From Dostoyevsky to burning passion on the Pamukkale Express

Extensive poppy fields and a verdant spring landscape immediately bring to mind the landscape parallel with the plains of the Alentejo. Perhaps the mind always makes us travel to what is closest or most recognisable to us. 

It doesn't stop here, though, as I see farmers and small producers in the brown fields. Some are bent over, others are taking a break from their stiff posture to watch the Pamukkale Express pass by.

The Pamukkale Express travels between Eskişehir and Denizli - just a few kilometres from Pamukkale. The train covers 421 km over almost eight hours in the centre of Turkish Anatolia.

I doubt that these men and women - who work there for long hours on end - know that this is the name of the train journey that connects Eskisehir to the city of Denizli. A name that, like other connections (Sud Express or Trans-Siberian), serves to facilitate the internal and, above all, external tourist promotion of a place.

At a stop, the name of which I haven't memorised, a man who appears to be in his 60s gets off the train directly onto the track, hardly expecting the driver to have braked the train completely. With a black suitcase in his hand, he walked without hesitation.

Almost in imitation, a woman with a walking stick first kneels down and then slowly whirls around to jump over the continuous, high concrete block that divides the two railway lines.

While these movements are taking place, a young man runs out onto the platform to buy two ice creams in record time, get back on the train and continue his journey.

These and other people cross both disused and active railway tracks because it is the easiest and most convenient way to get to the other side of any village in less populated areas of Turkey.

Further ahead, a donkey crosses the road, indifferent to the cars passing by. Perhaps it doesn't realise or isn't intelligent enough to see the danger it's in.

The roads are in excellent condition, but I see few cars in this region of Turkey between Eskişehir and Pamukkale. Unlike the big cities - where thousands of people live in increasingly cramped spaces and where the lack of patience behind the wheel is evident, as is the lack of authority of the police forces to monitor and punish the constant violations of the highway code.

From the window, I can see blue and green minarets competing with telecoms towers. A mother pulls her son through a lavender plantation near one of the many stations and stops along the Pamukkale Express route.

There, a decades-old model carriage was carefully restored and painted, symbolising the importance of the railway in Turkey's past and present.

From what I can see, I could well be in the Alentejo of decades ago: on hot days, women work in the fields wearing headscarves. But the red flag, with a star and a white half moon, flying on a plateau, dispels all doubts. In fact, there are flags in windows, at stations and erected on hilltops wherever you travel.

A herd of cows venture down a steep access. Dust rises and they run over each other to get to the water: it's a kind of mini-Serengeti in Turkey.

In that fabulous park in Tanzania, herds of zebras and wildebeests rush to reach the fresh water, crossing it in search of better pastures and to cool off from the intense heat of the African steppe. At least there, in this Turkish waterhole, the cows won’t find hungry crocodiles.

Again and again, whatever the size of the town in question, the minarets multiply. In one of them, I can almost count the number of houses on my fingers, but I can identify five mosques. As I head eastwards in Turkey, Islam becomes more evident among the population.

Next to me, I mean in the next row - because men and women can't travel next to people of the opposite sex - a woman is travelling with her son and she's reading the Koran.

Buying tickets in the seat next to you if it's already occupied by a person of the opposite sex isn't possible in Turkey - not at all. When trying to book tickets for the train or bus, there are dolls representing the male and female sexes and the system simply won't allow you to do so - even if there are empty seats. The only exception is if you buy tickets at the same time.

That woman is reading the Koran and moving her lips while her eyes follow the lines of the book - from right to left, in Arabic. The small book is wrapped in a brown leather cover.

My son, I'm guessing 10 years old, is more interested in the landscape photos I'm taking. First plains, then plateaus and finally terrain that leads the eye up to high mountains. Until he gets tired of what I'm doing and asks his father - who is sitting with his brother on some benches further on - for a comic book.

As this child reads the stories intently, it occurs to me that it's perhaps rare to see children of this age, older or younger, reading a book and more than that - preferring a book to a mobile phone or tablet with games.

A few benches further on, the young man who holds the record for buying ice-cream in the shortest possible time kisses his girlfriend, interrupting her reading of a book by Dostoyevsky. Not yet wanting to know how the author's work ends, the young woman allows herself to be caressed, hugged and kissed.

The contrast couldn't be greater in such a small space. In row 18, the conservatism of a 40-year-old woman, in row 20, the irreverence of a young woman in her 20s.

I couldn't find a more obvious example in Turkish society. In this country, the Muslim religion is in the majority, but it dispenses with the restrictions of other neighbouring countries. I, too, continued to fall in love with the natural beauty of the landscapes, all the way to the Cotton Castles of Pamukkale. No restrictions.

From Portugal to Macau - chronicle #7

Follow my journey: From Portugal to Macau

Next articles

Durmitor National Park - how to explore Montenegro's natural jewel

Milford Sound - how to visit New Zealand's fjords

Pembrokeshire, the coast of Wales as you've never seen it before