There’s a Special Offer on Fairy Dust in the Psychic Piglet

Glastonbury High Street

“This song was channelled by a woman called Teresa Matthews… from John Lennon.”

Ah yes, this is Glastonbury all right. Earlier on we had a song for balancing the root chakra and another which resonated with the heart. Daniella told us it was derived from the scale on which the Gregorian chants were based, before the church officially tampered with the musical scale and omitted the notes with healing vibrations.

“This song translates as ‘Flight of the Hummingbird’ and the hummingbird’s message is joy.”

It’s my first night at Shekin Ashram, where I am to spend the next week on a “Karma Yoga” (work) programme, living as part of the community. A concert is being held in the temple room. Daniella sits in half-lotus on a cushion, long brown hair tumbling over lily-white top and skirt, on which her guitar rests.

“This is my last song. It’s on a frequency called ‘La’ and it’s connected to our third eye chakra,”

“There’s a special offer on fairy dust in the psychic piglet!” Colette tells us excitedly over lunch. I laugh and write it down in my notebook, in a page titled “Glastonbury Quotes”. On a walk about town earlier I was delighted to overhear a fascinating conversation in the ‘Pilgrim Reception Centre’. The woman behind the small desk (‘Pilgrim Receiver’?) wished a “Happy Yule” to another woman with the same deep grey hair colourings, then asked how she would be spending it. “Oh, I’m going down to Somerset to do the family thing, you know, with my daughters – not for long though!” – she added quickly, (people don’t celebrate Crimbo in Glasters, that’s one thing we share in common) – “You know, I find it difficult to leave Glastonbury, I really do.” “Yes, I do know what you mean,” countered the Pilgrin Receiver, “but do you know what I do? I wear psychic protection spray!” “Ooh, do you really? How wonderful! What a good idea!”

The ashram, which also operates as a bed and breakfast, books up at special times of the year. Tellingly, there isn’t a single guest booked in for Christmas Day, but it’s rammed solid at the Solstice. I’m jolted awake on Winter Solstice morning at 6:30am by the hippos and elephants who are sharing my cabin. I scrunch my eyes tight as the light binks on and draw my covers around me. My alarm goes off at 7am, just as the last hippo leaves the room.

The only plan I made during this trip was to come to Chalice Well for Solstice. The gardens are usually £3.60 to enter, but on days like this it’s free. Around eight years ago I was here for Beltane, the Pagan May Day celebration which celebrates… well… sex, actually. It’s a fertility festival. My friend Katy and I seemed to be the only people without full-length velvet cloaks or Druidic robes. We cringed as a bard sang a song that went something like “gree-een maaaaaan…” Today I don’t stand out so much and the percentage of gowns is smaller. My karma yoga shift starts at 2pm so I can’t stay for the bonfire, ceremony and carols, but I’m in time for the meditation. We gather around the well in a circle, some on the cold grey steps, some on grass, some standing. A woman in pink stands in the centre by the well. She welcomes us and tells us of the cycle of the year, getting in a 2012 Mayan-calender-apocalypse mention and the Dawning of Aquarius of course. She also includes some astrological information – like where the sun is now (“just entered Capricorn, which we all need to bring our desires into reality”). We are all invited to share a song or a poem. Ah yes, this is what I remember. A terrible poem follows – tenuous rhyming with no pace and far too many words crammed into the lines. I wish for a secret dictaphone, too self-conscious to take out a pen and paper to make notes. “Always a hard one to follow”, says the woman when nobody volunteers anything else. Finally a man with a staff wearing lots of green and brown announces he wants to say something about 2012 – “These are critical times”, he warns us. “The powers of darkness are rising.” He invites us all to send positive energy into the Glastonbury water supply.

I am enjoying my karma yoga. They are being kind on me because of my still swollen sprained ankle, or perhaps they are just kind. Today’s list has my name at the top with little hearts drawn around it. I work my way through slowly. Karma Yogis are encouraged to work “in quiet contemplation.” I drag a chair out to the back kitchen and take all of the tins out, arranging them as I put them back – kidney beans to the left, stock powder and date syrup to the right… I fold laundry sitting at the kitchen table with a barley cup. I drag a finger along the kitchen shelves and finding them to be already clean, move along to the next task: incense. Ooh, goody. The next hour and a half is spent cross-legged on the floor of the office on cushions, surrounded by packets of incense, bagging them up according to a list: 7 Everest each in blue packets; 8 nag champas in black packets… My last half hour is spent dusting clean things in the ‘temple’ – the large room with the altar, where everything from morning puja to Daniella concert and all the yoga, meditation and tai chi classes take place. I take special care with the small framed photos of Amma and “Guru Dave”, the ashram founder’s gurus.

It’s the weekly Friday night bhajan and my last night at the ashram. Some people have come to lead the devotional singing. She sits on the left, two big red flowers setting off her dark mahogany brown hair, pink scarf about her neck. From the huge framed photo behind her, she could be Amma’s daughter. He sits on the right, turquoise t-shirt and matching scarf wrapped around his head as a turban. He looks as though he’s in pain, pounding a rhythm hard into the drums. He opened with a complex chant which rolled on for fifteen minutes or more, until I thought his voice would surely crack with the pressure and his throat along with it. His candle-cast shadow looks like an erratic pixie against the pink wall, the turban shape tapering like an over-sized acorn hat. The sweet powder smell of nag champa fills the room. Her voice soars and resonates deep with the drum. Then he takes over again: “I am not these conditionings, I am not these emotions, I am just a drop that’s disappearing in the ocean…” Without a doubt, these people are what ashram resident Prem would call, “Krishna’d up to the nines.”

It’s the end of my week at the ashram. A week without caffeine, without sugar and of course no alcohol… well, maybe a little sugar in the form of yummy spongy cakes. Apparently if the founders were here such things would never have happened, but they are away setting up a community in Argentina. Prem sits at the breakfast table, arms askance, eyes closed, head raised heavenward. He chants along with the ipod next to him – “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare…” He sighs deeply, smiles and opens his eyes – “I’m all Bhakti‘d up!”

Türkiye’ye Döneceğim (To Turkey I’ll Return)

A crumpled pile of Mathieu is sitting outside the row of shops and cafes on the run up to the Turkish border. At first I don’t even recognise him – partly because he’s so unlike his usual smiling cheery self, partly because he left the camp in Bulgaria a full 24 hours before me and was heading in the direction of France… “Mathieu – is that you?! What are you doing here?!”

The whole sorry story comes out. He left the camp with two friends heading to Germany and was persuaded to take a roundabout route via the Turkish border in the hope of getting a straight lift to Germany. Well, they got one, but just as Mathieu was climbing into the truck, the driver changed his mind and said he would only take two people. So his friends waved goodbye and set off for Berlin, leaving him to catch the next ride… only there was no other ride, and despite seeing three other pairs of hitchhikers get rides head of him, despite sleeping on a cardboard box behind one of the cafes, despite being up again with his thumb out at the crack of dawn, and despite now being on first name terms with all the restaurant owners on this road… Mathieu is still here 25 hours later.

