently on Crazy Roads

By Jim Durfey for the Livingston Enterprise

Indian traffic combines the delicate timing of classical ballet with the haphazard aggressiveness of a demolition derby.  As I careened down the narrow streets of Agra a moto-rickshaw pulled in front of me.  I could have slowed down, but I guessed the driver intended to turn left.  Just before I slammed into the three-wheeled vehicle, it veered in front of oncoming traffic and off the road, just like I expected.

Next, I outran an approaching truck as it tried to swerve into my lane to get around a magnificent bull lounging in the right-hand lane.  The animal, considered holy by the Hindus of India, stood regally in the road, leisurely chewing its cud, as traffic whizzed by it on all sides.  It seemed as aware of its invulnerability as an elk the day after the close of the hunting season.  Unwilling to wait in line to get around the animal, all the cars made a rush for the remaining open lane of traffic.

I found myself adopting the Indian attitude regarding traffic the more I biked in that country.  I also found the rushed chaos of the streets reflected in other situations.  A couple of men in a posh New Delhi mini-mall asked me the purpose of the trip.  Before I could fully answer they had asked me three other questions.  Their excitement at the bike trip  humbled me, but before I knew it they had satisfied their curiosity and strode across the parking lot to the their car.

Western India proved just as excited to extend hospitality towards us as Eastern India, if not more.  A Muslim man in old Delhi bought me lunch for no apparent reason.  He sat silently across from me, eating his own lunch.

I racked my brain, thinking of conversation topics, trying to prove myself worthy of a free lunch.  His children attended a Catholic school run by nuns.  He had already made a pilgrimage to Mecca.  He did business in small pins and clasps.  I ran out of questions as my stomach ran out of space.  Yet, Mr. Atiq insisted on ordered me another piece of baked flat bread, and we sat in silence as I strove to join the clean plate club.

As we parted he shook my hand and beamed with a satisfied smile.  Perhaps, I reflected through the haze of a stuffed stomach, kindness does not necessarily require accompanying conversation.

When we stayed with Ranjit in Uttar Pradesh, he had his sister cook up an entire platter of parantha-fried bread stuffed with potatoes-for us.  He then took us on a tour of village cricket matches.  The biggest, though played by uniform-less young men on the rough ground of a fallow field, had the atmosphere of a Legion game down at the ball fields.  Vendors offered soda water and squeezed sugar can juice on wheeled stands while an announcer gave a running commentary on the game over a battery-powered speaker.

We watched our fill of cricket and then played music while Ranjit oversaw the slaughter of a chicken.  Our mouths watered at the prospect of meat, but before we could get our mouths on savory chicken morsels we had to dance.  The villagers appreciated our slow music, but preferred their own faster-paced beat.

They brought in a drummer who laid down a fast rhythm.  Mustachioed men in tank tops swung their hips around the circle of spectators.  Then it was our turn.  I tried to two-step and gyrate, but the sun had long ago sunk below the mango trees and my energy was low.  As a guest, I was in no place to make demands, but all I wanted was to eat chicken and go to bed.

I had never found accepting kindness so exhausting.  Yet, our experiences continued.  We smiled at crowds of curious onlookers who gathered around us when we stopped in small towns.  We answered every one’s questions as best we could, turned down their offers to drink tea and then gently butted our way through the crowd and back onto the craziness of the road.  I thought longingly of the roads in Livingston, so much calmer and easier to bike on.
We finally escaped the craziness of Indian roads when we reached the broad open highway of Rajisthan.  Four empty lanes stretched out before us.  No horns, no camels carts, no kids skittering into our path.  After half an hour boredom stretched the minutes into hours.  We came to a small town where a road led back into the craziness of Indian drivers and herders and cyclists.

The chaos, at first so appalling, now appealed to us.  We had learned how to integrate ourselves.  We knew the intricate timing of the grand ballet of Indian traffic.  After a short consultation, we opted for the more exciting road.

In the sleepy countryside in the hinterlands of North-western Greece a few men hailed me from the porch of a restaurant.  I had to ask directions anyway, so I stopped.  They communicated quickly without English that they wanted to buy me a drink.  I was in the middle of a bike ride, guiding my mom safely into Bulgarian, but one ought not be rude, oughtn’t one?

