Akdamar Island

Deciding that I wanted to stop paying tourist prices and take a more unscripted tour of Akdamar island – a local attraction – I hunted down the dolmus depot hidden away near the bazaar and climbed into a bus (£1.20) taking me to the nearby town of Gevas. From here I had to change to another dolmus (£0.40) which dropped me off at the docks some six kilometres away, my seat consisting of a bag of flour positioned in the gangway of the increasingly overloaded transit van. Not quite managing to blend in as a local, the journey was spent being stared at by the entire contingency of the bus. I’ve learnt from experience that’s it’s no use staring back in the hope that they’ll get embarrassed and stop, you’ll just end up losing the ensuing staring competition.

As I’d been forewarned, the ferry to Akdamar island would only take groups of at least ten people, meaning that I was possibly in for a long wait. That was, until, a couple of tourists turned up with a Turkish guide. Before long I was sat up on the deck of the boat and was talking to what turned out to be two English tourists. They were both geologists working for a large western oil firm and had come to the area to do some hiking and check out the local volcano, Nemrut Dag.

Mount Nemrut is last known to have been active in 1597, however one of the geologists was convinced that the volcano is far less dormant than people realise, and is at risk from future eruptions. Indeed, like neighbouring Iran, the region has suffered numerous earthquakes over the years. The geologist also believed that the area has witnessed an eruption of a far greater magnitude than previously thought, having a dramatic effect on the environment and cultures living in the vicinity.

This of course is a region where according to biblical legend the Ark came to rest, on nearby Mt Ararat. It was obvious even to myself that the level of the lake had dropped over the millennia, since the ancient harbour at the nearby Van Kalesi (Castle) was both a long way from the shore and now substantially higher than the water level.

The main reason for visiting the island of Akdamar was the presence of an Armenian church situated on it, complete with ornate carved reliefs on its exterior and golden painted motifs on its interior. Having sat down for some cay and watched the stereotypically bumbling English scientists literally run about in circles trying to avoid the wasps, we made our way back to shore. It was at this point, as I was hoping, that they offered me a lift back to Van, saving me from having to hitch a ride with a truck driver. But first, some lunch at a nearby restaurant.

Sitting down to some more Tawah and enjoying yet more Efes (they told me they hadn’t been able to get any beer in the more conservative Tatvan), I couldn’t believe my luck – they even picked up the bill. Unfortunately, they told me, before they could drop me off in Van, they first wanted to see the Castle overlooking the city. If I thought I’d have had the time I would have already scheduled this in. It turned out that they had a brand new fifteen seat transit van to themselves (complete with driver). The only thing that they requested was that I wear a seatbelt – more than manageable under the circumstances I felt.

The odd couple told me that they’d been hiking down from the volcano when they were spied by an army outpost and briefly detained in a barracks. This isn’t unusual in an area where veering off the tourist trail is deemed suspicious, and camping viewed as the preserve of militants. Apparently they’d been forewarned by both a Turk and an Iraqi that travelling in the area was madness. Indeed a slightly mad Hungarian who I’d met at Hasankeyf had unsurprisingly been ejected from the area near the Iraqi border having tried to follow a river there – ‘jeah! It was crazy!’ Nutter.

As we climbed into the van, looking up to the mountain overlooking the lake, a huge ominous motif carved into the rock loomed – yet again another reminder of the regions troubles. It read ‘You Will Never Divide This Country – Jandarma Kommando’.

Back at the hotel, I saw a man who I had spoken to the previous night – one of the few Turkish people I’d met in the region who spoke good English. Mentioning that I’d made the trip to Akdamar and had eaten at the nearby restaurant. ‘Yes, I know the man who owns the restaurant. Ees very fat, ees always wishing that guests will leave food on their plates so ee can eat it – nom nom nom!’

Later in the evening I stopped by a small Pasterelesi (patisserie shop) nearby for coffee and was invited to join a table of friends. The two men and two girls all worked for a local bank and were there to celebrate one of the girls’ birthday. All had been to university, though only one of the group spoke English, proceeding to act as interpreter between the others and myself.

Following the usual interrogation into my age, religion, marital status and occupation, the tone of Yusuf’s questioning became more serious. ‘Ben this is all very interesting, but can I ask you one question?’. ‘Of course’. What was so serious? Was he going to quiz me on the recent conflict in nearby Georgia? The ongoing financial crisis in America and Britain? The fractious relationship between Turkey’s army and government? ‘Why Van?’. This was probably one of the more difficult questions I’d had to answer on my trip. Why, when I could visit Bodrum, Antalya or Izmir, where they had clubs, bars, beaches and proper toilets, did I instead choose to visit a part of Turkey that physically revulsed most westernised Turks when you mentioned its name. Apparently, the young people of Van have ambitions further than the shores of the great lake.

Breakfast in Van

Van is supposedly renowned for its superior Kahvalti (breakfast), being one of the only places in Turkey with eateries solely dedicated to this. I’m sure this is usually the case, however yet again Ramazan intervened in my enjoyment of local cuisine. Only one of the kahvalti cafes was open, and I’m reasonably confident that what I had wasn’t the best of what Van has to offer. It did however give me the opportunity to sample a local delicacy, translated as grass cheese; essentially a cream cheese with a grassy herb mixed in. It was good, but the local honey stole the show, served draped over a small thin pancake.

What I have learned is that what passes for butter in these parts is best avoided. Resembling neither its yellow western counterpart nor the white clotted version available in other regions, it instead has the look of arterial build up and a taste which I imagine not dissimilar. Try spreading it on bread and it just crumbles into an unappealing powder.

Half Steam to Van

Having spent two days in Hasankeyf, I decided that I’d exhausted most of the options for entertainment in the town. Quite how the South Korean tourist I’d met (who uniquely, spoke fluent Turkish but not a word of English) was spending eight days there, I don’t know. Let’s be honest, it is a one horse town and if there was more than the ruins to it, I think there’d probably be more than one hotel. Then again, I don’t think many entrepreneurs would view imminent flooding as sound investment criteria.

The bus journey to Tatvan reminded me of something I’d noticed on the way in to Hasankeyf – that the surrounding area is dotted with nodding donkeys. I hadn’t realised that this was oil producing country. The journey was also the first point in my trip that I became aware that I was entering a more militarised zone.

The route was absolutely riddled with Army bases, sandbagged bunkers and checkpoints. Half an hour into the journey, we were stopped by one such checkpoint, consisting of a Land Rover, amphibious Armoured Personnel Carrier and about 8 soldiers brandishing assault rifles. At this point all the occupants of the bus had to produce identification, while the contents of the hold were checked over. Four men were subsequently taken off the bus for questioning, but before long they were back on board and we were on our way again – ‘Problem?’, ‘Problem Yok!’.

