Advertisement
Published: October 10th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Keşan looked hazy in the morning. The hotel breakfast was, I had been reliably informed, typically Turkish: olives, boiled eggs, fetta cheese, sliced tomatoes and cucumber, and grape juice. "Good breakfast!" I had been told the evening before. It was good, and surprisingly meatless.
The bus to the Gallipoli Peninsula that I had been promised was not now running apparently. A few commanding shouts, however, from the hotel receptionist - directly possibly at me, possibly at a man standing outside, I wasn't sure - saw me bundled into a rattly old car and driven at high speed down the road. I was relieved to soon arrive at the bus station, and not find myself - well, you know how the imagination can be at times like this.
I had an hour and a half before my bus departed, so I followed a group of students up the nearby hill and hoped to find Keşan's centre. The little Turkish that Mehmet had taught me the previous evening seemed to be getting the right responses, even though or lesson had been conducted in German (which Mehmet pronounced GHAIR-MAHN).
The alarming pace at which I was moving through different countries, and
Turkish legend
Commemoration of a Turkish soldier carrying a wounded Allied soldier to safety. therefore different languages, was confusing me. I wasn't really in control of what was coming out of my mouth, and found that it usually began with, "Si", which was easy to say when smiling, and soon moved onto other, hopefully more appropriate words - appropriate hopefully in meaning and language.
At the top of the hill I found the two things I was looking for - a bank and an internet cafe. Actually I found two of each, which was fortunate, as the first ATM I tried allowed me cheerfully to get as far as asking for a receipt with my 100 Lire, but then gave me neither. I took a picture of the bank and street sign for later use in case I was charged for the withdrawal. I then sent a couple of emails (including one to my contact in Iran, for my visit there in just over a week's time), took pictures of an enormous Turkish flag flying in the breeze, a mosque, and had my request for a photo of a picturesque old woman refused. The refusal was accompanied by dramatic gestures involving both arms being raised and head thrown back, followed by one arm
being lowered and the other being waved across in front of her. This was aided by some guttural noises, some hissing then relaxed laughing. She may have been telling me that she would be honoured to appear in my travel blog, to be seen by literally tens of people in up to four countries worldwide, but I thought probably not.
On my way back to the bus I passed a school, where some young kids over the wall shouted "Hullo! Hullo!" I waved and shouted "Hullo!" back. I ignored some shouts of "Hey!" and some whistles behind me, until both grew more persistent. A short man in his 20s in army uniform approached me, with a tall man about 50 in a suit. I had not seen any evidence of the army since border control the previous evening.
"Parlez vous Francais?"
"No - English"
"Oh, English. Why you take pictures of the military?"
"I no take pictures of the military."
I showed the soldier my four pictures taken on Turkish soil (and thanked God I hadn't taken a sneaky one at the frontier when I was tempted) and a few of Greece in one direction on the camera, and
Paris in the other, explaining the rationale behind each. He seemed satisfied, but the suited man was being uppity.
"Back! Forward!" he ordered as he saw more and more of my pictures. He no doubt wondered why there were so many of Albanian donkeys. Perhaps he was the owner of the internet cafe I didn't patronise. Perhaps he was the gesticulating old woman's son.
"In Turkey do not take pictures of the military," said soldier."
"I am well aware of that. I do not intent to."
"Ok."
"Ok."
We parted, the suited one waving his arms about indignantly to his companion. I decided he looked like his mother.
On the bus, very new and comfortable, before we departed a short woman of about 60 walked along the aisle, singing low and rhythmically about the rolls and wafer biscuits she had on a tray balanced on her head. No-one bought anything from her, and a few sophisticates - no doubt from Istanbul - tittered.
My ticket was for Eceabat, but I wondered whether I should have got one for Çanakkale instead. I had an idea that they were close together, separated by the Dardenelle Straits and maybe a few
extra kms. I was carrying no guide book, and was relying on brief research on the internet into likely tours and accommodation which led me to think that the bigger town of Çanakkale may have been a better move.
The sun was strong and the sky blue when we arrived after just under two hours of smooth, sedate, quiet, slightly smelly (Turkish B.O.) bus ride. I suddenly noticed from the t-shirt slogans and accented English that there were more Australians on the bus than me. And I also noticed that Eceabat was now clearly the place to be: liberally scattered with kangaroo-shaped rubbish bins (that's trash cans, my dear American readers), Australian and NZ flags, and buildings such as the Crowded House Hotel. In fact there was an afternoon tour about to leave with my name on it - well, I put my name on the list. The tour was run by a hostel called T.J's, so I also took a very cheap single room with bathroom - telling the other Australians in the lobby that I was too old for a dorm. I left my backpack with the pile of others by the reception desk, locking it to
some handy trellis. No-one else had locked their pack - obviously none of the others had ever had a towel stolen.
The guide on the five-hour tour was a young Euro-Turk called Hasan, who said he was to be our "crazy teacher". He sported a fine mullet. We moved between the well-groomed cemeteries, taking in the beautiful beach views while listening to the heart-wrenching tales of youth, blundering, gentlemanly warfare and slaughter. The area that saw so much of that slaughter was of course tiny. It was touching that it has remained much as it was then - scrubby and wild, except for the cemetery lawns dotted around. The balanced commentary from Hasan was moving, especially his rendition of a traditional Çanakkalian song reputed to have been sung in the trenches (the remnant of which can still be made out in odd mounds of earth). I'm very glad I went there - such an important place for the history of Australia (and New Zealand and Turkey). I was not alone among the pilgrims that day who spent a quiet moment on my own in the eerie peace and deafening quiet of that weird countryside.
The tour was an
interesting experience for me in another way. The twenty or so tourists were nearly all Australians, which had a peculiar familiarity for me. I'm not sure if I enjoyed that aspect of it or not. I did, however, enjoy that evening's screening of the classic Australian film 'Gallipoli' in the hostel. I loved the opening scenes accompanied by an unexpected soundtrack of the call to prayer from the local mosque, booming out across the Turkish sea front.
"What are your legs?"
"Allāhu akbar."
"How fast can you run?"
"La ilaha illallah."
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 50; dbt: 0.056s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
jo
non-member comment
Nick, I think the heart-wrenching hissing guttural noises accompanied by arm-waving when a camera is present means 'You give me money. I give you picture."