Strike Action

It was 24 October 1990. Something was going on in India that I might have heard about when I was listening to the BBC World Service on my radio but to tell the truth I hadn't been paying very much attention when I was in Turkey. What was going on was, however, very serious. When I woke up this Wednesday morning I realised my breakfast experience the day before was, when considering the bigger picture, nothing very much to worry about. There wasn't any breakfast to be had at all this morning.

What was it that was going on? Well, I may not be in any position to say what is or is not typically Indian but I suppose something like this is unlikely to happen anywhere else. Some weeks before my arrival the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed in 1980, Sri Lal Krishna Advani had begun a Rath Yatra. I am indebted to Wikipedia for the explanation of this term. It is made up of two words "Rath" and "Yatra". Rath means chariot and Yatra means pilgrimage, journey or procession. So already it is a typically Indian thing. The Rath Yatra is a festival held every year in Puri in the state of Orissa in June or July to commemorate the return of Jagganath (Krishna) to his home in Vrindavan after a long period of separation from the people there. The festival involves pulling huge Chariots through the streets from one temple to another. I don't want to get sidetracked too much here so if you want to know more about this I suggest you go looking for it.

Wikipedia says the english word "Juggernaut" derives from the Jagganath Rath Yatra. This journey undertaken by L K Advani and his supporters had all the power of a juggernaut and left a bloody trail of destruction.

The reason this journey was started was something else that I would say was typically Indian and which would be unlikely to happen anywhere else. It all concerned a plan to build a temple at the birthplace of Rama, the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh. The trouble was that there appeared to be no way a temple could simply be built near where Rama was born, say in the same city. Oh no, the temple had to be built on the exact spot where he was born. The problem with that was that there was a mosque on the spot, the Babri Masjid. This had been built centuries before and it seems had been deliberately built on the spot precisely because it was where Rama was supposed to have been born and the mosque never had any special significance from a religious point of view. It was purely and simply a symbol not of devotion and of religion but of conquest. Correspondingly, quite apart from its being an obstacle, preventing Hindus from worshipping the birthplace of their idol, Sri Rama, it was for the country the symbol of its subjugation. This is how in 1989 the Bharatiya Janata Party formally decided to lend its shoulder to the cause.

I stand to be corrected but I doubt whether it is a matter of indisputable fact that Sri Rama was actually born on the exact spot where it is said he was born. This seems to be a case of it being a matter of religious belief rather than actual fact. If I am right it was a tenet of the faith that this was the spot where Sri Rama was born and that was the end of it. There was no room for argument and less room for compromise.

All the wise teachings of a religion seem to go out of the window in a situation like this and it would seem that the Rath Yatra resulted in communal violence wherever it went. The aim was to have the Babri Masjid demolished which clearly was not something the muslim community could accept.

Let's not forget that India is a very large place and at the time I was there its population was approaching the 1 billion mark, ten percent of whom were muslims. Ten percent may seem like a minority but it is a large minority comprising 100 million people.

Mr Advani's Rath Yatra was gathering pace and on 24 October 1990 there was a general strike. All the shops were shut in Paharganj and no-one in the restaurant was working. There was no breakfast to be had. I don't know who called the strike but it was pretty well adhered to.

There was was nothing for it but to get on with what I had to do. The next thing on my list of things to get out of the way was to apply for my Nepalese visa. I hadn't got one before I set off and so it seemed sensible to sort it out in Delhi before I was sidetracked and found myself unable to sort it out in time.

At the Embassy there were loads of back-packer types queuing up and filling in the forms to apply for visas to enter Nepal. Here I learned something interesting. Whilst my father had always said that having British Citizenship was like winning First Prize in the lottery of life it turned out that I might have been better off with an Irish Passport. I honestly can't remember how much the visa for Nepal cost. I'm sure it wasn't very much but enough to make sure I got it before I ran out of money to pay for it. On the other hand a visa for Nepal for Irish Citizens was absolutely free. Indeed it seemed that possession of an Irish passport very often meant that there was no visa fee. The reason for this was that all around the world at that time the Irish were perceived to be oppressed by the British! Anyone who had also suffered under the yoke of British colonial oppression was welcomed with open arms and without fee. On the other hand holders of a British passport could expect to pay a hefty visa fee as a revenge for the former Empire's sins. It was also likely that the cost of a visa for British citizens reflected the very costly visas that some visitors need to enter the UK. So having a British passport meant I had won Last Prize in the lottery of visa fees.

