Tourist V. Traveler

Traveler tip number 16- "You may be tired, you may be getting cheap, and you are sick of all the little irritations that you now feel that you have put up with since day one. You're sick of packing and unpacking. You're sick of plane tickets and taxi's and presenting documents and filling out forms, and going back from whence you came does little to recall the feeling of inspiration you felt on the way in. This is the point at which the inner traveler fights the inner tourist.

My inner tourist wants to quit like a beat up boxer, but my inner traveler is like a good corner man, urging me on. "Don't quit now, kid!"

My legs ache from endless walking, climbing, and trodding over cobblestoned hill and sandy dale, my arms fatigued from lugging luggage, and my grey matter greyer from gazing at guidebooks.

But ya gotta listen to your corner man and press on.  The traveler knows that the last day can be as compelling as any other, while the tourist whines about being tired.

It is time to reach down deep, and understand that it is unlikely that I will never have the opportunity to do this again.

Then it occurs to me that I need to learn to approach my entire life in the same fashion.
 
Don't be a tourist, be a traveler, strive to not waste a single moment. It is all a gift, whether you are on the road or not.

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The Waning Days

I'm uncertain as to the route that the bus from Antakya to Adana followed, but as I gaze out at the mountainous backdrop in the fading light of the dwindling day, it becomes apparent that I have missed more of Turkey than I will ever see.

One could easily spend a month or two exploring this diverse and tantalizing land. Sadly, limitations of both time and finance have forced me to leave large swaths of this fascinating country on the cutting room floor. I am beginning to feel something akin to the last days of school. If this feeling had a sound it would be that of a dirigible with a slow leak.

The bus pulls in to a small terminal somewhere, and we take a break as more passengers board. I disembark and light a smoke. I see a family saying their goodbyes. It appears that Mom and Dad are taking the kids back home after a visit, and Grandma and Grandpa are there to see them off.

A poignant and not unfamiliar scene to any of us lucky enough to be raised by a loving family.

However, a few feet away from this Turkish version of a Norman Rockwell painting lay a very different reality. Two police officers are standing with AK47's at the ready. I try to reconcile this bizarre anomaly, while remembering not to make any sudden moves.

As I hop back on the bus I think about all the people around the world who live under some form of subtle intimidation by the state.

Then I think about the G20 in Toronto and realise that my own country is not immune from such excess.

With apologies to Mr. Disney, it is indeed, a small world after all.


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The Privileged Pilgrim

 Sometimes when I travel I'm not entirely sure of where I'm going to sleep, but this sentiment is usually constrained to finding a hotel in a defined place. Today, not even the place is not defined.

After a final, white knuckled ride from the Syrian border to Antakya, I do know one thing. I have spent the last eight hours in a cab to travel 120km and I just want to get out of this vehicle. Lodging is a secondary priority, and  I know that now that I am in Antakya, I have a few cards to play.

At the beginning of the day, my wide eyed goal was to be here in the early afternoon, so that I could get a bus to Adana, at which point I would book a flight back to Istanbul. In the waning hours of the Antioch day it appears my goal will not be reached.

Nonetheless, I grab my (non heroin filled)  bags and the cab driver points me in the direction of the bus terminal. I am accompanied by the very beautiful and very young Russian lady who had joined us at the Turkish border. She had been denied entry into Syria due to a lack of a visa, and she is not happy about it.

I explain to her that there has been a changing of the guard at whatever department grants visa's to travellers, and the Syrian government had cracked down on issuing visa's at the border. Having done my research prior to travelling, this was not the first time I had heard this story.

As we walk towards the bus station I advise her that if she wants to get a visa for Syria, she should go to Ankara and apply there. Graciously, she offers to help me translate in my quest for a ticket to Adana as she speaks four languages.

I hesitate for a moment, and in that moment I realise that I am really missing the company of women, and I don't mean that in a sexual way. I mean it in a social sense. As much as I enjoyed her company, I decline her offer while imagining her running for Putin's job in about twenty years and winning.

We arrive at the "bus station", shake hands, and part ways as I again lament the fact that I am not younger, richer, and better looking.

The bus station is really a strip mall of private bus companies, each with their own storefront. Almost all are closed, but I find one open. I expect to be told that there is nothing until tomorrow, but the man points me to a closed office and says they have one more shuttle to Adana.