In hindsight it seems obvious that the partially built highway we were travelling along was less to do with improved transport links for locals, and more to do with expediting the movement of military hardware to the ‘front’.

Arriving in Tatvan, I had the option of either staying on the bus for the comparatively short journey around the shore of Lake Van to Van, or on taking a ferry across the river. Not knowing either what time the ferry left or where from, I nevertheless got off and walked down to the shore. Upon seeing across the bay that train carriages were being loaded on to one of the docked ferries, logic dictated that one of the boats had yet to depart. It wasn’t much of a passenger terminal, primarily serving as a transport point for the train across Van linking Turkey to Iran. The only sign indicating that foot passengers could be taken was on a platform that left a good one metre gap between the dock and the boat, reading ‘Passenger Attempt’. I asked one of the workers what time the boat left, to which he responded by shrugging and pointing at the other carriages lined up. Eventually beckoned on board, I took a space on the deck upstairs and lay out reading before the boat set sail some hour later.

Since I’d expected the terminal to have some form of shop, I had yet again failed to buy any food for the journey. While there was a shop, it was under some form of renovation. With no prospect of food for the next four hours my generally optimistic disposition was beginning to wane. As the sun slowly set over the lake, I went to look for the deckhand who had introduced himself when I’d first arrived at the dock. Thankfully, I went straight to the top (the bridge in this case) and found the captain, who promptly ordered that another space be set at his table. Not quite believing my luck, I joined four of the crew in the officer’s mess for ayran corba, tawa, rice, pide and salad – followed by melon and numerous cups of Cay. The captain and I then spent the next hour watching the Turkish version of Deal or No Deal, during which time he informed me that payment for the journey was not necessary.

Disposition restored and back on dry land, I made my way to the nearest junction some ten minutes away, via a causeway that seemed to be the local secluded hangout for young people. Spying a cay shop and little else, I decided to go and ask for the general direction into town. Somewhat predictably I was promptly coerced into taking a stool and making time for a cup of cay. Surrounded by locals, a number of which sported the long beard favoured by the more devout Muslims, it would be lie to say I wasn’t by that point wishing I’d just picked a road and followed it. Remembering my poor judgement the previous day, I thought better of it. When a local began pointing at the bearded individuals and shouting ‘Taleban, Taleban!’ I didn’t know whether to be concerned or relieved (during a previous visit in 2004, we’d mentioned we were off the local Yimpas, a supermarket run by Muslim fundamentalists – to which the locals would respond ‘Bin Laden, Bin Laden!’).

By now I was making a more concerted effort to find out which of the roads to take. Two of the youths then got up and pointed at a car, gesturing that they’d take me into town where I could find an Otel. With little other choice (I hadn’t seen a taksi since I’d arrived), I found myself sat in the passenger seat of the car, speeding along the darkened roads of Van, with one of the youths in the back and the other driving whilst negotiating two mobile phones.

It’s at this point that I should probably mention one sure fire way of ingratiating yourself with locals in Turkey (as I’d imagine in many parts of the world): football. I may not be the biggest football fan, but having a general knowledge of Manchester United and their players goes a long way in Turkey. In fact I’ve spent countless evenings where the conversation has veered off little from this international language, feigning interest in ‘Sir Alex Ferguson! Wayne Rooooney! Ronaldo!’.

As the lights along the road got brighter and the cars more commonplace, I began to feel confident that I was at least heading in the right direction, even if it hadn’t been possible to negotiate a fee beforehand. Dropping me off near the local mosque as I’d requested (no, I wasn’t going to praise Allah, it was just a central landmark), I was yet again surprised by the generosity of the people in this region. Unlike in Syria, where a vast proportion of seemingly good deeds are followed by requests for baksheesh, the two youths wouldn’t accept any form of payment.

Having haggled the price down at a local hotel for what was comparatively luxurious accommodation (en-suite, TV…stain-free sheets), I made the most of the first Efes Pilsen available since Ankara.

Hasankeyf – Day 2

On my last night in Hasankeyf I was invited by two of the few people who had not yet eaten – the cooks from a local restaurant – to join them for dinner. Sharing chicken Tawah and sat next to the ever-friendly barber with whom there’d been the earlier communication breakdown, one of the cooks explained that the inhabitants of the town were largely Arabs, with Kurds being a relative minority. Now I understood why I’d seen the locals greeting each other with As-salaam allaykum as opposed to the traditional mehraba.

Unsurprisingly, the only people in the town who didn’t have an Arab or Kurdish background were the policeman with whom I’d had tea the previous day, the teachers and local government officials. This of course is no coincidence in a region which has had a sometimes bloody relationship with the Turkish state. Paranoid about aspirations for a greater independent Kurdish state, the central government ensures that there is a constant presence in the region loyal to Ankara, and promotes a secular Turkish identity in schools. A consequence of this has been that these officials have been viewed as agents of the state, and as such have been the target of attacks over the years by militants.

Reaching its most bloody point in the 1980s, the region has become calmer since the capture of the PKK’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1999. This however has not stopped concerns about the threat posed by a Kurdish identity to the Turkish state, as shaped by Ataturk following the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

In 2003, Turkey refused access to the coalition in using the country as a point through which to invade Iraq, to the annoyance of the United States; a long term ally in NATO (in which Turkey has the second largest armed forces) and source of much military aid over the years. Fearing that it would destabilise the region and, with an emboldened autonomous Kurdish northern Iraq, encourage the idea of Kurdish state, Turkey massed troops on its border.

More recently, in response to what Turkey stated was the northern Iraqi administration’s failure to tackle separatist militants, Turkish troops made incursions into Iraq’s mountainous border regions in early 2008. The skirmishes that ensued during the following two weeks cost the lives of twenty seven Turkish soldiers and according to some sources, one hundred and fifty PKK fighters. The incursion arguably had a negligible impact on the guerrilla network past temporary disruption, yet the actions likely served to underline an ulterior message. Having taken a slightly more tolerant approach towards the Kurdish identity, these actions went some way in assuaging the Army’s suspicions that the mildly Islamist Turkish government weren’t willing to tackle the ongoing problem of separatist militancy.

This issue serves to illustrate the tightrope that the present government finds itself treading. On the one hand, it must show Turkey to be more accepting of its ethnic diversity if it wishes to one day join the EU. On the other hand, it must balance this with the Army’s constitutionally bound duty to defend the Turkish state – a duty which the Army has used to justify its assumption of power in numerous coups over the years.