Inside the restaurant, the restaurateur poured me a beer as he excitedly showed us how his son was an architect in London.  He gave us his son’s card and both his mobile and land-line numbers, just in case.

We sat at a table with three men.  Petros, Christus, and Dimitrus.   Christus’ stringy hair fell down his shapeless, bare shoulders.  His chest hair rallied all the way down his pot belly.  It was hot.  The other men pointed at the shirtless Christus, then at my shirt, quite soaked with sweat.  “Take it off!” said their gestures.  “It’s hot!”  I unbuttoned it.

In an effort to move on, I tried to drink my beer quickly.  Ha!  They naturally filled it up again.

Petros contained his girth, the well-distributed girth of the jolly and formerly athletic, in a T-shirt.  What do you do?  inquired my mom.  What does he do? feined the other two.  They gestured at the table.  Here, he sits, every day, drinking.  Mom gestured at his beer belly.  Shame on you!  They pointed at the beer bottles lined up on the window sill, then directed accusing fingers to poor Petros.  “He doesn’t work,” said the radio DJ, who had shown up out of somewhere.  “He worked thirty years, then retired,” he explained.  Yes! agreed the other men.  Petros agreed too.  “Every day, here I am,” he gestured.  He puffed out his cheeks and framed his face and belly with his hands to mime really grand rotundity.  I don’t do anything, I just sit here and eat, he seemed to suggest.

But wait!  He jumped up, and pulled my mom to the door.  He pointed outside.  There was a bike!  A cheap mountain bike with full suspension.  I ride bike, he gestured, but I ought to ride more.

I tried to leave.  I got up and shook hands, only to find everyone’s ire incurred.  “They are making food, just a bit, very simple, it will be ready soon,” implored the DJ.  I sat down, and he told me how he travelled to the America’s as a radio man on an ocean liner.

In the meantime the conversation turned to politics.  I grabbed bread and tomatoes, and Petros said “Obama” and held out a thumbs up.  “Clinton…down” he continued.  We agreed.  Even though I am reasonably well informed, I often have no idea who leads many of the countries I’ve biked through, yet EVERYONE knows and is interested American politics apparently as well and as much as many Americans.

“Obama…McCain?” inquired Petros.  Who would win.  We indicated we leaned towards hoping Obama might find success in November.  “Bush?” asked Petros.  We indicated our distaste for Bush.  He agreed.  Thumbs down all around.  “Obama,” said my mom, and mimed peacemaking.  “Bush,” she said, and mimed war.  Everyone agreed.  Except Dimitrus.  He sat in the corner under his short hair and shrugged his svelt form.

Petros pointed an accussing finger.  “Fascist!” he proclaimed.  I guess that word has a Greek cognate.  “Socialist!” shot back Dimitrus, indicating Christus and Petros.  “Social Democrat” clarified Christus defensively.

And so it went.  We made merry for the better part of an hour and a half.  I finally managed to turn down more beer and headed for the door, mom in tow.  I managed not to weave badly on the road and soon we wound our way again through Thrace on the way to Bulgaria, thankful for people with enough time to enjoy the afternoon.

Almost one month ago, FBR split up. My mom arrived in Istanbul and was eager to get on the road. In the meantime, my sister and her special male friend Jay had planned to meet us in Bulgaria. You are no doubt familiar with how Pete, Drew and Nakia got stuck in Turkey battling the various Bulgarian consulates. My mom and I headed out on the road, trying to meet Autumn and Jay in Bulgaria. As we made our way out of Turkey we found these folks just as eager to offer succor to travelers as their big city brethren had been.

Escaping Istanbul meant riding through heat and climbing hills. It was a rough introduction to bike touring, but my mom lugged her loaded bike heroically up all the summits and through the terrible traffic. The roads wound a complex web out of the city. I stopped often and asked directions, sometimes biking up or down the road a ways. Inevitably, when I returned, I found Mom sitting in a chair someone had given her and drinking tea out of the crystal glasses in which the Turkish consume that product.

