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Yoruk Koyy
An old Ottoman Street in the nomad's village near Safranbolu. Was inhabited by Vekshi peopleDo you ever hear a bad word about Turkey? No? We now know why. The place is, very simply, easy, beautiful and blessed with helpful, friendly people.
We allocated a month for Turkey. This is obviously not enough to see all of what the country has to offer but then, if we try to do that in every country we come to we will traveling forever. Is that a bad idea? Enthusiastic shaking of the head from at least one element of the partnership. Eventually, though, the knees, hips and backs, not to mention the minds, may start to rot and it would probably be best to have at least one look around the world before that develops further. So, we need to set priorities and to compromise. Thus, Turkey was allocated a month and it is now time to try to sum up.
As travellers we tend to come into contact mostly with people in the various service industries and you should be able to expect them to be helpful but it goes further than that here. People in the street, on buses, in shops and just generally wandering around are always ready to help if they are
able with many going out of their way to help us after our initial rejection of assistance - hard to shake the habit after saying 'no thanks' again and again in India.. The only people in Turkey who have been less than helpful have been those paid to be helpful. The bloke in the Tourism Information Office in Sultanahmhet on the day after we arrived had a mix of arrogance and uselessness that was finely balanced. We actually don't learn and tried him again a month later. Same result. Post offices have often been similar. But the bloke in the Information Office in Safranbolu gives the lie to my sweeping generalisation. He was more than helpful, providing us with information about the place and then going much further than his job to make phone calls for us and organising a car to take us on a tour.
Language has been an issue occasionally. We have no Turkish. Pat has her excellent ability to pick up words and accents and to communicate with almost anyone. I have learnt some key words off a program that was downloaded for me but not enough to allow me to occasionally assist. Many people
A Struggle
there were a lot of steps up to the cave but it was worth it - I think have good English and, in the more touristy places, a lot of people have a bit of English. In the places more off the international tourist route English is less common. The guy in the caves outside Safranbolu who was trying to show us around relied on talking a lot, nodding frequently, smiling and laughing to get his point across. Luckily, we knew all about stalactites and stalagmites and their rates of growth. We did miss some of his interpretations of what some of them looked like but there were some that were embarrassingly obvious - bay, bay, bay (meaning man, man, man) for instance and there right in front of us was a massive stalagmite that could only look like one thing.
The girl in the bus company office on a Sunday in Amasra, who paled noticeably when 3 foreigners walked in, did well dredging up her English from school. Her pronounciation and diction was perfect but she did struggle with the vocab. My little bit of Turkish numbers and days brought a bright smile of relief but when she tried to explain that she needed us to give her the money and then come back later to
For Adam
Missed a few I know but here he is again pick up the tickets it all became a bit much. The person she called for assistance wasn't much use but we eventually worked out together what was required and there were smiles, and relief all round.
I can't recall a single instance when a person has been aggressive towards us. Perhaps though Turkish people get rid of their aggression on the road. They seem to drive as fast as is possible whatever the condition - through crowds, wet roads, winding roads, anywhere. They learn by riding bikes as kids flat out down hills through crowds.
One might consider driving flat out all of the time to be a little life threatening - although I would not agree completely - but Turkish men have another much more life threatening habit. They minimise the threat of fast driving with good skills but they maximise the threat from smoking cigarettes with heavy duty smokes inhaled incessantly. There is some value to be obtained from this practice. For one it means that buses stop every couple of hours allowing those who have a desperate need for the facilities to avail themselves while the smoking crew get their fix. But there are down
Amasra
Doesnt look at all like Asmara sides. Many rooms smell of smoke, desperate bus travelers fire up down the back on occasion, shops and restaurants sometimes don't enforce bans and this can be uncomfortable for ex-smokers who do still have the yen - even 12 years after they gave up on 4 January at 10.00am.
