Two travellers
My mind drifts back to my first time living in Istanbul in 1993. It seems a lifetime ago. It was. After graduating from University I was high on post-graduate euphoria, the feeling that the world was at my mercy, and at any moment employer after employer would come hammering down my door begging me to work for them. It didn’t happen. The realities of the recession and the graduate employment vacuum soon immersed me in the sobriety of life on the dole, and a string of temporary jobs in retail.
For a while it appeared that the taxpayer had spent thousands on another overqualified salesperson. Like many graduates at the beginning of post-graduate life I was torn between committing myself to a career I wasn’t in the slightest bit interested in, or a short-term job which was way below my qualifications and expectations. I opted for neither and took a ‘year-out’ of self-absorption, melancholic reflection, and discovering the delights of Dylan’s back catalogue.
I had a masterplan, an escape route. I was going to teach abroad, travel, see the world, broaden my mind, my waistline and, if I was lucky, my bank-balance. I pumped out my chest and told myself with pride that if England could not see what it was wasting I would go somewhere else where I would be appreciated. The Guardian and TES were packed with colleges and language schools offering four week intensive courses in Teaching English as a Foreign Language, or TEFL when I later came into the know. The average price of £800 was a major stumbling block to a sporadically employed graduate with a string of assorted debts. However, determination was my ally as I knew this certificate was the only thing lying between me and the freedom of life on the road.
1992 was a terrible year for me, the first of my numerous existential crises. It culminated in a melodramatic breakdown on New Year’s Eve, the psychiatric equivalent of man-flu. It was useful though, cathartic, as I decided that I would no longer hang around in a country that did not want me. I didn’t want to commit to the mainstream expectations of career and mortgage and wait for the vice of consumer security to tighten its grip. 1993 began with an appointment to see my bank manager who, in a moment of what appeared to be inexplicable madness, agreed to lend me £1,000 to fund a course. From that moment on everything seemed to snowball. After passing the course with flying colours, I began a three month stint at BT. This was to be my last flirtation with the world of temping in retail, or so I told myself. It wasn’t, but that’s another story. By August Jools and I were in Istanbul, safe in the knowledge we both had jobs, plus a free flat courtesy of Jools’ employer.
I was nervous with the excitement of starting my first ‘real’ job, coupled with the fact that I now lived in another country. This was a stark contrast with the previous twelve months of inertia, self-doubt, and misery. I had made a change, made something dramatic happen. I had fulfilled this dream and life abroad was now a reality. My senses came alive and burned with a potency I had never experienced before. Everything seemed to be in overdrive. Even the most mundane tasks took on an uncharacteristic buzz.
Buying fruit and vegetables in the local market I would be overwhelmed with the aromatic waves of spices washing over me as vendors cackled out a sales pitch to passers-by. I would drift around the market, lost in a sea of vivid reds, greens and yellows, jostling with the old ladies lumbering huge shopping bags through the packed crowd. I would marvel at the eerie tranquillity of the call to prayer which five times daily beckoned the Muslim faithful to the sanctuary of the local mosque. On the holiest day of Friday streams of menfolk would shut up shop and shuffle to pay their respects to Allah, their Great One.
Everything took on a new meaning and was seen in the newest light. Even daily travel took on a whole new dimension. A thirty minute minibus journey into the local main town centre of Kadikoy became a cultural awakening as I observed the quirky norms and customs. Men would give up their seats to women, children, and elders while everyone passed their fare money across a sea of hands to the driver. There were no tickets or conductors, simply an implicit trust in everyone. All would pay what was necessary, and if not it wasn’t worth the hassle of an argument.
My favourite journey of all was the ferry trip across the Bosphorus. Even the most dampened spirits could not fail to be invigorated by the crisp, fresh sea-air and the brisk chill wind nipping at your cheeks. I would gaze out over the waves beyond the Golden Horn and the silhouette of the Topkapi Palace and Aya Sofia, each set against the fiery sky of a spring sunset. The ferryboats were built on the Tyne and the Wear giving me a strange connection to home, adding another layer of romance to the trip.