Borders are funny places. Sit for ten minutes and a group of stray travellers forms, all from different countries and heading in different directions. Many are from the No Border Camp, like us. Determined to see Mathieu off before I leave, I swap my pre-arranged lift on the other side of the border with another traveller and poke my thumb into the blazing heat. I will get him a lift… After an hour Mathieu is smiling again, relieved that at least it’s not just him. Me and a young blonde girl from Germany, also from the camp, switch places – taking breaks in the shade between shifts. The sun really is scorching. I take a final twenty minute shift and start counting down how many more cars I’m prepared to see roll past me. I’m just about to call it quits when a car stops. The car full of Turkish men seem a little put out that actually the ride isn’t for me, but for my male friend. I tell them what a wonderful person he is, hug him to show we’re really good friends, tell how he spent last night on the cardboard box behind the cafe, and eventually they cave in – “tamam, we take him.” “Yay!” “But where are they going?” asks Mathieu. “Who the fuck cares? – just get in the car quick before they change their minds!” - There he goes, smiling and waving. I’m so happy I could cry.

My hitching buddies now consist of the blonde girl from camp and a random guy from Mexico we met on the border. We crossed the border on foot and now wait in the thin strip of shadow created by a lamp-post, shuffling backwards every couple of minutes as it moves around us like a sundial. A guy stops and agrees to take us, all the way to Istanbul!

Istanbul welcomes me back with open arms. There are many people here from the No Border Camp, and I seem to bump into them all every time I walk down Istiklal Caddesi. There are still a lot of Rainbow people too, just returned after the 66 day sema recently finished in Yalova. I find them playing music as I’m walking with some activists and suddenly all my worlds collide – how strange to see these people here on the streets of this city, playing this music I was whirling to – what – a month ago? It seems like a decade!

Istiklal Caddesi

Mmmmmm!

I’m staying with Helene, the original initiator of the continuing weekly vegan potlucks. It’s good to always make sure I’m here on a Sunday, when deliciousness occurs. This time a few of the Noborderers attend too and we all scoff our faces with humous, ciappati,  stuffed tomatoes, chocolate walnut cake (made by me), and the biggest bowl of fruit salad I’ve ever seen.

Well fed and happy

Well fed and asleep!

Post-food creativity

———

I arrive at the Iranian Embassy looking something of a hippy-muslim-punk hybrid: not-quite-ankle-length orange skirt over stripey trousers, a-symmetric zip-up green jumper – holes in the sleeves carefully disguised with rolling technique – and a blue, orange and white headscarf. I feel certain they will see through my disguise.

The guys with the Australian passports in the queue in front of me used the same dodgy online visa agency as me. One is told his visa isn’t ready yet, despite having applied a week before the other. Mine seems to be ok, but I’m given another form to fill out anyway – the one I was trying to avoid by using this service. £52 wasted then! I have to wonder who is this Iranian woman, with the Hamburg address and Swiss bank account? The instructions for the bank transfer came with the same warning twice in capital letters, highlighted in red: Due to embargo on Iran, please do not mention Iran in your transaction. Do not mention Iran, do not mention visa, nothing at all, just your own name.

I reach the front of the queue for the second time and am given a slip of paper with an account number on it. The man tells me to take it to the bank over the road and pay €100. Ok, bit weird, but I go dutifully over the road and take a ticket from the machine before sitting down on a plastic seat among lots of other people. Slowly it becomes apparent that we’re all here for the same reason, only most people are Iranian themselves or dual nationals. The bank must be in on the swindle! Soon the Australians from the queue arrive and we discuss our travelling arrangements (they are cyclists) and wait for the numbers on the screen to go up. Finally I get to the counter and give the man my debit card. But now of course, the Embassy is shut…

The following day I’m back at the embassy the minute they open, handing over my receipt for the money. The man takes my form and passport and tells me to come back in two days… two days?! What on earth did I pay that woman for then? The strange thing is that it’s not possible to get a visa for Iran without going through this palava.

———

Finally I’m leaving the Embassy for the final time,  passport in hand, new shiny Iranian visa inside. However, my plans have changed…

———

At Antalya airport a snaking queue of mostly British voices welcomes me. They are all complaining – the queue, the heat, the other tourists – “our holiday would’ve been great if it weren’t for all the bloody Russians!” I look at the floor, embarrassed that I’m the one he’s speaking to – that I somehow prompted this. “Them bloody Russians don’t give a toss about anyone, pushin’ and shovin’…” Later, his eight year old son is running around, tired and restless at 4am. He bumps into someone by accident – “Oi! You gonna be a Russian when you’re older are ya? Are you gonna be a bloody Russian?”

My first flight in eight years. I wasn’t missing much. Bureaucracy, secuity, controls – everything moulded, plastic and sterile. We are shepherded into lines, scrutinized, ticked off and stamped.

The clouds look beautiful at dawn.

When it’s time for the individually packaged food portions to come out, the vegan one I ordered especially over the phone is missing. Nothing can be done: it’s egg, or hunger. I choose hunger over egg, but not without regret.

We soar over an endlessly billowing white carpet as specks of pink and then orange appear. As we drop below, everything turns grey and the concrete down there glistens. “Not quite what you’re used to”, says the man beside me, whom I’ve not yet spoken to. It’s a funny thing: wherever I go, people assume I’m from somewhere else.

Oh my god, I’m in England! I’m in England and it’s 7am. Now on the ground I wait for a bus. The hunger cuts deeper, the clouds sway open and sunlight trickles through. Birmingham. I order a medium soya latte at the nearest coffee shop and get out my laptop. It’s the biggest coffee I’ve ever seen – have portion sizes grown while I’ve been away?

———-

Epilogue: an email from Mathieu

Jo,

A little tiny word before to go to work: I made it!
The people you stopped for me…. haha, they drove me 90km, and then dropped me on the side of whatever Bulgarian “highway”, by the bushy side road …. I had a hard time, even a finger from a driver, but I made it to the border of Serbia at night. And day after have been horrible. Woke up at 4, no cars, no truck, no one to stop for me. At 12:00 I sent a message to my boss saying that I won’t make it, asking for the money to cover my way back by flight. Right after sending I was on the side of the road and a car stopped. It was like:
“Hey, where are you going?”
- Don’t know, Belgrade?
-… what ’bout you?
- “ho, Germany. Stuttgart”

So I had a 1700 km ride, 20 hours, 180km/h, only slowing down to avoide the speed controls …. The night after I was in Lubeck.

You rock and I think you’re awesome.

Je t’aime!

Mathieu

No Borders Bulgaria – A Personal Experience

Following the tradition of international No Border Camps, which over past years have popped up in (among others), London, Calais, Brussels and the Greek island of Lesbos; I find myself in a field in Bulgaria, screwing pallets together with an electric screwdriver to make toilets.

After nine months travelling I am once again “home” – not in a geographical sense, but culturally. I am with my own people – activists from around the globe whose belief in freedom and solidarity has brought them here, from as far afield as the North of England, Sweden and the U.S.A. Many faces are new to me, many are familiar.

During daylight hours it’s so hot in the open field that few can stand to work between 11-5pm. Mostly these hours are spent under tree-shaded tables outside the village’s only bar. As well as beer and coffee, the pub sells “salad”, which consists of tomatoes chopped up on a plate with a bit of cheese or onion scattered on top. The salad costs 50 stotinki – around 20p. The beer is around 50p. There is one place that could be called a shop. I found it by accident when I first went looking for the bar. I took entirely the wrong direction and met a small old man on a moped, who beckoned when I asked for water – “Magazin! Magazin!” I followed and he took me through a plastic curtain into the front room of his house. I wasn’t sure if it was a café, shop or just his house, but I asked for a coffee, which his wife made for me. I bought three bottles of water and the man gave me a big bag of tomatoes and showed me where he grows them in a greenhouse at the back of the house. I was pleased to remember him later when the camp supply team went looking for local food producers, and he and a neighbour supplied us with a lot of vegetables.