The cook explained to me that his father was a truck driver transporting oil between Iraq and Turkey – a highly dangerous occupation even now. He’d recently finished his national service and proudly showed me the photos of his time in the army.

One of the quirks of the national service system is the way in which young men are stationed throughout the country. From my experience, those who are from the more troublesome regions ironically quite often enjoy their compulsory service, the length of which varies according to the individual’s level of education. The reason for this is that they are usually moved from the more rural areas and stationed in western Turkey – coincidentally an area presenting more opportunities for recreation. In contrast to this, those from western Turkey often loathe being moved to a comparatively dangerous area, in which entertainment is thin on the ground.

Hasankeyf, Ramazan & Me

Having settled into my accommodation, I wandered down to a palm leaf covered area by the river and ended up having tea with the town policeman, before deciding that the chocolate bar I’d had the previous night wasn’t quite cutting it in the hunger stakes. It was only on going back into town that I noticed although there were lots of men sitting round chatting like usual, absent were the other past times that seem to take precedence over work in this area – smoking, eating and tea drinking. It was only then it occurred to me that in this part of Turkey the locals were observing the fast for Ramazan, so it’d be next to impossible for me to get served anything substantial. In the end I resorted to buying some pide (bread) fresh from the oven, and some chocolate spread to go with it. Hardly the most sophisticated lunch in the world, but sat on a rock overlooking the river, it was enough to halt a descent into hunger rage.

Dinner was spent eating by candlelight, since there was a complete power cut just before my corba (soup) and freshly made – though suspiciously ripe tasting – lahmacun (a regional speciality, consisting of spiced mince on a thin baked base) arrived.

The rest of the evening was spent talking to the other visitors to the town – one of the benefits of there being little other option for sleeping. The entire tourist contingency in Hasankeyf consisted of three Israelis, one Egyptian and myself. Having decided to spend another night in the town and not being in any rush to explore, I looked forward to a much needed sleep in – my first bed in two nights.

The only thing that came between me and this was an individual from the local mosque who helpfully started banging a drum outside my window at the crack of dawn. Having failed to fall back to sleep, I thought I’d go off and check out one of the surprisingly numerous barber shops in town. Walking into one of the more modern shops just up the road from the hotel, it became immediately apparent that I’d stumbled into the realm of what probably was the only gay in the village – ‘Your hair, eeets soo beautiful’. Not wanting the local style favoured in provincial Turkey, I opted to just have my head shaved, leaving it at a reasonable length. Unfortunately, it seems something was lost in translation in my original conversation with the flamboyant hairdresser. As soon as he started cutting my hair, I realised that that whatever number is was, it bore little relation to the grade four that I’d requested.

Now looking like an extra from American History X, I decided to take the advice of the Israelis and have a wander up the valley. About an hour into this walk, two things were becoming apparent. Firstly, that it was now very very hot. Secondly, that the choice of route I’d taken at a split in the road meant that there was a fifty-fifty chance that I was going in completely the wrong direction. A short while later a van pulled up next to me, and expecting some locals to be asking me why I was in the middle of nowhere, I was instead greeted with the Egyptian girl Reem from the night before. She’d taken the opposite fork in the road, and had been picked up by some Turkish school inspectors on their way to visit a nearby school. Hardly with a range of options, I got in the back and we eventually arrived at a village school some fifteen minutes later. Greeted by screaming schoolchildren, we were led into an office where we spent the next half an hour having a discussion with the officials via the interpretation of an English teacher. Apparently the Middle East was a lot better when it was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. After this bizarre interlude, we were dropped back off at Hasankeyf where we managed to find a shack on the river serving coffee.

In a region where it’s common for locals (predominantly men) to spend their day seemingly doing little, the Ramazan period takes this to extremes. In many respects you see the people at both their best and worst, and it’s impossible not to be affected by this. Not wanting to fill up on biscuits and crisps – the only thing readily available – I found myself unconsciously observing the fast.

During the day, men sit around idly on stools, contributing to a constant air of despair. Where there would usually be constant discussion, there is a silence interspersed with the occasional shouting in common with those who are hungry, and whose patience has been sapped. As the light begins to fade and the clocks slowly turn towards six, there’s a noticeable sea change in the mood. Where the streets were empty, people begin to stir, stall sellers position themselves, waiters set tables and children hurry to buy bread for the evening meal.

After the end to fast is called, people devour their food in record time, still in relative silence and oblivious to what’s going on around them. I found on my first night in Hasankeyf, having slept in the afternoon and gone out to look for a meal at around eight, that nowhere was expecting to serve food, as the majority of the town had eaten some two hours previously. Having eaten their meals, the atmosphere is in complete contrast to that during the day. Sitting drinking their cay, people are overly friendly and boisterously talk to one another into the early hours.

In between describing fights with Armenian mercenaries, Richard Burton devoted a whole chapter to Ramazan in To the Holy Shrines; his account of being the first kafir to successfully follow the pilgrimage to Mecca:

‘In the bazaars and streets, pale long-drawn faces, looking for the most part intolerably cross, and at this season a stranger will sometimes meet with positive incivility…the shops are either shut or destitute of shopmen, merchants will not purchase, and students will not study. In fine, the Ramazan, for many classes, is one twelfth of the year wantonly thrown away.
‘Weakened with fasting, the body feels the heat trebly, and the disordered stomach almost affects the brain. Every minute is counted with morbid fixity of idea…As the Maghrib, the sunset hour, approaches – and how slowly it comes! – the town seems to recover from a trance. People flock to the windows and balconies, in order to watch the moment of their release…O Gladness! at length it sounds, that gun from the citadel…Poor men eat heartily at once. The rich break their fast with a light meal…The streets are now crowded with a good-humoured throng of strollers…They saunter about, the accustomed pipe in hand, shopping, for the stalls are open till a late hour; or they sit in crowds at the coffee house entrance, smoking Shishas’

Of course the circumstances in which he found himself were indescribably more severe than mine (not to mention the fact he faced certain death if discovered in Mecca), but I find it fascinating how easy it is today to relate to the mood of an environment described one hundred and fifty five years ago. Even with all the modern diversions of society, it seems that millions of people around the world still have much the same annual experience that their ancestors did.

