Across Turkey in a Beetle

About the Book

This book tells the story of one man's desperate attempt to be rid of his car. The year is 1988. The man is a 25-year-old American medical student at a German university, who, during his summer vacation, takes a classic Volkswagen Beetle on a veritable odyssey across southeastern Europe, Turkey and Cyprus at the behest of a Turkish friend.

The "Herbie" movies have just hit the Turkish market, creating a short-lived burst of demand for the vehicle. Leaving Germany on the wildest day of the year (the last day of school before summer vacation), our wandering student crosses Austria, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, before reaching the Turkish border on a scorching July afternoon. In the ensuing chapters, he and a network of Turkish acquaintances try their best to ready the vehicle for sale in Turkey or export to the greater Middle East, taking in a swath of country stretching from Istanbul and European Turkey to a desolate border post on the Habur River leading to Iraq. In the process, he meets a wide array of antagonists, ranging from customs officials, to university professors, small town mayors, attorneys, bus drivers and war profiteers in the months preceding and following the end of the Iran-Iraq conflict. Complicating matters are the idiosyncrasies of Turkish law and custom, and the infuriatingly slow pace at which things get done in the unchanging East.

The author describes a rich tapestry of Eastern life and the stunning venues in which he encounters it. While not degenerating into a guide book, the account gives the author's impressions of the great cities of Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, while taking the reader to the less well-known, more exotic towns of the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and the rough and tumble districts of Kurdistan. With his background in Classics, the author kept his sanity through months of frustration by visits to many of Turkey's spectacular archaeological sites and fond last looks at Oriental towns succumbing to the effects of development and tourism, while at the same time exploring the psychology of a nation on the watershed between tradition and modernity, Islam and secularism, and war and peace. Through a diverse group of Turkish friends he is able to see at close range their customs and way of life. The book contains numerous photographs of the places described.

About the Author

Richard A. Mason was born and raised in rural northeastern Ohio. In 1983, he received his undergraduate degree in Classics from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio and enrolled in the medical school of the University of Ulm, Germany. Following graduation, he worked as a physician in Germany and as a consultant for clinical studies in emerging markets in Eastern Europe before returning to Ohio in 1997, where he lives with his wife, Simona, and three young sons, Matthew, Lucas and Michael. He is currently in the Department of Psychiatry of University Hospitals of Cleveland. During his university years and, later, as a clinical consultant, he traveled extensively in countries of the former Warsaw Pact as well as in Turkey, Cyprus and elsewhere in the Middle East. With the help of a large number of friends, acquaintances and business partners, he has been able to obtain, from a unique perspective, a deep insight into the people and places he had the opportunity to visit.