I tell you this to give you an idea of the kind of juxtaposition which has occured in this small village in Bulgaria. This man’s two sons, like many people in the village, make thier money from the border regime. There is not one family in this whole region without this kind of connection. So what happens when two hundred international activists turn up on their doorsteps to protest against the border? Well, not a lot actually. They are very congenial, very happy to sell us vegetables of course, and some even come to the camp to meet us and hear what we have to say. These people are not necessarily in political agreement with the border here, but it’s business: their livelihood.

The Media Collective arrived before the camp started and began a film screening programme in various small villages – including Siva Reka, Shtit (the closest village to the border) and Lyubimets, where the detention centre has been built. After each film screening was a discussion. I attended the first and the one in Lyubimets and heard locals speak about various clandestine people they have seen coming through their villages at night. A woman spoke of a pregnant lady, another of a man who knocked on their door and asked for water. They are not without sypmathy for these people, but they believe the state is helping them. They have all seen the shiny images of the Lyubimets detention centre on television and talk about how the men inside eat chicken for dinner and watch TV in their rooms. The reality, of course, is somewhat different.

The No Border Camp has officially begun. Day one sees three workshops, all with an interpersonal theme: a discussion about Safer Spaces – what are they and why are they here? A queer space and POC (People of Colour) Space onsite have already been the topic of some debate and controversy – but we’re No Borders! Surely we can’t be… racist? Well yes, unfortunately anarchists are not fully-enlightened beings and among the camp are many sexist, racist, homophobic and transphobic ideas – albeit largely subconscious. There’s also a workshop on “looking after ourselves and each other” – about building debriefing and emotional support into our actions, and a Theatre of the Oppressed workshop. It’s my feeling that these three workshops on the first day of camp laid the foundation for a camp with a far higher level of awareness about these issues than is usual.

Another hot debate is the apparently unsolvable dichotomy between wanting to do “spikey” actions and respecting the “local context”. Basically, there are a small group of what I will call “The Bulgaria (based) Collective” who have been working for many months getting the plans for the camp together and have, as a part of that process, had to give their names and addresses to the police. There are a variety of reasons for this – it’s a legal requirement to inform the police about any kind of protest, and where in many other places it’s more-or-less fine to tell the law to fuck off and just do your thing anyway, in Bulgaria there are a great deal more fascists than anarchists, and those fascists are armed and organised. There are a very small number of No Borders activists – perhaps 5-10. We are witnessing the first baby steps of a movement in a country where none like this has previously existed. The Bulgaria Collective ask that we respect their wishes and keep conflict with the police and controversial actions to a minimum, since it’s them that will bear the brunt of what happens afterwards. This is understandable, but difficult. Camps like this are by their very nature decentralised and focused on autonomous actions within a diversity of tactics – many of them controversial and provocative of police responses.

When a staged “die-in” is called off by members of the Bulgaria Collective for being too confrontational (people lying passively on the road are causing an obstruction to the border), many begin to question what in fact they are able to do in this context.

This dichotomy gives rise to a lot of frustration and some very creative responses, for example: a small group of people hitchhike over the Bulgarian-Turkish border into “no man’s land”, declare a free state and hand out flyers; street theatre, a samba band and information boards on the streets of Svilengrad are designed to grab the public’s attention (although the streets are quiet, unfortunately); candles and shoes are laid outside the Border Police Headquarters to symbolise those who have died on the EU borders (the press said we threw the shoes at police and lit candles under car tyres!); a huge banner with a free legal phone number is erected outside the detention centre… then there are the usual flash-mobs, marches and banner hangs of course. These are symbolic actions – it’s understandable, but frustrating.

Demontrations at detention centres always feel different to me. Somehow it’s suddenly all a lot less theoretical and a whole lot more real: here is the prison where they lock up migrants who dare to seek a better life. Here are the people at the bars of the windows, shouting “Freedom!” in every language they know. Around fifteen hitchhikers came to this camp from the Hitchgathering a couple of weeks before, many as a result of the workshop Jasper and I facilitated. It’s amazing to see how people grow and change through these experiences. Some who began the week not understanding why some people “seem intent on violence” suddenly need holding back when they see a line of police protecting an immigration prison. Once again I’m seeing a camp’s power to radicalise people.

Among the other actions are a variety of on-camp discussions, presentations and workshops on topics from the situation in Calais and the Ukraine borders, to Understanding Whiteness and the privilege it brings.

At no other political camp I’ve been to has the level of self-reflection been so high. The apex of this for me was during the session on Roma Rights. Three women from Roma backgrounds put on this “workshop” (actually more of a lecture) in order to give vent to their… well, lets just say fury, at the level of unawareness and subconscious racism within the camp. Conversations about a visit to a Roma community opposite the detention centre at Lyubimets had provoked a variety of stereotyping and racists comments – you know the ones, about “gypsies”, stealing and romantic ideas of musicians… The women gave us all a firm talking to – “You are a white mob! …Do you know what a white mob looks like to these people? …This is ethno-tourism! …do you know why Roma people had to become performers? …”

Despite the explicitly non-violent context of the camp, which many participants felt to be narrowly defined and limiting, the camp seems to have achieved many of it’s aims – reaching out and awareness raising to local people who are already seeing an increase in migrants coming through their communities, growing a movement in Bulgaria and networking campaigns in other parts of the world.

Next year, Stockholm.

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Percy the Persecutor and the Storm Survivors – Bulgarian Adventures with Sietse

Survivors

Almost all the Hitchhikers have left and the Gathering is over, but one is yet to arrive. Tomi catches me resurrecting the “Hitchgathering” sign – “What are you doing?” - “My mate’s on his way here!” – “What?! There’s still somebody on his way?!”

I find myself on my laptop in the village, constantly gazing at my watch. Six and a half hours ago he was just over 200km away – surely he should be here soon? I return to the beach. There’s no phone signal except up on the cliffs. I go up every hour or so, check for messages – nothing.

The following morning I’m actually worried: a rarity. I mean really, if you think about it, anything could happen – right? I send a message demanding contact and get this back: “Why worried? You know I’m a slow hitcher! Be there in an hour.” 26 hours to travel 200km?! Slow hitcher?!

He rolls in the door of the cafe; backpack, dreadlocks and beautiful smile. Funny, here’s one boy I thought I’d never see again. We have a big hug and chatter non-stop for the following hours, catching up on adventures. He’s got a boat lined up to cross the Atlantic – for sure these will be our last times together. I’m ready to leave the beach, but Sietse has just arrived. We’ll be here another night at least and a storm is rolling in. We watch most of our neighbours packing up in a haste, stuffing things into cars and evacuating. There was a storm my first night on this beach too; must be a weekly occurrence – the sea’s Tuesday night blow-out.

