Free From The Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple Page B

arse.'
     
     
     
     
    I stanbul , 3 A ugust
     
    My last day in Istanbul; tonight the train.
    This morning I went to the Phanar to say goodbye to Fr. Dimitrios, and to collect the letters of introduction he has written to the hegumenoi (abbots) of the Greek monasteries in the Holy Land and Sinai.
    Running down the stairs from Fr. Dimitrios's office, I knocked into a visiting Greek monk who was crouching in the doorway leading into the courtyard, feeding the sparrows. I apologised and we fell into conversation. He said he had been to England once but did not like it much. 'It was so sad,' he remarked. 'All the churches were closed. In Ipswich I went. Not one church was open. Not one!' He added darkly: 'I read in a magazine that the head of the Satan Cult lives in England.'
    He disliked London and was unimpressed by Buckingham Palace. In fact only two places really appealed to him. One was Kew: 'Your Kew Gardens! So beautiful! So lovely! I would feed the squirrels and bring them nuts.' The other was a shop in Lambeth which sold religious trinkets. From his suitcase the monk produced a small plastic hologram of Christ. 'It is so beautiful, no? It is by a Swiss artist and is based on the exact likeness of Jesus. Some of the other monks think it is not pleasing to look at, but I do not understand why. Walk around: look! Now our Lord is smiling! Now he is showing his sobriety! Now he is dead. Now he is risen! Alleluia! It is so beautiful, no? I carry it with me always.'
     

     
    A night ferry across the black Bosphorus to Haydarpasha, the Anatolian railhead of the old Berlin to Baghdad railway that ‘I. E. Lawrence spent so long trying to blow up. Tomorrow to Ankara to pick up my press card.
    On the train the conductor had no record of my reservation. But he asked me my nationality, and when I told him, I thought I saw a brief flicker of terror cross his face; certainly, I was immediately upgraded to first class. Only when I sat eating supper in the station restaurant did I discover the reason for this uncharacteristically flexible behaviour: there was a European Cup soccer match that evening between Manchester United and Galatasaray, and the television news was full of the English visitors' traditional pre-match activities: trashing restaurants, picking fights, beating up innocent Turks and so on. For the first time I felt grateful for English football's international reputation for hooliganism: it seemed that my compatriots from Manchester had unknowingly guaranteed me a first-class berth for the night.
     
     
    N ight bus between A nkara and A ntioch , 6/7 A ugust
     
    4.15 a.m.: This is a horrible way to travel. It is nearly dawn, and the first glimmer of light has illuminated an expanse of flat plains covered by a wraith of thin mist. The rutted roads, the bracing crash of the long-defunct suspension, the snoring Anatolian peasants: these one expects and can bear. What is intolerable is the deliberate regime of sleep deprivation imposed on all passengers by this driver and his henchman, the moustachioed Neanderthal of a conductor.
    Every other hour we pull in to some seedy kebab restaurant. The lights are put on, we are shaken awake and a Turkish chanteuse is put on the Tannoy so loud that we have no option but to vacate the bus. The driver and his friend disappear behind the scenes to pick up their commission from the restaurant owner, while we are all expected to make merry with plateloads of malignant kebabs or, even more horrible in the middle of the night, bags full of sickly-sweet Turkish delight.
    Worse is to follow. On returning to our seats, the Neanderthal marches down the aisles, gaily shaking eau de cologne over the outstretched hands of the passengers. This can be quite refreshing at three o'clock on a hot afternoon; but it is irritating beyond belief at three o'clock in the dull chill of the early morning. And so on we trundle, rattling and shaking like a spin dryer, smelling like a tart's boudoir, tempers