Blessings and breakdowns
Week 15 - Ellie and Mark come down out of the hills on Black Sea route D010, but there are mechanical failures waiting for them
“Are you Christian?”
We’ve been asked this question several times while cycling through Turkey. It’s a tough one for us to answer in a Muslim country. It’s made even tougher when you’re asked the question by a policeman at the side of the road, having been pulled over at a checkpoint.
Is it more offensive to someone of strong faith to tell them you believe in a different God to them, or to tell them you don’t believe in any God at all?
I’ve been opting for the truth. I’m Agnostic. I really don’t know whether or not there is a God. After knocking around this planet for 50 years, I remain unconvinced by any religion that one exists.
That said, I’m open to being presented with evidence that persuades me that there is some greater power controlling and/or overseeing this universe of ours, as we hurtle through it, scuttling around on a tiny blue globe as it does laps of a glowing fireball that floats in a vast sea of nothingness. A VAST SEA OF NOTHINGNESS!? Shhhh, get down existential dread, bad dog.
I s’pose thats why I’ve opted for agnosticism rather than atheism: is there a God? I really don’t know. It’s an answer that I’ve only ever given to people who seem to want to have a serious conversation about faith.
If you tell someone of strong faith that you’re open to suggestion, brace yourself for a barrage of suggestion, much of which you’ve read and heard before. I can’t hold it against them, they’re trying to save my soul from eternal damnation, bless them, and I’m willing to accept the possibility they might be right, while also not fully accepting that they are right. It’s annoying and frustrating for all involved.
In the instance of the Turkish policeman at the side of the road, it felt like an odd place to be asked about one’s religious convictions. Would the answer have consequences? Ellie completely ignored the question, and I distracted him by mentioning soccer, a byword for religion both here in Turkey and in Glasgow.
He wasn’t distracted for long though, a veritable Columbo this lad. “I’m going to ask you this question very seriously, and I want you to answer me honestly…” I was squirming a little now. Who in their right mind wants to hear a cop start a question with a line like that, as he looks you dead in the eye?
I thought he knew something about me that I didn’t even know myself. Even an adulthood of agnosticism can’t shake the rock solid foundations of a guilty conscience that have been painstakingly laid by violent Christian Brothers.
“What do you think of Muslims?” he asked.
This roadside checkpoint had veered very far from inspecting our lights and helmets. Thankfully I could answer this one wholeheartedly; myself and Ellie have been discussing this very topic for weeks now. With the confidence and aplomb of a politician being interviewed about financial irregularities, but who knows their accountant is a whizz with proxy servers, VPN’s and offshore accounts, I said “I’m glad you asked me that.”
Kemal Mustafa Atatürk is seen as THE founding father of Turkey as an independent state. He was the first president of the country in 1923. His image and name can be seen everywhere here; he is still held in extremely high regard. Atatürk was responsible for the creation of Turkey as a secular republic, with a state legal system based on civil law rather than religious law.
However, the vast majority of the population of Turkey are Muslim, well over 90%, and the vast majority of Muslims here are Sunni. Over 80% of Muslims in Turkey say they are active in their faith.
The religious law that does exist within Islamic practice in Turkey is Hanafi. This system is associated with flexibility, adaptability, reason and scholarly consensus in the interpretation of Islamic law.
We’ve been surprised by how many social situations and interactions we have seen here that we had not expected in a country that is overwhelmingly Muslim. An obvious example is the sale and consumption of alcohol.
The law of the land controls the substance: the law of Islam recommends how the faithful behave in relation to the consumption of it. Hanafi law is nuanced in this regard, allowing the consumption of alcohol in some situations, mostly medical, but generally and officially it’s not permitted.
There are off-licenses in most towns who will give you a jet black, non see-through, bag of cans. It’s a carrier bag of shame. We’ve been in a few offies, and a fair few restaurants that also serve alcohol, and not just in tourist towns and cities.
I haven’t exactly conducted a conclusive survey, but from what I’ve seen, and the number of locals knocking about having a drop or two, there must be powerful medicine in those cans and bottles, and a large swathe of the population in need of it.
On Saturday night we were running short of options for somewhere to camp, so we asked some welcoming looking lads sitting outside their restaurant, in the fishing village of Liman, if we bought dinner, could we camp by their restaurant. Turns out the headman of the village also runs Hansar Balikevi, the seafood restaurant across the road from the pier.
Hansar Balikevi has two dining rooms. One for folks who want to drink alcohol and one for those who don’t. Both were equally busy later that evening.
We were offered a camping spot on the village green, and we enjoyed a delicious fresh fish supper. When we were pitching our tent at around 9:30pm, a couple of bleary-eyed likely lads on a tractor turned up to cut the grass on the green. They must have been under the weather, because it was obvious they’d been self-medicating from the black bag. They were keen for us to vacate the area.