It’s a crazy one. The wind and rain batter the sides of Kinga, my little tent. 3am sees us outside, digging a trench to bay off the encroaching waves. The water level has risen so high that if the hitch-gathering was still on, 90% of it would be under water. I hear a man yelling further down the beach and go to investigate. He’s thigh-high in salt water, acting as the only anchor for his gazebo, which he’s trying to take apart with his teeth. He taped it all together so strongly it won’t come apart. I give him a hand and get back to my own reinforcements, helping Sietse build up a barrier from the sand we dug from the trench. In the morning, the trench has been ironed flat by the tide, but the sand-barricade has kept us dry. Tanya, her little dog Nina and a Bulgarian guy are the only other remaining hitchhikers. They have also survived the night, which is more than can be said for our community tarp, which seems to have been stolen by our neighbours. They “thought we’d left”, apparently.

After the storm

Encroaching waves

Still a bit windy!

By midday the sun is hot and the sea is calming, though waves still slip lazily all the way up the newly formed iron-flat beach. Apparently 52mm of water fell in 24 hours in Varna, one of the closest cities. We are survivors! A guy with dreadlocks I swear I’ve never seen before comes over to say goodbye. He’s in a band and they’re playing at the Spirit of Burgas Festival later on – “oh yeah? What’s that then? Maybe we’ll go…”

We spend most of the day chilling and decide to start hitchhiking in the early evening. Sietse is a little sceptical about this – “hitching at night?!” – but I convince him it will be fun and off we go. This is my favourite thing about hitchhiking with male-bodied people – much less safety concerns!

Actually it’s easy. A truck-driver takes us the whole way and drops us close to the gates of the Spirit of Burgas. We have an idea we might try to sneak in. Not likely – security guards with dogs and jeeps patrol the area. Outside the fences plenty of people who probably had a similar idea stroll around with drinks and friends, resigned to the side of the fence their fortunes have dealt them. We sit outside a bar by the perimeter, to get a better idea of how the security is working. It’s 1am and we still don’t know where we’re going to sleep tonight.

Percy the Persecutor

I go to the bar to order a coffee, preparing myself for a long night. A drunk English man in his fifties starts talking to me – “where’re you from then? …Brigh’n? Wha’ ya doin’ ‘ere then?” “I’m travelling,” I tell him. “ …Travellin’ are ya? Well I’m Percy the Persecutor.” He laughs a hearty laugh. “Can I come’n sit wi’ya?” “Um.. yeah, sure!” “Alrigh’, I’ll come over. Are you wiv that dreadlock bloke then are ya? …cor, like yer tits!” he says to the bar woman who’s serving him. I go back to Sietse. “Someone’s coming over.” I tell him. “Eh? Who?” “Percy the Persecutor.” “Eh?!”

Percy comes over and sits down. Two others come with him: an Italian guy, well versed in crude English slang, and an incredibly drunk girl from Bulgaria who keeps trying to hold my hand. Percy the Persecutor buys us a round and asks again what we’re doing here. We tell him we’ve come to try and break in to the festival – “Wha? In there? It’s shit anyway! Better off comin’ to my place!” He seems serious – especially when he tells us he’s got a whole apartment going spare above his house that we can stay in – “fer free!” he says. “Don’ mind ya stayin’ there, I’d like to help yer out if I can.”

Sietse and I have a little conference. He’s been stuck on trying to break in, whereas I just want an adventure. Percy the Persecutor seems like an adventure to me. We haven’t got any better plans anyway, and we can come back tomorrow in the daylight and have a better look around. We bundle into a taxi with Percy and the drunk girl. Percy lives in a small village some way from the centre of Burgas. He shows us our place upstairs first – a two-bedroom apartment with our own bathroom and kitchen! Then he takes us downstairs and asks us to choose our poison. We choose beers and Percy gets his weed out and tells Sietse to skin up. It really is going to be a long night after all. We listen to most of John Martyn‘s back catalogue and drink lots of beer and wine while I watch the others smoke lots of weed, usually skinning up for them since for some reason a pot-head and Dutch man are unable to skin up!

Breakfast at Percy’s house consists of a great deal of English food: Marmite on toast, Heinz baked beans and fish fingers for Sietse. We drink most of a jug of coffee and watch the drunk girl, who is still just as drunk, getting very very stoned, and yet more drunk. Percy decides it’s time for her to go home. We should probably get going too: we’ve got a festival to break into!

Percy the Persecutor

Percy and Sietse

The Spirit of Burgas

We walk out of the village and eventually get picked up by a couple. She’s just flown in from somewhere far away. She’s an air-hostess and works crazy hours. She must be exhausted, but that doesn’t stop her from being one of what my friend Sarah would call an “Angel of the Road”. She drives us to the train station, insists on paying for 24 hour Left Luggage for us (in case we break in without our bags), forces us to take all the money she has in her wallet (about 30 Lei – 15 Euros) – despite my insistence that I never accept money, and then drives us back to where the festival is. She takes a photo of us for her own memories and I give her a big hug – “Thanks Stefani!”

The Spirit of Burgas goes on without us. We sit outside the main gate with perfect audio, though zero visual. Skunk Anansi are awesome regardless and I can picture Skin onstage with her beautiful shiny bald head. We’re into Moby by the time we get down onto the public beach and put up our tent next to all of the others who are too cheap to buy a festival ticket. There are police boats patrolling the shore – we didn’t stand a chance. Still, we have had a lot of fun, and judging by the way the security is searching people and pouring their alcohol and even bottled water away – it’s probably better out here anyway.

Return to Sofia

Sietse and I return to Sofia for two nights before he leaves again to hitch back across Europe to Holland, see his family and make some last arrangements before setting sail for the high seas – the Atlantic Ocean.

“See you in a year in New Zealand!” I tell him as we kiss goodbye, knowing full well it could just as easily be Brazil in two years, France in ten years or Mongolia in six months… well, the last option seems unlikely, but you never know.

Magic on Karadere Beach

It turns out Sebastien and I didn’t get the perfect lift – Claire and Tink did. Their driver also drove them all the way onto the beach, stopped so they could do food shopping on the way and gave them some magic mushrooms he’d picked himsel!

Claire shares some with me on the night of a perfect half-moon. We walk up onto the cliffs above the beach, where the baked-mud tracks run in every direction, without a soul to be seen – other than the occasional being venturing up in the hope of finding telephone reception.

As the sun sinks and disappears from a fiery sky, I’m getting chills up there on the path. I’m putting it off as long as possible, but sooner or later I’ll need a jumper. I’m experienced enough with tripping not to bother telling Claire I’ll be right back – a million unforeseen distractions stand between me and my jumper. I bimble my way off along the path, seeking a way down, which I find eventually, carefully manoeuvring my way around stray poo – the main problem with an overcrowded “wild” beach with no facilities and a lot of drunks.

And then I see the sea – oh oh oh, the white froth of the waves is silver moonlight on deep purple waters, the water warmer than the air. I walk along, along, along the beach in direction of the camp, splashing my feet in the froth. People come towards and pass me – one, two, then groups. I don’t know how to interact with them – should I smile? say hello? ignore them completely? Nothing seems quite appropriate. I’m aware of how the presence of another affects me – I see them coming, my awareness changes – a drawing in of invisible borders – then that choice: will we acknowledge one another’s presence or walk on by? If we decide to do different things – you smile, I ignore – how does that change our interaction, our awareness? …then I see Jasper. Oh my, what is all this happening now in my body? Heart pounding, blood rushing, thoughts all knocking together in confusion… I hug him and we speak a while, but my brain is different now. It’s hard to have a political discussion and hypothesise about another place and time.