The first night we arrived in Hadimkoy after biking up and down and up and down. Ask my mom. She’ll tell you and tell you. We were beat, or at least she was beat. I didn’t know where to camp. The town seem surrounded by military bases. We know how well camping on military property goes. There was no hotel in the town.

We clambered up the hill out of town. We found a gas station. The attendent, a sober mop-yielding man seemed to be on the verge of closing. He invited us in to use the bathroom, however. When I emerged, having just spoiled his mopping job, he handed me a cup of coffee.

Next door was a fire station. They had a lot of open space for a tent, and firemen of all countries seem to be decent people.

Half an hour after sunset, we rode up to the gate of the fire station and explained in gestures to the bemused firemen how we wanted to put a tent in a corner of their firestation. Before we knew it, we were sitting in the fire station lounge, hamming it up over coffee with all the firemen on duty. Birol, a solidly built man, put down his tea and pointed to his flexed bicep. “America, firemen, strong!” he exlcaimed. The chief showed us pictures of his grand kids. Yunus quizzed me in passable English on the exact route of my trip so far.

“Douche! douche!” exclaimed one of the men after a while, miming water falling onto his head. “Yes, yes!” my mother clasped her hands together in thanks. She had obviously not yet become accustomed to road dirt. I let her go first, then it was my turn.

When it was time to go to bed, the firemen took us next door to the gas station. Upstairs from the office and convenience store was a prayer room, presumably where truckers or travelers could go to prostrate themselves in private. We lay down on the floor, thankful to have a secure, clean place to sleep.

The next day, a white-haired man in Catalca handed us a bag of apricots and a cold bottle of water. We sat in a park, and he left. What a nice man! we thought. But soon he was back with a steaming plate of sausage and tomatoes. It went well with our bread and cheese. We tried to give him some cookies, but he would only take one as a he had heart trouble.

The bearer of Apricots.

Later, a farmer hailed us from his field. I came to a slow stop as he jogged towards us in jeans, clutching a green bundle. He bounded across the road, handed me a few cucumbers, and sent us on our way with a smile.

To top off our crazy experience, we arrived in another small town in the evening to find several English-speaking professionals visiting from Istanbul.  When we asked them about a place to stay or camp, they urged me to wait just a moment.  Then they whisked me behind the tea hall and into a huge room.  “The quality of this room is not so good,” said one of them, “but you can stay here if you like.”  They had called the head of the village and found the only open room in town for us.  The mosque across the street had a bathroom we could use.

Just as I was about to head to a market to pick up some dinner, one of the men came into the room bearing a huge plate of food.  Stuffed peppers, yoghurt, bread, pastries and tomatoes.  We were speachless.  We met the woman who had made the food (the wife of one of our ‘hosts’).  She of course claimed it was no trouble to make the food and entreated us to eat.  We were almost speachless, but not appetiteless.  We sat down and made short work of it.

The providers of food and shelter in Sinekli.  That’s mom in the blaze orange.

Safety first, and you’d best remember it.

I’d like to end this post on a somber note. Wherever we went in Turkey, we could always count on the police to give us great directions. We could count on our approach bringing a smile to their lips. Then, speaking deliberately they would inevitably determine from our confused explanations where we really wanted to go and guide us patiently on our way. It is the smiles from policemen I first thought of when I learned that three Turkish cops died while defending the U.S. consulate in Istanbul from an attack last week.

The reasons for the attack were unclear.  The motivations of the perpetrators are uncertain, so far as I know.  Maybe they were Muslims, motivated by Islamic “ideals”.  However, after experiencing the hospitality of the mostly-Muslim nation of Turkey, I can only laugh at grand theories about the opposition between Christain and Islamic culture.  To the Turks and especially the police, I have the utmost respect and am indubitably in their debt.

I’m back with my negativity just as intact as ever.  But… I do have a bity of good news.  After harrassing the Bulgarian consulate with phone calls and email, they finally issued Nakia a 10 day passport.  It’s short enough to be almost useless for people hoping to bike through a whole country.

From here we have several options.  We could throw in the towel, focus on a Western European visa, or just bike in Turkey. 

