Among The Bedu

The glowing embers of the fire illuminate the faces around the circle, and the charcoal scent of roasting meat wafts from the makeshift grill. Glass cups of sweet black shai glint in the flickering red-orange light as they're passed around, while overhead an astonishing canopy of stars dots the dark, moonless night sky with pinpricks of light drifting across the celestial wasteland of remote time and space. The wind blows gently across the silence of the desert, the only sounds the protesting grunts of the camels penned just behind us and the animated patter of rapid fire Arabic from my amiable Beduin companians.

Suddenly, as if by magic, there is the sound of loud music. The chords seem familiar, yet perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me? It couldn't be, surely? It is. A well-known husky voice growls the opening line, then another gravelly-sounding baritone interjects. Before Sting can add his guttural whine to Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart's wailing, a medley of heavily-accented cries rises from the manically-grinning Bedu as they sing along.

I'm in eastern Syria, sitting in the garden of a Beduin family with whom I'm spending the weekend. I came to visit the fabled Roman ruins of Palmyra; once, in another epoch, a hugely significant outpost on the Silk Road to the Orient, at its zenith ruled by the semi-mythical Queen Zenobia, purportedly a descendent of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony. The Zenobians, and the Romans, may have disappeared into the sands of the desert 18 centuries ago, leaving behind only dusty brown ruins, but not all the inhabitants of this area have been lost in the mists of time. The nomadic Bedu endure here, much as they have for countless millennia, eking a patchy living from the forbidding wastes of sand with camels and small flocks of livestock, wandering the desert with their black goat-hair tents, distinctive red and white checked keffiyehs, and legendary code of honour and hospitality.

Or so the story goes.

Few peoples have been as romanticised by Western travellers as the Bedu. Deified as timeless, immovable, immutable, much like the desert itself, the Bedu long ago ceased to be mere men in the eyes of awestruck orientalists. This race of supermen captivated desert explorers from the earliest days of Western encroachment in the orient. Revered by great men like Burton, Lawrence, and Thesiger for their apparently stubborn resistance to the influence of modernity and their refusal to alter their ancient way of life, these fairytale nomads perservere with their traditions of hospitality and welcome amid the inhospitable landscapes of the harshest, most unforgiving environment on earth.

I was introduced to Ahmed and his bewildering array of brothers, uncles, and cousins through a classmate in Damascus. Bedu hospitality being what it is, I was assured that "of course" there would be no problem in our showing up unannounced for a weekend. The welcome was predictably warm, the smiles sincere, and the tea predictably sweet. Yet far from anachronistic desert-dwellers, rejecting the advances of technology, "civilisation", and modernity, I found my expectations confounded by the often-confusing and contradictory reality of 21st century nomads. Camel-riding desert wanderers who use mobile phones and 4 wheel drives. Devout Muslims who worship Enrique Iglesias and Bryan Adams. Keffiyeh and jalabiyya-wearing fashion victims who argue vehemently over the relative merits of Giorgio Armani and Calvin Klein. Fiercely loyal traditionalists with a strong belief in the purity of their bloodlines who like nothing more than bedding Western tourists awestruck by the otherworldly beauty and exoticism of men who live in the desert.

Despite the late hour (it's well past 2am when we arrive), dinner is prepared and served with gusto. We sit cross-legged on the floor in the living room, a dizzying mosaic of carpets and rugs beneath us, low slung cushions at our backs. An ancient television in the corner shows reruns of what i take to be an Arabic version of Pop Idol. In the modern, globalised world, some things apparently cut across all cultural and linguistic boundaries: talentless masochistic wannabes lobotomised at birth included. The men, and they are all men, eat hungrily. Though it's late, or early, depending on your perspective, it will soon be dawn: the first rays of sunlight will bring the resumption of the Ramadan fast. The plates of humous, salad and chargrilled chicken are cleared away: we sleep where we eat.

Next morning Ahmed's designer jeans and t-shirt have been swapped for austere white robes and checked head-dress. The transformation is startling: suddenly he is no longer an urbane Westernised Syrian, but a desert-dwelling nomad. I fear my own borrowed keffiyeh effects less of a total metamorphasis on my appearance, though it does at least keep me cool as we ride camels to the nearby ruins. Palymra is certainly spectacular: in size, setting, and state of preservation it dwarfs anything in Turkey by a factor of at least ten. Yet given Syria's post 9-11 classification as a "rogue state" and "supporter of terrorism" by the West, the site is deserted. No tour buses or cruise ships here, al hamdu-li-Allah. Yet my hosts might disagree - the family business is tourism - as well as leading trips to the ruins and longer excursions into the desert, Ahmed owns a hotel in the nearby town of Tadmor. Other Bedu families earn a living (or not) in similar fashion: as a result of the slack market numerous camel-drovers and souvenir keffiyeh salesmen loiter languidly in the shade of Palmyra's ancient stones, scarcely a customer in sight.