Outside our tents, Agatha is adamantly trying to get information out of me – “why have you got such a big grin on your face? What’s happened? Something has happened, hasn’t it? Won’t you at least tell me that?” I think, my head cocked to one side - “define ‘happened’?” “Oghhhh!”

Finally I have my jumper. Now I must escape from this maddening crowd… and find someplace to pee! A girl with a clipboard stops me as I’m wandering past. She’s sitting quietly with a few others and has such a nice smile that I agree to answer her questions… “Oh, great! Where are you from?” Uh oh… it’s that question – much harder to answer now than usual – “Ummm…” The people look at me, confused. I want to be helpful, but I don’t know what to say… England is the obvious one, but what about the years I spent in Scotland, the half of my family from Ireland, all of the places I’ve travelled in the past two years and the effects they had on me? I could say “mostly Britain” or “from the UK”, but aren’t these just political structures, which actually I don’t agree with? Britain is the name of the island where I spent most of my life, but the word also conjures up images of nationalists with St George flags. Because I’m having difficulty, the people try to be helpful – “where were you when you decided to come here?” “Oh! Ummm…” I really can’t remember – it must have been months ago – but when? “Where were you before this?” Oh, that’s easy – “Sofia!” The girl smiles, relieved, and writes “Sofia” next to my name – the only other question I have so far managed to answer. “Age?” Oh god. Claire and I just had a conversation about this other popular question – essentially “how many times has the sun revolved around the earth since you were born?” As though this were representative of the character before you. I peek over the shoulder of the girl with the clipboard. There are all of these questions and neat little boxes – name, nationality, age, gender, occupation, university degree… “Oh, I’m terribly sorry…”

Making my way back up the silvery path, I remember the mud track – and Claire! Could she still be here? It must be hours since I went to get my jumper. She could be anywhere by now. I clamber up onto the track and take a few steps before hearing the faint sound of singing – Claire! I walk towards her, a grin on my face, begin whirling when I see her clearly. A laugh breaks through the singing – “Jo!” We run and hug one another, excitedly retail each of our adventures. “You are so beyond that form right now!” Claire laughs when I tell her of the girl with the boxes. We lie on our backs, staring at the stars, until it gets so late and cold we both venture down the cliff to bed.

4th European Hitchhikers Gathering

Six eager bleary-eyed hitchhikers take the bus to the outskirts of Sofia. We split into three pairs and spread out along the lay-by. I’m with Sebastien – a cheery, smiley young man from Belgium, only just setting out on his his own long-term adventure.

All three pairs get rides simultaneously: Boyan and Agatha have a straight lift to Byala, our destination, and will be at the beach in just a few hours. We see Mathieu and Katarina put their bags into the back of a white van as we get into a car with a couple of long-haired guys on their way to a festival in Pazardzhik.  They drop us on the highway and we get our next ride immediately with a guy who speaks Turkish. I’m so happy to speak Turkish with him – until he begins asking me questions I don’t understand with a suspicious twinkle in his eye. This guy also speaks French, so I ask Sebastien to translate. In French it’s very clear, even to me – he’s asking Sebastien if he can have sex with me! He’s very polite about it and accepts my “NO!” in several languages with a cheery disposition. I look out of the window for the rest of the journey. Sebastien is stunned.

Mathieu and Katarina appear again at the petrol station where we’re dropped off. They wave and take pictures as we drive off with a couple from Sofia – all the way to Burgas. I guess we’ll be arriving second… not that it’s a race.

Smiley Sebastien in the car on our way to Burgas

Our final lift is a friendly guy who doesn’t speak English. Elvis nods away on the dashboard of the campervan as we drive along, listening to classic rock. He tries to convince us to go to Irakli – a different beach, but when he sees we’re insistent about Karadere, he takes us right the way down there, only stopping once to get me to move the beach chair I’m sitting on in the back of the van so he can open his little fridge and gives us both a beer. We continue – beers in hand, smiles on faces – all the way up and down the bumpy baked-mud tracks to the several kilometre tent-covered beach at the bottom.

Tents, bamboo and rush shelters, Bulgarian tourists and hippies cover the beach from end to end. A group of naked men walk past and wave. How to find a big group of hitchhikers?? We begin walking. Fortunately, after 15 minutes or so we see..

A sign!

This is the fourth European Hitchgathering. Before I was travelling myself, I always read about them on hitchhikers forums with bitter envy and disappointment that I couldn’t be there. There is a small subculture of people who live this way, vagabonding around Europe and beyond, and this is one of a few ways we might occasionally bump into one another.

It’s what you might expect – silly games and lots of drinking, with plenty of workshops thrown in. Drinking games, hitchhikers bingo… it’s not so much my thing these days – although I did win hitchhikers bingo, and doing eye exercises while covered in clay is nice – and I’m aware of myself becoming distant and cranky on several occasions, but still manage to have a generally good time and meet plenty of incredibly nice people.

Unlike the activist camps I’m used to, there isn’t really a culture here of mutual aid and cooperation. In fact, we’re close to a food crisis on a couple of occasions and one person is spotted biting into a raw onion in desperation rather than going to the shop, a forty-five minute walk away. But somehow after the first few days, everything sorts itself out – well, actually two or three people (not myself I’m ashamed to admit), take on the role of feeding 150 people with only three small camping pots and one fire. This takes approximately six hours for one meal, before finally nobody puts up their hand when asked if hungry. This is extremely commendable and these people deserve lots of cake.

Hitch

Hikers

Gathering

We arrived at the beach one day early, when there was only a small group and meeting everyone was easy. I met a tall man named Jasper and asked where he’s from – “Ummm… actually, this is a tricky question!” Oh, a kindred spirit – I hate this question too! We’ve both arrived with flyers for the No Border Camp, also being held in Bulgaria in a couple of weeks time. Another vagabonding No Borders Anarchist!? We decide to do a workshop together, which works out very well.

“Jasper, how do you balance your need to travel with your desire to be socially and politically engaged?” We are splashing about in the warm sea, bobbing up and down to avoid the crash of the waves. “That’s the dichotomy of my life!” Ahhh, to meet others who understand how I feel – that’s the reason to go to these gatherings.

Beach tribe

Two happy hitchhikers

Concrete Trees and Broken People – Sofia, Bulgaria

The man in the van drops me by Vitosha Boulevard. He has a way about him that I find common in this part of the world – a gruff friendliness, without smiling. The address on my piece of paper says “Vitosha”, which I am about to discover is not only this big trendy boulevard in the centre of town, but also a mountain at the very edge of the city and a small district close to it – I am in the wrong place entirely.

I find myself by a mosque in the centre of the city. The call to prayer starts just as I’m approaching and my ears strain to hear it over the noise: this sound of Turkey, here in Sofia. In Istanbul the call sounds out over all other noise, booms across the city. Here you must strain to hear it, even under the loudspeaker. Two weeks later when I return to this city, I will learn on the Free Sofia Tour that this is the last mosque in the city. All others have been converted into churches, museums or shopping centres, despite the 10% Muslim population. Here the call is only sounded three times a day, as opposed to the usual five – “because people don’t want to be disturbed”. I try to imagine how this level of noise could disturb even somebody sleeping right here beside the mosque, but fail. The traffic is certainly louder.