The other option is sticking with our initial plan.  I feel Nakia’s treatment has been unfair and unjustified, and it angers me to think what happened with Bulgaria may soon repeat itself with Serbia. 

Despite our frustrations, we remain convinced that most people are good at heart, that talking with people of all cultures and countries is a good way to build peace.  We remain convinced we can cut through the bureaucracy to real humans.

 You can help us convince the Serbian consulate to join FBR in it’s mission and not to oppose us!

If you have a moment, you can email any of the people listed below.  All you have to do is explain you are emailing on behalf of FBR and Nakia and feel that she should be given a visa, as our mission corresponds with the interests of Serbia.

Thanks for your help!

Vladimir Curgus, Ambassador, EMBASSY OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA, Ankara TURKEY embserank@tr.net 
Dragan Markovic, Consul General, CONSULATE GENERAL OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA, Istanbul TURKEY  gksrb@tr.net 

 Vuk JEREMIC, Minister of Foreign Affairs, msp@smip.sv.gov.yu 
Mirko STEFANOVIC,Secretary General, kgs@smip.sv.gov.yu 
Branko RADOSEVIC,Ambassador, Assistant Minister, Director General for Consular Affairs and Diaspora, branko.radosevic@smip.sv.gov.yu

In short, it’s all because of Bulgaria. 

 For every country we’ve gone through, FBR has needed visas.  Until Bulgaria, we got the visas without much hassle.  The Turkish visa we bought right at the airport.  It only took up a quarter of a page in our passport. 

As Americans, Andrew, Pete and I don’t even need visas to go to Bulgaria.  In fact, we will travel visa-free for the rest of the projected trip…if the trip continues, that is.  Nakia, as a Bahamian, needs a visa for Bulgaria and the rest of the countries we want to travel through. 

So far she has spent more than two weeks trying to get a Bulgarian visa.  She spent one day at the Bulgarian consulate in Istanbul.  The next day she returned earlier with my mom and spent the whole day there.  She couldn’t even get into the building.

That same night, she and Pete and Drew returned to the Bulgarian embassy, sleeping pads in hand.  They camped out on the street.  When they arrived at 12:30am, twenty-some people had already formed a line.  They spent a long night on the street next to a busy road amongst a growing crowd of would-be transitors through Bulgaria.  When the consulate opened nine hours after they queued for it, the guards didn’t let anyone in.  By 12:00pm (when the gate closes), not even twenty people had been admitted.  Peter and Nakia forced their way to the front of the line.  Nakia demanded her money back.  The guard let her in and she managed to apply for a visa. 

 Seven days later she learned her visa was denied just before having the door slammed in her face. 

In the meantime, I had started biking with my mom towards Edirne, Turkey.  She visited with the Bulgarian vice consul at the consulate there, Georgı Vodenski.  He seeemed pleasant and said Nakia’s initial denial was due to a misunderstanding.  He promised he would issue Nakia a visa in one day as soon as she arrived.  I informed the rest of FBR, and they rushed to Edirne from Istanbul.

 My mom and I, eager to see more country and meet my sister and friend in Bulgaria, continued across the border.

When Nakia arrived at the Bulgarian consulate in Edirne today, Mr. Vodenski reversed himself.  He refused to issue a visa to her, claiming he had forgotten she first needed a visa for a country beyond Bulgaria. 

Nakia has 10 days left on her Turkish visa.  It’s unclear whether we can extend it or not.  Obtaining a visa for Western European countries like Greece for people from small countries like the Bahamas is infamously difficult. 

Just as we were getting back together, FBR might have to split up again - this time for good.

Visas and regulatory red tape might be necessary.  It’s unfortunate that they now threaten to derail our mission of understanding the world better and grass roots peace spreading.  It’s also unfortunate that they’ve done so through Bulgarian consular officials who, saving my mother’s single apparently pleasant conversation in Mr. Vodenski, have treated us in an uncommonly adversarial manner.

In the battle of bureaucracy and good will, it looks like bureaucracy is delivering the death blows.  So it goes.

