Istanbul to India by Bus
The "pirate" ran his bus tyrannically, eventually getting us from Istanbul to Tehran.
The bus was our home for three long days. Every time I got up to stretch, "the pirate" saw me in his rear view mirror and shouted, "Mister, sit down."
As soon as the back-up driver took the wheel, we drifted off the road. Sparks, smoke, screaming...no injuries and a ten hour delay.
Rick's Excellent Asian Adventure
By Rick Steves
It was 1978, just before the rise of Khomenei, the war in Afghanistan, and the publication of the first edition of Europe Through the Back Door. My vagabuddy and future co-author Gene Openshaw and I were about to embark on our first overland journey from Turkey to Kashmir. Walking past Istanbul's legendary Pudding Shop (the traditional hippie springboard for treks along the "freak road" to India), we were heading for a Turkish bath. Like a man appreciates a shave and a trip to the toilet before going to the gallows, we figured we might as well start off this trip of a lifetime clean.
Leaving my moneybelt and all First World advantages in my cubicle, holding a tattered towel around my waist and walking gingerly across slippery marble into the steamy netherland of shadowy Turks under Byzantine domes, I felt gawky. And more naked than naked. After an awkward sit in the sauna, my muscular Turk, who doled out massages like cannery workers gut salmon, said "OK, merhaba.' He put me onto the round marble slab where I was allowed to lay, perspire, look up at cloudy sunrays spraying through little holes in the domed roof, and ponder my fate. Gene was laid out next to me, courtesy of his own Turkish sumo wrestler.
With a loud slap on my chest the masseuse landed on me, like hands kneading dough in a prison bakery. He smashed and stretched each of my tight muscles. It hurt. But in a strange way I wanted it...just with no lasting damage. He rolled me belly down for the joint stretching. Bouncing my feet to my back, walking on me, noisily cracking my neck, he was a credit to his trade. Lying naked on our bellies, ears pressed to the marble Gene and I grimaced and groaned in each other's face wishing we spoke Turkish and reassuring each other that, of course, our masseuses must know the breaking point.
Like lobotomized gumbies, we were led to marble thrones to be doused in hot water and scrubbed with Brillo-pad mittens. Dirt sloughed off us in tootsie rolls.
Clean and optimistic, we went to the Otogar (bus station) to begin our 63-hour bus ride to Tehran — the first leg of our journey. Smug as two worldly 24 year olds could be, with seat reservations 16 and 17 in hand, we marveled at the uncivilized riot for bus seats. Tossing our rucksacks to the man on the bus rooftop, we boarded. It became clear — to our horror — that seat reservations had no meaning here. Two seats remained: after-thought jump-seats hanging over the rear stairwell, the only ones on the bus that didn't recline back. In fact, at each stop, they reclined forward so people could get out.
Bouncing bolt upright out of Istanbul we took stock of our situation. Sitting atop a rear wheel, we had maximum noise and bounce with minimum leg room. The smelly engine behind us rumbled and doubled as a blast furnace. Surrounded by chain smokers and next to the only window that didn't open, cigarette ashes blew straight into my face. The cover of the aisle light crashed to the floor just as we crossed the bridge over the Bosphorus. Welcome to Asia.
We had two drivers. The Iranian commander-in-chief looked like a crazed Barbary pirate, complete with exposed hairy chest, bandanna, and huge scar that seemed to tie his handlebar moustache to his ear. The back-up driver was also Iranian, a half-witted fellow with grotesque pockmarks disfiguring an already hard-to-look-at face. Celebrating two hours into our journey, I got up to stretch my legs. The pirate eye-balled me in his mirror and shouted "mister sit down." Sixty-one hours to go.
Well into the night, Gene and I decided to crack open the "bon voyage" bottle of Bulgarian vodka our friends in Sofia had given us a few days before. Made bolder by a tall whisky the Iranians across the aisle gave us, we eventually finished the vodka. I slept like a baby in a cruel papoose.
Later, I was overcome by a frightful need to pee. I pondered asking the Pirate for a quick stop, but was no longer drunk enough to work up the courage. Luckily we had an empty vodka bottle and it was refillable. (Glad we kept the cap.)
Later that night, ripped out of a deep sleep by the Pirate's hysterical screams, I snapped awake just as our bus was grinding over a curb and crashing to a noisy stop. Smoke billowed everywhere. I thought we were on fire and my still woozy head played out a worst case scenario. Pistachios, empty bottles and bundles of luggage went flying everywhere, but the human baggage stayed put. There were no injuries. Miraculously, my vodka bottle didn't break.
Just moments before, the half-wit had slid behind the wheel. He couldn't have been driving for more than a minute when he lost control and crashed through the median curb. A cold wind blew fiercely as we filed out into the night to inspect the damage. The pirate was screaming at the half-wit. Man muttered around the oil-spattered rear end of the bus...discussing ways to solve our problem but doing nothing. Small boys with toothy grins appeared out of the nowhere with tea and bread rings. And I found a chunk of ground clean enough to continue my night's sleep on.