Kurdistan

We never learn, we never exercise self control. We were getting drunk way past our bed time and still got more beer from the shop before passing out at 2.30 for a 5am start. There was no argument due with the cabby this time on the way to the airport the next morning. Today, we were heading east.

Arriving at the military airport in Diyabakir, the main city in the Kurdish part of Turkey, was a shock. At 9am it was already 32C and rising. I slept most of the day in the hotel room, drugged by heat and hangover, while Ayla went about her work interviewing local politicians ahead of the elections next Sunday. I only got up to eat take away and watch an episode of Extras and a very dry documentary about Gallipoli. Same old story: Bad planning, arrogance, failure, pointlessness, but the British ultimately prevailing. And the Gallipoli film wasn't much better.

Ayla supposed I was the only male in the region with a foreskin and the last blond-haired, blued-eyed man they'd have seen was on Starsky and Hutch. That must be why they all look at me strangely.

Then a coach load of Japanese tourists turned up. Were they aware of the political hot potato they were visiting? Were they the same coach party that has been touring the middle east since the second gulf war? Did they think I was David Soul too? The answer to these questions must surely be: No.

We drove to the old ruins of a Byzantine fortress, at a place called Hasankeyf, where people lived in caves for two millennia. We had lunch on the banks of the Tigris. I had delicious open-grilled fish caught fresh from the river. Then we paddled in the river where our lunch was just caught. Hold on... I'm glad I only just thought of that. And finally, after months of nagging, I bought Ayla a bloody raffia cowboy hat from an urchin. Happy now?

We visited a monastery of monks who spoke Aramaic, the language of Mel Gibson. This region is the homeland of a few Syriac Christians who, it is claimed, can trace their faith back to 33AD, the year of our Lord's crucifixion. This makes them the very first new age Christians. I wonder if they had fish symbols on the hinds of their asses.

Back on the campaign trail, after a night in a hotel popular with dead flies and cockroaches, we started to feel very, very unwell. I drove Ayla to the next engagement reasoning that she had to be fresh for work. She met with a local candidate from the Kurdish DTP party which, bizarrely I was invited to attend. I was ushered upstairs by a party officials into a private apartment full of relatives, extended family, and minders, through dark corridors (which perturbed me somewhat) until I was sat in the corner and fed scalding hot tea while Ayla asked the questions. The interviewee, the head of the DTP, didn't have socks on.

They thought I was Ayla's hired goon. Fat lot of use I would have been in a hostage situation, wearing flip-flops and jeans and looking all Brighton, complaining about how the North Laine isn't the same any more since they built the new library. Maybe ending up locked in a Syrian broom cupboard moaning there are no clean towels or enough Stella on the rider. "Erm, yeah mate, I'm in a popular Post-Rock-Krautrock-Nihlist-Assault-Groop with a dash of French Ye-Ye called Stereolab. We're internationalist and marxist and everything." "Silence you western pig!"*

By the time we got back to Diyabakir we were almost incapable of walking. Both of us had sore joints, aching backs and headaches. And not induced by booze this time since there isn't any.
This place is Hell; hot and no beer.

We returned to Istanbul extremely unwell spending long spells of Monday groaning on the sofa punctuated by dashes to the necessarium.

My backside is like the Japanese flag. And as Ayla is sparked out in a worse state than me I can't even go to the shops to get some Imodium because I don't know what the Turkish is for "My arse is on fire. Can you give me something for my Sultan's revenge?"

The Diyabakir tourist board has a lot to answer for.

* Thanks Jim.