Some shouting ensued as our buddies from the restaurant showed up to tell us to stay put. The best we could make of the situation was that the lads had been tasked with cutting the grass earlier in the day, but got distracted by their medical needs, so to speak.
We stayed where we were and had a fitful nights sleep between the loading of trawlers with ice, the trucks coming to fill up with fish, and paranoia that the boyos on the tractor had come back to cut the grass.
The lads on the tractor were lightly medicated: they weren’t steamin’. What we haven’t seen here is public drunkenness. We spotted two people on the street in Ankara who were the worst for wear, and that has been it in more than three weeks. From what we can see, the aspects of life in Turkey that are outside Hanafi law seem to exist quite happily and easily with those within it.
The aspect of Islamic faith that we have encountered most here, and the aspect we have been discussing amongst ourselves, is how being hospitable and welcoming to strangers is enshrined in Islamic practice. Within Muslim communities and teachings it is seen as an act of righteousness to be welcoming and hospitable to strangers.
I remember first reading about this aspect of Islam in Dervla Murphy’s wonderful book about her cycle to India, Full Tilt. Murphy recounted how her cigarette box had mysteriously refilled itself while in cafes in Afghanistan. Muslim people were quietly and anonymously putting extra cigarettes into the box as an act of kindness to a stranger. Giving a stranger lung disease wasn’t a concern at the time.
We’ve received some disapproving looks for behaviour deemed somewhat inappropriate as we huff and swear our way through the countryside, but in fairness, we get them at home too. We had stones thrown at us while cycling through Sandy Row in Belfast, a Christian neighbourhood of some renown.
We have noticed several cultural differences that would go against the grain in Ireland, such as segregated bus shelters, one side for men and one side for women. However, the overwhelming experience we’ve had of Muslim people during the last three weeks has been humbling, heart warming and incredibly positive.
As we made our way up a particularly steep hill in the heat earlier this week, a car pulled in just up the road in front of us. An arm came out the window holding two bottles of water. When we gratefully received the bottles of water, they were quickly followed by a packet of pretzels. A kindness for the sake of kindness.
We called into a bike shop to buy a chain for Ellie’s bike. The chain was fitted for free. Tea was brought into the workshop. Ellie was given a bandana, I was given a luminous vest and a heap of cable ties. Kamil, the owner of the workshop, asked us if we needed somewhere to stay for a couple of days, free of charge.
As we prepared to leave, Kamil ran up the road after us having just gone to the bakery to get us a carrier bag full of pancakes for the road ahead. We left his workshop laden with kindness.
Just two examples from yet another week full of welcomes and kindnesses. What do I think of Muslim people? From my experience of being in Turkey for the last three weeks, Muslim people here are the kindest and most generous I’ve ever met on my travels in any country. I was very happy to report this to the policeman, and he in turn was very happy to hear it.
What saddened both myself and Ellie was the last question the roadside policeman asked us, it seemed to us to be the reason he was so interested in talking to us.
“I would like to travel to Ireland someday, do I need a visa? Would I be welcomed?” Would a young Muslim man receive the same welcome in Ireland today that we’ve been receiving in Turkey? Maybe he would. The part of me that is negatively influenced by what I read and hear in news reports feels that right now, he might not. We told him he would be very welcome.
Part of the reason that we’re cycling around the world is to meet people where they live, to talk to them about their lives, and to experience for ourselves what it is like to be in those places. If I relied solely on news and media reportage to inform my opinions of the world around me, I don’t think I’d ever leave the house. Hopefully that young man will only be met with welcomes and positivity if he travels to Ireland.
The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs currently advises travellers to exercise a high degree of caution while travelling in Turkey. If you’re in Istanbul and there is a protest happening around you, you should definitely follow this advice. This country is huge, with a vast and varied population, and our experience here rubbishes that warning, but that is only our experience.
There are extremists and fundamentalists in every walk of life. We don’t have to look to Islam for them, we have our own. The Reverend Ian Paisley springs to mind. A man who subtracted the fun from, but magnified the mentalism, in fundamentalism. I’ve no doubt his preaching had an influence on folks down Sandy Row.
As we cycle through the countryside, I’ve been leaning into the call to prayer that rings out around us several times a day. Particularly in the mountainous areas. As it echoes and folds back on itself, it takes on a dreamy quality, and I find it meditative and soothing as the words meld into each other, the melody bouncing and rolling around the hills.
“That lad is a good caller,” we comment to each other if there is a particularly well-executed call to prayer filling the air around us, mixing with the scent from the blossoms in the rising heat, a multi-sensory road haze. Like aul’ wans heading home on the bingo bus after winning a few bob, we’ve developed an appreciation for a good caller.
Even a dyed-in-the-wool Irish atheist will let an occasional “God help us!” out of them. The lines between Paganism, Christianity and superstition run as thin as a red-head’s skin on our island, and it’s not just a Celtic tick.