The other risky behaviour is one we encountered earlier in India and Vietnam - welding without protection and particularly without eye protection. I find this one hard to understand. I am the first to admit that I am not a good welder but, when I weld, I get splatter. Bits fly off on to my shirt, arms and face. Without protection there must be bits hitting eyes and this apart from the damage the glare must do to eyes. How do they not go blind after a while? I am buggered if I know. I haven't seen it as much here, but enough.
Still on Turkish blokes, they leave Australians for dead in the neat and tidy stakes. You rarely see anyone who doesn't have hair nicely styled and combed, dressed well and properly shaven. Bus drivers and conducters dress better than most Australian executives and maintain that appearance
See the Sheets?
That is our place from a bit of a distance through their shift. It is not at all unusual for a bloke to wear a suit and tie while he is clearly on his day off and out with the family for a picnic. All in all they create a considerable contrast with the normally stubbly Pom and always scruffy Australian in our party.
Turkish women - I had better be careful here - are another matter. There is a wide range of dress styles, to some extent dictated by location. In Istanbul the style is similar to any city anywhere with the addition of head scarves, particularly on the weekends. Further out, head scarves are much more common and in the rural areas older ladies often wear long skirts that are divided about half way up their calves into sort of pants (yet another technical description). This latter clothing is clearly very practical for women who work hard either in the fields or in markets but it is not, in my ever so humble and yet to be corrected opinion, flattering in any way. It probably goes without saying that it is only a very rare Turkish woman that goes about with more than the minimum of bare
Amasra Bay
Very nice except on weekends when the place fills up spectacularly flesh on display although, at times, younger women get themselves into clothes that were probably a little looser before the effect of the constant and considerable bread supply kicked in.
In Vietnam, the USA, Canada and, surprisingly, New Zealand, there seemed to be a lot of national flags flown. Turkey is a strong competitor in the flag flying stakes. Here it is often businesses and institutional type places that fly the flag but there a plenty flown by normal citizens as well. Although Australia seems, to me at least, to be becoming more and more nationalistic, even jingoistic, I don't think the level of flag flying will ever get to the heights reached here in Turkey. Clearly, the flag is respected and important to the Turkish people and, while I would not be totally comfortable with a similar attitude to any Australian flag, it would be nice to have a flag I could be as proud of.
Turkey was only created as a country following the First World War and it has had some difficulties with its neighbours at times, some of whom still bear grudges. In such circumstances it is probably handy that they have spent time
Waiting in the Shade
It was hot at Gallipoli. Glad we weren't in trenches developing a national spirit. The statues of Ataturk around the place don't match the number of flags but if you add the photos then it would be a close run thing. I must say though that, while countries tend not to be created by saints, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk did a pretty good job of setting this place up.
We complained about the treatment of waste and litter in Vietnam and India. Turkey does much better than either of those countries. There are areas though where the litter does jar. In Amasra, perhaps because it is the only sensible site available in the municipality or because the bay is just too big, the town dump is smack on the side of the sea wall in one of the beautiful little coves in the bay. Either very good or lousy planning.
Outside the larger cities it doesn't take long to get back to a village atmosphere. In Fethiye and Amasra there were still operating loudspeaker systems that allow the municipality to broadcase messages to the populace. These are places of some thousands of people but there were still a few messages broadcast every day. The 'village' feel is also evident
The Sphinx
They had to fight their way up and around here when you are trying to organise something or buy something. There seems always to be a family member or friend who can provide the service or sell the item and they are never too far away.
Turkey has some good loudspeaker system engineers most probably trained on mosques. Every mosque has its speakers to assist the muezzin to call for prayers 5 times a day - and into the night. Both the speaker systems and the muezzins vary in the quality of their sound. We reckon the best voice was that of the muezzin we could hear in Safranbolu closely followed by the one in Goreme with the bloke in Fethiye way down the list. We had developed a theory that the call, the azan, must be a taped thing with each muezzin recording his best rendition but we were told that it must be done live. It clearly requires dedication to be up to provide the call at 4 ish in the morning and some sound just a little rough at that hour.
Coming from Australia we were prepared for the countries we visit to be small. Others have been. India was not and neither is Turkey.
