Baghdad Breeze

[petecud]

5

I drove back towards Haswah in a semi trance, wondering what had happened to Rob. As I passed the spot where his truck had been abandoned, I noticed that it had gone, that took a weight off my mind! I thought that at least, he must have been allowed to go free, and that I would soon see him at the ‘camp’.
Rob was a country lad, he was brought up in a rural part of Cheshire, where people tended to be of a much more pleasant demeanour. He always seemed to have a ready smile on his face and saw humour in most things, a brilliant self taught mechanic and a perfect running mate!

I arrived back at our encampment, and to my great relief, noticed Rob’s truck parked there. I pulled up along side his truck, I could see some of the lads were out of their lorries and having a beer and were chatting to each other in the middle of the ‘camp’, there was no sign of Rob, Now that’s not like him, I thought, he’s usually the first to strike up a conversation, being the cheery chap that he was.

I climbed out of my truck, jumped onto Robs passenger step and looked into his cab, he was in there all right, but this was not the Rob I knew. He just sat in his driving seat, ashen faced, didn’t say a word, the seemingly ever present smile was missing. I climbed into his cab and we both we sat there in silence for a good 15 minutes, I grabbed his tea mug, jumped out and went over to where the other lads were having a brew and filled his mug with tea and put 3 teaspoons of sugar into it. “How long has Rob been here?” I asked, “About half an hour before you got back” one of the lads replied, “he just pulled up, drew one side of his curtain, and has been in there ever since, just thought he may be a bit off colour and just wanted to have a kip!”

I took the mug of tea back to Robs motor, climbed in on the passenger side and said “Get this tea down you, I’ve put some extra sugar in it for you!” He had a few sips and gradually, the colour seemed to return to his face, soon he turned to me and said " Pete, I thought that I was never going to see my wife and kids again!".

I told him that I had found his truck on the side of the road, and that his sunglases were on the ground, crushed, and that I had been to the most unimaginably horrendous place, which was like something from the dark ages, which they called the local nick, looking for him. " I was there!" he said, " I’d clipped a car on the highway, only a slight clip, with my bumper, in slow moving traffic, you know what they drive like round here, if you slow down they try and pass you on both sides!" he continued, “Anyway, I pulled over off the road to sort it out with the driver of the car I’d hit, as I got out of the cab, a police car pulled up, two coppers jumped put and bundled me into their car and next thing I knew, I was in this stinking prison cell with about 20 people, men and women, it stunk!”

“It seemed like I was in there for hours, horrible thoughts running through my head, no one will know where I am, no one will ever find me, I’ll never see my family again!” he continued telling me, “It turned out, that the car I’d hit, was being driven by an Iraqi fighter pilot, after they had whisked me away, he tried to find where they had taken me and it took him 2 hours to find me, he got me out of that cell, he said ‘we do not treat visitors to our country like this’, he took me to Thomas Cooks in Baghdad to contact our Green card insurance, then he even dropped me back at my wagon, if he hadn’t found me I think I would still be in there!”

After another brew and a couple more ■■■■, Rob was beginning to relax a bit, soon we joined the rest of the lads, who by this time had got the fire going, and like the previous night, a friendly and convivial atmosphere was present in the camp, but it was somewhat lost on Rob.

[dirty_dan]

This is good reading! keep it comming:-)
Reg Danne

[petecud]

6
Morning came too quickly, didn’t need any alarms to wake you up, the heat of the sun did that! The kettle was boiling on a Camping Gaz stove in the centre of our encampment, so i grabbed my mug and joined the 3 lads already enjoyng their morning tea. The luxury of toilets, as we know them, is not something that’s readily available in the desert, but nature calls regardless, so in order to maintain some kind of decency and in consideration of your fellow ‘campers’, a certain unwritten law applies (although not always adhered to!). This is that when nature calls you get as far away from where the trucks are parked as possible to do your ablutions. Some prefer to take a long walk, with a toilet roll in their hand, and try and find somewhere suitable, whilst others, ‘bob-tail’ into the distance in their units. At least, it provides a bit of privacy when they crouch down behind their motor! I fell into the latter group!

Returned from my little ‘trip’ just in time to see Rob get out of his motor and join the group by the kettle, he seemed to be more like his old self, he even joined in the banter and made light of his recent experience. This made me feel a lot better.

It turned out that Rob still had one drop left to do, I was empty and ready to get my paperwork back from the customs and head homeward, but I said to Rob that I’d wait till he got back and we’d run back together, when Ray, (Taytrans), suggested that he would run back with Rob, he also had one drop to do and if I wanted I could get going. I made sure Rob was happy with this idea and he was fine with it, after all, Ray was an experienced middle east man, it would make doing the borders that much easier.