The first time I mentioned Turkey to a man I was hitching a lift with in Bulgaria, he merely replied “we don’t like Turkish people here.” – what, none of them? “we were slaves of the Turks for 500 years” – what, all of them? You, personally? Usually the racism is not so extreme – merely “the Bulgarian people were slaves of the Turks for 500 years,” without the “not liking” part. It means the same thing though. I think of all the villages I have passed through in Turkey – the old people working the fields, smiling, offering what they have.

Advert for biscuits

Sofia feels like a dream to me. Wide boulevards spread out before me with only a few people walking about. Huge sturdy solid Soviet buildings line up beside shiny designer outlets and billboards – every one of them, no matter what it might be advertising, featuring a semi-naked woman. Perhaps this also accounts for the fashion victims with protruding bones and surgery lines, sporting peculiar outfits last seen in Britain on a catwalk in 1990 – neon pink, white asymmetrical tops, mullets, tiny shorts and stiletto heels. I’m dying to get some photos of these women to show you what I mean, but I really don’t have the nerve. Once I spent an hour or two on Vitosha Boulevard trying to snap quick pictures on my camera-phone, but it has a delay of a few seconds and I always had to whip quickly away to avoid detection. This is the best I could do…

My Balcony Bedroom at Boyan’s Abode

I’m staying with Boyan, who is organising the Sofia pre-meeting of the European Hitchgathering – that’s why I’m here. Actually, I came to meet Aleksa, my Serbian best friend and previous CS host, who I’ve not seen in over a year. I finally convinced him to travel somewhere with me, and offered to meet him halfway – in Sofia – to travel together to the main Hitchgathering on the Black Sea. Unfortunately, the road wasn’t kind to him and he spent six hours trying and failing to hitchhike out of Belgrade, then gave up and got the train home, dejected. I’m sad for Aleksa and for myself, mising out on seeing him.

Boyan looks on with interest as I roll out the old carpet I found on the pile of unused stuff on his balcony, shift the rest of the stuff out of the way and make myself a bed out there under the stars. “I never thought of doing that!” he exclaims, “do you want to stay longer?”

My balcony bedroom at Boyan's

Also staying at Boyan’s place, among an assortment of hitchhikers, is Agatha. Agatha and I hit it off right away and discuss love and politics over vegan dinners while she gets on with her sewing project – a very elaborate courting action involving photographs, facebook and embroidery.

I love sleeping at Boyan’s place: the starkness of rotting communist tower-blocks set against the Vitosha mountain at the edge of Sofia – the mountain so much older, looking so much newer. At night the mountain is invisible; artificial lights cover the city, mimicking stars and drowning out the real ones. Dogs bark endlessly, protecting the house below – the last house in a high-rise jungle – “from the gypsies”, apparently.

My balcony bedroom view

Towerblocks

Boyan’s building

Reading Stolen Compass in Sofia

Sophia gives me a lot of space. For a big city it’s not so densely populated – or perhaps people sit in their houses, afraid to go out. Anyway, the wide streets are almost empty and somehow, despite the stream of people coming through Boyan’s place, I find myself alone there for a couple of days while Boyan himself is working nights. So I have a lot of time for writing and reading blogs, and wandering streets wrapped up in thought.

Sometimes I get addicted to particular blogs. It happened with Bliss Vagbond and now it’s happening with Stolen Compass. I read a few entries and then have to go right back to the beginning and read it all sequentially. Sitting in Boyan’s apartment I log on and see… Current location:sofia, bulgaria

What a coincidence! He isn’t here now though of course, he’s long gone. I’m playing catch up on entries written way back between October and February – a long, hard winter; internal and external. Sophia is a different creature now, but fragments of this time are echoed in my current experience…

“I like the old people so much in this city. They are cold, too, but have lived too much to hide anything any more. Wanderer, bare all to us, if you will. They walk with no purpose at all. Just walking. No pretence. I see them standing in front of charging trams with vacant eyes. Murmuring to lost friends. Cinema screens behind their eyelids – of memories relived again and again. Sitting on little wooden stalls selling walnuts and home produced wines on the the corners of busy roads. Yoghurt, cheeses, caged years that they’ll never reacquire. Just this. Walking the parks with nothing. We are what we are.” – Jass, Stolen Compass

Yes, I have seen them too, these broken people. The more I read through the winter this stranger – barely a stranger though (we share friends in common and spent time in the same cities at the same time, always without meeting) – spent in this city, the more I see it through his lens. A woman who sits everyday on a windowsill at the bottom of Vitosha Boulevard, clutching a small bunch of daffodils, staring straight ahead; while lost in a Soviet labyrinth, a small skinny man with a jaunty hat and scars all up his arms stops and points me in the right direction. He smiles with all of his teeth as I thank him, but his eyes are in another time it seems.

“I laugh to crack the grey buildings and fill them with colours.”

Once I had to get a bus and didn’t know the procedure. I stopped many people who looked at me forlornly and nodded their heads like donkeys (nodding means no in Bulgaria, head wobbling sideways means yes), ignored me completely or moved quickly away. Finally here was a helpful man who showed me which bus to get, and another who gave me his spare ticket.

“This display of concern reaches under my skin. Every time I think of this country as so cold, warmth comes to me in tiny drips.”

I mention Stolen Compass and this guy Jass to Boyan – he hosted him! During the time he wrote this, he was here! I imagine Jass here in this apartment, writing these words, feeling I am in some kind of echo…

“In the corner of the concrete park with its concrete trees and concrete people passing and glaring at me writing cross-legged as the rest of Sofia drinks itself comatose or knits new mittens, there’s an old man. Only his hair is visible when his cigarette lights up, whiter than Greek stone. I don’t know how long he’s there for, how long he watches me, but soon he approaches and leans down to see what I’m writing. His spits to his left, grunts, and moves on.”

I think I met him too.

Images of Sophia:

One of many knee-height kiosks

Fairly typical pavement

From a collection of surreal statues

Big Soviet buildings

One Year Anniversary with a Ring-Road (Lila and Jo’s Bulgarian Adventure)

I’m back in the European Union! I have to say, it’s disappointing. I thought I would be halfway through Asia by now and here I am, back in Bulgaria. How is that even possible? The shift in cultures is palpable – suddenly women are wearing a lot less, cars are stopping a lot less and people in general have stopped smiling. I miss Turkey already.

Hitching with Lila, Rooz and Lila's new drum

Lila and I wait for Rooz to renew his Turkish visa and hug him goodbye. It’s been a strange and at times uncomfortable journey to arrive at this border, including getting asked for sex by a truck driver – first time in a while, and he didn’t even mind that Rooz was there with us – only checked to see if we were married first…

“Fuck off! Fuck off anladın mı? Do you understand fuck off?” I am seething as I struggle to put my sandals on and climb out of the cab. Lila and Rooz are waiting outside. After that Rooz says he might just get a bus. Oh great, thanks, abandon us while we’re feeling vulnerable. He doesn’t mean it like that of course, but I’m struck by his lack of empathy. He doesn’t even ask how we are.

Now we’re alone at the border and it’s dark. We have no idea where to go, but our spirits are up again after a couple of nice rides. We make a “15km” sign and get picked up by a lovely Turkish grandpa. He buys me a map from a shop near the border and asks where we want to go. Well, we’re not exactly sure, but we need a place to camp… Oh, he knows a lovely place to camp and can take us right there. But then he offers a place in his flat for us – stressing there are two rooms and he will sleep in one, us in the other – there will be no problems. If we want to camp he will take us there, no problem, but the offer is there if we want it… He’s so nice! We just say yes and drive with him to his flat in Plovdiv.