Despite the tough times, Ahmed blanches at the suggestion of payment for our stay. As friends of a friend, Mauro and I are entitled to the full gamut of Bedu hospitality. Although their way of life is changing rapidly, some things remain the same. The Bedu will adapt their customs, just as they always have (contrary to popular belief, camels were a relatively recent addition to the nomads' arsenal of defences against the ravages of the desert), but Inshaallah their traditions of generosity and kindness to strangers will endure.

As I write this in a Damascus internet cafe, a familiar song plays on the radio. Bryan, Rod, and Sting croon the theme tune to The Three Musketeers. It occurs to me this makes a fitting motif for the Bedu and their ancient code of hospitality: "one for all and all for one." I prefer "Summer of 69" myself, but anyway...

Be Careful What You Wish For

It's 5am. I sit in a dingy smoke-filled room with fake wood panels on the walls, drinking my thirty-fourth cup of tea of the evening. It seems my fervent prayers to the travel gods have been answered, and I will after all get to see the real Turkey, away from the tourist hordes. I'm in a motorway service station somewhere between Antioch and Alexandretta, waiting for a bus. Glamourous though it may sound, those two cities stopped being interesting around the seventh century AD; regardless of which, I'm not sure this tea and kebab joint by a highway was ever really a highlight of the country even in Seljuk or Mamluk times. No-one here speaks English, I've asked three people to point out our location on the map of Turkey in my Lonely Planet "Middle East" and got three totally different answers, and I can't quite shake the feeling I've been abandoned to my fate by the Sula Bus Company. Still, looking on the bright side, at least there are no tourists here...

To pass the time I read. As I turn the pages of Alexander Maitland's compelling biography of the late Wilfred Thesiger, the legendary British explorer as famed for his total rejection of modern Western civilisation as for his incredible desert traverses in Sudan, Ethiopia, Libya and Saudi Arabia, I wonder what the likes of Thesiger would make of my predicament. Not a great deal probably; when you're the first man to traverse the impassable "Empty Quarter" of southern Arabia, you've lived with the Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq for seven years, and you count the Abbysinian Emperor the Ras Tefari Haile Selassi as a close personal friend, you probably don't regard Turkish truck stops as much of an adventure. Nevertheless, after a couple of weeks spent hanging out with people whose idea of "exploring" is finding a Starbucks in Istanbul, I feel suitably off the beaten track. Particularly because as time passes it seems more and more likely that I'll be seeing out the rest of my days here at this Anatolian version of a Happy Eater.

I console myself with the fact that given twenty years of sitting here I should at least have grasped the rudiments of basic Turkish. Until this morning I was rather proud of the fifty or so words (twenty of which are the numbers 1-20 I must admit) of Turkish I'd picked up; the ability to order a beer, some hummous, and a chicken shish kebab, and ask the price all earned me much appreciated kudos from the locals - on one occasion, at Ephesus I chuckled smugly to myself as a barechested Brit with a Cockney accent and a Manchester City tattoo on his left bicep (glory supporter?) paid 4 euros for the same glass of orange juice I'd just picked up for 2 lira using my amazing new Turkish skills. Now, however, as I attempt to enunciate such complex phrases as "no I don't want more sodding tea, where the fuck is the bus?", I realise the limit of my capabilities in this particular tongue was reached just after I learned "thank you" ("teshekur ederrim" if you wanted to know).

Eventually, after a couple of years, the relevant bus arrived, and I was charged a further twenty lira for the privilege of a seat, thus leaving me with the princely sum of six Turkish lira to my name. "Still", I thought, "there's bound to be a cash machine at the bus station in Antioch". After around five hours of travelling through scenery that alternated between the spectacular vistas of mountains, plains, and Mediterranean in the countryside, and the slightly less spectacular industrial dystopias of steelworks and gas refineries that dot the towns along Turkey's southeastern coast, we finally arrived at the desolate and remote Antakya Otogar: situated, of course, a good few miles from anywhere, and notable for the singular absence of any holes in the wall from which to remove hard currency. Once again I faced the less than ideal prospect of taking up permanent residency in a remote Turkish bus station.

