Ben Welsher | Writings

Looking out of the country at the burgeoning country I can't help but slip out of London-centric mindset for a second as it seems no peace was ever had that was not felt here first. I was leaving the city different to how I once came into it at the start of things. At the start of a great wanderlust when in reverse the trees gave way to the gloomy grey towers that were the set of those first timid steps. They must have embossed themselves in my mind with their glinting, endless windows as I could not help but return to them years later when the lust was satisfied. A restless mind ever reaches though for what it doesn't have and ensconced in the metropolis the towers oppress me. I seek unbroken stillness, green and leafy silence, an unfettered wind to lift the soul. But the train hadn't even crossed London's great moat yet. A strange building rises like a wave from beneath the trees, a brutalist redo in brick of a Jodhpur palace. The train burrows through a cutting in th...

London/Istanbul - 22/08/2010 Second bus comes, we embark. Driver, who even if never uttered a singular word to you could not help but be supposed a curmudgeon, was grumpy as is his habit. Gatwick looms, we check in and wait for the plane. I note with interest that Easyjet's 'Speedy Queue' optional extra seems to have been created primarily by slowing down the normal queue. Having said that there must have been something vaguely efficient about boarding as the captain felt able to spare 10 minutes to deliver an impromptu standup routine at the front of the plane. He was, it must be said, a refreshing change from the dour sobriety that is the modus operandi of the airline community normally. Having closed my eyes (yet not slept) I somehow missed the take off and landing completely. The middle bit was as interesting as (and did include) an airsteward's safety brief, thus we find ourselves in Istanbul. A shuttle bus to the western limit of Asia Minor and ferry across the B...

London - 21/08/2010 The concrete strip bisects the grand old capital and moves us closer to Turkey by the second. Suspended as we are above the minutiae of life on either side we could be 10 or 100 feet from the ground, the endless towers offer no clue. The heat of our destination is as nothing to the fug of our 6 wheeled locale, a thoughtful aid to acclimatisation by National Express. But only the metronomically audible consumption of crisps introduces a sliver of black rage into my otherwise calm disposition. Looking out of the window at the burgeoning city I can't help but slip into a London-centric mindset for a second as it seems no idea was ever had that was not conceived here first. And yet somehow I already feel in a foreign country, doubtful the people around would understand if I were to speak. Time has ceased to be a point of reference, location is my barometer. We arrive as London is closing for the night, pub after pub shuts its doors to us, this stopover will go slow...

Birmingham Coach Station - 21/08/2010

Birmingham - 21/08/2010 And so we go. Destination: climes and shores foreign.

"A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us." -- John Steinbeck

Have adopted the chaotic approach to packing favoured by headless chickens that generally works so poorly in other aspects of my life. Time is moving far faster than I am it seems.