He tells me to come back in one hour and they will be open. Perfect.

I haven't eaten since breakfast at  The Baron Hotel this morning, and I am famished. In addition, Antakya is a beautiful place, and I am grateful to have one last hour here. Dragging my luggage through town, I am definitely an object of attention.

I find a nice little Mom and Pop fast food joint and stuff myself on chicken, rice, and salad as the locals look on. I make my way to the bus office which is now open and buy a ticket to Adana. Much to my surprise, I am actually going to make it back to Adana tonight.

I load my luggage on the bus and climb aboard. As we pull out into the Turkish night, it dawns on me for the first time today that I will probably never see Syria again. This saddens me, but I quickly understand as we roll through the now dark Levant that the real cause of the tears running down my cheek is the joyous recognition that I was deeply blessed to see Syria at all.

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Over The Borderline, pt 2

Image by PanARMENIAN_Photo via Flickr
As I approach the Syrian border in to Turkey at Bab al-Hawa a Zen calm comes over me. I'm in a ramshckle vehicle with four people, none of whom speak English, and I'm pretty sure that at least one person in the vehicle is a member of the police.

As the car slows at the Syrian side of the border, I quietly hum Que Sera Sera to myself. At the border we all get out of the car and go to the trunk, where we are asked to identify our bags and open them.

My Zen fades as I open my bag. The dude with the big gun takes a cursory glance and directs me to the kiosk, where I present my documents.

I think to myself as I exit Syria, "any idiot can get out of a country, it is getting in to the next one that can be tricky". Welcome to no mans land, the place where one is out, but not yet in. However, I am encourged by the lads in the car. The one redeeming feature of being in no mans land is the opportunity to shop Duty Free, and my fellow passengers pile into the store with a zeal beyond anything I have seen so far on this trip.

An invitation to shop is proffered, but I decline, choosing to step out of the vehicle and drink in my desolate mountain surroundings. I drench myself in the hypnotic timeless beige beauty, I consider taking a picture, but my camera is big and my instincts tell me that this border installation might not be the wisest place for a photo-op.

Nonetheless, it is striking and beautiful.

The lads return from shopping, and by the look of their purchases, I'm starting to think that these are my kind of people. Nothing but booze and cigarettes.

We approach the Turkish border and I remember why Lonely Planet says to take the early bus. The lineup is longer than The Beatles Revolution #9 played at 16rpm (take that Dennis Miller).

Everything from here forward is speculation and an example of the folly that can strike a traveler when traveling under dubious circumstances. Due to language barriers, I cannot confirm anything other than the fact that the Turkish border officials did allow me to cross. Eventually.

I think that the first mistake came when my driver was ordered to jump the cue by someone in the back seat. Jumping the cue involved getting away from the commercial vehicle  line by driving backwards, then squuezing into the regular passenger line. I'm pretty sure that cutting the line is a practice reviled worldwide, and I'm even more certain that there are a great deal of cameras at this particular border.

As I said, the Turkish authorities did allow me in and they were polite and kind. Even better, the entry visa that I paid double the going rate for in Istanbul allows for re-entry. I just saved sixty bucks unexpectedly. (Turkey has punitive visa rates for Canadians, due to the official recognition by the Stephen Harper government of an "Armenian genocide"). I take no sides, but this is why people from Canada pay twice as much as Americans for a Turkish entry visa.

While its all well and good that I am in Turkey, I was kind of hoping that the car and driver might come along with me. I'm pretty sure that due to our attempted cue jumping we have been banished to the dreaded "truck line".

And the reason that the truck line is dreaded is because every truck must go through a giant garage like xray machine that takes ten minutes to scan one semi trailer. There is a set of lights and when it goes green, the gate opens and then the door opens and dude drives his truck in. Then the driver gets the hell out. There are radiation signs everywhere and the whole process takes ten to twenty minutes per truck.

And I'm in a car, and I'm in this line. Better yet the truckers are furious that we are here, but the driver has been given his marching orders.Because we are through the border, we are now trying to cut in to the truck line. Two line cuts in one day is a record for me.