Here is our room with two beds, as promised, a separate room from his one. It’s almost 1am and my eyelids are dropping closed every few seconds, but on returning from the bathroom I find a worried Lila sitting on the edge of the bed. Apparently he came in the room in his dressing-gown and offered her a massage. “His dressing-gown was a bit open,” she says. Oh god, not again. I decide to ignore it. We’re clearly stronger than this pale prune-bodied man. We go to sleep.

I awake early in the morning to the sound of the door creaking open. There he is in his underpants. “Good morning!” he says to me, and potters off. Well, maybe he has to work soon? I decide it’s time to get up, though really I’m still very tired. It’s not long before Lila is also awake – “what the fuck is that door doing open?!” “It’s ok,” I tell her, “he just opened it just now. I think maybe he wants us to get up.” I decide not to mention the underpants. I take a shower and start packing, but there he is, still in his underpants, offering me breakfast. “No thanks,” I tell him, “we only have one day in Plovdiv and we want to go and see it.” “Oh… only one day…” he mutters, coming closer to me. I side step away a little, but he leans in close to me “Sex istarmisin?” “Hayir! (no!)” I tell him, horrified -“Lila – time to go!” “What happened?” She asks me. “Time to go! Time to go!” I make her hurry up and pack her things. We leave him at the door in his underpants: a sweet grandpa no more. “Thanks,” says Lila as we step out onto the street. “Don’t even thank him!” I growl.

Plovdiv

Plovdiv is a pretty little ancient city, the second largest in the country, but still with a poplulation not much bigger than Brighton. Half a day of wandering it’s streets seems to be enough and we head out of town. I’m heading towards Sofia, the capital, but Lila is going on to Romania to WWOOF on a farm. We want one more night together, somewhere in nature, but somehow nothing is easy today.

Lila has chosen a place on the map that seems to be in the mountains, near a lake, on the way to Sofia. We make our way there slowly with the help of a few cars – (wish I’d got a picture of the guy with the mullet, small white shorts and mostly naked bronzed body – like a parody of a Baywatch character, but very friendly) – but discover that the small village which looked charming on the map is in fact a small industrial town on a plateau, with grey streets and unsmiling citizens. Now it’s getting dark and is also becoming one of those unfortunate times when all I want to do is curl up inside a small opaque box, perhaps with a good book, but instead have to trek about with an increasingly heavy backpack, smiling at cars and projecting positivity. Lila does her best to keep my spirits up, but it’s futile, unfortunately.

Somehow we decide to go back to the “lake” – actually an artificial dam we passed on the way to the “village”. We get a ride, but the guy doesn’t understand at all the concept of “wild camping” and insists on driving us around in search of a non-existent camp-site, which anyway we wouldn’t have paid for. “Here!” “Here!” “Stop!” We look on in dismay as yet another perfect camping opportunity rolls out of sight and the side of the damn is protected by big fences and fancy establishments. Finally at our insistence he stops. It’s almost dark and the sides of the road down the country lane are just steep hills on each side. As the last dregs of light are fading we are scrambling on the ground of a dry river bed running down the hill, trying to remove enough rocks and small stones to form a tent-sized flat space. It works, more or less.

It’s nice to wake to the light shining through the leaves, dancing patterns through the tent. We pack up, breakfast and go – saving coffee for the service station, where we say our goodbyes as Lila gets a ride almost to the Romanian border.

Lila drumming at the crossroads

This may or may not be the petrol station where I said goodbye to Pete last year, before hitching my way back home to Brighton, but it was on this day EXACTLY one year ago, and it was somewhere on this ring-road. I don’t know where I thought I would be by now, but it certainly wasn’t here.

Istanbul Revisited

Empty bottles, musical instruments, stray socks and dreadlocks decorate the floor of a one-bedroom fifth-floor flat in Taxim, just off Istanbul’s famous İstiklal Caddesi. Two anarcho-hippy friends from the Rainbow have been subletting this flat from a friend, but have become inundated with hippies as word spread there was a free space to crash. On an evening you can see buskers dotted up and down the length of Istiklal – at least 50% of them staying in this flat. Add to this Caleb’s younger barefoot and outspoken anarcho-primitivist brother and their vegan-yet-still-quite-macho friend from the U.S. The flat is a one-bedroom affair, covered in grime and mattresses. The city, like the flat, is hot, crowded and noisy, five stories above a bar. It’s great to be back in this city.

Buskers on Istiklal

A “Retro Shop” on Istiklal, proclaims “everything 5TL, 10TL!” Lots of identical clothes in piles tell me these aren’t second-hand and I don’t find much of interest except a skirt. I haven’t bought clothes in years, but I try it on. While rummaging, the shop owner chats to me. He offers me tea and I drink it with him. I decide to buy the skirt, but he won’t accept money – not only that, he wants me to take more stuff for free! I find some tops I like and try to give him 5 lira for the lot, but he still won’t accept money. “Take it, it’s good energy,” he says. Finally we agree that I will also take some sunglasses and he accepts the money.

How I missed these vegan potlucks!

We’re back just in time for the weekly vegan potluck. It’s as though I never left Istanbul – we first started these when I was here the first time. It’s nice to see the tradition continuing. I’m still with Lila and Rooz. We hitched back with our friend Maura from the Sufi Gathering, but soon said goodbye to Maura who flew back to the U.S. Rooz seems somewhat distant and I feel he needs some space. Lila and I move to my friend Yiğit (pronounced Yee-eet)’s place to find a little space of our own, but end up getting locked in and out of the flat – with Lila downstairs on the street and me unable to open the door for her. I throw her book down from the balcony and she goes to our friend from the potluck, who luckily lives in the next street.

Strange to be back in Europe, though no part of Turkey really feels the same as the E.U. to me, as I am about to discover…

Whirling

“In the house of lovers, the music never stops, the walls are made of songs & the floor dances”
— Rumi

A Sufi-related string of coincidences leads to me climbing Istanbul’s ancient city walls late one Thursday night. I count them off like tespih beads, run the thin thread of memory through my mind…

…at the first vegan potluck, someone mentioned Whirling Dervishes – Sara had been to see some in a non-touristic place, but couldn’t remember where… Pete has a thing about Sufis, so I thought it might be nice to go… then a friend mentioned she’s writing a paper on Sufism... a seemingly random email arrived from a female dervish, inviting me to visit her Islamic school… I discovered a Sufism documentary on my laptop….

…Back to the city walls. We’ve given up looking for the Sufi place and have decided to explore the ancient walls instead. It’s been a long night of hopeless searching, taxis, walking and unanswered questions. I’m in need of a çay. Turning the corner, we see a small orange sign: “Mevlana Cultural Centre - you’re kidding!” We’re over an hour late, but it’s only just getting started. We’ve missed lengthy readings in Turkish and not a lot else. A small bus with tourists is just arriving outside. We and the tourists join the two rows of chairs surrounding the room. Now some chanting – “ALLAH-HALLAH-HALLAH-HALLAH…” – deep, resonating voices; bodies rocking in earnest. Finally, the whirlers come onto the floor. They encircle it in black robes and tall hats, then remove their cloaks revealing white dresses – like these. The faces of the people whirling captivate me, clearly in a state of bliss.