Such was the magic of my first year abroad. I was in love with Jools and fell in love with Turkey. It breaks my heart to see this beautiful, fascinating country being torn apart. My time there was special, the people warm, welcoming, incredible. I was convinced I would never return to England and that my future lay in the careless freedom of living abroad. My life would be an annual ritual of spontaneity, a lucky dip existence where my only boundaries were the world itself and my own mind.
Something changed though. After spending most of my twenties living and working abroad, taking in over twenty countries I returned to Istanbul for one more year. This time it was with the knowledge that my backpack existence was drawing to a close. Within a year I would be married, back at University and about to embark on a seventeen year career in education. The mainstream got me, as it invariably does.
Istanbul seemed different. The trips to the market lost their magic and became the same old weekly chore they were back home. I no longer wandered with wonder, but rushed with a dogged determination to get where I wanted without delay. I fought my way through the hoards of old women, haggled with the screaming vendors. The vivid colours lost their sparkle and the sweet, overpowering smell of spices was now mingled with the stench of overflowing drains. The call to prayer disturbed my precious slumber. I mocked the scurrying of the masses on Friday as they craved the opiate of their oppression.
I saw the minibus journeys as the life-threatening experiences they always were, as the drivers muscled their way through overcrowded, chaotic traffic. The two pack-a-day fumes suffocated me, the cacophony of car horns became a daily headache. The glorious trip across the Bosphorus still uplifted the soul, yet I only made it two or three times a month as my enthusiasm waned and I feared it might spoil my morbid cynicism.
There is an old Chinese story of two travellers, walking along a road between two villages. Each is travelling to the village the other has just come from. They meet in the centre of the long road and the first traveller says to the other,
‘Greetings, my friend, I believe you have come from the village to which I travel. Perhaps you can tell me how you found it?’
The other traveller nods and replies, a grave expression on his face,
‘Certainly. I have to say that I didn’t enjoy the place one bit. I found the people cold, unfriendly and their manners very uncivilised. The culture was backward and the food was terrible. I didn’t find the place pleasurable in the least and find nothing to recommend of it.’
He continues,
‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this. I believe you have come from the village to which I travel. Perhaps you can tell me how I will find it?’
To this the other traveller smiles and answers,
‘I think you will find the village exactly as you found the last one.’
I was those two travellers meeting myself on that long road between the two villages. However, the villages for me were the Istanbul I found at the start and end of my travels abroad. I began as the first traveller still fresh with a childlike curiosity and excitement for the village he is about to discover. I became the second traveller who found his village so unappealing. Istanbul had changed little, but I had changed a lot. In truth, I longed for home.
Travel is often cited as a metaphor for self-discovery and there is no doubt with the right frame of mind it can be. Caught up in the humdrum existence of everyday life we seldom find the time or the inclination to dig deep and ask questions. It’s those important question we sometimes need to ask of ourselves. They are there, lingering in the background, postponed or ignored, but the dulling of the senses which normality brings stifles any hope they will ever get asked.
Travel puts you into situations where you have no choice but to ask them. The strait-jacket security of all we take for granted is gone. We have no choice but to look at ourselves and face up to the things we were perhaps too afraid to face. Travel was a huge learning experience for me. It provided me with a wonder, a new vision through which to view the world, a wide-eyed naked curiosity I needed at that time in my life. My travels weren’t just a personal journey, but a shared experience with the woman I have always loved. Yet it ended, and the time came when together we felt ready to ask a whole new set of questions. These questions we needed to ask back home, with family and friends. In an England which now seems such an important part of me, somewhere I never thought I would grow to love again. I miss my travels, though I still go on brief adventures from time to time. One day I will return. There’ll be new questions to ask, and new things to discover, in the world and within me.