I got my paperwork back early afternoon and decided to make tracks. Up to Baghad, turn left, direction Mosul. On the outskirts of Baghdad drove under the arch with the two crossed sabres, Somat and Pekaes trucks adorned with crossed palm tree leaves across their grills were heading towards Bahgdad centre, past an Iraqi army base, alive with hundreds of soldiers in their light brown uniforms, through small villages, with houses which looked as though they were made out of mud, but with a bright and shiny Mercedes saloon car parked outside, local women, dressed in black from head to toe, even their faces were covered, just a two inch slit in the burkha so
they could see.

On through Samara, then Tikrit. Must have been driving about 5 hours so thought I’d stop and have a brew and a bite to eat. Pulled well off the road and gave myself a good view of the road and all the traffic, allways relaxing, watching traffic go by whilst sipping tea! After a good hour, put everything away and set off again. I was going through Mosul before I knew it, most of the road signs were in Arabic, one sign that always made me smile to myself was a hand painted one in Mosul which read ‘TURKIHS BORDERS’, ‘Turkish’ was mis-spelled but it was nevertheless useful, at least you could understand it!

Drove into the diesel control checkpoint around 9pm, pulled out in 5 minutes flat, having had just my running tank dipped whilst the belly tank was half full, marvellous what a bottle of ‘Bells’ and a ■■■■■ mag could do!

Joined the queue for the border, it was about 2 -3 kilometres long. “Oh well” I thought to myself “at least I’ll be in Turkey tonight, 9 or 10 hours from Haswah, not bad!”. Thats what I thought, 6hours later, about 3 in the morning, I was parking up just through the border, knackered! Just drew my curtain and crashed out.

I was woken by the sound of a young voice singing a typically Arabic melody, the sun was already beating down and I looked at the tacho clock, 7am, didn’t want to get up this early, but just couldn’t feel annoyed at being woken, there was something very soothing about the singing, normally, I’d think Arabic music was just a wailing, but somehow, it now seemed utterly appropriate. I drew back the curtain, and there was the singer, a small boy, looked no more than 9 or 10, sitting on his haunches, as Turks an Arabs seemed to do, singing and smiling up at me, how on earth could anyone possible get angry with this?

I got my ‘Camping Gaz’ single burner stove and kettle, jumped out of my cab and stood the stove on the ground in front of the wagon, filled the kettle from my water bottle behind the cab, lit the stove and put the kettle on.
The young boy just carried on singing his song, but he watched every thing I did intently. I got my mug and a spare cup and dropped a tea bag into each cup, the boy was still staring intently, the water boiled, I filled both cups, I had some Turkish sugar cubes, which I’d bought in Edirne on the way down, after some difficulty in describing to the shopkeeper what I wanted, it turned out that Turkish for sugar is ‘seker’ I think, I dropped a couple of sugar lumps into my mug, passed the spare mug of tea towards the boy, and he then stopped singing and smiled at me, showing his pure white teeth, I offered him some sugar and he got about 5 cubes and dropped them into his tea, he turned down my offer of a spot of long life milk. Whilst we were sipping this tea, I pulled out my packet of ‘Benson and Hedges’, got one out for myself and noticed that the boy was watching intently, so I just passed him one, as you would to an adult in our culture, the young boys eyes lit up at this, and his smile was even bigger, he lit the cigarette as if he had been smoking all his life, come to think of it, he probably had been! It was quite a surreal moment, back home you just wouldn’t dream of giving a young lad like this a ■■■, but here it seemed totally natural.

[zb_anorak]

Good stuff, this. The little details and observations are what make it real. Keep going, Pete.

[twoninety88]

Cracking read

To think all of this type of work was going on when I first got my licence in the late 1970’s. I would like to have imagined doing just one trip to say I had done it. But in reality I think I would have been well out of my depth!

Great stuff

[jazzandy]

Keep it up. Brings back many memories. That sign was there the first time I drove down in the early seventies and still there eight or nine years back when I did a recce with an army type looking to run suppplies out overland!

[petecud]

7

Put the brewing gear back in the passenger foot well, turned to the young boy and shook his hand, he stepped back, stood to attention and gave me a military style salute, I couldn’t help myself, I responded with a John Wayne style salute and said " At ease, soldier!" as I smiled to myself. I jumped into the drivers seat, started the engine and began to pull away, and the young lad still stood there with his salute, until finally he disappeared from view in my mirror.

I think I’d only done about 40 klicks when as I approached Silopi, just on the outskirts, there was a small brick built building with a sign in front of it which read ‘CONTROL’, I’d not noticed this on the way down, but didn’t think anything of it, after all, we are in Turkey, ‘CONTROL’ is a way of life, you had to get your ‘Transit’ paper stamped at designated police posts all the way through Turkey, and if you missed one they had been known to send you back from the next one to get it stamped, and they were at least 150 kilometres apart! In between these posts you could expect to get a tug by traffic cops 2 or 3 times, for a speed check on your tacho reading, they weren’t interested in how long you’d driven, just in the speed reading! Usually, a couple of packets of ‘Marlboro’ were sufficient to see you back on your way again!

