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Sunday 25 January 2009

Military encounters


One piece of advice for the traveller which I think we can all agree is good, is to stay clear of both the police and the military. Taking pictures of police stations or army bases is likely to result in any one of a range of sanctions starting with having your camera confiscated, working up through a stay in whatever the local variety of prison is and culminating in being shot. None of these are happy outcomes. But you don't need to be a careless photographer to find yourself looking at the wrong end of a row of guns carried by men in uniforms. In June 2001, having completed a fascinating, if, in some ways, rather trying, couple of weeks in Egypt we were racing back up through Syria, Jordan and Turkey, heading for the Iranian border. Our modus vivendi at the time was all about rough camping: that is to say camping wherever we could find free ground for our tents. If there are any official camp grounds in those countries we hadn't managed to find them so the operational procedure for that few days was to drive as fast and as far north as we could, stop only to reprovision and, when it got dark, pull of the main road, find somewhere to camp and pitch our tents.

The day that we crossed into Syria was mostly unexciting and uneventful but turned rather more dramatic towards the early evening. It was our practice on long driving days to pull off the main roads and look for somewhere a little quieter to pitch camp at about an hour before sunset. Tonight was no exception. At about seven O'clock Dave turned off the main road and started to head through a series of small villages. All the way we were watched by smiling waving villagers. If only we had understood why they were smiling and waving.
We turned right at a cross-roads and drove up the hill. In the distance there was a large gate and what looked like a military checkpoint. Dave decided that we would avoid it and started to turn the truck to go back down the hill but it was too late. Three men had exited the building and were running towards us. One of them was carrying a machine gun.
Before Dave could complete the manoeuvre more men had joined the first three and we were completely surrounded. The man with the gun was in front of us pointing it at Dave's head. Others held their guns down but with an air of casual menace. Steve, our driver, told us to do nothing and that if they asked for our passports we should under no circumstances hand them over. This instruction was rather easier for us to follow than the one he gave to co-driver Dave
"Keep driving, just edge forward. He won't shoot."
Dave was understandably reluctant to put this theory to the test and when a second gunman joined the first in pointing his gun rather too specifically at him, he turned off the engine and Steve and Dave sat arguing with our unwelcome visitors. It was beginning to look rather hairy when out of the blue another man who we took to be an officer appeared and with a combination of gestures and grunts indicated that we should follow his car. There was a palpable feeling of disappointment from the group who had been surrounding us.
We did as requested, as it was going back the way we had come and away from the trouble, and he led us back to the main road. Here he let us go with indications that we should in future stay on the main road and avoid poking our noses where they weren't wanted.
We still had no idea what we had stumbled on. It might have been military but if it was there was a distinct lack of military discipline about the whole encounter and the ragtag assortment of uniforms certainly showed no clear degree of co-ordination. There was a great deal of speculation about what had just happened but none of it led anywhere so we drove on but by now it was eight thirty and already dark. We pulled off into a limestone quarry and attempted the impossible task of pitching tents on ground hard enough to bend tent pegs. I gave up, spread my tent out as a ground sheet and went to sleep on top of it.

The next day we crossed into Turkey and the day after that had another military encounter, though an altogether less sinister one. We had stopped for lunch and shopping in San Liurfa, which is supposed to have been the birth place of Abraham. It was a pleasant place and I liked it a lot but all too soon we were on our way again, heading towards the Tigris where we intended to camp before making our last push for Dogubayazit and the Iranian border.


We had once again left the main road top find a camp site, this time seeking something on the banks of the river. Suddenly we were stopped short by the fact that strung across the road was a tyre bursting trap similar to the stingers used by British police. At the side of the road was large, modern military base and in a guard post outside it was a single soldier. After our previous experience, it’s fair to say that we were all a bit edgy. He motioned for us to pull off the road but when we had complied he seemed completely at a loss as to what he should do next. Fortunately as he pondered another soldier - who had the bearing of an officer in spite of being clad not in uniform but in a football strip having just come from a kick around with the lads - sauntered over and started to question us. It was the usual stuff. Where are you from ? Where are you going ? How many of you are there ?
As he spoke to us another soldier asked him a question in Turkish and he relayed it to us.
"Would you all like a cup of tea ?"
Soon we were sitting drinking tea and coffee with half the base and when that was finished they said that they could show us a perfect camping spot and, as good as their word, led us down through the nearby village of Tepe to the riverside.
It was a splendid place although there were hundreds of sheep and it seemed hundreds of local children.
Last night we had camped by the Euphrates, tonight by the Tigris. They were exotic names that I remembered from my schooldays even though whatever facts I once knew about them had long since been erased by time from my mind. Whatever I had learned it was a certainty that it had failed to mention frogs. Specifically I was willing to put down money that it hadn't mentioned the noise that the thousands of frogs that live in the reeds make. It's loud and continuous but oddly soothing.

Eastern Turkey had so far proven to be one of the most genuinely friendly places of the whole trip and had been extremely enjoyable. We had a couple of days more here before crossing into Iran. I hoped they would prove to be as good.

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