Hasankeyf – A Brief History

Hasankeyf is a small town which has recently garnered attention from around the world due to the circumstances in which it now finds itself. Situated on a promontory overlooking the fabled Tigris river, the town then known as Cephe first gained importance under the Romans, marking the frontier with the Persian Sassanid Empire. Later becoming a regional Byzantine stronghold, the town was subsequently conquered and renamed by the incoming Arab Umayyads to Hisn Kayfa, before their eventual overthrow by the Abbasids. The town reached its pinnacle of importance under the Turcoman Artukids throughout the 12th century, becoming a staging post on the Silk Road, during which time a bridge of unrivalled scale was built across the Tigris. The legacy of this era remains seen today by the presence of the three large crumbling buttresses spanning the river. In 1260 the town was captured and sacked by the Mongols, before eventually becoming part of the Ottoman Empire in 1534.

The location of the town is as important as it ever was, albeit for very different reasons. In the late 1980s, the Turkish government embarked on what is now known as the South-eastern Anatolia Project (GAP): a development project aiming to raise income and living standards in the comparatively impoverished region. One of the principle ways in which this is to be achieved is through the building of a series of dams (twenty two in total), the most substantial of which, the Ataturk dam, was completed in 1992. The publicly stated objectives of the dams are to aid irrigation, enable fish breeding and provide huge amounts of renewable energy in the form of hydroelectricity.

Unfortunately, progress comes at a cost, and as with most dam projects the cost is borne by those with little control over the outcome of decisions, decisions invariably made a long way from those areas and people impacted most. The project has received much criticism over the years for a great number of reasons, not least the fact that it has already led to increased incidence of malaria in the region. The biggest impact of course comes from the fact that it requires the flooding of huge areas of habituated land, much of which is of great archaeological importance. Hasankeyf is no exception, and is scheduled to be submerged under millions of tonnes of water in the near future with the building of the vast Ilusu dam.

In 2001 Balfour Beatty, the British construction firm hired to build the Ilusu, pulled out of the project, as did an Italian engineering firm Impregilo. The reasons cited were concerns over commercial, environmental and social issues following an evaluation of the project. Prior to this a Swedish firm, Skanska, had already quit citing issues with the other parties involved. Since then however a funding deal with an international consortium including Austria, Germany and Switzerland means that the project is back on track.

It is important to look at the wider political context when assessing the future of the project. While maintaining that the purpose of the project is to aid development in Anatolia, the Turkish government must surely be aware that the dams give it significant political leverage over neighbouring countries in the middle east. While the world’s attention has generally been focussed on the availability of one commodity, oil, the middle east is fast becoming more aware about the importance of access to fresh water.

By controlling the Tigris and Euphrates, Turkey can potentially wield significant influence over Syria and Iraq, both of which are heavily dependent upon the rivers for domestic and agricultural consumption, and both of which have voiced opposition to the dam. The additional threat of climate change has only contributed to alarm in what is one of the world’s driest regions.

To expect the project to be cancelled therefore seems to be hopelessly optimistic. At best, the town can expect a stay of execution.

Batman to Hasankeyf

After a long but uneventful bus overnight bus ride from Ankara I’d by now decided that the best choice would be to head straight to the town that had originally been the ultimate goal of my mini overland adventure; Hasankeyf.

As is usual in the country, I turned up at the local dolmus depot in the amusingly named *Batman and asked around for a lift to Hasankeyf. After some negotiation and a brief wait in a small scruffy lounge, we set off, collecting numerous people on the way out of town.

The relatively short journey was made all the more memorable by a sand storm that had begun to pick up on departure from Batman. What started out as a strong breeze had soon reduced visibility to the point where the road was becoming barely visible, forcing the dolmus driver to slow the shared minibus down to a crawling pace – no mean feat. By the time we’d reached my drop off point, sand had turned to rain storm and my arrival in Hasankeyf was marked by a rather ungracious dive for cover.

Fortunately, the driver had stopped outside the only accommodation option available in the small town – Motel Hasankeyf, situated overlooking the fabled Tigris River. No en-suite facilities, no towels and no breakfast provided. But it was cheap (£8) and most importantly, one of their seven rooms was available, complete with a balcony.

*Incidentally, the mayor of Batman is presently suing both the director and film studio behind the most recent incarnation of their more famous namesake. Apparently, the town’s name was used without prior permission.

Journey to the Near East

Sat in an internet cafe in the capital of Turkey, Ankara (having endured what was for the most part a hellish train journey from Istanbul, making a stop in a city I’d never intended to visit), I was starting to wonder whether it was slightly misleading to have these notes presented as a ‘guide’ to train travel.

First of all, I’d been cutting it severely fine for catching a ferry to Hyderpasa train station on the Asian side of the Bosphorous, having to jump with all my gear across the gap between the pontoon and the ferry. Secondly, it seems that the man in the station ticket office had neglected to ensure that my train fare was for a sleeper coach. Now I’d checked this ticket myself, and had it checked by my friend who speaks Turkish pretty well. There’s only so much you can do to make sure you’re getting what you want, and quite often you just have to trust the individual selling you the right ticket (and this goes for many countries).

It was obvious as soon as I arrived looking for my coach what had happened, and I was also aware that it would be unlikely to get a sleep cabin at this notice, given that the long distance trains tend to fill up. The attendant told me that there wouldn’t be any opportunity to try get a sleeper cabin until the morning in Ankara – eleven hours away. Bribery didn’t work, so I’m guessing he was telling the truth. Having kicked up my fuss but realising the futility of the situation, I resigned myself to what would undoubtedly be another uncomfortable night’s sleep.

Predictably, the train wasn’t as much of an ‘Ekspresi’ as I’d envisaged, resembling more a local service given the amount of stops in small towns. This didn’t make for the most secure of situations given the groups of youths that got on the train, and surrounded by eight other males in a dark and squalid carriage, I was beginning to wish I’d just given up at the station and waited for a coach. But it was by now too late. What followed was possibly a fate worse than having my bags stolen, as I was forced to endure a four hour barrage of Turkish music played through mobile phones. Discussion (supported with the usual charades) ranged from religion and football, to circumcision and 50 Cent.

At this point I was feeling pretty miserable; stuck in a piss poor train with rain blowing in and nothing to eat but some crisps and ‘Negro’ biscuits (Turkish Oreo’s). Eventually the group of younger students got off the train and I was then left with two older guys who had up until that point been refraining from using what turned out to be pretty good English. Both were university students studying Engineering and Geology, returning from home on what unsurprisingly was the cheapest train. Their tickets, told they me, had cost less than their cigarettes. With more room in the carriage, we could at least now put our feet up, and one of the guys took down his bag and brought out some Pide bread filled with mince. Offering me some of these, they then bought me drink from the yelling man walking down the corridor (they wouldn’t accept money), eventually getting some sleep. At about 3.00 am they both got off the train and I had the cabin to myself. Feeling a lot better than a few hours previously, I stretched out safe in the knowledge no one would be getting on the train at that hour.