Suddenly, a man appeared from the building with a continental style stop stick, like a crossing patrol lollipop but only about 18" long with the word ‘STOP’ on it, I pulled over stopping directly alongside the building, the man with the stop stick looked up at me and said " Control…Passaport!" and beckoned me into the building.

I grabbed my Passport and ‘Transit’ paper and went inside, it was an office of sorts, I handed him my passport and paper and he motioned for me to sit down opposite him at the desk. “Malaria control” he said, " No problem", he held his hand out as if to shake mine, but held on to my hand, not aggressively but quite firmly, as he pulled a pin out of a spongelike pin cushion on his desk and pricked my thumb with it, drawing some blood. He swiped my blood on a piece of glass and let go of my hand. He then stamped my paper and copied something from my passport and said “Go!”, and that was that, I was on my way again, I couldn’t help thinking 'How weird was that?"

As I pressed on westward, I noticed how much more agricultural this part of the world was in comparison to Iraq, groups of people were working in the fields tending to their crops, groups of about 25 or 20 men and women, backs bent, with hand tools working the soil, tractors with laden trailers transporting their produce, then, as you reached higher ground, shepherds tending their flocks, and as you passed them they always gesticulated by holding an imaginary cigarette in their hand and pretending to smoke, hoping you would throw them a ■■■ or two. In the more remote areas, there would be a small group of people standing by the roadside with 45 gallon drums and a length of hose, they would also gesture to you as you drove by, but this time the gesture was the movement of a closed fist with the thumb sticking out to represent a bottle being moved to their lips and away, I took this to be them asking for diesel.

As you went through the orange growing areas, even the soil had a dark rich orange hue about it, the variation of crops in this part of the world astounded me, the land was the most fertile imaginable, they managed to grow all manner of fruit and vegetables, there wasn’t anything that wouldn’t grow here! If the ‘Garden of Eden’ really did exist, then I couldn’t imagine a better place for it than right here in south eastern Turkey, even the local population still seemed to wear the same type of attire that was worn during the time of Jesus Christ!

Turkey is a country of dramatic contrasts, with areas of rich and fertile land very quickly changing to barren landscapes or mountainous rocky terrain, you can drive for hours and not see a soul, but the minute you stop, people appear from nowhere, as if they had come up from the ground!

Passing through villages, locals were cleaning their harvested grain, it was mounded up on the ground and two or three men were scooping a shovel full of it and tossing it into the air, as it fell back to the mound, the wind was blowing the chaff away, it felt and looked like you had been transported back to biblical times!

Although this was the main road from Turkey to Iraq, it wasn’t all tarmac by any means, and some parts of it had subsided so that it was virtually a single track road, yet the traffic was going both ways!
As you drove through some villages on roads without tarmac there was no alternative but to slow down to walking pace, and as you did, it was the same every time, crowds of kids would run alongside of your truck, some would even jump on your step, some would try to sell you ‘Ekmek’ (bread), others would blatantly ask for ‘Bakshish’ (something for nothing). There was no way of avoiding it, you were a captive target until you had cleared the village!

I must have been driving a good 5 hours before I stopped to make myself a brew. I thought to myself, ‘on the way down we’d stopped overnight at a place near Gaziantep, if I can get that far that’ll do me for the day!’
Feeling somewhat refreshed, I pressed, on eventually the sign I was looking for appeared…‘TIR PARKING’…this was the place I wanted…pulled into the parking area… and the owner came rushing out and with a worried look on his face was shouting…“NO PARKING…NO PARKING!” and he was waving his arms to tell me to leave… and quickly! Never did find out what that was about, but on subsequent trips I noticed that his ‘TIR PARKING’ sign had disappeared!

I pulled out onto the road and thought to myself again ‘Nothing for it, I’ll have to make it to Oryx’s near Adana!’ and off I went. I expected there to be maybe one or two Brits at Oryx’s, but when I got there, not a single European was there, and I was looking forward to ‘Efes Control’, but on your own, it doesn’t have the same appeal. Settled for ‘bifsteak’, egg and chips and just two bottles of Efes and went to bed. After all, I’d just done about 22 hours driving with just 3 hours kip!

[petecud]

8

Surprisingly, I found myself wide awake by about 7am, only had about 6 or 7 hours sleep, thought I’d have slept longer than that. Got dressed, made myself a coffee and decided that todays target would be the ‘Telex Motel’ at Ankara, a steady 7 or 8 hour driving day, and maybe do the ‘Efes Control’ there!.