My hopes to get to Adana by nightfall dissipate along with my fascination for the countryside of this border crossing as the hours pile up. However, there is no shortage of drama unfolding before me. Serious fights threaten to break out amongst the truckers as they jockey for position. I step back and avoid the fray as peacemakers intervene.

I spy another cab in the same boat and share a silent laugh with some fellow travelers as we glance across the interminable wait.

In a comic moment I watch a swamper jump up and down on goods piled high on the roof of a truck so as to meet the vehicle height requirement. Others climb up and join in, and a cheer goes up when the truck clears the gate.

Eventually I am asked to remove my luggage, so that our car can be radiated. By this point the two police station passengers have bailed out, angrily refusing to pay the agreed fare. I briefly consider walking through the final checkpoint, but I have another 50km ahead, and no idea what lays on the other side.

It occurs to me that like it or not, it is best to stick with the devil I know.

The car gets scanned, my luggage goes back in the trunk as the carrot of departure is dangled yet again. The driver and his buddy disappear and reappear, hunting sporadically for documentation in the glove compartment.

As I enter my fifth hour at this now godforsaken dump, we finally move in to yet another line. I don't know who recorded the song "The Final Countdown", but it is running through my mind as we try to cut yet another line.

Finally we reach and clear the last gate, but a border official comes running out of yet another kiosk, and orders us to the side. We pull over, and more documents are produced. The border guard returns to his kiosk as I think to myself  "I've had enough of this shit", and apparently my driver and his buddy are thinking the same thought.

Suddenly, an air of conspiracy permeates the car and despite the language barrier, I am fully cognizant. Dude in the backseat is looking back at the kiosk, waiting for the guard to be distracted, and when he is, he gives the "go" signal to the driver.

As we peel out, I think to myself  "this sh*t is f*cked up".

I wait for the sirens to come up behind us, but they never do.

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Over The Borderline

Upon my return to Aleppo, I find myself in a taxi heading to The Baron Hotel. As we approach the hotel we stop at an intersection with police directing traffic.

I realise that my seatbelt is not on, and I hasten to strap myself in, but the female end is broken, so I hold it in place, giving the illusion of compliance. The driver looks over at me and says "Don't worry about police, I am police".

In a place like Syria, I have no reason to doubt him.

He asks me where I'm going and I explain that my plan is to pass through the Syrian frontier back into Turkey via Antakya. I have some vague plan to get a bus, but I also know that buses along this route are not common. He offers me a lift for $60, 120 km across the border to Antakya.

I consider briefly, then accept, thinking that hiring a private driver who is a cop speaks to my need for convenience and safety. Not to mention a wakeup call delayed by four hours. I accept and we arrange

The concierge at The Baron asks if I need a ride to Antakya, and I explain that I have already booked a ride and I have the first twinge that I have chosen too quickly..

My driver shows up promptly the following morning, and I am initially buoyed. We drive through the streets of Aleppo, and I briefly think that we are on our way, but it is not to be, and I begin to feel like I am in the opening of a great movie that I wish I wasn't in.

We switch cars. We switch drivers. I sit in the car with my luggage in the trunk for about half an hour. As I sit in the new car, the trunk is opened and closed several times. The thing is that when you sit in a car while the trunk is being opened it is impossible to see what is going on in said trunk, but it is possible to feel it.

I begin to imagine that my bag is being stuffed with Iranian heroin, bound for the Turkish market or any other number of nefarious schemes that end with me being sentenced to life in a far flung gulag while my family exhausts all their holdings in a vein attempt to free me or I get shot in the head in some obscure field.

My travel paranoia meter is going off like never before, and it only gets more redline as I am joined by a new driver and a fellow passenger, neither of whom speak English.

And what better place for a paranoid traveler in a police state to make a last stop prior to departure than a police station?  Even better, we pick up two more people at the police station. We all report to the local authorities that we are leaving the jurisdiction. In defence of the Syrian police and border officials that I dealt with, they were all kind, polite, professional, and vigilant.

As me and four non english speaking dudes head out into the remote Syrian countryside the driver offers a cigarette and we all accept. I wait about half an hour and do the same. No one accepts.

I've traveled to a lot of places, but I have never seen my original intentions go so far awry, and I don't mind telling you that I am deeply worried due to my complete lack of control. This is a moment where I have nothing to rely on but my faith in others.