We’re all brain storming solutions.  As I write this I’m tired and stressed, even though I haven’t been involved in the visa shenanigans lately.  Perhaps things aren’t as bleak as I’m making them out to be.  We’ll keep you updated.  In the meantime, let us know if you have any high-level contacts in the Bulgarian government.

NOTE: I’m afraid I repeat below what we have discussed previously on this blog.  If it doesn’t bore you you may want to start doing memory exercises.

Published in the Livingston Enterprise June, 2008.

 Refugees Role Model Proves Useful For Cyclists 

 By Jim Durfey

From TV, I knew what refugee camps looked like: ramshackle tents planted among filth overrun by sallow, malnourished children.  This camp was different.  The homes, though packed closely together, were tastefully structured of bamboo strips.  The dirt streets were clean and full of well-fed though curious folks who called after us “Hey brother, where you go?” or “Hi mister foreign biker man!”

Mouikumar Maga, a pastor at the refugee camp welcomed us into his home after we had parked our bikes inside his bamboo church. It was our first day in Nepal.  As we crowded into his small home we wondered what the rest of the country would be like, if already on the first day people were being so hospitable. 

We sat on a handmade bamboo couch in his living room. A crowd of curious onlookers assembled outside.  They reached in the window to push back the curtains for a better view of the strange visitors.  Meanwhile, the pastor served us an obligatory cup of chai and questioned us insightfully about our journey. 

Finally we had a chance to ask Mouikumar about his own situation.  He explained that most of the thirty thousand residents of the camp had lived there since 1992.  At that time they and other ethnically Nepali people were expelled from Bhutan after demanding the government respect their rights an ethnic group.  Since then they had called a few acres in Nepal home. 

Though they reside in Nepal, that country refuses to grant them citizenship.  Even those who want to return to Bhutan are refused entrance.  Thus they have become non-citizens, perpetually in limbo with no place to go.  To resolve the situation, Europe and the U.S. have been and plan to absorb all the refugees.  Despite the helplessness of their situation, the refugees remained high-spirited.  They also proved the notion that those people with the fewest possessions are the most generous.

We had crammed ourselves and our instruments into the small living room.  The pastor himself was an accomplished guitarist, so our conversation naturally turned to music.  As a crude oil lamp puffed smoke and photons into the small space, we traded songs.  We sang one in English, and then crowd in the living room, guided by the pastor, sang one in Nepali.  In between songs the pastor’s two-year-old daughter, her initial shyness wiped away, tried to strum our guitar vigorously.

At bedtime, pastor Mouikumar showed us to his own room and told us to sleep on the bamboo beds.  We protested, asking “Where will you sleep?”  But it was no use.  That night we slept fitfully, but were often awakened by sounds from the nearby houses.  Bamboo, while sturdy, doesn’t block sound.  Through the haze of sleep, I heard babies cry, couples converse, and the elderly wheeze into wakefulness in the early morning.

One week after staying in the refugee camp, we found ourselves in the Himalayas, trying to make our way to Kathmandu.  Tired of big roads, we pedaled an alternative route that put us on small paths.  These roads made even the most infamous of Park County’s wash-boarded tracks seem smooth.  Huge jagged rocks attacked our wheels and joints.  I enjoy a good workout, but it was all I could do to push my bike up a few of these steep, traction-less paths.

To make matters worse, we had run into a touristy area.  Children observed our approach from hundreds of yards and stood in the road, waiting for us.  As we passed, they outstretched their hands and panted after us, begging. 

On downhills, we could outrun them. On uphills, however, we were stuck listening to their entreaties.  I’m accustomed to begging from the destitute, but these kids were well-dressed and had families rich in land.  They had been trained by other, less conscientious travelers to look on foreigners as distributors of chocolate and pens, not as people worth talking to or learning about.  They only looked at us with greed.

The children’s response depressed us.  We missed having the potential for connection that had proven so enjoyable at the refugee camp.

One afternoon, my situation came to a head.  My biker shorts had begun to chaff in the most unfortunate place.  I was pulling the trailer through the heat of the day and the road, which had already climbed eight miles, promised plenty more uphill.  I was trying to reason with a heard of panting children demanding chocolate.  My foot, infected from a recent wound, throbbed.

