Book of Love by Who/Chapter Seventeen/ Across Turkey from Istanbul too Adana

 

  After boarding the bus from Istanbul we traveled East through very dry and unimpressive flatlands of a semi desert plains and shrubbery and virtually no towns along the way to speak of and trying to compare the landscape like a cross between California and the and dry land without sand dunes and hard to describe it was like central valley, California without water and as boring as crossing Texas and yet I intriguing and waiting for the next big thing to see other then a dry and waterless landscape with an occasional patch of green shrubbery and no and not really as boring as the Texas landscape with intriguing little turns now and then in the environmental landscapes and finally came to a sizable town called Anchora the capital of Turkey in the middle of nowhere on this vast plain of a country and in the middle of Turkey geographically speaking and a safe place from invaders and but the worse part of the journey through the dry and semi arid shrubland was the music that the bus driver played that sounded like someone playing drums on bean cans and I suppose it was his way or dealing exhile driving through unimpressive towns and villages of which I cant remember one, except Anchora of which wouldn't have even made a decent postcard and when stopping for water at one location I noticed a mosquito larva in my cup of water and a this point I think that we were bored from the long journey and the dry landscape with occasional greenery and but we finally made it too a mountain pass famous for Saint Paul to have passed on his way back to the West and preaching the Good News and when our bus broke down in this mountainous pass full of forest and green trees and a stream running through it of which Ken and I sat down by the river or stream and thinking of how Saint Paul passed this way and while the bus driver was doing a major repair on the front wheel of the bus, we patiently prayed and meditated for what seemed like hours and waiting for this major road side repair for no Triple A towing emergency here in the wilderness and eventually after a few hours we were on our way again down too the dusty and little agricultural town or city of Adana next too a river that we were told Cleopatra sailed up or rowed her gold plated barge with silver plated oars and a purple dyed sail the sign of royalty for purple dye from a sea mulusk was as rare as gold and only Empoers where allowed to wear the purple robes for Cleopatra came to Tarsus near by to seduce Mark Anthony ruler of the Eastrrn e part of the Roman Empire and Cleopatra was in trouble back at home in Egypt and needed his help in ano th her civil war with her sister this time if I recall for the throne of Egypt and dressed like Aphroditus and sitting on a throne on her luxury sailing barge and there was a stone bridge built by the Romans over the river and still being used today by cars amazing and meanwhile we checked into a low budget hotel, for nothing fancy there and out of the way of international tourism and deep into the heart of the real and rural Turkey and we had run out of money except some silver coins we saved from Switzerland as silverners and a local young man baught up for us in order to by food and I had written a letter from home Church fellowship and wife to send enough money to make it 

too the next step of our journey to the Island of Cyprus and then on too Israel and waited for the money to arrive via general delivery at the local post office for it took at least a week for letters from back home to arrive and we checked into the local hotel simply with our American passports for they were like gold in the Near East and were to pay before leaving a few days or week, after we arrived and were broke and living on faith and while we went to a local bank to try and cash in our silver looking Francus from Switzerland of which the bank teller could not officially do, because they were coins and not paper and the young and handsome  teller befriended us and brought us food too our hotel room and gave us as little money also for food and drink and told us that he was taking English lessons and paying for them and would rather learn English from us and that's a reason that he was helping us as we waited the week for money to come in the mail at general delivery of how  we got all of our corespindance and never by phone, wire or internet for there was none in the early seventies and wire or phone when arriving in Israel and it was always dramatic and exciting waiting for support from home in the different post offices in different towns and countries and took a lot of faith to travel without credit cards and only travellers checks and as we were waiting we got to know the hotel manager who was extremly friendly and critical of the decadence in the West and yo prove it he went into the hotel safe and pulled out some child pornography from Denmark or Sweden to show us and we or I thought to myself what the heck was he doing with this stuff and it seemed hippocritical or at least oxymoronic and then again once we got our money in, or on this time by wire Visa Barkelys Bank and but the requests for the money came by letter writing of which could take a week to get a response by mail to wire and then we payed our bill and and hopped on a bus to catch a ship too the Island of Cyprus and along the reltively short distance too the sea port and along th ge way we pashes by the entrance too the city of Tarsus where the Apostel Paul was born and was excited beyound belief to be in the place where it all started with the Apostel Paul being born and then going on the be thy he greatest missionary of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and his dramatic conversion,  from being a persecuter of the Church to being its greatest advocate and I and Ken being blessed to follow in his footsteps and arriving to where it all began from, Rome to Greece by land and sea and retracing his missionary journeys and it was like living the Bible in three dementions and feeling so blessed in spite ofthe trials and tribulations of travelling internationally for months and when we boarded the luxury liner looking white ship we booked deck class meaning we had to sit or sleep on the deck chairs and at night,  would sleep on the indoors on luggage racks, to get out of the cold at night for this overnight ferry and enveyed the fact that most of the second class seats passage and aviation style reclining  seats where empty, but none of us dared to sit and recline and sit in them except for an elderly man who wondered of we would get in trouble or humiliated for sitting in them and unpaid for and if I recall saying to him do to his age that I didn't think that he would be humiliated of ask not to sit in these comfortatble seats and after a ling night we arrived in the port city of Nicosia the latest of capital city of Cyprus and then I saw for th he first the evidence of a Crusader building Gothic looking Church and very dramatic scene with one side of the city looking primative and Muslim and the other city looking modern and Christian and the distinction looked so dramatic and distinct from the ship, as we entered into the harbor and then again with one side looking medieval and the other side looking modern and then th he real drama started to happen for we were all informed that nobody will be able to disembark from the luxury ship unless they had at least a couple of hundred bucks or so or a least a hundred bucks so I gave all the money we had to Ken to first go through immigration and he was wearing a tee shirt and sunglasses look and was asked to show the money and he did and then circled around once he got his via stamp on his passport and then gave me the money for me to pass immigration wearing more of a suit and tie look and was not even asked to show any money for a US passport is as good as gold, especially if you dont look like a Hippy and the most dramatic thing that happened in my memory of which I virtually can never forget is the look on a8n Indian National who came up to me and asked if I could loan him the money to get through costumes and that he would give it back once going through the line and since it was all the money that we had, I could not take the risk and I can still see the panic look on  his face and the prospect of being sent and back too Turkey .....to be continued unedited and unpunchuated work in progress and just trying to get my thoughts and memories out before forgetting and friends and family children and future generations will help me edite and publish..