Talking Turkey

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During my three weeks in Turkey I have been debating about what to write. Turkey is incredibly diverse and hard to describe in a few short words. It wasn't even until about the last week that I began to really appreciate and enjoy the country for what it is.

I arrived in Istanbul to join my second of three Intrepid Tours. Our group was 11 people, 2 Kiwis, 1 English woman living in Turkey teaching English, me, a 70 year old scot living now in Australia (yes 70 and a legend! looks 50 and has the most amazing travel stories), 1 Canadian living in London, and the rest Australian. Our tour leader hails from Brazil, but has spent most of his life in Asia, called Cleverson (yes and his brothers names Emerson and Jefferson!)

Our tour was 21 days going east from Istanbul, then south along the Mediterranean coast, then following the west coast back up to Istanbul for our final days. In this time we hiked through the volcanic lands of Cappadocia, swam in the Med sea (my first time!) and toured ancient ruins from the Greeks and Romans.

Turkey is truly as the say, East meets West. The country has such a long history and has been taken over by the Romans, the Greeks, Arabs, and Europeans. This kind of background leaves Turkey with no real identity oddly enough. Every part of Turkey is different, the people look different, they act different, but yet, they remain Turks and are extremely proud to be Turkish. Turkey is one of the 7 countries that are considered self-sufficient. Meaning they have all the resources they need to sustain themselves. This creates a sort of braggery, that you can even ask a Turk who invented the airplane and they will say Turkey!

A few years back, Turkey was facing inflation over 100 per cent, and during government changes, have created a very stable economy and currency. In fact, the value of the Turkish lira is about the same as the US dollar, which made it not so cheap for me to travel. Food is pretty cheap, but most of the time the money doesn't go very far.

In factual terms, Turkey is 98 per cent Muslim, but most people agree that this is not the reality. And since Islam arrived quite late there, the original customs of drinking alcohol and wearing western type clothes still apply. Turkey is currently applying for entry into the European Union, but due to its bordering with Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq, there are many doubts that this will happen.

Turkish people at first seem a bit brash and forward. This outlooks applies if you only meet people who want to sell you things. All the shop people often sit outside and try to talk people into coming into their shop. The way they do this is to usually say 'hello' or 'where you from' or just yell out the nationality they think you are. After about 15 minutes, this wears you out, and you sadly end up ignoring people altogether. Some of the girls got quite a lot of harrassment, being blonde and white. I was actually relieved not to get much attention, and later found that I was getting mistaken for Turkish several times a day. People would come up to me and start speaking Turkish and I had to apologize and they told me I look like the people from the north of the country, curly hair and brown skin (brown? my tan must be darker than I thought!) Anyway, when I told people I was from Miami, everybody says 'WOW' nice!

The last week of the tour was along the Med coastline. The Med is so beautiful, very blue or green, or sometimes completely clear. You can stand up neck high and still see your feet at the bottom! The beaches are mostly pebbles or large smooth rocks, making beach chairs a must. (where Turks can make money off you, they will!) As we headed back towards Istanbul, we stopped in a few small cities to relax and chill in between Roman Ruin walking tours. One highlight is a place called Ephesus, which is one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. Only 5% of the city has been unearthed, because the Turkish government was in such a hurry to open it for tourists and make some cash. Ephesus brings millions of people every year to marvel at the marble city remains. Our guide was a former archeologist at the site and very passionate and drew a picture for us so colorfully, it made our day an incredible one!

We based ourselves in the small town of Selcuk (sel-chuk) for a couple of days. As I wandering through the streets to meet my friends, I was interrupted by someone. OK, so up until this point, I hadn't seen one single attractive Turk, until now. His name is Behzat, is Kurdish, and he owns a carpet shop, and after spending some time in the shop, I learned about Turkish carpets (which is not as easy as it sounds) and even ended up helping to sell a carpet. For this I joked, 'now I should get a discount!' and for someone who the whole entire time in Turkey adamantly declaring she would not purchase a carpet, got a tapestry, a rug and a cushion cover! Being able to hang out with Behzat and his friends and family was a great experience, I finally got a feeling for the real Turkish way of living and I can say they are truly lovely people with strong determination, a fantastic sense of humor and a real zest for living.

And finally, one would think that after 3 weeks in Turkey, you would pick up some of the language. However, unusually for me who is pretty good with languages, Turkish was not sticking with me at all. However, there are some things I could learn by association.. some examples!

Hello - Merhaba (easy enough)
Thank you - Tisha kur or Sal for short
The number one - bir (pronounced beer!)
The number 81 - pronounced sexanbeer
and my favorite which is actually used all the time .. 'Doesn't matter' which is Fark et mez, sounds a little like 'fuckitmess' in English!

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Comments

[jason]

apparently i've been saying the number 81 in turkish for years.