Turkey in January, 2000
The flight to Istanbul was full of Cape Muslims on their way to Mecca for the Hajj. They were all pretty cool, and it was funny to hear them speaking with that Cape coloured accent and looking all dressed up and serious! The guy I sat next too prayed almost the whole flight, but had a break for some biltong (which I got to try as well), and some weird green perfume, which he also graciously offered me and which got smeared behind my ears.
Maybe it was the fact that I was green behind the ears that my first encounter with a local didn't end up brilliantly. I got off the shuttle bus from the airport near one of the trams, intending to catch it into town. However, a guy approached me saying he was from the bus company and that the hostel was closed due to earthquakes and the fact that there were no tourists, but that he new of a cheap hotel. Spot the sucker!!!! I'll blame it on the fact that I was tired after the night flight that I actually believed him and went along. The room I ended up in was luxurious, with satellite tv, stocked bar and hot shower, with a view over the Marmara Sea. It cost $35. Maybe that would have been ok, but I met some other travellers later who had stayed at the same place and paid $25 for a double. Apparently the touts get 40-50% commission for delivering guests, so I paid out of the nose. By contrast - the hostel, which surprise, suprise was not shut, costs $4 for a bed. I guess some guys just have to learn the hard way!
That apart though, I had a lovely first day exploring Istanbul. My first excursion was to the Blue Mosque, which is huge, with lovely stained glass windows, and is really extensive. I was more impressed by it than the gold-domed, air-conditioned mosque in Brunei. After a cup of apple tea in a carpet shop (it had to be done), and heading off with a token prayer carpet, my next stop was the Aya Sophia. This building is really impressive from the outside with its domes upon domes, and minarets. The inside is also stunning, mostly due to the weird contrast between religious friezes depicting Jesus and the saints, and the huge discs on the walls with passages from the Koran. Unfortunately the central area was a network of scaffolding reaching to the ceiling, so this detracted in part from the awesome feat of architecture that this building is - with its huge dome, which unlike the Blue Mosque, doesn't have pillars to support it - and it was built during the Byzantine era. Truly amazing. There are also matching marble slabs which adorn the interior walls, which must have been quite a feat to turn out.
After the Aya Sophia, I headed to the youth hostel, which of course was not closed. I signed up for a tour of Cappadocia, and accompanied an American couple from Los Angeles to the Grand Bazaar. The guy, Rick, had bought a Kilim - type of carpet/hanging ($300), and needed a receipt for it. The bazaar pretty empty, and I had to wonder how all the stores survive as there are thousands of carpet shops, jewellery shops and shops selling leather jackets. And apart from the odd store selling other tourist stuff or counterfeit brands, that's it!
Back at the Hostel we met up with Ishmail, the friendliest, coolest Turk I had the pleasure of meeting. He worked at the hostel, and was a representative of his nomadic tribe from central Turkey which is one of the last groups of people to make 'real' handmade carpets. He showed us how to tell the difference between totally hand woven, real dyed carpets from the mass produced ones sold to tourists. The lesson was really interesting. For instance one of the ways to tell if a carpet is made from hand spun wool is to burn it. Due to the oils which rub off from peoples hands on handspun wool, real carpets are fairly resistant to burns, and the difference was demonstrated with a lighter. You can also push a pencil through a real carpet as they are flexible. But of course the prices for these carpets was way out of my reach. About $400 for a carpet 1mx2m.
The 4 of us then had lentil soup and salad, for a late afternoon lunch - all meals come with as much bread as you can eat, and all this with tea for 1000 000 Lira. (£1=850 000 Lira).
After a shower and a quick nap it was time for a night on the town. It started with a real Turkish feast - loads of different lamb and beef kebabs, chicken wings, and a pizza type bread with brown rice and salads. There were a few more people from the hostel with us by this stage, including 2 Argentineans, and a girl from Taiwan (who, incidentally, believes that Taiwan should be part of China). We had deep conversations about Kurds, separatism etc, before Ishmail had enough of it all and off we headed to a local bar for some Turkish 'Bira', and a stiff drink the equivalent of vodka, which really put us in the mode to enjoy the blonde Belly Dancer who arrived to liven up festivities.
Needless to say my second day in Turkey got off to a slightly more subdued start. The agenda for the day was the Topkapi palace. The cold weather only put a slight dint in this amazing museum. The collection of jewels and bejewelled items is beyond belief, gold suits with rubies, gold thrones covered in emeralds, emeralds weighing 3kgs, one of the biggest diamonds I have ever seen, and uncountable other 'minor treasures'. I was in awe. To get over it I went out onto a balcony overlooking the Marmara sea, which was just visible through the mist and snow. I couldn't believe my eyes when I thought I saw dolphin crest a wave, but on closer inspection a pod of 30 or more dolphins was right by the shore. With all the ships/fishing vessels I had seen I did not think there would be a chance of finding dolphins here, never mind actually seeing them. And they sure put on a display,sometimes jumping clear out of the water! Eventually I was too cold to watch them any more and went on a tour of the Harem, the living quarters of the various sultans with all their concubines, wives and black eunuchs. Impressive tiles, etc. and architecture which resists earthquakes.
After that I went on a long walk along the coast to try find the dolphins again, but with no luck. I did cross the bridge over the Golden horn, with all its fishermen, and explored the Egyptian market, before heading on to the Istanbul university, with its amazing architecture.
At 1900 hours I departed Istanbul on a night bus for Cappadoccia, the land of caves and outlandish rock formations. I managed to sleep very well, and awoke to a landscape out of Scott and the Antarctic, the world covered in snow. Due to the icy roads the bus was a few hours late and upon my arrival in Goreme I was bundled straight into the tour bus with a trio of typical loud Ozzie guys, a Macedonian couple, a Turkish couple and a Korean girl who appeared to be on walkabout according to the ozzie guys, cause she was always wondering off somewhere when the bus was about to leave.
