On to Baghdad and Kuwait. 1970, Before the US Began Liberating People

Sultan Ahmed, The Blue Mosque Istanbul

A change of pace here. A young man’s reflection on the wonderful world we live in and the beauty of travel that he wrote 20 years ago. Since the US wars on middle eastern and North African nations, this sort of travel is almost impossible.  RM 

Kuwait Bound

“Time to get up”, Tim said to himself.  He hadn’t had enough sleep but the muezzin’s call to prayer from the minaret---an Imam leads prayer inside the mosque--- was loud enough to wake the whole of Istanbul.  He reached down to the dark depths of his sleeping bag and grabbed his passport which he’d flung down there the night before. This was the safest place to put it; British passports were a popular item in this town.

He sat up in his sleeping bag as if were a kayak.  The mosque grounds were as good a place to sleep as any and, as soon as he cleared his head, he would wander over to the footbaths and clean his teeth.  The footbaths jutted out from the walls, conveniently placed so worshipers could wash their feet before entering the mosque.  Sultan Ahmed was also called the Blue Mosque due to the color of the tiles on the walls inside, or so he’d been told.  He hadn’t bothered to go in and didn’t know if he could, not being Muslim.  Passing through Milan he tried unsuccessfully to go in to Milan Cathedral. He was a Catholic after all and he’d heard it was the third largest cathedral in the world; it could hold 40,000 people, half the population of his hometown.  For some reason, a rather unfriendly priest wouldn’t let him in.

On his walk over to the footbath he tried to comb his hair but it needed washing and was matted.  Maybe he’d spend an hour or so at the Hamam, the Turkish bath. He hated his hair, it seemed to grow outward rather than long down his back as was popular with all the hippie types who were hitchhiking or traveling around Europe in 1970.  He had become a little thinner since leaving England as his food intake had been cut back out of economic necessity and his weight had fallen below 170 pounds.  Still, at five feet nine, that wasn’t too bad a weight for him. He just needed to eat a little more each day than bread rolls.

The money he left England with had run out long ago and begging wasn’t so hot in Venice as it had been in 1968.  He sold some blood in Salonica which helped a bit.  This was always an option as his blood type was the rare O negative, the universal donor.  But he was more reluctant the further east he headed, as he’d heard that kids from Western Europe who sold blood had been found in garbage dumps drained dry.  He had only fifteen dollars left and he was heading to the Persian Gulf.

There seemed fewer young people hitchhiking around than in 1967 and 1968, his two previous adventures.  The first time he made it as far as Venice and the second to Istanbul before he ran out of money.  He was determined to get to Kuwait this time as he had heard he could get a job on an oil rig and earn lots of money.  Anyway, he was no hippie. He wasn’t a Mod or a Rocker, just an individual. The English kids used to laugh at Yanks, the hippie ones anyway. Most of them were middle class hippies with jeans on and lots of patches, but there were no holes under the patches; it was just a fashion statement; they were not poor and either rode mobilettes or got around on the trains or rental vehicles of some sort. There was a bit of jealousy too, the Americans after all were a friendly lot but didn’t seem to know much about other countries and had too much money.

After cleaning his teeth Tim headed down to Yener’s for a cup of coffee. He preferred the tea the Turks sold in the street in little glasses.  Vendors would walk around with an urn strapped to their backs and a tray with glasses on it and sell the stuff much like the Arabs do.  But Yener’s was a small hole in the wall with a counter, some chairs and a fridge.  It was cheaper than the Pudding Shop, a more modern sort of café where foreigners would congregate, some of the better-off kids.  But there was the rumor that Yeners was a sinister place where lots of drugs could be found.  There was no shortage of whacked out American and English hippies returning from Nepal where Tim had heard heroin was legal. And that fridge—what was in it?  Yener, assuming that was the owner’s name, never opened the fridge door wide, so Tim had never gotten a good look inside.

After getting his coffee he sat and thought about the rest of the day.  He had met an Uzbek who had this small sweatshop making coats, the type of coats that he imagined Tatars wore in the Siberian steppes.  He had seen Yul Brynner in Taras Bulba and those Cossacks wore coats like that. The Uzbek told him that if he could bring “rich Americans” to the factory and if they bought a coat he’d get a commission.  Maybe he should spend a few hours trying to get some tourists to buy coats.

He wasn’t too enthusiastic about this and decided against it. He hadn’t had much success in this venture and, along with two other English guys and two Frenchmen, they had decided to try to head south to Baghdad and from there to Basra.  Jimmy and Mike were two of Tim’s buddies, Jimmy especially.   He was a brawny guy with a big bushy beard and haughty laugh.  He wore the beard because he had a scar on his chin that prevented him from shaving properly and his body was decorated with various tattoos that appeared there after a heavy bout of the beer.  For some reason, whenever he got drunk, he had the urge to have someone write on him. “I always wake up in the morning after a night on the piss and have a new tattoo” he would say. Jim’s background was Scottish and his middle name was Bruce after the famous Scottish traveler and explorer, so he was always called JB.

Mike was a big fella too, bigger than JB at about six feet three inches but slender.  His blond hair was much like Tim’s, not growing long but outward and curly.  He was a friend but not like JB, who was like a brother to Tim.  He was a good guitar player though and had brought his guitar with him.

“I’d better go see if those guys are awake,” Tim said to himself.  JB and Mike were sleeping in a van owned by a Canadian they had gotten a ride with.  It was too crowded for Tim and he preferred sleeping outside anyway.

He was about to leave when a tall Scotsman walked in.  Tim had seen him around before and they had exchanged a few words.  He was a university student and definitely more the hippie type.  He was a decent guy, though, and he walked over to where Tim was sitting and joined him.

“What you up to today?” the Scotsman asked him.

“Probably heading off south” Tim replied.  “Problem is I don’t have a lot of money and I don’t know what the train to Baghdad costs”.

“I have no idea either but I can make you a fake student ID that will get you 50% off” said the Scot. “Just pay for my coffee.”

That sounded like a great deal to Tim.  Within a half hour he was in possession of a student card that gave him all sorts of discounts at hostels and for travel.  He thanked the Scotsman whose name he never knew and headed off to see if JB and Mike were up for a trip to Baghdad.  

The route in German trains

It was mid morning by the time the three of them got to Istanbul station.  They had split a cab between them.  Most of the cabs in Istanbul—they were called Dolmus by the Turks, at least those in the old part of the city---were old American cars, those huge monstrosities with big fins on them that most British people thought were obnoxious and gaudy looking. The type of travelers that Tim and his friends were meant that they spent little time in Taksim, a more modern area frequented by more affluent travelers.  It was too expensive.

The next train to Baghdad was scheduled to leave in an hour so the three grabbed a donor kebab and relaxed for a while before their journey.  It would be a three -or four-day ride to Baghdad, down through southern Turkey then eastward along the Syrian border, through the northern tip of Iraq to Mosul and beyond. Tim couldn’t figure out why it would take so long.  The three of them talked about maybe coming back on a camel train with nomadic traders that travel the desert.

Tim was excited. He was never happier than when he was among lots of different people who spoke different languages and had different customs; it meant a whole new world to explore and new friends to meet.  So far he’d made great friends in France, Italy, and Yugoslavia, and now he was  headed to the exotic world of Iraq, the birthplace of western civilization, of Babylon and Mesopotamia.  He was not quite sure where these places were exactly but he knew that they were where he was going; they were names familiar to all people that went to school in Christian countries.