I was mistaken. First of all a large family briefly engulfed the compartment, before being kicked out by the attendant. Their departure was shortly followed by the arrival of a couple of men who proceeded to fill every shelf available with boxes – boxes filled with chickens that then spent the next four hours clucking, squabbling and filling the cabin with a noxious stench. It thought this kind of situation had been consigned to the history books.

Unable to get a sleeper cabin from Ankara on its arrival, I made my way to the bus station and haggled for a ticket taking me all the way to Batman (£20). It’s a long overnight journey (14 hours), but surprisingly the buses in Turkey are generally ultra modern, clean and efficient. It’s just my fidgety nature means I’m not the biggest fan of being stopped from having a wander around like you can on trains. With most of the day to kill in Ankara, I got the metro from the main bus station to the centre, making my way back for the departure at 5.00 pm, the earliest departure.

Rather ominously, Batman wasn’t even in the guide book, so I had a feeling I’d be heading straight on to Hasankeyf, odds on in a small bus filled with some rather pungent locals.

Istanbul

Beginning to tire of Sultanahment, I’d decided on the Saturday to explore the Beyoglu district of Istanbul, located on the other side of the river. Handily, a friend had just moved a week earlier to this area from the US, having been offered a research post at a nearby university.

This friend has rescued me from a number of grim situations in the past, the most memorable of which being the time when I unwisely chose to eat some seriously questionable lamb broth, purchased rather tellingly from a shack located half way up the mountain route to Nemrut Dag. The more mentionable of the after-effects included delirium. This was compounded by being holed up in a downmarket hotel that seemed to have the central mosque’s loudspeaker situated outside the window, leading to hazy a memory more resembling the opening scene from Apocalypse Now. It could have been worse – the following year one of my colleagues developed dysentery.

I sorely missed his support on a visit to Syria, where I’d – again unwisely – consumed large quantities of tap water (can you see a theme here?). I had actually made a concerted effort to stick to bottled water, but not wanting to seem rude while having coffee with a family, I’d from that point onwards thrown caution to the wind. This included the water provided by my driver that I’d originally turned down, having seen him procure the ice for it from a man in the street who kept blocks on the pavement, wrapped in filthy hemp sacking. In the end I hadn’t been able to resist the ingenious method by which the cooled water was drawn from a box in the boot, to a glass through a spout next to the steering wheel, in a setup resembling that found at the dentist’s.

Smug in the knowledge that I was one of the chosen few to have developed a stomach of steel, I was slightly surprised to break into a cold sweat and almost pass out whilst sat in a bar in Damascus’s labrynthian bazaar. Unfortunately, my friend’s Tel Aviv stamped American passport doesn’t exactly endear him to Syrian authorities – a country technically still at war with Israel – meaning I had to rely on my own determination to find my way back to the sanctuary of the hotel. I’m still surprised I did. The beasties I had consumed on that occasion where substantially more resilient than their Anatolian brothers, taking me a good fortnight to partially recover and a few months before I could again stomach dairy. If any models are looking for new ways two drop a few pounds, it’s certainly effective.

Meeting up with my friend, it was clear that his university was one Turkey’s more exclusive institutions. The brand new faculty had on-site accommodation that bore more resemblance to a hotel than the halls that I remember from university – it even had a maid providing fresh towels daily. I was now glad that the hostel I’d tried to get a room in earlier was full.

It was pretty obvious from wandering around the area that it’s where the affluent student population go to hang out. This was further confirmed when we decided to go to a local art exhibition that night. Expecting a pretty dry and stuffy gallery, but sufficiently encouraged at the prospect of free booze to start the night’s proceedings, I was more than slightly surprised at how the event turned out.

Led down into the basement of a modern parking complex, the ‘exhibition’ turned out to be a short films screening. The smart setup and trendy young clientele wouldn’t have looked out of place in central London (or maybe Shoreditch). These people had paid what was not an insignificant sum for entry and at £6 for a Jack Daniels & Coke, the drinks prices certainly wouldn’t be in the reach of most Istanbullus, let alone Turks (to put this into context, the daily wage for those I’d worked with in eastern Turkey was around £5). Even then, it wasn’t long before the majority had decamped outside where they could talk, drink and more importantly, smoke.

After getting some much needed food, our group then moved on to one of the local bars. Drinking Efes beer into the early hours, my perception of Istanbul had completely changed. It’s a city that I’d be quite happy living in for a while.

Sofia to Istanbul

Having had a good night’s rest, I got up early the following morning and went to buy some breakfast in the market next to the local synagogue, surprising myself that I managed to buy one of the few pastries that didn’t contain cheese. Now I’m a big fan of cheese, but not first thing in the morning.

The modern Bulgarian coach set off on time and we arrived at the Bulgarian-Turkish border five hours later, whereby having passed the first checkpoint, we had the opportunity to buy duty free goods from a small shop. Tempted by the £5 bottles of Stolichnaya, I instead decided that my baggage was already heavy enough, and watched as the passengers literally scraped cartons of cigarettes from the shelves into their baskets. Stood outside waiting for the coach to fill up again, I began to notice a crowd gathering around the bins, opening up their cigarette cartons, and then emptying the contents into plastic bags. Then the women began hitching up their skirts, fitting as many packets of cigarettes down their tights as possible.

In a rigmarole that I thought had been resigned to rather less developed countries, we were then made by Turkish authorities to take our luggage back off the bus, line up in a row behind a bench and await its inspection. An hour after entering the border crossing, we were back on the now noticeably smoother Turkish roads heading towards Istanbul. I’ve read in numerous journals that the roads in capitalist countries tend to be in far better condition their socialist counterparts’. I guess some aspects of Bulgaria’s past are still left.

Istanbul bus station is one of those architectural monstrosities that probably seemed like a good idea twenty years ago, but where the practicalities have caught up with grand idealistic intentions. A cross between a multi-story car park and the bowels of a ship, if you are dropped off underground like I was, you are then forced to walk up the many levels of filth filled stairwells to ground level. Not having any local currency or knowing what the exchange rate was, I grabbed what seemed like a reasonable sum from an ATM and flagged down a taxi to take me into central Istanbul. I say reasonable, it could have been anything due to the bouts of rampant inflation Turkey is prone to. Before the government lopped off the zeroes, a can of Coke could set you back a few million lira.