The first stop was the Open Air Museum, a valley of cave houses dating back to the days of the Hittites, where dwellings were carved into the soft, volcanic tuff. Later the dwellings were taken over by christians, and more than 350 chapels and there remains have been found in the area. Admiring the pictures was hard to do when one can't feel one's toes, and you are wishing that the guide didn't have to go into detail about every saint and scene painted on the various chapel walls. It is interesting to note that most of the paintings are in very poor condition, and a lot of the pictures of Jesus and the saints have their faces scraped off the walls. Thankfully, we were able to stop in one of the caves that is still occupied, and we were able to warm our chilled bones at a fire and drink tea.
The next stop on the tour was a village that specialises in pottery. The place we visited also has the largest collection of human hair in the world. Apparently it started with the owner keeping hair from his past girlfriends, but then later visitors (only ladies) contributed their hair too. So amongst the caves of pottery is a cave covered from bottom to top with lovely locks. The pottery was of secondary interest as far as I was concerned, but we were told that we could have 15% off the marked price because we were on a tour. I later found out from some independent travellers who went there that they were told they could have 50% off because they were NOT on a tour!!!!
The tour continued through some amazing landscapes of conical 'fairy' hills, where cones of tuff are protected from erosion by a resistant basalt. More amazing was the sight of a camel plodding through the snow, I would have been less surprised if I'd seen penguins! The days tour finished off with a winetasting session of the local (and not very good) wines. That night I slept very well in my cave room of the Pension I was staying at.
The second days tour in Cappadoccia took us to an underground city. It was great exploring all the caves and side tunnels and bumping heads on the low ceilings. The caves go down 85meters, and could keep 10 000 people, and had traps,and Indiana Jones type sliding doors to keep intruders at bay.
The tour ended early as none of us felt like walking down Pigeon valley in blizzard type conditions, so we settled for another cup of tea and pumpkin seeds instead. The night was spent consuming cheap wine, and space cakes supplied by the Macedonian couple - who own the 'New Age' tea shop in Macedonia's capital - Skopje.
My third day in Cappadocia I spent walking through blinding conditions in the valley of swords. The sun was out, but it was still cold, and although it was fun exploring the valleys chapel and house caves, my trousers were frozen stiff by the end of its, and melted into a soggy mess of getting back to the warmth of the Pension. After a warm shower it was time to catch the night bus to Serjuk and the ancient ruins of Ephysus, on the Med coast.
Now for episode 2 of being ripped off in Turkey. On the second day of my tour I had told the tour leader that I wanted to go to Ephysus. I was given a 'ticket' that afternoon for Serjuk, the local town. However, the night I am due to leave, I arrive at the bus station and am informed that the ticket was actually given to me in mistake and that it was for another traveller. I told the bus company that I had paid for the ticket. They phoned the agency, who refused to cover the cost of the ticket. On trying to locate their offices they were closed, and of course so was the agency in Istanbul with whom I had made the deal. And the bus company would only take me if I paid a further 10 million Lira! I had no choice since I only had 3 nights left in Turkey and didn't want to waste time. I made them write a statement saying that I had to pay again, intending to take it up with the people in Istanbul, but unfortunately would only arrive in Istanbul at midnight on my last night, and thus could not recover my money.
And I definitely felt hard done by on the bus trip as well, as the conductor could not speak English and I am sure was a Mongaloid affirmitive-action employee of the bus company. Although the bus was half full, everyone had to sit at the front of the bus, and we could thus not stretch out and sleep comfortably. Then a couple of hours into the trip he notices I don't have shoes on, as they are wet from my days activities. And he makes such a fuss about me putting them on, that despite my showing they were wet, and saying 'soo-oh' (Turkish for water according to the Lonely Planet), repeatedly, he wouldn't give up and I eventually had to put them on. Then at about 3am, just as I have reached that dead-tired, will-sleep-anywhere stage he wakes everyone up for tea!
My arrival at the Australia-n-NewZealand hostel in Seljuk allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief. However, the sunshine I had been promised was notable in its absence. Instead there were torrential rain storms. I toured Ephysus anyway in the company of a couple of brave Canadian girls and a guy from Crete who was able to fill us in on the history of the ruins, which did make them more interesting. We hid in the ancient brothel for a while to escape the rain, pondering the mosaic ladies on the floors with their seductive smiles while we stood in growing puddles.
The afternoons entertainment included a trip to a church, or tourist trap, as the church is closed, but you are welcomed into an old ladies home, endowed with much tea, and forced to fend off various lace and knitted items that all come with a price.
That evening I witnessed first hand the Turkish pick up scenario. I had made friends with a couple of Kiwi girls who had just finished their 2 years in London. During the course of the evening a couple of guys came up to us and would firstly ask ' Where are you from?' and on hearing the answer would then say 'Aaah, my father/brother/cousin lives there! Do you like Turkey?' and then 'I/my brother/father.. own a bar nearby. Would you like to go with me for a drink?'.
Unfortunately I had to say goodbye to the merry crowd at Serjuk, and spent the rest of my last day in Turkey on the bus to Istanbul. Due to the crazy traffic and bad road conditions, on my arrival in Istanbul at 0100am I decided it was not worth the bother of staying at the hostel, as there would obviously not be anyone there from whom I could claim my money before my check in time of 0630 in the morning, and I decided to catch a taxi to the airport and slept on an airport bench.
So that was Turkey. Unfortunately I left only as I was just getting a feel for the country, which has some wonderful characters, sites and an amazing history, but also more than its fair share of tourist abusers, and I didn't feel too many regrets on leaving Turkey and arriving at a sunny Heathrow airport.