Fast forward to now, July. I am whirling for around three hous per day. No, hang on, rewind just a little… at the Rainbow everyone was talking about a “Sufi Music Festival”. Almost everyone seemed to be going. I decided not to, until I came down from the Rainbow. I mentioned it to a man at Kemer crossroads while trying to decide what to do – “it’s not a festival, it’s a religious gathering! You can’t just go make a Rainbow there!”

“Oh good!” said Claire when I repeated this to her. We’d both been interested in Sufism for some time. So we hitchhiked to Yalova, only thinking on arriving in the city to search the internet for what and where we’d spent three days hitching to…

It’s a 66 days and nights continuous Sema. What’s a Sema? It’s a prayer, a dance, a meditation, a form of worship. Simply: whirling. One spins.

Actually, two people spin, minimum, any given moment. And thus the Sema continues on and on for 66 days. They’ve done this before – 7 days a few times, 44 days and nights twice before. This is the first time this group (or anyone else I know of) has done 66 days. It’s no easy feat. Always musicians are playing in the room upstairs, and always people spin. It’s open to anyone, there’s beds in two rooms – one for women, a smaller one for men (there are a lot more women than men), or space outside for tents. There’s always tea and food available and full meals are provided three times a day. There’s a washing-machine, shower, electricity… life is comfortable in this white octagonal building.

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”
— Rumi

It’s 6am. Tatjana is playing her harp, singing sweetly as the first rays of light hit the Sema floor. The music, the light, the room spinning around me; open a door inside. After some nights in my tent, I found a sleeping space at the side of the Sema floor upstairs – extra responsibility, willing to wake up during the night and whirl. After a couple of days of sleep-deprived insanity, I have found a pattern within the chaos. I sleep until 5:30am, whirl for an hour, shower and practice yoga on the grass outside while it’s quiet and not too hot. I eat breakfast, then sleep upstairs until the deep, gentle, resonant voice of Hayrie wakes me at midday, then spin for an hour until lunch.

They don’t eat nightshades here. I’ve heard of this before – that the nightshade family of plants, which includes tomatoes, potatoes and aubergine, contains toxins. This is the first place I’ve stayed where they really take on this diet, but the strangest thing to me is that it seems ok to eat factory farmed chicken every day – but not tomatoes. Nobody has an answer for this.

The village where this is all taking place is Thermal – a strange holiday destination with mostly Arab tourists. At the Dergah (the Sema building), I can comfortably wear a vest and knee-length skirt, but out in the village this would feel obscene. Women wearing burqas are the norm, often with noses covered. Turkish women in colourful head-scarves, long skirts and blouses look almost risquee. Claire and I take two trips to the hammam. Despite being for women only, almost everyone has their breasts covered – mostly with stylish sexy bikinis. But three women arrive wearing the (to me) unbelievable: full “burqinis” – like shells suits made of plastic, zipping all the way up. The three women hold hands in the pool and bounce one another up and down like teabags.

View of the village

“HALLAH-ALLAH-ALLAH-HALLAH…” Not every evening, but many, there is a zikr. This involves chanting and rhythmically pounding the feet, swaying the body, inducing a trance-like state. Oruç, the Sheikh or Master, conducts the whole thing.

The Master is quite a character – short, thin, hunchbacked and bespectacled, one leg longer than the other. It seems his body was created contorted into the perfect position to become a master musician. And it’s his music that seems to bring people in.

I begin to ask how others found their way here. Most of the organisers are Turkish, or married to Turkish people, but most others are international – a proliferation of middle-aged German and Swiss people, with the odd Spaniard, American, Israeli, Iranian and Latin American. Always people are leaving and others arriving and everyone, without fail, is hugely eccentric in their own little way: a strange spinning bunch of misfits. They came through music, or dancing, or theatre – stumbling upon Sufism by accident in many cases.

A woman who has never spoken to me before comes over one day as I’m eating breakfast – “When I saw you come onto the floor this morning, I just wanted to tell you – perhaps we got off on the wrong foot, but you have really made a good contribution here – thank you.” Did we get off on the wrong foot? I hadn’t noticed. Perhaps she was grouping me in with the others who have been arriving from the Rainbow – it’s been a bit of an “us and them” at times – though I’m definitely not one of “us” or “them”. Unfortunately, a big group arrived during the week the Sheikh was away and being a big group, remained seperate from the majority of people – many contributing in their own ways, but generally not whirling and not really mingling. The Arrogant American was among them, causing his own little ruptures. On leaving he accidentally broke a glass and declared it his “final act of karmic retribution” on the place.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
— Rumi

The Master is back and the evening talks have resumed. After a welcome, “iyi akshamlar” (good evening) and chit-chat about mundanities, Oruç reads in Turkish from the Masnavi. Now the translations – one group for German, another for English. It’s a literal translation from the Persian, written in Shakespearean English, read by a non-native speaker who isn’t fluent… I can understand the words, only the sentences appear unrelated. I look at the man who was reading it – we both shrug and turn back to Oruç, who begins his talk. I have a similar problem here, unfortunately. I’m not sure if again it’s the translation, but I just can’t make sense out of what he’s saying. One evening I decide to write notes…

“…Allah created the world with principles: a door can be open or shut, but there is also a third option: a door can be a little way open. A computer doesn’t know this, but scientists are trying to change that…”

“…The bread joined existence because of love…” 

“…When we go to bed, we always assume we will wake up. We are not afraid of sleep, because we remember the habit of waking up….”

My brain gets distracted, wanders off and returns to find Oruç discussing Bidget Bardot’s involvement in animal rights. He says something about respecting all animals and we begin a table-zikr – rotating the table this way and that – “HALLAH-HALLAH-HALLAH-HALLAH…” I can’t help think of the factory-reared chicken that was eaten on this table an hour ago.

“Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes and see me as I see myself, for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.”
— Rumi

“LA-ILAHA-ILALLAH-LA-ILAHA-ILALLAH…” Rooz and I are dozing on our adjacent sleeping mats as a troupe of forty people come up the stairs in formation, chanting loudly and startling us to our feet. “Hell of an alarm call,” he whispers as the people encircle the Sema floor – “…LA-ILAHA-ILALLAH-LA-ILAHA-ILALLAH…”- Soon forty people are whirling – the most I’ve ever seen, most I’ve never set eyes on before. An ancient man with deeply engraved wrinkles looks as though he will fall over any second, jittering awkwardly in a vaguely circular motion; a woman in a white flowery skirt struggles to find a rhythm and when she does – grins from ear to ear. Who are these people? Nights like this I’m pleased to stay awake, despite my early mornings. Genuine ecstacy is palpable as the music reaches a cresendo and Oruç himself stands and with violin in hand, makes his way purposefully to the centre of the floor. All the other musicians get up and follow. I have never seen him whirl before, but now he does so – as well as his frame will allow. The drummers are whirling, the singers are whirling, the saxaphone player is whirling… there will never be words for this.

“Let silence take you to the core of life.”
— Rumi

One day I decide to be silent. It’s the perfect place for introspection, and how nourishing it is – reading, listening, sitting, whirling…

I am the ballerina in the music box,
gift on altar, eye of storm.
surrendering into moment,
reborn each second into blur…

and Rumi whispers in my ear, “You can arrive at Mecca a thousand times,
but what’s really worth arriving at is your own heart.”