The Hindu Business Line : Wild Turkey

If you can stay out of taxis on a foreign holiday, you may have enough money left to get home again. On a recent trip to Turkey, Krishnan and I rode the Istanbul rail, the buses, the subterranean funicular, and the little vintage tram that shuttles between the Galata Tower and the Republic Monument. The rest of Istanbul’s sights, we decided, were within walking distance, and we wore the tread off our shoes proving it.

It was not till we headed to Cappadocia, in central Turkey, that we truly went into transports. We started with two first class tickets on an overnight train from Istanbul to Ankara. Sensible people take the bus, which reaches Ankara in five hours, but the train, we felt, would be our nearest shot at the Orient Express.

We were to catch our train from Haydarpasa, across the Bosphorus, and the station shone grandly out on the waters as we ferried toward it under a full yellow moon. We raced to the entrance at Chennai Central speed and burst into a near empty station. Then, calmed by the absence of mobs and red-shirt porters, we stopped to admire the building’s stained glass and vintage lamps before we sauntered to our carriage. A uniformed attendant puts us into a stylish cabin for two, with washbasin, soap and towels, coat hangers, a mini-fridge stocked with juice and cookies, and bunks snugly made up for the night. We slavered over it all before flopping exhausted into the bed.

The next morning, after a stately breakfast of bread, eggs, white cheese and black olives in the pantry car, we reached Ankara, where we left the loving embraces of the Turkish Railways. We were to continue our journey by bus to the village of Goreme in Cappadocia, five hours away. Ankara’s bus station looked like one of our lesser airports, and we couldn’t see or hear anything so vulgar as a motor vehicle till we lined up to board our humming, gleaming beast. Minutes after we had turned on to the flawless highway, a man as spiffy as a flight purser came up the aisles with water and free newspapers. Coffee and tea followed, and biscuits and marble cake, all of it complimentary. Next he pulled out a notebook and pen and we braced ourselves. What next, kebab orders? But he was only checking us against his passenger list.

G. Krishnan

It’s a bus! Airline-style service on the road to Cappadocia.

We lolled like pashas but I felt, somehow, too comfortable to doze. I looked out at the vast fields of rural Turkey and wondered where the farmers lived. Krishnan fixed his eyes to the television, and he soon got lucky. The taped talk show featured a belly dancer, and the ride turned out bumpy after all.

If we had had €200 left when we reached Cappadocia we might have floated in a hot air balloon over its weird curves and creases, formed by hardened lava spill and carved into shelters by the early Christians. Balloons are the rage among well-heeled tourists, and at the end of their early morning ride, passengers are handed out royally by a staff of attentive young men. They sip champagne, which miraculously appears from the pick-up jeeps. They pose for group photos. They beam in self-congratulation.

Our more down-to-earth approach to the white tufa was to walk the walks, occasionally sipping juice from a tetrapak. We were content with spotting red poppies and strange bees but we too got our miracles, a turtle on a bank, a dormouse in the tall grass, and even a snake on the tar road.

One afternoon we scampered over the rocks of Rose Valley to the neighbouring village of Cavusin and for the first time we saw the Turkish sky fill with clouds and lightning. We had thought to take a minibus back to Goreme or to simply walk back along the highway. But no bus appeared, and we readied ourselves to brave the chill downpour. Just in time, two young men on motorcycles roared up to the bus stop and called out “Taxi?” Motorcycle taxis, they meant, at €5 a head. We didn’t pause to discuss helmets or speed limits, and in seconds I was racing the wind, behind a man I did not know well enough to hold on to. Krishnan and his driver shrank to a dot on the water-streaked horizon behind me. Caves, mounds, and cattle zipped past. We were drenched by passing lorries, and there was sodden hair in my eyes.

My driver, an incorrigible, irresistible Turkish style, flirted with me instead of watching the road. “Francaise?” he shouted, over the engine. “Oui, oui, francaise!” I hollered back. Anything to get him to look forward again. His cap flew off and I hoped he would stop to find it so that we might both survive this wild ride, but he shrugged and vroomed on. Soon we screeched to a stop in front of a familiar cafe and gingerly dismounted. We counted our limbs, thanked our stars and paid off our saviours. It was good to be back on our own feet, but it had been exhilarating to fly over Cappadocia after all.