On this occasion, however, I had not taken into consideration the legendary hospitality of the Arabs (for the cynics out there, no, that doesn't involve orange jumpsuits, beheadings, and YouTube). For the bus company was Syrian, the passengers were all Syrian, and as a guest in their country (well, nearly), they were obligated to look after me. Code of the desert you see: one day they may be passing my, er, tent, and be in desperate need of hospitality. Most of the Arabs may not live in the desert any longer, but the old ways live on. "Only six lira, no problem! Welcome to Syria! Have a chocolate chip cookie." "Mmm...don't mind if I do. Shukran". It will doubtless surprise many of you to learn this, but because of Islam's roots in the Arabian desert, such hospitality is customary not just in Arab states, but across the Muslim world (though some of the Iraqis might admittedly have let standards slip a little lately). In Rory Stewart's "The Places In Between", the former British diplomat's incredible tale of his walk from Tehran to Kathmandu in 2002, the Afghan mujehideen's desperate desire to kill an infidel Westerner (and what's more, a Brit) in their midst is tempered by Stewart's status as a visitor in their lands. Instead of chopping his head off they kill the fatted goat and let him sleep in their front rooms. I'm not recommending you try this at home or anything, but...

Anyway, after a very pleasant sojourn through the formalities at the Turkish-Syrian border, I arrived in Aleppo. Syrian immigration is quite something: polite and friendly guards sit beneath posters in a multitude of languages advising guests to report any "troublesome behaviour" from Immigration officials to their supervisor; furthermore "if this does not resolve you issue, please call Minister of Interior, phone number 337676". No, I haven't tried it yet, before you ask. You're welcome to give him a call though. Next to each of these posters, indeed all over Syria from what I can see, stands the image of a shy-looking man, seemingly much more suited to the life of a provincial optician than military dictator of one of the founder members of the infamous "Axis of Evil". This is, of course, President Bashar al-Asad, Syria's number one opthalmic surgeon, and also lifetime ruler. At least I know where to go if my contact lenses start playing up in Damascus then. As a fellow University of London alumnus I'm sure old Bashar would love to hear from me. We could compare notes on Crush and Cocktails, and bemoan the expense of being a student in London. No?

Well, bus adventure aside, I certainly feel I'm off the tourist trail here in Aleppo. Crossing the border from Turkey was like crossing into a different world. Arab and Muslim dress abound here, everything closes early today, the Sabbath, and people in the street address me in Arabic, not cliched English of the "lubbly jubbly, good price for you friend" variety. Syria's second city is everything I hoped it would be: the great souk is like every fairytale of the Orient come true at once, the Christian Quarter is an openair archaeology museum, and the locals couldn't be friendlier. I even saw my first roadsign for Baghdad earlier, as if to emphasise the fact that this is the real Middle East. Still, I think I'll stick with Syria - I hear Iraq is overrun with British and American visitors these days, and something tells me the locals are a little more welcoming here.

Ancient Cities of Anatolia

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"

With these words Percy Shelley famously damned the legendary Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II and his vainglorious dreams of immortality through architectural achievement. As I wander the ruins of Troy, Pergamum, Ephesus, Hierapolis, and Aphrodisias, and survey what little remains of some of the greatest civilisations in human history, I am constantly reminded of Shelley's biting irony. As I stroll between the piles of rubble, decapitated statues, and precarious-looking columns that represent the only physical legacy of the great empires of antiquity, it's difficult not to wonder what will remain of modern Western civilisation 2,000 years from now. In future millennia will people stroll down Picadilly or Fifth Avenue and gaze upon a few tangled metal girders, some piles of broken glass, and fragments of a green and white coffee mug and ponder about their by now semi-mythical forebears and their worship of the great god Starbuck?

Ancient cities always fascinate me, not just for their aesthetic beauty and historical resonnance, but also because I can't help but be amused by the often ludicrous assumptions presented as fact by archaeologists. Just as their colleagues in paleontology blithely assure us that from the four fragments of leg bone they have found they are certain Tyrannosaurus rex was olive green, could run at 28.72mph, and generally liked to eat rare roast pheasant accompanied by a starter of quail's eggs, so too do archaeologists offer ridiculously unprovable claims about the everyday lives of our ancient ancestors. For this reason, I tend to prefer visiting archaeological sites alone rather than with a guide, thus allowing me to silently admire the spectacle, be awestruck by the unanswerable questions, and generally take in the very special ambience of ancient places, without some well-intentioned halfwit blathering on about the imagined culinary preferences of Roman/Greek/Inca peasants. At a couple of sites here ın Turkey I have been able to indulge my no doubt idiosyncratic tendencies and wander unmolested through ruins of staggering scale and resonance. The spectacular location of Pergamum in particular, sitting high on an exposed peak with staggering views over the windswept plains below, will live with me forever.

