Wherever you go, the road is rough, the weather is unpredictable, and the food is poor…
A wild and rugged adventure exploring the remote regions of Greece and Turkey.

A story of enlightenment presented by the sacred and the harsh world of the secular.
Includes 144 black-and-white photos by fellow photographer Eizo Matsumura.

Haruki Murakami is a writer famous for his love of traveling.
He did not simply travel, but also compiled his travel thoughts into several volumes of light-hearted yet meaningful essays.
He once said this about why he writes in rotation between novels and essays:


“If you keep writing novels, especially long novels, there are times when you become mentally oxygen-deprived.
At times like that, I open the closed windows here and there and bring fresh air into the room through different types of writing.”

Haruki Murakami completed the manuscripts for his representative works, “The Age of Loss” and “Dance Dance Dance,” while traveling around Europe for approximately three years from the fall of 1986 to the fall of 1989. He also included his travel experiences during this period in the essay collections “The Sound of a Distant Drum” and “From Rainy Greece to Scorching Turkey” (original title: 雨天炎天).
In other words, for him, novels and essays are like two sides of the same coin: “everyday and extraordinary.”
If you read this book with Haruki's words in mind, comparing brisk writing like an essay to "taking in a breath of fresh air," you will experience an even more unique flavor.


"Distant Drums" is a collection of essays written while living in Europe, mainly in Greece and Italy, over three years from the fall of 1986 to the fall of 1989, and "From Rainy Greece to Scorching Turkey" is a collection of essays written while traveling to the Athos Peninsula in Greece and Turkey in 1988, when the Olympics were in full swing in Korea.
The Athos Peninsula in Greece and the border region of Turkey were such special travel destinations for Haruki that he dedicated a separate book to his 1988 trip.
He revealed the reason for this trip in the book:


“Ever since I read about Athos in a book, I’ve always wanted to come here at least once.
“I wanted to see with my own eyes what kind of people are here and how they live.”
“I became very interested in the country of Turkey.
I don't really know why.
“I think what attracted me was the quality of the air there.”

The Athos Peninsula, the "Land of Women," which can only be entered with a special visa from the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the border area with Turkey, where conflicts and terrorism are constant due to the mixture of various ethnicities, have always been a difficult and challenging course for foreign travelers.
Since Haruki set out on such a journey without a local guide, it was obvious that he would face all kinds of hardships.
Haruki suffered from constant torrential rain on the Athos Peninsula in Greece, and suffered from the scorching heat in Turkey.
As he put it, “The road was extremely rough, the weather was very changeable, and the food was very poor.”

However, Haruki sometimes gets lost in the Athos Peninsula, the land of Greek Orthodoxy, and as he passes through various monasteries such as Stavronikita, Iviron, Philotheus, Karakalu, and Great Lavra, he witnesses another world beyond the real world.
I think about 'holiness' as I look at monks who live in isolation, detached from worldly pleasures, and observing strict precepts.
And in Turkey, we sometimes get lost and wander from west to east, going to places that are inaccessible without a four-wheel drive vehicle.
In that place, filled with soldiers everywhere, where you can't even take a single photo, full of dust and flocks of sheep, I think about the 'world'.
Perhaps Haruki wanted to talk about the enlightenment in life that comes naturally from such a clear contrast between achievements.

Greece has many beautiful seas, but I have never seen a place as beautiful as the sea of ​​Athos.
Of course, there are plenty of seas that are just transparent, blue, and clean.
But the beauty of this sea is a beauty completely different from those things.
It's a transparency and blueness of a whole other level.

--- p.14

This peninsula's nature remains largely untouched.
It could be said to be the only region in Greece that has remained completely untouched by tourism developers.
The terrain is also rugged.
There is hardly any flat land here.
There is only a mountain.
To the south of the peninsula rises a 2,000-meter mountain called Mount Athos.
And the coast is made up entirely of cliffs, giving it a majestic appearance that people cannot approach.
Wherever you go, you have to climb mountains on your own two feet.
This is because there is virtually no means of transportation on this peninsula.

--- pp.20-21

At Darabura, the set of three items, Lucumi, coffee, and ouzo, was also available.
Greedily devours Lucumi.
This sweetness is so indescribable now.
happy.
When you put this jelly candy in your mouth, you can feel the peaceful sweetness spreading to every cell in your body.
If you eat like this every day, you might become addicted to Lucumi.
The coffee is also delicious.
Uzo is also delicious.
The taste I enjoyed in the restaurants of Rome has long since flown away somewhere.

--- p.100

When you travel, not everything goes smoothly as planned.
Because we are in a foreign land.
That's why not everything turns out the way we want it to.
Conversely, travel is when things don't go as planned.
Because things don't go as expected, we can encounter many interesting, strange, and amazing things.
That's why we travel.

--- pp.133-134

Ultimately, what kept us going during our trip to Turkey was bread, vegetables, cheese, and tea.
The thing I like most about Turkey is the bread.
And there is Chaihane (a cafe that sells tea).
The bread in Turkey is so delicious that it needs no introduction (not a single guidebook mentions that).
(It's strange.) Turkish bread comes in two types: the regular, puffed type and the flat, white type, and both are so delicious that it's hard to tell which is better.
Of all the breads I've tried in various countries, Turkish bread is the best.
It gets even tastier the further you go into the countryside.

--- p.190

The air there felt like it contained something special, unlike anywhere else.
The feel of it against my skin, the smell, the color, everything was different from any air I had ever smelled.
It was a mysterious air.
At that time, I thought that perhaps the essence of travel was breathing air.
Memories will definitely fade.
Postcards fade in color.
But the air remains.
At least some kind of air remains.

--- p.203

After breakfast, I was taking a walk down the street when a shoe shine boy approached me and asked me to shine my white sneakers.
I was curious as to how on earth they would clean white sneakers, but I declined because I thought I would end up throwing them away (which I probably would have).
There are parts of the country called Turkey that, for better or worse, definitely surpass my imagination.

--- p.245