I don’t always use taxis, but it’s worth the money for entertainment alone to see a taxi driver in action in Istanbul. Notoriously bad drivers (even for a country that has an appalling road safety record), they nevertheless combine rally style manoeuvres with a range of other tasks that they apparently need to care to. On this occasion, mine liberally interspersed high speed motorway overtaking with answering phone calls, smoking and changing the sim card in his phone (three times). It took about fifteen minutes to realise from looking at the meter that I was going to struggle to pay the fare. In the end the driver was understanding and just took what I had, dropping me off on the harbour front below the Blue Mosque, reached only after an arduous uphill yomp. Looking out across the Bosphorous bay, hundreds of cargo ships moored off the coast glimmered in the night. I think it must be one of the best introductions in the world to a city.

It was only after I’d checked into a hostel and was sat on the springy excuse for a bed that I realised I’d left my card in the ATM at the bus station. Clever boy. This was more the fault of habit, since the machines abroad give you the money first and your card later. These days, it’s possible (if inadvisable) to set off travelling with just a passport, credit card and the clothes you are wearing. Of course, if you lose that card, you would struggle. Fortunately I’d brought a backup, and took the precaution of taking out sufficient funds for the rest of the trip in case I should lose that too (entirely possible).

The hostel was chosen for no reasons other than I knew where it was (an important factor in the uphill labyrinth that is Sultanahmet at night) and that it served beer. It also came complete with a characteristic feature I’ve found largely unique to older, run down accommodation in Istanbul, and on my few past visits, grown fond of – the apparently notorious ‘Oriental plumbing’. On first inspection, your bathroom facilities may seem to be the same as those you’ve used anywhere else. However, the intricacies of Turkish plumbing only become apparent when an individual in the room next door wishes to use their taps, sink, shower or toilet at the same time as you. In such instances you’ll invariably find yourself fighting for a share of the disturbingly yellow water, or wrestling for control of the interconnected taps. This hotel was no exception.

Serbia & Bulgaria

It might be an understatement to say that the previous 48 hours were somewhat hectic.

The train from Budapest ended up leaving about midnight, and I ended up sharing a cabin with a Swiss couple and a graphic designer, Max, from Birmingham. The train consisted of 5 carriages – two of which were Hungarian, two were Austrian and the last was Bulgarian. Prior to leaving I’d read that the Bulgarian sleeper was the worst of the lot, terrible even. Not knowing what I’d exactly purchased a ticket for in Budapest, I was pleased to learn mine was the Austrian sleeper, complete with an Austrian guard. The guard promptly took our tickets, before warning us to lock our door and not open it except for border officials. Having managed to get a few hours sleep, we were then woken at the border, first by Hungarian border officials, then their Serbian counterparts.

In the morning we all got speaking and it turned out Marco, one half of the couple from Zurich, was probably one of the more travelled people I’ve met in my life. Over the past few years he’d travelled throughout central Asia, China, Africa and South America. I struggled to name a country he hadn’t been to – Afghanistan and Iraq are on his to-do list. It’s meeting people like this that make you realise quite how much your own travel experiences pale in comparison to others, invariably individuals you meet on the road.

Upon reaching Belgrade in the morning an hour later than scheduled, Max and I bode farewell to the couple, then headed off in search of some food. Alas, Belgrade train station was severely lacking in food options, and we ended up with water, crisps and Kinder Bueno. Our connecting train to Sofia arrived an hour later, and while Max had reserved a couchette (onwards to Istanbul on the Balkan ‘Express’), I took my chances and grabbed a seat in a compartment a few carriages along. While it wasn’t raining in Belgrade, it was a damn sight colder and, sat in the carriage, it was possible to see my breath. Even the three Icelandic students I was sharing the cabin with conceded it was pretty cold. What followed was a long and largely tedious 10 hour journey to Sofia, regularly interspersed with the Icelandic’s snorting alarmingly coarse tobacco (where does it go exactly?). Visiting the toilets reminded me that in some situations it’s preferable to be male.

Arriving in Sofia at about 9.00 pm (the clocks went forward, something I wasn’t expecting until Istanbul) and feeling tired and in need of a shower, I’d resigned myself to splashing out on somewhere fancy. The only problem was that I hadn’t reserved anywhere to stay, since the only place I’d emailed was fully booked, and it had been difficult to confirm a reservation whilst spending most of my time on a train. Being prone to bouts of sometimes inadvisable spontaneity, I took up the offer of a woman at the station giving out cards for a ‘downtown’ youth hostel. Or as it turned out, downtown ‘youth hostel’. Her business cards were pretty fancy though, so I don’t think I’m entirely to blame for what followed.

‘A’ (I forget her full name) had told me I’d be sharing with a Finn and a Japanese guy, and that the hostel was either a bus or short taxi ride away. Opting for the latter option, I shoved my way through a mass of locals at the bus station (slightly surprised my Balkan host wasn’t more bolshie) and got us a taxi. Things were looking up, I’d got a cheap room and was even getting an impromptu tour of Sofia via my tour guide sat in the front seat. The taxi driver ended up taking a wrong turn and ‘A’ decided we get out somewhere close by and walk to the hostel – the taxi nearly driving off with my backpack still in the boot. No problem I thought, I can handle a walk having sat on a train for the best part of a day.

As I was being guided down a very dark and badly maintained short cut, I was beginning to become slightly suspicious. Suspicion notched up another level to alarm upon being introduced to the entrance of the ‘hostel’, which was in the pitch black and didn’t display the usual garish neon sign designed to draw in timid students like moths. Bulgaria is rife with organised crime, and for all I knew I was going to wake up in a bath of ice minus some much needed internal organs.

Walking up the stairs of the apartment building (fifth floor, no lift), it was becoming apparent why this accommodation option wasn’t listed in the guidebook. It seemed that what ‘A’ classed as a hostel turned out to be little more than two somewhat basic rooms in a grim, crumbling apartment. Resigned to my fate for the evening, I needed little encouragement to stump up the extra 5 levs (that’s £2) and have a room to myself, which I was informed was her parents’ (deceased).

With predictably little (or should I say no) formalities such as passports etc I dropped the required 20 levs (£8, breakfast included), dumped my bags and went off to see what the area offered. After stumbling round the beaten streets of Sofia for a while, I ended up in a rather fancy bar showing the comforting scene of Manchester United playing in the UEFA. According to the guide book, to learn Cyrillic, all you need is a glass of beer and an hour. Well I had over two hours and six beers and didn’t manage to make any sense of it, but some things don’t need translation luckily.