Quite why this particular gem is not overrun with busloads of tourists I'm not sure; I'm certainly not complaining, however. One site which is rather 'blessed' with a bounty of visitors is Ephesus, arguably the most famous of Turkey's archaeological treasures, and generally regarded by most authorities on the matter (though not by me I might add) as the most spectacular. By happy coincidence, Ephesus is located just a short hop from the major port and tourist resort of Kusadasi, thus allowing all manner of cruise ship passengers to disembark and venture inland. While the ruins are admittedly quite spectacular, for me the real spectacle was the other visitors. (Particularly once I learned that by far the most notable part of the complex, the Library of Celsus, was actually rebuilt from bare rubble by a team of German archaeologists in the 1970s. This revelation, while disappointing, did at least clear up the nagging doubt ın my mind as to where the Romans had sourced their concrete in 200AD.)

Confusing my ancient history just for a second, Ephesus today is a veritable Tower of Babel, with every language under the sun audible on a casual saunter around the mammoth site. Each linguistic grouping, each nationality, seems to bring its own idiosyncracies to the party. It gives me no great shame to admit the Brits are among the most heinous of the visitors, dressed uniformly in badly fitting beach attire, with a skin colour that closely resembles either freshly driven snow or a recent victim of napalm and a physique that recalls nothing so much as a hippo wallowing on the banks of the Limpopo. Yet the Brits are far from alone. The Americans wander around gaily in their knee length white socks and khaki shorts, pointing at things and loudly saying "aww gee" and "shucks"' while quietly wheezing as their aged respiratory systems prepare to give out. Indeed, most of the American tourists I've seen in Turkey appear so ancient that one might reasonably assume they're returning to visit old haunts, rather than touring the remnants of long-gone ancient civilisations. One particular specimen I witnessed staggering down a once-colonnaded Roman street, portable dialysis machine/colon/heart trailing in his wake might perhaps better have stayed at home. Then there are the parasol-toting Asians, some of whom wear something highly akin to a Nuclear Biological and Chemical warfare suit in a desperate attempt to prevent their skin colour lightening even a shade darker than ice. I could go on: the fat middle aged Russians and their whores, the totally obnoxious French, superior and condescending despite their inherent ugliness and lack of style, or the Italians chattering excitedly on their mobiles while their guide drones manfully on in the background; but I won't.

Why is it that tourists always revert to being tired cliches of their nationality? Actually, I don't care. All that matters is that Turkey, or at least the Aegean coast and Cappadocia, is full of tourists. While the language barrier clearly doesn't help, I feel the overwhelming presence of fellow tourists and the near impossibility of seeing any of the sites without using a tour guide leaves me totally incapable of making any kind of connection with the Turkish people or of understanding the country at all. Every interaction I have is purely on the basis of tourist-native. Of course this is always the case to some degree, though less so when language is less of an issue, and especially when there aren't so many fellow tourists. In this respect it's probably a good thing that I finish this post to board an overnight bus bound for Aleppo, Syria's second city, and supposedly the most conservative place in the country, complete with what is reputedly the greatest medieval souk in the whole region.

Turkey has been great, but the Middle East starts now. Er, that is unless the Israeli Defence Force crosses the border before I do:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6981674.stm

Battlefield Turkey

"I don’t order you to fight, I order you to die."

In April 1915, with these ominous words to his troops, the previously unknown Ottoman lieutenant colonel Mustafa Kemal launched his country's desperate defence of the Gallipolli Peninsula from invasion by British, French, and Commonwealth forces. In the next nine and a half months, 130,000 troops from both sides would obey his order and perish as the invasion was repelled; from the ashes of this senseless, pointless slaughter would rise three nations: Australia, New Zealand, and of course Turkey, led by former lieutenant colonel Mustafa Kemal, renamed Atatürk and accorded a godlike status that endures even to the present day.