We pull over somewhere in a remote area and the trunk opens again. While I cannot see,I can feel things being unloaded. Heavy things. By now I am pretty convinced that it is a key part for the secret nuclear program between North Korea, Syria ,and Iran. (google it!)

However, I feel a little better that we have unloaded some cargo as we head out. At least about for about 83 seconds, at which point the driver realises that he has forgotten to drop off something (possibly the enriched uranium).

We drive on towards the border and the countryside is stark and beautiful and I revel in the fact of how "real" everything is, while reminding myself that it is moments like these that are the reason that I travel. I may be scared, but I am very much alive.

As we pull up to the border I quietly take a very, very, deep breath


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Street Justice

Perhaps it is due to my bartending experience or perhaps it is innate, but I have a sonar that enables me to know when trouble is about to escalate.

I just didn't expect to see it in Aleppo.

 It is early evening, and I have checked back in to The Baron Hotel. Feeling peckish, I head back to this place where the chicken from the grill is perfect and a fine meal can be had for dirt cheap.

I turn right as I exit the Baron, and then right at the first corner. The place is on the left side of the street. There are a few joints here, but this is the one where you can see the rotisserie in the front window.

Obscure travel tips aside, as I head down the street a kerfuffle breaks out. A man emerges from a small shop holding a boy of 16 or so by the scruff of the neck and he yells across the street. Another man emerges carrying a switch.

Yup. A good old fashioned switch.

Suddenly the much larger man is on the kid and he is whipping him. My guess is that the kid is a shoplifter, and I notice that the guy who is whipping the kid is taking little pleasure in his task.

He is scaring the shit out of the kid, and teaching him a lesson, but he is not beating him mercilessly. He gets in his face and whips his legs a couple of times.

Incident over, I walk down the street with a slight pang of  ruthless envy as I consider the punks and losers who permeate my neighbourhood, stealing with impunity and making women afraid, while cops entombed in vehicles focus on pulling over drivers for failing to signal.

It  occurs to me  that flipping the switch is not always a bad idea.

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Mightymouth Meets Minibus

Believe it or not, I like traveling by bus and where possible, minibus.

One of my priorities while traveling is seeking out the simple realities of day to day life. The tiny microscopic moments that go unnoticed by locals the world over fascinate me and a bus can be a treasure trove of insight, and a minibus is like having a zoom lens.

As I board the van, a simple nugget of my travel research comes to mind. In many Muslim countries, a gentleman does not sit beside a lady on a bus, mini or otherwise, unless he is a relative.

Knowing this, I bypass the seat with a lady and her child and sit directly behind, in a row of three, next to the window. The minibus fills up, until the last of the 20 or so seats is the one next to mother and child. Just as we are about to depart, a local man climbs aboard and takes the last seat next to the young mother.

Even I know that this dog don't hunt, and we are temporarily delayed while a married lady is asked to vacate the seat next to her husband, so that she may fill the last seat next to the mother,so that the late arriving passenger can sit next to another man, so that the transgression of a man sitting next to a lady need not occur.

As the van pulls away from this remote locale I stare out the window at the daily bustle around me. I think to myself that while the cultural context may change, everywhere I go humans are doing essentially the same thing.

Caring for loved ones, meeting responsibilities, and chasing dreams.

After a time, the guy in the seat next to me and I begin chatting.

It turns out he is a doctor who is heading home after doing a volunteer stint to provide medical services to the Bedouin people who live near Palmyra, and suddenly I feel very small and inferior.

As we chat, he asks me if I am on Facebook. I notice the head across the row turn sharply towards us as we speak, and my paranoia meter goes up. Facebook is illegal in Syria, though I have seen people using it through proxy servers.

I give him an email and my web address, while explaining that I have no active Facebook account. I foolishly make an offhand remark regarding web censorship in the midst of a sermon about how being allowed in to any foreign country is a great privilege, and that when in Rome..........

As the jam packed minibus moves through the desert towards Hama,  I realise where I am, and that I should shut my mouth as I grasp the concept that zoom lenses can work in both directions.

I've been in some pretty undemocratic countries, but this is my first police state minibus ride.

Lesson learned.

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