I surprised myself that I managed to find the place apartment again, and was even more astounded that I managed to negotiate the three sets of antiquated locks that stood between me and my first proper bed in 48 hours. It was a crap apartment, yeah, but having a slight beer coat on things didn’t seem so bad anymore. I’d found somewhere to sleep with a lock on the door and was grateful for even the stained sheets and hard bed I’d been provided. That was until the said coat wore off, and I was woken up at about 4.00 am by the cold. It was freezing, and the blanket covering just wasn’t doing the job. There was no other option but to get up and put my clothes and jacket back on. So I spent my first night in Sofia wrapped up with my coat on, hood covering my head.

In the morning I was introduced to my fellow poor souls, and learned that my host lived in the roof of the apartment – accessed by some step ladders in the kitchen. So it was that we all sat down, tucking into our inclusive breakfast of traditionally grease soaked, cheese filled Bulgarian pastry, and listened to what I’m sure is a not unique sob story of post-Soviet loss and bitterness.

It transpired that ‘A’ had been educated in Georgia, America, and had worked for the EC and UN on various development programmes in Bulgaria until she divorced her husband and hit a run of bad luck. The Finn was supposed to be continuing his work as a designer, on the road, however had had his laptop stolen on the Belgrade to Sofia train during the night. I guess the Austrian guard wasn’t being overly dramatic after all. The Japanese guy just sat and grinned manically.

Planning to get the 7.15pm train that night to Istanbul, I made my way to the central train bureau to reserve my sleeper tickets. As I mentioned previously, it’s hard to book things on the road, and contrary to the advice I’d received beforehand, almost impossible to reserve international tickets in adjoining countries in advance. As a result, I found that the train that evening was fully booked, as was the next day’s – with no option to even rough it on a seat, something I’d have had to endure. The lady at the counter informed me that I could maybe try get to another town in Bulgaria and get on the Bucharest train, but helpfully that was also full. I asked if it was possible to get a bus but was met with a shrug and told that it would be extremely difficult. The only option was to book a seat for Saturday, meaning that I’d not only arrive in Istanbul the same day of my departure for eastern Turkey, but more importantly, be stuck in freezing Sofia for two more days with clothing not entirely appropriate for the climate.

Just to make me feel even better, an Austrian girl who had been chatting to two other backpackers in the office came over and said ‘Oh, were you trying to get to Istanbul? Sorry I just bought the last ticket’. I then got talking to the other two, one of which had a rucksack branded by Rivella – ‘So you’re Swiss then’. ‘How did you know we’re Swiss?’. ‘Well the only people who think it’s trendy to drink milk-serum are the Swiss’.

It transpired that the Austrian girl, Eda, had wanted to get a train the next day, but had to settle with leaving the train the same day she’d arrived in Sofia. I tried to bribe her for her ticket but gave up, in the end helping her get a refund for her hostel (a popular place, I still thought the dormitories looked like those from an orphanage) and then going for a slightly more palatable breakfast. After this I decided I needed to find accommodation for the night that had a decent shower, and look into the option of travelling by bus to Istanbul.

And so I found myself in the room of a trendy boutique hotel in the north of the city, complete with double bed, mini bar and en-suite bathroom. Sometimes it’s just worth paying more. According to the guidebook it was ‘gay-friendly’, though for the Balkans I think that probably just means they don’t automatically put homosexual guests in stocks. I also managed to book a bus ticket for the morning, taking me on the ten hour journey to Istanbul. According the hotel receptionist the train was full of ‘dangerous gypsies’ anyway, a view of the Roma not uncommon in this part of the world. Whatever the outcome, I was just happy to leave the city slightly earlier and head towards warmer climes.

Hungary

In the morning I found myself on a rather 1980s styled train speeding towards Budapest, having taken an overnight sleeper train from Zurich, changing at Vienna after breakfast. Snoring couchette companions aside, the trip was predictably hassle free – but then Swiss trains have their reputation for a reason. If you think a Swiss train is late, it’s usually more likely that your watch is wrong, in which case you’re in a good place to purchase a replacement. Even when delays do occur, they tend to be in the minutes.

Unfortunately the weather at that point in time was miserable, as it had been since I’d stepped off the plane in Basel.

First impressions of Budapest’s main train station weren’t overwhelmingly positive. While undeniably grand, it served as a pretty shabby and draughty introduction to Budapest. However, negotiating my way through a corridor (via some plastic curtains you only see at abattoirs) housing gyro stands, a seedy bar and a public toilet (complete with attendant selling porn magazines), it eventually opened up into a newly renovated side hall, with a tall domed ceiling and frescos. This was the part of the building intended to greet visitors trying to buy international tickets. Granted, the actual waiting room itself was held up by wooden struts, and I had time having picked up my queue number to go off and get some food with a slightly intense Brit called Nick, but it showed the initial potential of the buildings neglected under forty years of communist rule. It was only from the outside of the building that I could see quite how spectacular it was, giving New York’s Grand Central Station a run for its money.

Having managed to take out some cash from the fourth cash machine I’d tried, I then jumped on the soviet era metro, taking me on to central Budapest where I was due to meet up with a friend.

Walking up one of the main streets on the Pest side of the river, I came across a nightclub, complete with doorman, with a strange memorial on the outside. The wall of the building was lined with portrait photos of men, giving the year they’d all died (the youngest of which being sixteen). With the date being 1956 I assumed that these individuals must have been involved with the uprising in the city against the Soviets, an uprising that was brutally suppressed. What I didn’t realise was the significance of the building.

On mentioning what I’d seen to my mate Marty, he informed me that the building was in fact not a nightclub, but a museum dedicated to the horrors inflicted on the people of Budapest. It turned out that during the Second World War, the building itself had been the headquarters of the notorious Arrow Cross party.

The fascist Arrow Cross governed Hungary during the inter war years, during which time it was responsible for murder and internment of thousands of people. In a deluded attempt to ingratiate themselves with the Nazi’s, they rounded up of the city’s Jewish population and forced them into the icy waters of the Danube (an atrocity marked by a memorial of bronze shoes on the riverside). You would think that with their defeat things would start to improve. In fact it turned out that they were just setting the bar for the incoming Soviet occupiers.

Where the Arrow Cross party left off, the Soviets took over with gusto. By the end the occupation, the cells and torture chambers they’d inherited had expanded from the basement of the one building to cover the whole block. Having fallen into disrepair like so much of the city, this subterranean world was ‘rediscovered’ and renovated in 2002 using a government grant. While undoubtedly impressive, I couldn’t help thinking that the nightclub theme had to some extent continued inside, with the first darkened room display comprising of multiple film montages accompanied by heavy rock music. Vaguely reminiscent of the film Equilibrium, all that was missing was an audio guide narrated by Sean Pertwee.