It is a large country and, while it has a population of over 70 million, there are plenty of wide open spaces. We have driven through substantial distances of open country with surprisingly few fences. Fields are clearly divided, often by lines of rocks but fences only seem to be used where it is absolutely necessary that animals, or perhaps wildlife is kept out, normally around fruit trees and vegetable patches. In the places we have travelled livestock is not all that common. Goats, sheep and dairy cattle predominate but there don't seem to be as many of them as you would think would be necessary to feed a nation of this size.
Farmers use tractors freely. There are tractors everywhere, often with a substantial trailer attached and, if not, a plough. They don't muck about with this direct drilling stuff here and 'no till' is not in the equation. Dig down deep and turn it over. Use a nice set of chisel ploughs to break it up, a mouldboard to turn it and then a set of harrows to break up the clods. Oh, and then get the missus and her mates out to plant. My Dad would
No Man's Land
The road follows what used to be no man's land. The trenches were on each side. have approved completely on the ploughing practice s although I am not so sure my Mum would have seen the value in the women only planting teams.
Irrigation. Regular readers will know I have a bit of a thing about this. A couple of interesting practices. One is the use of pretty substantial concrete channels, mini viaducts if you like to shift water from the source through the valleys. It looks as if it requires either voluntary or enforced cooperation from the farmers to pay for or at least manage the system so that everyone gets some sort of share. The other is the use of large - 50mm PVC - set up with outlets at row intervals with poly tubes running down each row and irrigators attached. It would allow the system to be run out on to the ground at the end of ploughing and then shifted again at the end of the growing season. Makes sense.
The one feature that stands out about the countryside is nothing really to do with it at all - it is that it is spring. Not so dramatic a thing you might think but we come from a part
of the world that doesn't have a spring and certainly not one that follows a winter that is all drab and cold. Bright green grass we have seen before but the masses of flowers, buds on trees and general feeling in the land that it is ready to get mobile after a long sleep is something very special.
The food. Kebabs, kofta, pide and plenty of salads especially at this time of the year. The food is generally very good and also tends to come at a reasonable price. We were stung on our first night in Turkey at a fish restaurant but never repeated the mistake. Most nights the 4 of us can eat dinner for under 50 TL although it increases if we have a bottle of wine. Wine is not cheap although you can buy an Efes for about 2.50 TL in the shops and a bit more than that in the restaurants.
As I said earlier, there are places we would have liked to get to but didn't. Basically, we have missed the eastern half of the country and a lot more of the north than was our plan. The eastern area is not
The Gullies
Which is basically what they fought their way up heavily travelled by tourists but sounds like it would be interesting. Perhaps on our trip back through when we head through the Middle East to Cairo?
We also missed a lot of the Black Sea coast and the mountains in the north east. Luckily, we did get to Amasra which is a beautiful little place on the Black Sea Coast. We found an apartment here for a reasonable cost and spent 4 days lazing around, getting our gear washed, walking around the town, wandering up on to the headland, catching up on internet stuff related to our next places and playing cards. Also ate some good meals although a little more lentil corba than we had intended.
Became so laid back that when Pat and Tony needed to tell someone where they were neither had any idea for a while and then couldn't work out whether it was Asmara, Asmaya or Amasra. At least 2 of the places were in the right country.
We have also done the run to Gallipoli and then on to Troy. We were pleased that we avoided Gallipoli on Anzac Day when there were 7,000 people at the dawn service. It was
Troy
not a lot there these days an interesting day moving around the old battle sites and hearing stories that we had heard many times before, this time in situ. Unbelievable how close those trenches were but much, much harder to believe that the battle was ever fought in the first place.
Eceabat where we stayed is not a bad little town and the Crowded House hotel is a cut above others. We can recommend the place and Bulent who is the guide they use for tours of Gallipoli is the best we have encountered on the trip to date.
So that is it for Turkey. We leave in the early hours of the morning for Frankfurt but just to pick up a car to drive to the Czech Republic. So we will post again from there. Looking forward to another night without much sleep and a nice drive on the wrong side of the road in the morning.
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