Getting a Nepalese visa was a two stage process and I had to leave my passport at the Embassy to collect it the following day after my application had been processed. I headed back to the Metropolis Tourist Home.

As I walked down the Main Bazaar Road I purchased a length of chain to attach to my rucksack. The intention was to be able to lock it to whatever means of transport I was using so that I didn't have to worry about it disappearing while I was asleep. I know it sounds paranoid but the stories you hear about people losing their stuff get to you. It's all very well thinking it would never happen to you but I thought it would be best to take precautions. At the same time I sorted out a parcel of paraphernalia that I didn't need to be carrying around so as to post it home.

I don't know when the strike ended because by the end of the day the shops were open again and I took a stroll up and down the Main Bazaar Road and had a Biriyani at the Metropolis. It wasn't very good and my notes say I went out to eat again - the meal cost a princely Rs8!

How To Boil An Egg

I woke up early. I suppose I must have slept quite a bit since leaving Turkey. I dare say I spent a good proportion of the flight asleep and I'd had a snooze soon after arrival and then had been to bed early. So it was no surprise that I woke up early. It wasn't very early. It was 8.00am. I washed and shaved and went downstairs to the restaurant for breakfast. This was a Hotel after all and so I expected to find the restaurant busy with other people eating breakfast.

Not a bit of it. When I got down there all I found was all the staff fast asleep lying all over the place in impossibly uncomfortable sleeping positions stretched over the chairs and benches. Someone must have been awake because I did order something to eat. I thought I would have a couple of boiled eggs with some toast and tea. Simple enough, I thought. Wrong again! My boiled eggs took 45 minutes to arrive and the reason, I discovered, was that upon receipt of my order the Chef immediately put on a pan on the boil with about 5 dozen eggs in it. By the time my eggs arrived the Hotel had come to life.

I had business to do. the small amount of cash I had got at the airport wasn't going to last long and in order to get more I needed to go to the Canara Bank where i was to pick up the first lot of the money I had instructed Barclays to send for me to collect.

Barclays had told me that I could collect it from the Chandni Chowk branch so after my (disappointingly hard boiled) eggs I headed off there. The Chandni Chowk branch of the Canara Bank was guarded by an elderly Sikh man armed with a shotgun but I was able to persuade him that I had business at the bank and he let me in. The place was not what I had expected. It wasn't exactly a bank branch as such and all I remember now is that that the interior was dark and the people working there were doing everything manually. I saw no computers or such like just people working with large ledger books. I explained my business and was told I was actually at the wrong place. I was given the address of another office at the All India Women's Conference Hall. So this was a false start.

I went back to Paharganj and walked up to New Delhi Railway Station where I made a reservation for the train to Jammu. I had a vegetable biryani at the Metropolis for lunch and then headed to the other branch of the Canara bank to collect my money.

The LP Guide was right on the money about what to expect. It advised that whilst it was possible to have money "wired" to Indian banks you had to be careful and quite persistent to get it. All of this, remember, was nearly 18 years ago and before the emergence of India as the economic power it is now. Indeed at the time of my trip the Indian Rupee was not traded in the money markets. The advice in the LP Guide was that if you had money sent to a bank in India and went to collect it you would almost certainly be told that it had not arrived. The book said that in fact the money almost certainly would have arrived but the person dealing with you would simply tell you that it had not and send you away. After you left the bank your money would be transferred into the employee's own account and over a few days you would be fobbed off while it earned him a few rupees in interest. Even a few rupees of interest was worth having. The bank staff could count on the fact that it would take days for you to establish contact with your own bank and have it confirmed that the money had indeed been sent and had arrived. When presented with the evidence that the money had been sent it would mysteriously appear.

This branch of the Canara Bank was much more modern than the one in Chandni Chowk. I announced my reason for visiting and was ushered to a desk to wait for someone to help me. When the cheerful chap arrived I told him that I had come to collect money sent by Barclays. Without batting an eyelid but with an apologetic slight wobble of the head the man told me the money had not arrived. I couldn't believe the guide book had been so accurate. I kept my cool and politely explained that I would have been more inclined to believe that the money had not arrived if the man had taken the trouble to establish my name. How could he know that my money had not arrived if he didn't even know who I was? I gave him my details and asked him to make sure. The money had arrived and after a bit of form filling I left the bank with some of it in cash and the rest in travellers cheques.

