Beneath the Smiling Moustache by Belinda Lara Robinson - Book Tour
Blurb:When twenty-two-year-old Belinda Robinson travels to Turkey in 1990 as a part of a backpacking trip through Europe, she’s looking for an exciting adventure steeped in culture and history. What she doesn’t expect, is an avalanche of catastrophes that threaten to dramatically derail her plans.After a harrowing and traumatic accident with a bus in Istanbul, she finds herself alone in a foreign country, abandoned by a heartless Australian Government. This poignant story of courage, resilience and accidental love is a journey of surprise as Belinda encounters a procession of compassionate Turkish people, in the most bizarre situations.Beneath the Smiling Moustache is a comical, inspiring true story of humanity at its best, offering a unique insight into the challenges of travelling alone as a young woman, at a time of rising tensions in the Middle East.
A mosque whizzed past on the right-hand side, then another. It seemed like there was hardly enough time to count one before the next was there.
The speedometer
now passed one hundred and sixty.
And ahead the
road forked. The car veered left. A billboard promoting life insurance loomed,
then receded. I glanced over the front seat at George—knees pressed together,
hand clutching the door handle—I felt kind of lucky to be sitting in the back.
CLANK! I heard
a piercing screech of metal. My heart dropped. Sparks trailed behind us as the
screeching noise grew louder and louder. ‘George, what THE HELL was that?’
‘Whaaaat … I
can’t HEAR you, BELINDA.’
‘I said,’ now shouting,
‘WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT NOISE?’
‘The EXHAUST. I
think we just lost the EXHAUST.’
‘Oh Lord, that
can’t be good!’
The congested
terrain slid past, this way and that.
The driver,
unfazed by the mayhem surrounding us, casually reached for his packet of
Marlboro that was tucked behind the sun visor. Surprisingly, he offered George
and then myself a cigarette. The act reminded me of a gesture usually expressed
to some poor soul about to face a firing squad. Neither of us smoked—but if I
was ever going to take up smoking, now was the perfect time. He then lit one
for himself.
We were still
on the move, and ahead was a red light at a five-way intersection, and we were
not slowing down.
‘STOP, you mad
bastard,’ George yelled. With no form of safety restraint, he strangely leant
forward and rested his arms and forehead on the dash in the brace position used
for crashlandings in aircraft.
I heaved myself
up and groped the driver’s arm. ‘Stop! STOP!’
The brakes
squealed. The car slowed. Adrenalin surged through me once again, and I let out
a deep sigh.
The more he
slowed, the more I realised how fast we’d been going. Halfway across the line,
we came to an abrupt halt. I looked at the driver. He was now glaring at the
red light as if he were the victim of some type of injustice.
When the lights
turned green, we moved off the highway and began to plough our way through the
hordes of people that filled a maze of narrow inner-city streets and tiny
alleyways.
To my relief,
the din of urban clatter was soon drowned out by the powerful vocals of the
muezzin when he called the faithful to noon prayer. Across the entire city, the
call, the Adhan, was amplified from the speakers positioned on each mosque’s
set of soaring minarets. Delivered melodiously, this mysterious voice was as
soothing on the nerves as a big, fat, glass of red wine.
As I clutched a
door handle with one hand and fanned myself with my hat with the other, I sat silent,
smiling with apprehension. I couldn’t help but think that it was going to take
more than a prayer to get us safely across town. It was going to take a miracle
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