It was the more understated basement complex that helped conveyed the true horrors of the building; cells designed to keep the occupant in water, cells to restrict movement, torture equipment and gallows.

Switzerland

A rather inauspicious start to my journey. Having intended to begin from London by train, there was naturally a fire in the Channel Tunnel. This left me with little option but to cancel my ticket, claim a refund for the TGV and book a flight directly to Switzerland. It was only earlier this year that I was flying from Heathrow Terminal 5 a day after it had opened, which eventually led to my flight being cancelled and my luggage disappearing for over a month. Fortunately, having family in Basel meant that my plans for this first stop were always going to be pretty flexible.

Given its reputation as a secretive mountain haven of riches, visitors might be surprised by their first impressions of Switzerland. Wealth certainly isn’t something the Swiss wear on their sleeves. Vulgar displays of prosperity, like you’d find in certain parts of London or New York, just don’t seem to take place. The only thing that strikes you about the country is just how normal looking it is.

Scratch beneath the surface though and you begin to notice the subtle ways in which the wealth permeates Switzerland. Everything seems to work, a marked contrast for anyone who has lived amongst the chaos of London. There’s a feeling that the Swiss aren’t particularly fond of change, but if change is necessary, they’ll make sure whatever they do is done properly, with care and consideration. This is cautious nature is evident in the buildings they live in, the cars they drive, the food they eat, the products they buy. Flash is just not a term that would ever come in to my mind when thinking of the Swiss.

In part, the country is as much a product of its social etiquette as its wealth. That the streets are spotlessly clean must owe itself to the fact littering would just never occur to the majority of Swiss. The same applies for the public displays of drunkenness and aggression that the British are so fond of – it doesn’t really happen. I was in a student bar on the Saturday night and there were numerous people sat having a coffee. If I’d left my mobile phone behind on the table of the bar that night, I’d expect with some certainty to have it returned the next day. Rules that in other countries would be ignored are adhered to: people living in apartment blocks don’t flush their toilets after ten pm.

While all of this does make a nice change, I find ultimately that it leads to the country coming across as relatively sterile. With such a culture of conformity and little rebellious in the nature of the young, it’s hard to imagine anything revolutionary coming out of Switzerland, particularly in the arts (one of the exceptions being Zurich-born Dadaism).

This conservatism has arguably manifested itself in the country’s politics, not least in the rise of the populist right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP). In 2007 the SVP drew criticism for a campaign poster featuring three white Swiss sheep kicking out a black sheep, which many interpreted as an unsubtle portrayal of their hard-line immigration policies. It would be unfair however to tar the majority of Swiss with the same brush. The SVP’s support base is formed primarily of those in the more rural regions – hardly surprising given that historically its roots lie in the Farmer’s Party (this may also go some way in explaining why the Swiss farm sector has been so heavily subsidised and their food amongst the most expensive in Europe). Yet if you speak to those living in the cities, they’ll generally recoil in horror when questioned about the SVP and their supporters, whom they tend to regard as xenophobic yokels.

In spite of this, the SVP went on to win the largest share of the national vote of any party since 1919. It is of course slightly unfair to compare it with voting trends that far back, since women naturally only gained the right to vote in federal elections in 1973. It could have been worse. Women living in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden had to wait until 1990 before they were granted the privilege of voting on local issues.

The Swiss tendency towards a culture of isolationism is most famously known through the country’s foreign policy. Having maintained its position of neutrality for nearly two hundred years, Switzerland has nevertheless prepared to defend itself in the event of attack. This has meant the presence of a number of practices which most people in Western Europe are largely unaware – and find slightly bizarre when they do find out.

One is that every fit male has to complete a compulsory two year national service, followed by an annual reporting to a local military base for evaluation. The fact that all these individuals are issued with assault rifles (and in the case of officers, pistols) leads to the curious state of Switzerland having one of the highest gun ownership rates in the world.

Another consequence is that it’s not uncommon to be sat on a train opposite a teenager who has a somewhat inconspicuous deadly weapon resting against him. The fact that Switzerland has a very low incidence of gun related death is often cited by the American gun lobby as a sign that gun ownership doesn’t necessarily lead to high murder rates. Yet while Switzerland has a very low crime rate as a whole, and while gun related deaths are few, the instances where they have occurred have been comparatively grisly.

There have been a number of cases over the years where the father of a family has ended up shooting his family and then taking his own life, the most high profile of which was the murder of alpine skier Corinne Rey-Balley and her family in 2006. As many of these cases have followed marriage breakdowns, it has been speculated that as a conservative society in which marriage breakdown is seen as the fault of the man, men have been unable to cope with these situations and cracked. Another shocking episode occurred in 2001 when an aggrieved Swiss national, Friedrich Leibacher, went on a killing spree in the Zug canton Parliament, shooting dead fourteen politicians before turning a gun on himself. Aware that it’s not entirely necessary to keep ammunition at home, the armed forces have recently stopped issuing the lives rounds that were intended for use in case of emergency.

This preparedness for emergency brings me to the second practise that would be viewed by many as a relic of the cold war.

In the 1950s Switzerland’s defence strategy was changed from one of border defence to one of internal disruption, the idea being that it would be far easier to beat an attacker by drawing them into a war of attrition, utilising the natural geography of this mountainous country (indeed, the army is modelled on a militia, training in guerrilla warfare). This has therefore led to the country resembling the cheese for which they are most famous, in that it’s thoroughly riddled with underground networks, bunkers and Bond-style airstrips. More uniquely, it’s a policy that the local government has to ensure that there’s sufficient underground shelter space for the population. This has meant that nearly every new building built has its own nuclear fallout shelter, and that there’s a bed underground for every single Swiss citizen. In fact, there’s actually surplus space.

Given the additional cost required in installing these shelters, it’s not surprising that their place in a post-Soviet world has been called into question. Yet recent global instability and the aggressive nature of Russia has probably done enough to justify their continued existence, for an unpredictable future.

In spite of all this pretence for self reliance, the irony is that Switzerland is simultaneously a deeply international country, with the equivalent of almost one tenth of its population living abroad. It has also embraced free trade agreements with countries worldwide, arguably both encouraging and necessitating an economy heavily reliant on banking, major NGOs and the biotech industries. Aware of the benefits to free trade and global competition, Switzerland in 2005 signed the Schengen Agreement, leading to the relaxing of its borders with the EU. More recently, even the subsidies that have ensured the farmers keep making their beloved gruyere have been abruptly removed, and the agricultural sector exposed to market forces.

For all its contradictions, Switzerland is nothing if not a fascinating country.