I headed back to the Metropolis and spent the evening in and around the "hotel". I should say that in my research I have noticed that the Metropolis Tourist Home & Restaurant appears to have changed beyond all recognition. The LP's website review is of a hotel that I do not I remember staying in. There are even pictures of rooms that, quite frankly, I would not have imagined possible in 1990. The place is now classed as mid-range but when I was there it was definitely a budget backpackers place. I feel I must establish my credentials by confirming that I was not staying in a comfortable or plush hotel. No way! There was no rooftop bar and only one restaurant which was more of a general sitting area with tables and benches along the walls.

I remember that as I flew into Delhi I got talking to a couple who said they were going to stay in a more classy hotel about 10 or possibly more times more expensive than the Metropolis. I think the guy must have been called Dikkan. I met him again a couple of days later and he told me that he and his girlfriend had been woken in the night by rats running along their balcony! I didn't see anything like that in my cheap and cheerful hotel proving to me, at least, that paying more doesn't necessarily guarantee that the hotel will be better.



I spent the afternoon leaning out of the window of the room pointing my K1000 down the street trying to take a few representative snaps. These pictures show "the view" such as it was. They aren't particularly good pictures I'll admit but I had only been in the place one whole day and I felt a bit conspicuous out in the street with a camera and was uncomfortable pointing it at people. The long lens was handy, if a little difficult to stop from shaking (hence the fact that at least one is out of focus).




I remember the auto-rickshaws that were parked just outside the hotel. The fact is that Connaught Circus was quite within walking distance but whenever you approached these guys for a ride they would announce that the price was something quite ridiculous like 100 rupees. I would argue that this was far too much and offer say 20 rupees and they would say "OK, get in, 80 rupees". After some more bargaining you might get a better price and set off but by the time you'd finished all the haggling you might have been well on your way on foot. In fact the hassle used to be so intense that I think that I gave up even bothering to attempt to get a ride in them.



It is probably a sign of how much time I spent at the window that the apple seller above seems to have managed to sell off a fair amount of his initial stock while I was peering up and down the street. Then again, he probably isn't the same guy. I think there were two of them. The first one pictured above's stall can be seen on the extreme right of the picture below.



As evidenced by these photos there were a lot of cows hanging about in Paharganj. they began to blend in after a while. They are sacred or holy animals in India and after a while you hardly notice them.



My notes tell me that the Thali I had for my dinner cost 10 rupees (about 20p). I have to say that it was hard to know where might be good to eat and if I recall it properly the place I went was up some stairs. I remember thinking the food must be good because as I was going up some well fed cockroaches were coming down.

1 2 3 India is Free

So that was Turkey. Before I left on the 22.05 Turkish Airlines flight to Delhi I sold my Lonely Planet book. I wish I hadn't done that. I did it because I think I had read somewhere that rather than carry a redundant guidebook or even pay to post it home it would be a better idea to turn it into cash for the next leg of the journey. Selling meant I couldn't refer to it when I was writing up the earlier posts. The LP guide also suggested that it would be a good idea to buy Scotch and 555 State Express cigarettes to trade for cash. I used the proceeds of the sale of my Turkey guide book to buy the duty free.

Don't get me wrong, Turkish Airlines were OK and I can't remember any particular reason for not recommending them. their planes were quite comfortable enough and all that but just like when I set off from Heathrow the pilot had to have two goes at setting off. The first take-off was aborted after tearing off down the runway without actually leaving the ground. The thrill of the acceleration was replaced for a short time by the fear that the plane would run out of runway. The plane returned to the start position and we set off late but successfully after a second run up.

Nothing can prepare a person for the experience of India. I had conned myself into believing that a month and a half in Turkey would harden me up. I don't mind saying that arriving in Delhi I was a little bit frightened. I had read my Lonely Planet guide book quite thoroughly in the months leading up to departure but although it was some kind of preparation it wasn't nearly enough.

The Airport in Delhi was like most others, I suppose. The procedures are all the same in terms of passport control, baggage reclaim and customs. Once I was through customs the familiarity evaporated. Nothing was as I had expected. I don't know what I had expected but the impression I got was that things weren't organised. All I can remember now is that it was very difficult to understand what was going on. I exchanged some money for Rupees in the airport and set off to the City.