Visiting the war graves of the Gallipolli Peninsula is seemingly a rite of passage for all Australians and New Zealanders, who come in their thousands each year; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission reports that the cemeteries from what is known ın Britain as the "Dardanelles Campaign" are the most visited of all the war memorials that venerable organisation maintain worldwide. As I wandered among the simple white headstones that dot the well-kept lawns, surrounded by unusually subdued Antipodean youths in their trademark board shorts and wife-beater vests, I couldn't but feel a certain incredulity at this amazing fact. Perhaps equally worthy of incredulity: this was the first time I'd ever seen an Australian male cry. Strewth mate.

Apart of course from the not inconsiderable distance involved ın travelling to Turkey to pay respects to long-dead ancestors from a now almost forgotten conflict, the fact of the matter is that actually very few Australia New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) troops perished at Gallipolli. The two nations' combined losses numbered scarcely 11,000, figures dwarfed by the British, French, and above all Turkish deaths in the same campaign. While a large number by the surgical standards of modern warfare, 11,000 deaths in nearly ten months of fighting was pitifully small for the Great War; over on the Western Front the British and French were busily losing troops with such efficiency that 11,000 dead would have represented a quiet morning.

To my mind it reflects great credit on the Australians that they make the journey in such numbers. By the same token it is a fairly damning indictment of modern Britain that the only citizens of our once-proud nation who make the much shorter pilgrimage to the war graves of France and Belgium are strange beardy men who drink real ale, live with their mothers, and build airfix aeroplanes at weekends. I myself visited some years ago on a schooltrip, led by my history teachers: strange beardy men who drink real ale, live with their mothers, and build airfix aeroplanes at weekends.

Despite the statistics, Gallipolli holds an almost mythical significance for Australians and New Zealanders - the start of the campaign is commemorated annually on Anzac Day - and is widely regarded as the founding myth of both countries. In truth it's not really difficult to see why. The realisation that the motherland held its colonies in such low regard was signalled loud and clear by the botched operation - with the kind of logic I previously thought only possible from Monty Python, the British commanders opted to land the hapless Anzacs at the foot of near-vertical cliffs, reasoning that the Turks would never expect an attack in such an inherently foolhardy location. You just couldn't make this stuff up. Luckily for future generations, the man publicly "credited" with responsibility for the Dardanelles debacle, the British First Lord of the Admiralty, one Winston S. Churchill, was to prove a little more strategically adept in later years.

Of the numerous Australians makıng the pilgrimage on the same day as me, the consensus opinion seemed to agree with the words on one headstone I saw: "They never fail who die ın a great cause". Unfortunately for Antipodean pride, however, our melancholy Turkish guıde was unequivocal in his refusal to offer solace to the memory of the fallen: "Turks, Aussies, Kiwis, Brits - they all died for nothing. What a waste". (He was right of course, apart from the overall futility of the First World War, little more than a family feud between the bickering cousins who ruled Britain, Germany and Russia, the Turkish theatre of the war was especially pointless. Gallipolli did not succumb to the Allies, but the Ottoman Empire would eventually fall anyway, not to the might of the full Allied onslaught in Turkey, but to a ragtag bunch of Bedouin led by a semi-deranged homosexual in white robes on a camel in Mesopotamia. We shall return to the incomparable T.E. Lawrence in a couple of months.)

As the modern day invaders from Down Under, rather more successful than their predecessors ninety years ago, came to terms with the rather uncomfortable and unexpected news that 150,000 young lives, among them many of their forefathers, had been sacrificed on the altar of Churchill's vanity, I gained some comfort from the knowledge that we live in a much more civilised age today, when brave young men would never be sent to foreign fields to perish in senseless conflicts with no purpose save the egotistcal aggrandisement of foolish politicians.

Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.

Turkish Delight

"Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar
Ashadu an la Ilah ila Allah
Ashadu an Mohammed rasul Allah
Haya ala as-sala
Haya ala as-sala"

The afternoon call to prayer echoes from the minarets of Istanbul's countless mosques. As on previous visits to Egypt and Morocco, I find it an unforgettable, visceral, heart-wrenchingly evocative soundtrack to the Middle East. Yet it seems the locals don't share my reverence. I'm sitting in a bar in a quaint covered alleyway just off Istanbul's main shopping street, Istiklal Caddesi, drinking a pint of Efes Pilsner, and watching the Turks getting tipsy. On the table to my right, a pair of raucous middle-aged Turkish men whoop and holler as their friend attempts to throw peanuts across the room into a pint. (Why is this funny? I have no idea. It just is. It's hilarious. It's like building giant snakes out of empty pint glasses at the cricket - brilliant!) Behind them, oblivious, another customer intently studies what seems to be Turkey's answer to The Racing Post, looking up occasionally to chart the progress of his fillies on a plasma screen showing live racing from who-knows-where. A couple of the waiters break off from their serving duties to glance at the other plasma screen, where a 24 hour Turkish News station offers confirmation that the country has a new President: the "Islamist" former Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

To say Istanbul is a little confusing is an understatement. Am I in Europe? Am I in the Middle East? I'm in neither. Or both. I'm not sure. It's about as cliched as can be to say that Turkey, and in particular Istanbul, is at the crossroads of East and West, yet it's so overwhelmingly true that it's difficult to resist stating the obvious.