A less than satisfactory situation, I suppose, but on reflection I had little to complain of.  I was in the middle of an amazing journey.  I had left my country by choice, and could return any time I wanted.  I looked at the out-of-breath children hungry for chocolate, and realized they had no authority to dictate my attitude.  I adjusted my biker shorts and attacked the hill with renewed vigor.  I had resolved, in cheerful Bhutanese refugee fashion, to enjoy the rest of the climb, no matter what happened.

If a Turkısh person ever challenges you to a hospıtalıty contest, my advıce would be to sımply admıt defeat and avoıd unnecessary labor. 

Fırst, fıve of us showed up at the apartment of Bılge.  We knew her only from a loose contact wıth her sıster, but she welcomed us and our huge pıles of crap ınto her house as ıf we were her relatıves and our stuff was not dırty and stınky.  Her sıster Aslı (our connectıon) returned early from Indıa to fınd us sleepıng ın her bed, eatıng her food, and usıng her shower.  She responded wıth warmness. 

When theır mother returned from theır summer house a few days later, we prepared to move out, but cheerful bubbly women merely prepared dınner and fed us.  After dınner she left her own house and went to sleep wıth a frıend.  We gıggled and felt bad, but the next day she came back and cooked us lunch and dınner and kept us hydrated wıth tea ın between.

Netzy and Jım wıth Aslı and her parents.

We had not meant to stay so long ın Istanbul, but Nakıa s vısa problems contınued, so even when the gırls father returned to Istanbul for medıcal treatment we found ourselves stıll stayıng at the apartment.  Of course, we decıded to move to a hostel to gıve hım a stress-free envıronment.

Before we could effect the move, however, Aslı found us a frıend to stay wıth.  In addıtıon, she provıded an enormous amount of help wıth Nakıa s vısa and translatıon help wıth bıke purchases, and also shuttled us around town before everyone had a bıke.

The Köprülü sisters, L-R Asli & Bilge in back, and Bilge’s boyfriend up front.

In addıtıon to the two sısters, we met Fatıh, who has hosted several of us at hıs home on a number of occasıons and cooked us a real Turkısh dınner. He ıs by far our bıggest fan ın Turkey, both of our musıc and our bıcycle trıp.  He ıs a engıneerıng-desıgn student and a fantastıc artıst wıth burstıng energy and warmth.

Fatıh and FBR ın Istanbul

We now fınd ourselves stayıng at a bustlıng house of sıx of young people, mostly students.  We share food and they gıve us Turkısh coffee.  We use theır hot water and dırty theır dıshes and they stıll smıle when they see us.

We share coffee wıth Asın, one of our many hosts.

Hooray for Turkısh hospıtalıty!

Delighted to find meat and fresh nan for low prices, I spent quite a few hours wandering around Darya Ganj, the old part of Delhi. It’s a predominantly Muslim area where men in white shalwar kameez and women in black layered robes ply the narrow streets. I stopped in for a late lunch at one of the nan/meat eateries I’d seen on my many circuits of the area one afternoon. I sat down and was joined by a man with a trim mustache, dark button-up shirt and Western-style trousers. The man was silent, until he announced he was paying for my lunch. My attempts to dissuade him collapsed in the failure to which I have become accustomed while trying to turn down Indian hospitality.

The streets of Darya Ganj.

He was a particularly shy man, and he certainly hadn’t bought me lunch in order to practice his English. By thinking of all the questions I could muster, I learned his name: M. Atiq, and that he had five children, all of whom save the youngest attended a Catholic school. His business, the manufacture of sequins and spangles, had taken him overseas to France and to Saudi Arabia, where, he being Muslim, had taken the opportunity to do the Hajj. He bought me a big bottle of mineral water and saw that my plate stayed full of nan. Once I had become full enough to render any sort of movement uncomfortable, he considered his hospitable obligations fulfilled and took his leave of me.

