From Istanbul, we left on a three-night excursion into central Turkey, which lies on the Asian side of the Dardanelles. This was foreign territory indeed, as neither Dick nor I knew anything at all about it. I was vaguely aware that it had some interesting archaeological sites and some biblical cities were in it, but that was about it. We were blessed with an expert Turkish guide named Ahmet, who could easily have passed for a university lecturer. There were about 28 of us on the bus tour, and he set about educating us on Turkey. First, he said, Turkey is 98% Muslim, and until 1923 it was more or less indistinguishable from its Sultanate neighbors Iran, Iraq and Syria. But Kemal Attaturk came to power in 1923 and made sweeping changes to westernize it, so
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