The LP guide had recommended getting an ex servicemen's bus service to Paharganj which was where the budget places to stay were and I somehow located a bus which seemed to be going in the right direction. No-one asked me for a ticket and my trip to India started with a free ride downtown. That was probably the only thing I had for free in India.

The LP Guide recommended the Metropolis Tourist Home as a good budget end place to stay and I somehow found it. I think I got off the bus at some stage and was pointed down a narrow street which led straight to the place. It is at the other end of the Main Bazaar which leads to new Delhi Railway Station and that was why I had chosen to base myself there.



I don't seem to have taken a picture of my own of the Metropolis Tourist Home which is a shame but I did find one while trawling Google images. The picture above was taken by Godoirum Bassanensis and he has a lot of other good pictures on his Flikr site. His picture was taken 17 years after my visit and the Metropolis is on the left in the foreground. Judging from the photo the Metropolis has been spivved up quite a lot and the whole of Paharganj seems a good deal more orderly these days than it was (except for the overhead electricity cabling). There seem to be more cars. I don't think I saw any to speak of when I was there save for the occasional Premier or tiny Isuzu.

I didn't want to stay in a room by myself. The whole experience was already freaking me out so I booked into a dormitory room which had about 4 beds in it each with a locker at the head of the bed. The rate was 50rs per night (about £1) and there was a bathroom with the crappiest hot water supply I had ever seen. It had been a long flight and I decided to have a sleep before venturing out.

I seem to recall tentatively stepping out and turning left and walking. The whole place is an assault on the senses. I think I had been asleep for a couple of hours and had been downstairs to the restaurant area and had peeked out into the street a couple of times before I dared go out. The noises, the colours, the smells, the shouting, the music, the bicycles, the rickshaws, the auto-rickshaws, the cows and above all the sheer numbers of people were overwhelming. I remember I walked up the Main Bazaar Road perhaps as far as New Delhi Railway Station at which point the sun had gone down and I decided I couldn't take much more. It was too intense. A shifty character sidled up to me and offered me Hashish, I swear he showed me a lump of something. I politely declined whereupon, undaunted, he ventured "Brown sugar?". I think this was the thing that decided me that I had been out too long I said "no thank you" and I headed straight back. I think I had been out there in the thick of it for about 30 minutes. It was enough for my first day.

I hung out in the restaurant area downstairs in the Metropolis and ate something that my notes says was stuffed tomatoes with curry sauce and buttered fried rice. I went to bed early.

Back to Istanbul

So I flew to back to Istanbul and checked into a reasonably expensive hotel. I had thought I might enjoy the luxury but to be honest it was a waste of money. By this stage I had come to realise that the difference in comfort is really not that great and certainly hardly ever worth the usually enormous difference in price.



I returned to Istanbul on the weekend of the 1990 Census. It was quite eerie. Everyone was required to be at home. The streets were empty and most of the shops were shut. On the other hand the atmosphere seemed to be in keeping with the fact that this was the end of my travels in Turkey.





I had been to Turkey for two short holidays before this trip. Those two trips gave me the taste for independent travel and Turkey had to be the starting point for my big trip.



Obviously I can't say what things may be like now. I dare say a great many things will have improved. That might be a good thing. On the other hand it would be a shame if the robust Mercedes buses were all replaced with buses that closed you off from the real world outside. Turkey wasn't a hard country to travel in but the skills (and that is perhaps too pompous an expression) you need can be learned there. You get a feeling for what you need to put up with.

The people in Turkey were always genuinely hospitable (except for the ones Rudiger and I met in Khata). The food everywhere was affordable and delicious. The hotels I stayed in weren't special but all you need is a place that is reasonably secure to leave your stuff and reasonably clean to lay your head.



Turkey is above all very rich in ancient history and culture. I was sorry to go and one day I'd like to go back.

Gaziantep and Antakya

I don't think that I thought there was very much to see in Gaziantep. I didn't take any photographs. It's all rather vague. I think I must have been becoming a little fatigued by all the sightseeing. My notes say "Tavla, Lahmacun, Antep Fistig". This must mean that Rudiger spent out time playing Backgammon and that ate Lahmacun and had baklava for desert.

