Not all journeys are geographic
I arrived in Istanbul on the 4th of June, exhausted and euphoric. For two months, my sole focus had been cycling here. My body demanded vast quantities of baked goods to keep my legs spinning. My mind fixated on the next turn, snack and sleep spot, monotonously repeating its simple mantra: go go go and keep going until you get there. Many times, since setting off from Glasgow on a stormy April day – unfit, underprepared, unable even to stop the Garmin beeping at me every 10 seconds – I genuinely doubted if I’d make it. I was riding on hope and living on a prayer.
And now, I was here. Every turn of the pedals had brought me closer to realising my long-held dream of cycling across a continent. To my surprise, I was ahead of schedule, giving me an unexpected two-week hiatus in Istanbul before I could go home and be reunited with my loved ones.
I was completely unprepared for what came next.
Much like a bride who meticulously plans a spectacular wedding but overlooks the marriage that follows, I hadn’t considered what would come after crossing the finish line. The adventure stories I devoured since childhood offered no clues either. In those tales, the hero overcomes challenges, completes the mission, and returns home triumphant: the end.
It wasn’t quite like that for me.
As the door closed on the physical journey of constantly pushing through the miles, to my surprise I found another door opening to a more personal, inner journey. The postscript to my cycle adventure turned out to be two of the most important weeks of the entire trip.
First Impressions
How you get to a destination, especially a far-flung one, makes all the difference to your first impressions of it. Dropping out of the sky into the uniform hell of an airport terminal, then emerging blinking into an unfamiliar landscape, climate, time zone and culture can be an alienating experience that cuts the traveller off from making sense of their destination in its wider geographical context.
Arriving somewhere new at the end of a slow, self-powered, overland journey is more like meeting the friend of a friend. I felt connected to Istanbul immediately as one end of a thread that links the western edge of the European continent to Asia and the Muslim world. I’d witnessed how one slowly morphs into the other: around Serbia I’d stopped drinking milk and start drinking yoghurt, as the locals did; I’d felt in my legs the flat plains along the River Danube turn into rolling hills and then the mountains of Bulgaria; seen how people slowly become darker-skinned; and heard how a single voice reciting the call to prayer from a small rural mosque near the Bulgarian/Turkish border gradually builds into the cacophony calling the faithful from multiple spectacular mosques in bigger cities.
While this context armed me against any culture shock on arriving in Istanbul, I did have to adjust to the abrupt change in my lifestyle. Waking up on the first morning, I was blissfully relieved to be able to spend the day eating, sleeping and watching YouTube videos instead of cycling in the heat. No navigating, helmet hair, being chased by dogs or worrying about where I’m going to sleep – what luxury!
Very soon, though, I remembered that stationary life has its own demands. Having been happy with wearing the same cycling trousers and one of two t-shirts every day for two months, I now felt I should go shopping for a more extensive wardrobe. Living in a rented apartment meant a return to regular domestic chores: food shopping, cooking, cleaning. No longer burning thousands of extra calories a day meant watching how much I was eating. I had to navigate public transport and go on a full-day mission to acquire a bike box from the other side of the city. Constant access to the internet was a novelty and inevitably became a black hole for my time and attention.
All of this made me feel physically and mentally heavier. I wrote in my diary:
“It occurred to me this morning that I’ve gone from feeling like a fish swimming upstream in a wide, beautiful river – strong, purposeful, always moving onwards – to existing more like a slimy frog stagnating in a dirty pond.”
This captured my sense of what I had lost from coming to a physical standstill.
Main character energy
Istanbul was more than a match for any gloomy feelings. Never have I been in a city that so palpably felt like it had been the centre of a great empire – or three. The vibe is one of ceaseless movement, the noisy energy of an Asian metropolis pulsing through European streets. I wrote in my diary:
“I love this city. It’s endlessly interesting, beautiful and varied. Food is great, people are lovely. My overwhelming impression of the Turkish people is just how lovely they are. I’ve been mightily impressed.”
A brief encounter with an elderly shopkeeper on the Asian side of the Bosphorus exemplified the dignified, unassuming, true hospitality that I so often encountered. As I walked past him on the way to the ferry, his serious eyes caught and then gently held my gaze, and he solemnly said: you are welcome here. His words were like an arrow to the heart.
The embrace of this city encompasses all kinds of people; it is as compressed a model of the wider world as you could find. I would fall asleep to the sound of the call to prayer ringing out over thumping hip hop beats from nightclubs, the competing sounds of this unlikely duet now coming together, now seeming to clash. Bougie coffee shops with menus and prices to rival those of London sit alongside street stalls selling glasses of Turkish tea for pennies. There is every style of dress and shade of skin. It is a city that is trying to piece together disparate cultures and identities, much as I am.
I have never been anywhere like it. I have rarely felt such a sense of belonging.
The Golden Years
“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” Kurt Vonnegut
They say energy is contagious. The longer I was steeped in the confidence and beauty of this city, the more moments of deep contentment I experienced, that will stay with me for a long time.