Another night Drew, Pete and I sat outside of a closed shop in a much different environment, a minimall with shops selling only foreign goods, while Drew and I polished off a liter and a half of ice cream and Pete raged against the automobile, among other things. After the ice cream, which surely trickled into our beards and smeared our lips, Shameer approached us. He wore Western dress save the knit cap covering his head. He ran the Halil meat market across the way from us. Apparently unpurturbed by our ludicrous appearance, and curious because of our much better looking bikes, he complimented us on our pursuit of the bike trip. “You are great according to me,” he said. “I am living normal life, every day I see the same things, same people,” he confided, “Everyday you see different things.” I’m sure we don’t deserve any such praise, but far be it from me to turn down compliments.

We visited a mosque with our friend Cameron on the east side of Delhi one night. The mosque housed the tombs of two pilgrims, sacred to the Suffi Muslims associated with the shrine. In the crush outside, we bought flowers and decorated clothes to drape over the tomb. Leaving our shoes under the care of the shoe men at the front, we followed Cameron down the the long, narrow, marble corridors, stepping over beggars and trying to ignore their outstretched hands. In the sanctuary, the space opened up, but the crowd grew denser. We (men only, according to the sign) pushed our way into the tiny shrines housing the tombs of the saints and fought to place our offerings alongside everyone else’s. Men paused here and there, despite those struggling to make a circuit about tombs, touching the carved entrance way, or stooping to kiss the feet of the tomb. I was relieved to make it out.

Suffi musicians.

We listened to the Suffi music, played especially on Thursday nights, and then sat around, with the homeless waiting to be fed and multitudes of others who were that night at the mosque. Several people came up to us, as they often do in India, to chat. Cameron, with his Hindi, was especially popular.

Click here for Suffi music recorded at the mosque.

Two men approached me. They were big and burly. One cradled a child in his arms. They asked the usual questions, I gave the usual responses. It was a typically pleasant encounter.

Later they came up to me as I recorded a prayer sung by an Imam. I asked the man with the baby the meaning. He struggled with the English, consulted a burkha-clad woman (his wife?) and then told me, “It is a prayer to Allah, saying he is great, and asking for peace on the world.” Good enough.

Click here to hear the Imam’s prayer. Apologies for the background noise.

60 km outside Delhi, we became embroiled in the first of many traffic jams to come. I almost clipped a bus with the trailer, only to snap my head forward in time to swerve around another bus turning straight into me. Traffic piled up behind slow bullock and pony carts. Cycle rickshaws, motor scooters and cyclists dodged in and out of of the slower vehicles. Buses relentlessly blasted everyone with their horns. Vehicles always charged up behind me when I tried to get around bullock carts.

After a day of hard biking and constant direction-asking, we arrived where we wanted to at 6:00pm. It had been a long day, but little did we know it was only 2/3 done.

We couldn’t find a decent place to stay. According to our custom, we left one person with the bikes and sent two out to look for places. Several times they came back empty handed.

I argued for going to the train station. Pete was against, but Drew sided with me. We mounted the bikes and headed towards the train station, which was only a couple kilometers away.

One hour later, we had gone 1 kilometer. Traffic leading to the train station was hopelessly backed up. It moved at a snail’s pace. Cars, buses, carts, cycle rickshaws and motor bikes all moved in spurts and stops. Tempers shortened and drivers smashed into each other’s bumpers rather than leave space for anyone to get ahead.

“This is hell,” said the usually indefatigable optimist Pete. We put our cycles onto the sidewalk and rolled past the honking mass of jumbled traffic, but to cross the road we had to jump back in.

Finally we made it past the train station and our lane opened up. We proceeded to race to the international youth hostel, so eager to be out of the area we didn’t even stop at the grungy hotels that finally emerged by the side of the road.

We couldn’t race for long, though. We didn’t know where we were going. We stopped again and again to ask for directions. The Delhi Police force became our god-sent guides. One officer spit on the ground and shoved his machine gun underneath his arm. “Straight,” he said pointing, “then right at round about, then you ask again, ok?”

Half an hour to midnight, we finally arrived at the hostel. The silence of the embassy area of New Delhi made for an eerie but welcome change. There was no food. We registered and had our emergency food cold and dry: ramen noodles meant to be consumed when we were stuck in the wilderness with no restaurants. Wilderness or not, we were happy to be finally arrived. We all slept well.