This makes sense. Lahmacun is a speciality of Gaziantep. It is a delicious Turkish style pizza. It was not the first time I'd had them. What I do remember is that we were in a restaurant and drank Ayran (a delicious yoghurt drink) with the lahmacun and that there was a side salad. The side salad had some small capsicum type vegetables which I mistook for green peppers. They were scotch bonnets. I took a huge bite of one expecting to be refreshed by the coolness you get when eating fresh green pepper. Scotch bonnets are in fact practically the hottest chilli peppers on the planet scoring between 80,000 and 300,000 on the Scoville pungency scale. the hottest ever recorded was a habanero which generally ranks equally with the scotch bonnet. I couldn't believe the heat generated and no amount of ayran could put out the fire!

The first time I had lahmacun was when Emma and I visited Istanbul on the second of our two trips there the year before in 1989. Emma and I were on a dolmus heading roughly towards Camlica from where you can look down on the whole of the city of Istanbul . The other passengers prevented the driver ripping us off on the fare and established where we were intending to go. A man called Turput Arici was deputed to walk us up to our destination. He did (even though he was not sure of the way himself) and stayed with us all night and then took us back to the ferry wharf so we could get back to Eminonu. We'd intended to eat but hadn't got round to it. While we waited for the ferry he introduced us to Lahmacun, spicy thin slices of Turkish style pizza base with ground lamb, chillies and other herbs spices. He did all this on his way home from work. He was a nice guy and clearly a shining example of a muslim such was his charity and the way he put himself out for us.

The reference to Antep Fistig makes sense because Gaziantep is the centre for Turkey's pistachio nut production. Theirs are the best in the world. As a matter of fact Turkey not only makes the most delicious bread but quite the best selection of fantastic confectionery.



We can't have spent more than the middle of the day in Gaziantep because my notes say that we got another bus and arrived very late at Hatay a.k.a. Antakya and formerly Antioch checking into the Hotel Istanbul for 10,000TL. This hotel can't have been to our liking because the next morning we moved to the Seker Palas at only 9,000TL. Again we seemed to have just chilled.

When Antakya was Antioch it was one of the largest cities in the world after Rome, Alexandria and Ephesus. St Peter came here to spread the word after Christ's death. It was here that the term "Christian" was first used. Is it worth saying that everyone seems to have had a go at conquering the place, after the Romans, it was part of the Byzantine empire, then it was conquered by arabs, then turks, Crusaders, Marmelukes, Mongols, Marmelukes (again) then Ottomans. It was given to France after the end of World War I and then taken back by the Turkish Army in 1938 and became where it is now namely part of the Turkish Republic in 1939.

There's not a great deal that's obvious to see and we didn't put ourselves out to look. My notes say: eating, tavla, cay, grapes/melons etc and mysteriously "free laundry". I should have thought that by this time my clothes probably needed a good wash. I have no idea nor recollection of how I managed to get them washed for free but it was certainly a great blessing.

The next day, Thursday 18 October 1990, seems to have been much the same. I think the only reason we had gone to Antakya was to be about as far south as you can go and as close to Syria as possible. My notes of my activities are very concise; "Ditto Wed."

I did have a shave.



It's not as if I hadn't had a shave since Trabzon. I did have a razor and kept myself pretty presentable (or so I thought) but most blokes out there are very much swarthier than me and a day or two's stubble seemed par for the course.

The only other photographs I took were of blacksmiths working. I don't know why.



My time in Turkey was coming to an end. In Roman times Antioch was renowned for its luxury and pleasures so I suppose it was only fitting that we should have been taking it easy.

Having played so much Tavla with Rudiger over the course of about two weeks I had begun to covet the ornate Backgammon sets one saw from time to time apparently inlaid with mother of pearl and in Antakya I found one for 27,500TL. I've still got it.

That night Rudiger and I treated ourselves to a drink. In the whole five weeks I had drunk practically nothing. Was the last the last beer (incongruously) in Konya? My notes say I had 3 beers!! Whoa! Steady on!



On the Friday 19 October 1990 Rudiger and I parted company. He was and no doubt still is a good guy, very good company and a seasoned traveller from whom I learned a lot. We got a bus from Antakya. I was going to Adana. The bus went through the same town where we'd changed buses before and I made enquiries about my missing denim jacket but no-one had handed it in (I never really thought anyone would have). I said goodbye to Rudiger and made my way to Adana to catch my plane back to where I had started. On arrival there I found the THY office and reconfirmed my flight to my next destination. There seemed to be a problem at first. It looked as if my reservation for the onward trip from Istanbul had been cancelled but it was subsequently OK'd.