Doing nothing for a few beautiful minutes of stillness, lying on a comfy bed in an air-conditioned room, bathed in a pool of warm afternoon sunshine, breathing deeply and feeling glad to be alive, here and now.
Finding the best rose Turkish delight in a market on the Asian side of the city and indulging my inner child by gobbling down a whole bag of it on the ferry back to the apartment.
Laughing delightedly at the screwed-up disgusted expression on the face of a fellow tourist tasting a particularly pungent, slightly fizzy version of the ubiquitous salty yoghurt drink.
The tactile pleasure of a pillowcase full of soapy suds being rubbed onto my warm body in the hammam and the smell of clean, perfumed skin.
After cycling through miles of empty countryside across Europe, punctuated by depressingly quiet villages with boarded up shops and no young people, too many ‘for sale’ signs and derelict farms littered with rusting pieces of junk, the energy of this city was the perfect antidote. I soaked it up.
Two Angels and a Devil
In this magical place, I met two angels and a devil.
(No, this isn’t the beginning of a bad joke or a fantastical tale from the Arabian Nights.)
The first angel was Mosque Man. As I hovered near the entrance of a striking mosque, unsure of where to borrow a headscarf, he noticed my hesitation and gently pointed me in the right direction. This genuine helpfulness was commonplace in Istanbul, but what was remarkable was the aura he radiated before he’d even said a word: kindness, a certain quiet, calm confidence and LIGHT seemed to shine out of his eyes. His wife finished her prayers and they left together hand in hand. This fleeting encounter made a deep impression. Ask and it shall be given you…I went inside the mosque and offered up a quick silent prayer.
The second angel was a Kazakh medical student I met at the Camlica mosque – the biggest in the whole of Turkey. Generous and straightforward, her easy smile and youthful energy immediately endeared her to me. We laughed, shared stories and food, and then parted ways. She popped up exactly when I needed her to, her innocence the counterpoint to the dark introspection that had kept me up the previous night. I was full of gratitude.
The devil I encountered was within myself.
As a child, my Grandad introduced me to a famous Punjabi qawwali (Sufi devotional music) with profound lyrics:
“He read a lot and became a scholar
But he never read himself.
He enters into the temple and mosque
But he never entered into his own heart.
He fights in vain with the devil every day.
He never wrestled with his own ego.
He grabs for flying creatures
But doesn’t grasp the one who’s sitting at home.”
The message is simple; living by it is not.
In Istanbul, I was forced to confront parts of myself I had long avoided. It was an intensely uncomfortable experience that continues to challenge me even after returning home.
Hidden aspects of my personality began to bubble up to the surface, as if a veil had been lifted. Traits and tendencies I had never fully acknowledged before came into focus. I wrestled with memories of difficult conversations where feedback had been offered and angrily rejected; I replayed them in my mind, trying to see truth where before I had seen red.
I thought about Mosque Man and asked myself what kind of aura I radiate. I thought about the Kazakh angel and wondered where I lost my youthful innocence.
These insights, brought forth by the journey and the time and space to reflect in this hiatus immediately afterwards, were both enlightening and unsettling. Frankly, the inner journey into my psyche was sometimes more exhausting than the cycling had been.
Sitting on the steps outside the apartment one evening, feeding off the buzz from the young crowd also gathered there, I tried to answer the question “what else do I want to do with my life?” After scribbling down a short list of goals that I’ve talked about for years, I wrote in my diary:
“Having now achieved one of my biggest goals, all of these seem small and eminently achievable”.
In some ways, at the immediate end of my big adventure, I felt powerful and full of agency to direct my own life. On the other hand, I felt like I had only scratched at the surface of knowing myself at all. The journey had given me confidence that I can achieve big things if I put my mind to it – but who am I now and what do I really want? These are questions to continue pondering on my return.
One door closes and another opens
On my last day in Istanbul, I awoke to a release of positive energy. A wise person once told me that enlightenment is realising you already have everything you need, and I was grateful I had felt like this on my journey. I wrote in my diary:
“It’s my last full day here and of the journey. I finally feel like I have some clarity. I felt so grateful when I woke up for all the people I’ve met, the immense luck I’ve had, just for being alive! Being healthy and having my kids waiting for me at home. Having a home to go to. Having Kev handle things so I could be away. Having my Mum and others be so supportive, over and above my expectations. Having friends here and at the end of a phone. I’m grateful to be alive more than anything.”
I left Istanbul grateful for everything that had happened there and ready to go home and be with my family and friends. I was eager to be more of a force for good in the world, to emulate the kindness and generosity of the people I’d met, to seek out the energy of the angels that had been sent to me, and to move through life more lightly and be more aware of the impact I have on others. This is likely to be a lifelong journey.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Not all journeys are geographic.
Onwards.
This post was written by Guest Blogger and AQ Grant Winner Sahir Pernall and reposted from her personal blog. More information about the grant can be found on our webpage.