I woke with a start as the bus from Sabiha Grokcen Airport turned onto a bridge, O2 choosing that exact moment to inform me via text message that I could call home by adding "+44" to my numbers. Safe in the knowledge that I could now go ahead and quickly accumulate a phone bill roughly equivalent to the GDP of Chad, I turned to contemplate the staggering views. We were crossing the Bosphorus, the mighty stretch of water that separates western Istanbul from eastern Istanbul, Thrace from Anatolia, Europe from Asia, Occident from Orient. Yet both sides of this channel are Turkey, both sides are Istanbul. I can't think of many other cities in the world that physically straddle two continents - perhaps the cities on the banks of the two great Canals, Panama and Suez - there surely can't be any city in the world that metaphorically straddles two cultures like Istanbul.

At first glance, it's as European as Amsterdam, Paris or Berlin. Impeccably well-dressed men stroll hand in hand with their scantily-clad girlfriends down wide, tree-lined boulevards, stopping to sip lattes in roadside cafes. Shoppers throng the streets, clutching bags from Benetton, Nike, or Body Shop and stopping to refuel at KFC, McDonalds, or the ubiquitous Starbucks. Distant skyscrapers loom over the financial district, as important-looking suits hurry from meeting to meeting in their chauffeur-driven BMWs and Mercedes. Yet the shining glass and steel towers do not quite have the skyline to themselves. Hundreds of identical minarets and domes, the telltale characteristics of innumerable mosques, leap skyward out of Istanbul's lowrise suburbs, and, five times a day, intone their haunting invocation to prayer.

In truth, I expected a little more of "the Orient" and a little less of the European. The Grand Bazaar, loftily described by Lonely Planet as "mindblowing", "labyrinthine" and "medieval" seemed more Bluewater than Byzantium to me. Endless glass-fronted shops selling international designer goods strike an incongruous note among the seemingly anachronistic carpet sellers and hookah-vendors; even the usual slick sales pitch appears to have been toned down here - I didn't once hear the immortal "good price for you my friend!". Perhaps last year's days spent wandering the great Khan-al-Khalili Souq in Cairo have inured me to the charms of other, lesser Oriental markets, or perhaps I'm being pedantic or idealistic in finding the presence of Armani and Calvin Klein a little more boutique than bazaar, but I was slightly disappointed.

Yet Istanbul's other main sights have not disappointed, despite the indescribably large crowds of fellow tourists I meet everywhere. The Topkapi Palace contains opulent riches to match anything in the world, my own personal favourites being the gold and jewel-encased arm and skull of (allegedly) John The Baptist, and an eighty-six (I repeat, eighty-six) carat diamond found in a rubbish heap in the 16th Century, before being sold for the princely sum of three spoons. I wonder what David Dickenson would make of that. The Blue Mosque is like a fairytale of the Orient, what every mosque should look like, while the Aya Sofia, to my mind not as aesthetically appealing as its azure neighbour, more than makes up for any worn around the edges feel with its long and incredible history. From 527AD until the Ottoman Conquest of what was then Constantinople, the Aya Sofia was undisputedly the finest Church in Christendom. The Sultans, not wishing to let religion get in the way of architectural splendour, promptly covered the Christian images, tacked on a couple of minarets, and converted it to a Mosque. When Turkey underwent its most recent religious conversion, from Islam to secularism, under Ataturk in the 1930s, the edifice was declared a museum. Today the features of the two religions are intertwined in the decoration of the building: crescents and Arabic inscriptions sitting side-by-side with crosses and craven images of Christ and the Virgin Mary.

If the Aya Sofia is a fitting summary of Istanbul's religious schizophrenia, events outside the building on the day of my visit neatly emphasise the contrast between modernity and antiquity. A cobalt blue BMW M3 is being towed away for parking illegally, in an area designated solely for horse drawn carts. The screech of the alarm drowns out the muezzins' haunting cries from the minarets. No-one seems to notice.