Turkey is a land of exotic spices and delicious food; of beautiful mosques and crazy bazaars. It is also a land of men, a mostly-Muslim country where the women are veiled and rarely seen in public. As a result, prostitution runs rampant and many men view single female foreigners as "loose" uninhibited sex objects, a fact which female travelers should be prepared for before planning a trip there.
Traveling with three other young American women, one with long blonde hair and blue eyes, I had been warned in advance of the problems we might encounter. My friend Cat, for instance, told me horror stories of her family trip to Istanbul. She was a mere 11 years old at the time, but a number of men offered to trade her weight in gold, and camels, for her hand in marriage.
Therefore, we were quite a bit apprehensive when we stepped onto the plane - which, I might add, had a sign painted on the outside where the emergency exit should have been that read, "Cut here in emergency" surrounded by a dotted line. But our apprehension was countered with confidence. We were not naive young girls, we were well-traveled women, or so we told ourselves. And after six months of living in Athens, dealing with leering, jeering, sneering old Greek men, we figured we'd be able to deal with a few pesky Turks.
We soon discovered, however, that Turkey is not exactly Greece. First we got onto a smelly crowded bus full almost entirely of men - nothing new there. Then we transferred to the metro, which was absolutely brimming with Turkish boys and men - only a little disconcerting. We stood in a circle facing outward, bags in the middle, hands in our pockets holding our money, and outstared the best of them. They weren't going to steal anything from us. (Actually, we later found out one of the men had managed to steal Ysaaca's bag of tampons, which was all the more disturbing.)
When we stepped onto the streets, however, there were still no women in sight (we didn't see a large gathering of women until we stumbled into the marketplace a few days later) and men were lining up along the sidewalk to stare at us. Now it was getting creepy. We moved along swiftly, completely lost but afraid we'd get pounced if we stopped to ask for directions. At one intersection, an old man approached us and asked if we needed help. We were completely prepared to brush him off and move on, but he was actually polite and helpful. He led us directly to tourist central and then disappeared without any harassing comment or proposition.
Once we were there, however, propositions were plentiful. Tons of young attractive men swarmed upon us from inside stores, restaurants and hotels. Little boys chased us around, screaming, "Hellllllo Spice Girls!" Our first instinct was to ignore them; it always worked in Greece. But it didn't work here. They were really persistent, and usually harmless. We discovered that if we fed them with enough of the basic personal information they craved, they'd leave us alone. They were simply interested in meeting Americans. And it was kind of nice walking around days later and having random Turkish men pop out of their restaurants to greet us with, "Hello Chicago! Hello Boston!"
We did have our share of sketchy encounters. One man, for example, approached us in a park and we could not shake him. We told him we would be spending the afternoon visiting mosques, and he offered us his services as a tour guide. We eventually did manage to lose him in the beautiful Blue Mosque - we relaxed on the incredibly soft carpet for almost an hour while he waited outside, and then snuck out the entrance.
The archaeological museum was also, surprisingly, a tourist pick-up joint. A sketchy character named Al tried to pick up me and my blonde-haired friend Meg at the sarcophagus of Alexander. He then followed us throughout the museum. As Meg weaved in and out of the Hellenistic sculpture exhibit, I hid among the Trojan treasuries. An old guard came up to me as I was peeking over a wall and joked about my new boyfriend. Relieved, I started complaining to the old man, thinking he would offer some refuge or escape. But when he started telling me how much he liked my beautiful breasts, I realized he was just as dangerous. I bolted out of the room, grabbed Meg, and the two of us spent the next half-hour hiding in the ladies room.
These situations were exceptions, however. The majority of our interactions were with harmless flirters, not psycho stalkers, and most were actually quite flattering. There was nothing a little ingenuity couldn't handle. And we later discovered our greatest weapon - old Turkish women. Once, while we were trying to flee a persistent suitor, we ran into an old woman, who immediately recognized our peril and scolded the young man terribly. He walked away, head lowered in shame, and she flashed us a toothless grin.
As important it is to be prepared for the onslaught of unwelcome male company an American woman is bound to encounter while traveling to Turkey, it is also important that one not be paralyzed with fear of such encounters. If we had done so, we would have missed out on experiencing some of the lesser known treasures of Turkey. Once we figured out how to handle the men, our status as American women actually enhanced our trip.
In Canakale, for instance, we were treated like gold. We flirted with a young soldier guarding an old castle and he pulled some strings to let us in after hours. A little flirting also convinced an old taxi driver to take us to ancient Troy and wait for an hour while we visited the site. In Pergamum, we spent hours watching television, listening to "the Turkish Michael Jackson" (Tarken) and learning about Turkish culture from a 24-year-old hotel owner and his friend. The next morning a 12-year-old boy gave us an exclusive tour of the town, and of led us to the basement of a dilapidated old house, where we were served a breakfast of hot milk, bread, freshly-churned butter and honey straight from the bee's nest. In Istanbul, we were welcomed into a traditional Turkish dance and asked to join costumed children jumping over a symbolic fire during a spring festival.
Turkey may not be the ideal travel destination for women, especially women traveling alone, but it is worth the risk. It is worth it just to sit among the ruins of an ancient Greek temple perched high atop a rocky acropolis, listening to the echo of the call to prayer being sung in five different mosques in the valley below - even if we had to turn down five marriage proposals from shepherd boys on the climb up.