A few years ago I tagged along with a few friends to catch metal legends Slayer’s farewell tour. Lamb of God, Anthrax and the particularly well named Cradle of Filth were all also on the bill. I had to go and take a couple of breaks during it. It was as quite the sonic onslaught.
As you’d expect from Slayer, the songs and accompanying imagery were full of pentagrams, demons, inverted crucifixes, and any other iconography you can imagine from a Satanist’s sketchbook. It was a veritable ghoulish gallery of Gomorrah.
At the very end of the gig the lead singer got quite emotional, it was their last ever tour after all. He thanked everyone in the venue for years of support, gave a final wave goodbye, and then wished us all “Godspeed!” After hours of satanic visuals and verse, we were left with a little prayer. It was unexpected.
Spread out across my bike and pannier bags are two St. Christopher medals, one St. Bridget’s cross, a small bottle water from St. Brigid’s well in Kildare, and an evil eye charm. I said I was agnostic, I never mentioned whether or not I was a hypocrite.
What harm could they do!? I don’t know if they’re effective or not. They could be, so why run the risk of not bringing them?
Recently I’ve also taken to invoking a very small Islamic prayer. When we explain in garbled Turkish and English that we’re attempting to cycle around the world, and we tell whoever we’re talking to about our planned route, it takes a beat to sink in. They usually respond by slowly nodding, wide eyed in a mixture of disbelief, amazement and encouragement.
At that moment I’ll put my hand on my heart and say “Inshallah”, like a lad from Co. Kerry saying he’ll plough that top field tomorrow “with the help o’ God.” The Turkish folks we’re talking to usually burst out laughing at the infidel trying to sound like a local. They seem to appreciate the sentiment though. I’ve earned a few slaps on the back.
For the last week we’ve been sticking with the D010 road that runs along the Turkish shore of the Black Sea. It’s been serving us well for the last 450kms or so. From Bartin eastwards the road got quieter, a bit more rugged, and much more scenic and enjoyable. There were a couple of coal and stone mining towns between Zonguldak and Bartin that were pretty grim, but it was very interesting to see them, and talk to the folks who live and work there.
We came down out of the mountains a couple of days ago, enthused by the thought of a couple of hundred flattish kilometres along the coast, a breeze after the terrain we covered during the last two weeks.
A bit like someone who has been really stressed at work, under serious pressure, who takes a holiday to recover, only to fall ill when the pressure stops, when we hit the flat terrain our bikes started to make concerning sounds and began to display some worrying symptoms.
We hadn’t had so much as a puncture for months, and then boom! Ellie had a blow out on the road outside the town of Gerze. Both of us simultaneously had problems with the bearings in our bottom bracket. Nothing worse than a wobbly and noisy bottom bracket, as the actress said to the bishop.
We also both had some bearing issues in our wheels. Ellie’s back and my front. We thought we’d be able to limp into the town of Samsun, just in time for the May 19th celebrations. May 19th is a national holiday in all of Turkey, but particularly important in Samsun. Kemal Mustafa Atatürk landed on the shore of Samsun on May 19th 1919, commencing the war of independence that led to Turkey becoming an independent republic.
We were about 50 clicks west of Samsun when the arse completely fell out of Ellie’s bottom bracket. Which we both agreed is better than your bottom bracket falling out of your arse.
We suffered the ignominy of hitching a lift in a pickup truck to the nearest bike shop. Huge thanks to Orhan for the lift and once again displaying the kindness and hospitality this place is awash with. Orhan even called ahead to make sure the bike shop was open on a Sunday.
Our poor bikes were in intensive care for hours. The sight of a lad jumping up and down on an extension bar on a spanner attached to Ellie’s wheel was more than either of us could bear to watch.
It might have been St. Brigid, it may have been St. Christopher, it could even have been Allah, but by some stroke of luck or spiritual intervention, our bikes were fixed and we managed to pitch our tent just before a thunder storm rolled in last night.
As we sat beneath a shelter eating another pasta dinner from the camping stove, we were grinning like fools. Thankful to be back on the road, thankful for the journey so far, and excited by the road ahead. I think the help and kindness extended by the people of Turkey have a lot to do with it.
We’ve arrived in Samsun in time for the May 19th celebrations, and both us and our bicycles are prepared for the road ahead. We might even get to enjoy some of that flat terrain, inshallah.
Hold her steady, and keep it between the ditches.
A good agnostic says a prayer, knocks on wood, and checks the science. Daj Bože, you continue to write epic tales, not emergency room reports xox
Brilliant update, thrilled to hear the bikes survived the surgery. Lovely to hear all about “kindness for kindness sake”, a lovely motto. You are both inspirational. Look forward to hearing more, safe travels, go easy on the brakes xxxx