Toros Express

Yes,we made it to Aleppo! Only 32 hours in the train. It was a beautiful journey and only towards the end did it become a bit tiring. It is amazing to see just how little one can do in 32 hours! Sleeping, reading, looking out of the window for hours on end, trying to take interesting and well-composed photographs, chatting with the fellow passengers - 3 Swiss girls, studying Arabic, an American studying Arabic, a Catholic Japanese girl, following a Saint Paul trail, a Tunisian family and a Central Asian Republic family - both families with little children small enough to whine for hours on end - and of course our Syrian conductor Khaled - who had a secret stash of coffee to serve to needy passengers. The train left the impressive Hyderpasa station exactly on time and we were very pleased to be told to close the windows as Khaled wanted to put on the air conditioning.... so we were set for a train ride to remember.

Anyway, the highlight of the journey was the countryside we passed through. Turkey is a big country and we went a circuitous route in a vaguely south easterly direction, following river valleys, in the main. But still it was incredible to see how rich the agriculture was. Kilometer after kilometer of cherry trees, red with ripe hanging fruit, then the same with peaches and pears... it was very tempting to put ones hand through the window and to help oneself. After that we had fields of still-uncut wheat, peppers, tomatoes, sunflowers and so on. There were also rows and rows of plain trees to make it all look a lot like the Po valley but this all seemed to be on a much grander scale. The only strange thing was that we saw very few people actually picking the fruit even though it looked very ripe and there were piles of fallen peaches under the trees. Of course, the nearer we came to Syria, the drier and hotter it became - the second day - but even still there were plains of wheat, sunflowers and eventually olive trees.

Evening was good. The air had cooled and we were going through a particularly marshy area so there was that sweet small of evening dew in the air. There were many birds to be seen including the colourful bee-eaters, many storks, wagtails, crows and eagles.

The biggest treat of the journey was the rising of the full moon. It just so happened to be rising on the left hand side of the train, coming up over some far distant mountains, the orange light reflecting off a lake which just happened to be there at the right time. An amazing and one which caught everybody's attention. I tried and almost succeeded in capturing this on my camera and I will try to upload the photo.

The second day was slightly less fun as it was a lot hotter, we had to spend about three hours shunting around tbe border areas, with passport control. When we started off in Istanbul we were the last of seven carriages, mid-morning on the next day, we were near the front of what was now a train of about one kilometer, many goods carriages having been attached and by the time we arrived in Aleppo we were the first of just two carriages.

Crossing the border to Syria was fine. We were greeted with welcome to Syria and it felt good to leave what we knew to be a tense situation in Eastern Turkey to arrive at the peaceful and multi-cultural, tolerant Syria. We hadn't seen much sign of roadblocks in Turkey although a few of the towns we passed through did have large army or air force barracks.

Syria was first just boring rows of olive trees, a bit like Andalucia, bit soon we came across fields with Bedouin with their goats and sheep. It became very dusty too and near the towns there was lots and lots of rubbish,mainly plastic bags. The houses were very dull... built of grey concrete bricks, totally uncoated or plastered. Many had pens in which to house the animals during the night. Eventually, we were told we were almost in Aleppo, just before sunset and soon it was time sto start worrying about the fact that it was Friday evening and we had no hotel and no Syrian pounds. Maybe this is something we can do better in the future. Anyway, Fred managed to do a deal with Khaled at the grand Aleppo station before we said our goodbyes and hopped into a very tiny yellow taxi with a driver who didn't understand a word of English.... and so began our adventures in Aleppo.