Taken from All About My Hat The Hippy Trail 1972
ISBN 978-0993210709
(Photo's from on-line)
We headed for Istanbul, which Al said was the 'gateway to Asia'. Apparently some of the city was in Europe, then, across a river, the rest of the city was in Asia. Sounded strange to me, but then I already knew from what I had heard, the world was often strange.
Istanbul was a massive and busy city, hosts of people, much traffic. There were donkey carts on the roads along with cars, buses and trucks all tooting their horns. It was one of the noisiest places I had yet to visit. Fun though!
There were massive streets full of cars and buses, sounding their horns and weaving in and out of the traffic. There were tiny back-streets that looked unswept for years. There were people of many nationalities and eating places suitable for all tastes and pockets. Then there was the souk, the market, packed full of tradesmen selling their wares to tourists mainly, from huge circular brass plates to Turkish fine carpets, and rows and rows of massive water pipes called hookahs, used for smoking scented tobacco.
My group found somewhere to stay, a place called a hotel, and Al shared a room with John and Mike whilst Keith and Marion had their own.
“Man, I just need a smoke,” said Keith, “but we'll have to wait 'til tomorrow. I'm not going out looking for puff at night, not here man– we'll go to the Pudding Shop in the morning, for a smoke!”
Pudding Shop for a smoke; sounded weird; puddings, smoke?!
The Pudding Shop turned out to be just that, a shop, an eating place, selling dozens of different types of pudding, made mostly of rice – some sweet and some savoury. So my team ate.
On the walls were small notices asking for lifts to India, to London, or to places in between. Apparently Istanbul was on the “hippy trail” and the Pudding Shop was full of long-hairs and short hairs on their travels. People talked about where they had been and what they had seen, with both pleasant and less pleasant tales of their experiences in places called Iran, Kabul, Peshawar, Pakistan, India and Nepal. Mostly they were good tales but sometimes bad enough to put one off going anywhere.
I learnt that the Pudding Shop was really called the Lale Pastahanesi and had been opened in 1957 by two brothers, Idris and Namil Colpan. It was on Divanyolu Street in the Sultanahmet district of Istanbul, near the Blue Mosque. There was a great view of the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia Mosque from the garden. People sat around eating and drinking, playing guitars and singing, and exchanging greetings and news – along with the occasional warnings. It seemed to be a place that attracted a wide variety of travellers. It felt good there. However, nobody was smoking hash and there was none for sale.
After we left the Pudding Shop, on foot, we had to cross a big bridge to Asia, across a massive river called the Bosphorus Strait. I had heard about rivers but never about the boats that floated on them, apparently made and guided by people, out for pleasure or business. It was one way to get around. I thought that if I ended in that river, I could get blown or washed away, so I clutched my head tightly. But that never happened. I stayed firmly on Al's head.
Keith said that he had read that the bridge, called the Galata Bridge, separated the European-side of Istanbul from the Asian side. He pulled out his guide book and read: “It was constructed by Machinebau Ausburg Nürnberg on 1912, and connects the two sides of the Haliç district across the Bosphorus Strait.”
There were people walking and people driving across the bridge, and even a few men fishing from it.
John and Al separated from the others and headed along a busy street filled with shops and stalls.
Suddenly, I heard the word “Hasheesh!”
It was a local man and he seemed to be offering John and Al something “to smoke.” I knew that some humans smoked something called tobacco. It did not smell nice to me. That included John and Al and the others, but this man was offering something else, trying to persuade them that they could trust him and go with him to get some but not to tell anyone and to smoke it only in the hotel. It didn't take much persuasion and John and Al were led down through some of the less busy back streets and eventually arrived at – oh no – another barber's shop! I did hope I would not be left there, forgotten again for months.
I also knew that Al and John had smoked hasheesh before.
The man told John and Al to wait inside where they sat watching the jolly barber sharpening his cut-throat razor. John and Al seemed worried and I don't blame them – but soon the man returned. They gave him some money and he gave them some hasheesh. “Keep it in your pocket, there are police about. Just smoke in hotel,” he said. “I wonder if Keith scored,” said John; I wondered if Keith was off playing some sort of game. I had heard about football.
John and Al went back to the hotel and it was not long before there was a knock on the door which seemed to cause some panic. “Open the window.” said Al. “You lean out and I'll open the door and if it's cops, you sling it.”
It was Keith and Mike with Marion. “Any joy man?” asked Keith.
“Yes,” said John, “look what we got.”
John showed the others the small lump of greenish brown hasheesh.
"Aw man, that smells ace” said Keith. “Let's barricade the door and have a joint.”
A joint was made by licking and sticking some small, thin sheets of paper together. They called them "skins” and using them to roll around a mixture of tobacco and hasheesh. A small piece of rolled-cardboard, called a roach, was inserted into one end. In was then sucked at from that end by one of the people and lit at the other with a match. It that way they inhaled the smoke of the burning mix and then passed the joint to somebody else.
As this procedure continued, it seemed like everyone started to relax and chuckle. To be honest, I was thinking I would gain something like that from the smoke too, but smoking is not for hats – you know, no mouth, no lungs!
It was a while later that there was another knock on the door which was barricaded again, and everyone sat upright – Keith jumped up and moved over to the open window, whilst Mike went to the door and asked who it was.
“Your friend from barbers,” said a voice, “I bring you coca-cola.”
A short conversation and the group decided to open the door, so Mike and Al moved the furniture away from it and let in the visitor. Al said he recognised him and the man entered and placed a few bottles of drink on the floor – I had seen people drinking that whilst hanging from my hook in Thessaloniki. Some humans seemed to drink a lot but others did not like it at all. Bottles were passed around, the visitor first opening them – with his teeth. It was called cola.
He told the group that he also had some hasheesh and would roll some joints.
His way of rolling these joints was different – he made a mix of tobacco, hasheesh and opium and emptied it into some papers he had put together and placed on the floor. The others had put the tobacco in first then added the hasheesh. But the ritual of passing the joint was the same – but the smell was quite different – it was sweeter. So they carried on smoking and drinking until suddenly Al jumped up and ran out of the room.
He ran straight to the toilet – with me still on his head.
The toilet was a hole in the floor and above the hole was a shower for washing. As Al vomited down the hole, water dripped all over me and I made sure some ran down the back of his neck too. He seemed to be trying to hold himself up between the walls!
It all ended well though. Al seemed to recover and the visitor left in high spirits and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
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.
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