1972 March 26 to March 30: Heading South From Istanbul

 Taken From All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972

There were now four men and one woman in the party, smoking hasheesh whenever they had the chance, wandering the streets of Istanbul, visiting the markets and eating houses. Then they decided to leave and head down into Turkey and maybe beyond.

With all the warning about hasheesh in Istanbul they were glad to be leaving – heading South.

The task of driving was shared between Keith and John and they were heading for a place called Afyon or Afyonkaraishar, which, Keith explained, meant “The Black Fortress of Opium”. Keith added “I heard they make some great Turkish Delight there too, man, let's see if we can get some!”

Unfortunately though, it was evening by the time we arrived, so no sweets were on sale. Most eating places were closed. There were very few people on the streets.

We walked along a street with covered arcades either side and saw one man, alone, walking towards us. As he came closer, he smiled, and Keith said “Hasheesh?”

The man ran away across the road, saying “No! No! No!”

Yet, as we continued down the street, the man was following us on the other side of the road, darting from pillar to pillar. Then he came over to us again. He said if we wanted hasheesh, he could get some. We would have to drive around the town, drop him somewhere and pick him up ten minutes later. Keith agreed.

Keith drove him round the same route twice and then stopped so he could get out. “I will be back in ten minutes,” said the man.

So Keith drove round the same route at least three times before we spotted the man and picked him up. “Quick!”, said the man, “Drive out of town,” pointing the way we were already heading.

About five minutes later he told us to turn off onto a track and stop besides the dirt road – we could see the town on one side and a small settlement of ramshackle buildings and tents on the other. The man said “I have hasheesh, but only to smoke, not to buy,” and made some joints.

There under a beautiful clear and moonlit sky, he insisted that they all smoke “my way. Inhale deeply through your hand, throw back your head and blow the smoke at the moon.” This produced fits of giggles and I ended up on the ground!

Some time later, we parted company with the man, who never gave his name, and Keith asked which way to our road South. He pointed up the dirt track, telling us to turn right at the end and off we went, with Keith driving again. I was in the other front seat, on Al's head.

After a short while the track became a road and we sped onwards. There was a turning to our right and Keith took it. Suddenly, we screeched to a halt.

It was a Turkish army camp and the two soldiers on the gates suddenly took down their rifles and pointed them at us, just as we came to a. halt. Keith shouted something to them and they relaxed and pointed us back the way from which we had just driven.

“Man, we must have fucked up and missed the turning,” said Keith.

"And I'm glad we missed the bullets too,” said Al. “I thought we were going to get shot, did you see their eyes?”

On we drove then, into the night. They were looking for somewhere to sleep. Keith suddenly pulled off the road, drove down a dirt track, as if he knew where he was going – and pulled up. This was where we were to spend the night, in an open area close to a shallow river. The lads set about building a camp fire.

Almost as soon as the fire was burning, we were visited by a group of young Turks, few of whom spoke any English, which was the language of my head. They had brought with them some bottles of alcohol and offered them around. Despite the lack of communication on a verbal level, there was much laughter. I sensed, however, some trepidation in my head.

The Turks were piling massive pieces of wood onto the fire which was burning away brightly and hotly – it was quite large. I heard Keith saying that he thought they needed to be told to stop, but there were now over a dozen of them. Slowly my travelling group was getting into their van saying they were going to sleep. Keith and Al went over to the group and told them we wanted to sleep now and asked that they keep the fire low and not to make too much noise. With that there were handshakes and “bye-bye” and they started to leave in groups of three or four. There were just two left, one of whom spoke English.

He walked over to the van where Keith and Al were sitting on the ground, and said “You want smoke some hasheesh?”

“Oh yeah man, you bet we do,” said Keith and once again I saw joints being rolled and smoked. The feeling of relaxation once again come into my head – and then the two Turks said goodbye and left.

I think my group was glad as there had been no trouble. We had already had rifles pointed at us by the Turkish army earlier that night!

The following morning my group was awoken by rumbling noises and shouting. As Al and the others sat up, I could see what looked like military tanks rumbling towards the small stream that was near-by. I knew about tanks as there had been pictures on the walls in Konstantinos' barber's shop in Thessaloniki and the customers there talked about them and the “army” and the “war”. Tanks were meant to fire at people and buildings and other tanks, with the object of destroying them. It didn't make sense to me – why would people want to kill other people – surely not fighting over hats?

Then I could see that the tanks were just part of a long convoy of military vehicles and that some of the leading ones had been driven into the river and seemed to be stuck; hence the shouting. My group started laughing. It did look odd, with two vehicles half way across the small river and all the men running round shouting, trying to push and pull them to get them to move again. The tanks were just sitting there. I wondered whether they would just shoot at the other vehicles and blow them up and get them out of the way – or would they turn and fire on us! What a start to another day in Turkey!

A couple of the soldiers walked over to us and started speaking in Turkish but when they realised we did not understand them, they just shook hands and left. A while later the convoy was able to move on.

I liked that sort of adventure as it was exciting and different, then turned out to be OK.