The road through Adana was busy with traffic, especially local ‘Tonkas’, bonneted Dodge or Ford D series type rigids, originally built as 2 axle rigids but with an added York axle at the rear, the drive axle being twin wheel, but the added axle was single, and the single wheel was positioned central to the twin wheels in front! It did look odd, and the drivers weren’t afraid to load them to the hilt, and higher, I would hazard a guess that they often carried up to 20 tons! And they all had an instantly recognisable throaty growl from the engine, as if they had all had special exhausts made! It was especially busy with these ‘Tonkas’ in this region because cargo ships docked in nearby Mersin, and they were used to transport and distribute the goods that the ships had brought in!

These ‘Tonkas’ were the main mode of transporting cargo in Turkey at the time, western style artics were a relatively new introduction to Turkish transport, new haulage firms were springing up everywhere with brand new Volvo F10’S and 12’s gradually replacing them.
Around this time Turkey was trying to join the Common Market and one of the other member states objections was their transport infrastructure, so they embarked on a massive road building programme and encouraged transport firms to upgrade their fleets with a subsidy from the West.

Soon after leaving Adana, the road veers northwards and inland, as you approach the Taurus mountains you climb gradually for a few miles then the road becomes much more winding, one hairpin bend after another as you climb steeply, trucks of all sizes and types are descending this mountain in first or crawler gear, the engines screaming as they are trying to resist the downward pressure of the steep descent, brakes are a last resort, but the smell of overheated brake drums and linings is nevertheless in the air, occasionally you see smoke billowing from these overheated drums as the drivers struggle to stop their trucks from becoming runaways, some had failed, as you wind round the hairpin bends, sheer drops emphasise just how steep this climb is, wreckage of trucks and trailers lies in deep ravines, European and local, no make or nationality of truck is immune to the pull of gravity on this mountain, the strewn wreckage is visible, but possibly in accessible, some of it looks like it’s been there for years, impossible to recover.
This serves as a impelling reminder to treat this mountain with respect!
Luckily, I’m empty, the upward journey is much easier, but you still have to be alert, trucks concentrating on controlling their descent think nothing of straddling both lanes, you could just as easily end up in one of those ravines as you’re pushed off the road!

[petecud]

[panx]

That’s a great episode in the story. I know what you mean…one minute you’ re the only one on the road and the next you stop for a moment and 40 small kids try to flog you a live chicken…Silopi springs to mind/

Oh…look there’s one…parked up at Haswah. don’t remember there being so many telegraph poles though…

Nice photo Pete/

[panx]

Heading East:

Mick. waiting for the next instalment…

[petecud]

Hi Mick, that last photo of yours just about sums up driving through Turkey, the ‘Kamikaze’ coach overtaking on a blind bend…and I’ll bet he pulls in too soon…forcing you to drop back to avoid having your mirror taken off!!?
Pete

[yuppie]

Great read Pete< in anticipation for next episode.

[5thwheel]

petecud:
Hi Mick, that last photo of yours just about sums up driving through Turkey, the ‘Kamikaze’ coach overtaking on a blind bend…and I’ll bet he pulls in too soon…forcing you to drop back to avoid having your mirror taken off!!?
Pete

Pete,I think if you look closely enough,the coaches axle that you can see looks to be the rear axle,the coach is travelling down the hill!

David

[jazzandy]

Disagree. If it was travelling downhill there would be a driver’s window and there is not so it must be travelling on its’ correct side of the road, which is very unusual for a kamikaze!

[archie_paice]

Jazzandy:
Disagree. If it was travelling downhill there would be a driver’s window and there is not so it must be travelling on its’ correct side of the road, which is very unusual for a kamikaze!

Hullo A,
The drivers window is hidden behind the Rentco Tilt. I’m with the other bloke, it’ going downhill (Mind you are’nt we all ?) By the way, a good thread Pete.
Cheers, Archie.

[rondavies]

Uphill, downhill? I don’t know but it looks like the bus is travelling in the opposite direction to the wagons and therefore is not overtaking them.

[petecud]

OK…OK! I concede…should have gone to Specsavers etc., etc.,…but you must agree with me that my interpretation is quite plausible? Pete

[loose-wire]

To determin whether the bus was going down or up where was the photo taken if it was heading east its in the morning as the shadow of the trailer is on the bus ,I dont see any wing mirror on the bus not that they looked in them maybe only to checkout his large black bushy mustash If I was to guess the location I would say heading toward Gaziantepe on the sharp left and right on the first climb ,now if im right the trucks are going uphill the bus downhill no three carrage road but it was quite wide so Kami had loads of room

[loose-wire]

After a revalue of the pics and a study of the mirror of the camera truck it looks like they might be going downhill but mirrors can deceive ,anyway its a good shot pity he didnt get his own face in the mirror that would have made it a super shot