I didn't have any time to explore Adana. I made my way to the airport.

Mesopotamia, Sanliurfa, the land of milk and honey

So we left Khata in a hurry and made our way via Adiyaman to Sanliurfa checking in to the Cicik Palas hotel at positively the cheapest rate achieved in the whole time I was in Turkey - just 5,000TL per night! The first hotel I stayed in when I arrived in Istanbul cost 50,000TL.

Sanliurfa is described as being next to the Euphrates but it just south of the Attaturk Baraj and the 2,072km longest river in the Near East passes to the west of this city.

This is Old Testament country. Abraham is said to have been born here. Not only is it reputed to be the birthplace of Abraham but also Job, Elijah and Jethro lived there. Moses lived in the region for 7 years. I had to remind myself about Jethro. He was Moses' father-in-law. Moses married Jethro's daughter Zipporah after having to flee Egypt for killing an Egyptian who had been beating a Hebrew slave. Moses worked for Jethro as a shepherd for 40 years before returning to Egypt to lead the Israelites to Canaan. So it is written.

I really liked the very short time we were in Sanliurfa. It was a very peaceful place. It goes without saying that it hasn't always been peaceful. Once known as Edessa, everyone who was anyone has been though here. Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Byzantines and Crusaders. One of my sources for background information on the places I visited is www.allaboutturkey.com which says "The city was finally sacked by the Kurdish Zengi dynasty in 1146. Following the standard Mongol conquest of the Middle East, ancient Edessa disappeared from history in the 13th century, reemerging only in the present century. Thanks for its survival should go to the local population who brilliantly resisted French attempts to include it in greater Syria during Ottoman period. Like many of the other towns which offered resistance at the time of War of Liberation, Urfa has received the honorific "Sanli" (Honored) to append to its name." I particularly like the phrase "Following the standard Mongol conquest.." It conjures up a sort of inevitability that the Mongols would have and did conquer the place. They laid waste to it in 1270 and it never recovered.

Practically the first place we visited was the cave where it is said that Abraham was born. Very good value at 1000TL. There's a spring in the cave and you can (and I did) take a drink of the water that rises up there. If the water has any special properties then I hope I have benefited from them.



Abraham was quite a thorn in the side of the authorities in his home town. The ruler of the city at the time was King Nimrod who was worshipped like a God. It is said that after Abraham had caused trouble at a temple dedicated to Nimrod and broke up idols there, Nimrod decided to punish him by catapulting him into a huge fire. The two tall corinthian columns that overlook the city where the castle stood were used to make the catapult.



Abraham was hurled into the fire but it was instantly replaced by a large pool and the firewood was turned into fish. Abraham was saved! This story seems to have been left out of the Old Testament as we know it. The place where this happened is called the Balikli Gol, literally "Fish Pond". A picture appears below followed by a picture of the descendents of those pieces of firewood that were turned into fish.





My notes tell me that some time was spent in a Cay Bacesi drinking tea. I remember being sort of pestered by a guy who said he was a Kurdish refugee from Iraq. He drank his tea in the traditional fashion by holding the lump of sugar between his teeth and drinking through it. Is is worth saying he had very bad teeth?

I remember that our evening meal was a picnic of sorts. We visited a communal/community bakery and bought some delicious bread straight out of the oven. In the bakery there were people queuing to have their home prepared food put in the oven.

The next morning I had the best breakfast I have ever had. This is the reason for my reference to the land of milk and honey in the title to this posting. I don't know if I have ever mentioned it before but the bread in Turkey is simply the tastiest white bread I've ever tasted. It is always as fresh as bread could be (probably baked in a bakery just like the one we'd been to the day the before). For breakfast in Sanliurfa I had black tea (as usual) with a plate of that lovely fresh white bread, cream and honey. Honestly it was fantastic. So simple but so delicious.

Our next port of call was Harran. I don't know where I picked up the information sheet pictured below but it is very informative. Give it a click to enlarge it and have a read.



