LIGHT TRAFFIC

Abord the Dogu Ekspresi, somewhere along the Anatolian plateau © Carolyne Weldon

Amidst the liquor store receipts and once-inspirational fortune cookie fortunes bloating my wallet, I still carry, brittle and crumpled, the note this woman gave me, detailing her address and cell phone number. Even after discussing the matter all morning (there isn’t much to do on Turkish trains), she couldn’t understand why I’d rather press on eastwards than detrain in Kayseri, with her and her kids, and let her to take me home. “I’ll cook for you,” she pleaded. “You like börek?”

Crossing Turkey by train is not necessarily a good idea.

Turkish trains are notoriously slow, unreliable and uncomfortable, and as I discovered once the train was pulling out of Haydarpasa station, in Istanbul, lack any semblance of a dining car. Those chasing after that posh Orient Express vibe, in other words, will be greatly disappointed with modern Turkish trains like the Dogu Ekspresi. There are no porters, no waiters, no food and no booze, and the small windows all seem to open but partially, if at all.

The reason I was so gung-ho on travelling to Eastern Anatolia by train instead of riding a bus (always a lovely time, with the tea boy delivering hot tea and cookies every couple hours, followed by rounds of pungent lemon cologne to freshen up your tired hands), or boarding a cheap domestic flight, lay deep in the bubbles of a tall Tanqueray and Tonic I had at a penthouse bar in Istanbul the night before.

My friend Baris Aktinmaz, a celebrated fashion photographer who does shoots for Turkish Vogue and Marie-Clarie had invited me to this club, on the top floor of a fancy boutique hotel. Everything there – the tunes, the furniture, the girls – screamed of cosmopolitan chic and sophistication. Where was I? Navigating through leagues of tall, icy Estonian girls that had been flown in for one photo shoot or another, and gorgeously accessorized olive-skinned actresses, undulating to the beat on the terrace, I thought I could’ve been anywhere – Tokyo, London, anywhere.

You often hear that Turkey is a land of contrasts. For me, that assertion gained wider resonance when I realized that one drink, one silly gin and tonic at the rooftop bar cost the exact same as a two-day, cross-country train ride from the Bosphorus to the depths of Eastern Turkey. One once of gin drowned in a sea of tonic; one train ticket from Istanbul to Sivas. Same price: $20. I had to do it.

(To be continued shortly.)