Okay, the typing is not the best in the world and nor is some of the grammar or spelling. Nonetheless it gives a good history. There's mention of Tamerlaine (Tamburlaine) whom you wouldn't wish on anyone. From the pictures below it looked as if he had just been through.

Abraham lived here. It says so in Genesis Chapter 11:

31: And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there.
32: And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran.

This is the Chapter which mentions the Tower of Babel and sets out the generations of Shem, who begat whom, how old they were at the time and how long they lived afterwards. Perhaps some scholar has already explained how it comes about that Shem seems to have lived for 600 years. If you read the verses life seems to get shorter as you proceed through the generations. All the same, Abraham's father who died in Haran managed a good innings of 205 years.

In the light of the fact that this part of the world has a history such as it set out above I have to say I am surprised anyone lived anything approaching a long life.

If Harran looked like it did in my photographs then it is no surprise that Abraham took himself and his family to Canaan. It looks pretty bleak to me.



Perhaps Rudiger and I were there at the wrong time of year. The picture in my Guide to Eastern Turkey shows it in a better light and perhaps it explains why it might have been an attractive place to live. The agriculture looks good.



As Fred Schneider sang "There's a lot of ruins in Mesopotamia" and 5,000 years old Harran has a great many that are still in the process of being discovered. There used to be a very old pagan temple dedicated to the Moon God Sin, given that Harran was a center of Mesopotamian idolatry during centuries. The worship of the moon, sun and planets continued until the 9th century AD, a long time after the Omeyyad Caliph Merwan II made Harran its capital and the Grand Mosque was built (744-750). For this reason, the science of astronomy was quite advanced here and under the rule of the Abbassids, Harran became famous for its Islamic university, founded by Harun Rashid, where many theologians, scholars and scientists studied.



The eastern gate of the university is still standing as is the 33 m / 108 ft high square minaret made of stone and brick of the monumental Grand Mosque, first built in the 8th century, was restored and enlarged in the 12th century and bears both Omeyyad and Seljuk style ornaments.



Given the age of the place and the strange beehive dwellings originally dating from the early 19th Century it was worth a visit. It is just a shame that the Mongols made such a mess of the place.



For the second time we cadged a lift back with a tour. 10.00 o'clock the next day we got the bus to Gaziantep. I left a blue Levi denim jacket on the bus.

Zippo Repair Update

I mentioned in the post about my visit to Ephesus that I had been taught how to flick open my Zippo one-handed.

The technique is the second one demonstrated in the You Tube video below.



I also mentioned that doing so tended to cause the hinge to break and that my original Zippo and its replacement were both being repaired. They were delivered back last week fully repaired with brand new innards.

I cannot praise Zippo highly enough. They advertise their product as having a lifetime guarantee and they mean it. This is what they say:

Zippo Guarantee

Any Zippo windproof lighter product when returned to our factory, will be put in first class mechanical condition free of charge, for we have yet to charge a cent for the repair of a Zippo windproof lighter, regardless of age or condition the finish, however, is not guaranteed

If you are UK RESIDENT, you can return your Zippo lighter to
Zippo UK - Repair Admin Dept
27 Grand Union Centre
336B Ladbroke Grove
London W10 5AS
Tel: 020 8964 0666

Customers living outside the UK should contact their local Zippo distributor or return the lighter directly to the Zippo

Zippo Manufacturing Co. Repair Clinic
1932 Zippo Drive
Bradford
Pennsylvania 16701
USA

There is no charge for a Zippo repair, do not enclose any money.
Please allow 8 weeks for the return of your repaired Zippo lighter.
Please ensure that you provide us with your name and address when returning your lighter.
The Zippo Lifetime Guarantee only applies to the mechanical condition of its products, the finish is not covered by the guarantee.
When returning your lighter for repair, we recommend using insured post.

The Zippo Lifetime Guarantee only applies to Zippo Windproof Lighter. Other Zippo products (including the Multi Purpose Lighter) are not covered by a Lifetime Guarantee.

They really do repair them for nothing. The first time I sent off my original Zippo I actually sent it to Bradford PA. It came back in no time from the USA. This time I discovered that there is a Zippo servicing centre in the UK so I sent the original and the replacement I bought while the original was having its first repair done to the UK address. It took a bit longer than I thought it might (but Christmas and the New Year holiday did intervene) but they came back alright.

Well done the Zippo Manufacturing Company!