Dear all,

TURKISH DELIGHT

(©hepzz99)

Dear @friends,

Well - our 300 dollar all-in turkish vacation was great! The only

'catch' was the trip: we were travelling 12 hours from door to door both

ways, what with taxi-train-airplane-bustransfer and all the waiting in

between.

For the rest it was superb, the ***** hotel turned out to be a luxurious

beach resort and the breakfast and dinner buffet meals were sumptuous:

turkish food is indeed delicious, Ethel had written a piece about it

recently and it was so deliriously lyrical I thought she had got

completely carried away - but it's all true. A paradise for vegetarians

too, so many vegetables prepared in a million ways.

Just as we arrived at the hotel Jasper was sick all over the bus, so we

were the last passengers to check in. The receptionist took one look at

us and said: I have a great idea, I'm giving you the suite. He must have

realized that 2 rooms would mean continuous traffic in the corridors and

a lot of disturbance... the suite was perfect, sea view from both

windows, balconies, and on the top floor, next to the stairs - reducing

the commotion we always seem to cause to a minimum. The man was a good

judge of human character.

The hotel, and to me it seemed all of Turkey, was filled with germans.

The local currency is the deutsch mark, and everyone is reluctant to be

paid in those millions of turkish liras which are worth about 3 dollars

due to the tremendous inflation. The language is also german, very few

turks speak english, but they are starting to notice the dutch don't

like to speak german, so they are taking english lessons, i even helped

a shopkeeper with his homework.

The weather was quite good, sometimes sunny, sometimes overcast but it

rained only at night. We even had one perfect day lazing on the beach.

Because of Jasper's car sickness we didn't undertake big trips, we

stayed in the area of Alanya, and visited what that had to offer:

- a cave with dripstones where the atmosphere is very hot and humid, and

is said to be good for lung conditions - i can't imagine because it had

very low oxygen and made me rather uncomfortable.

- a tiny museum with only one room of exhibits set in a beautiful garden

with peacocks and pieces of broken columns.

- a steep mountain overlooking the bay of alanya with a citadel on top

and fortifications all the way down that made a beautiful walk downhill

through clusters of traditional turkish houses scattered between the

ruins of the walls and blooming almond trees.

- and lots of bazaars with miles and miles of fake nike, calvin klein,

kappa, ralph lauren etc clothing which sent Sophie into a frenzy at

first, and then had the beneficial effect of making her realize how

little the name on the package really means. I hope she is quite cured

now, and will never be impressed anymore by some jerk wearing a tommy

hilfiger tee shirt.

We didn't get around to trying the turkish baths because the only one we

saw seemed rather phony, it was mixed! I don't suppose any turkish lady

would get it into her head to bathe there.

Also the inside of a mosque remains unknown territory, somehow there

didn't seem to be any mosque of specific interest in Alanya, at least

none was mentioned in the guides or at the tourist information desk.

Meanwhile, all over the world, Turkey was in the news with Ocalan's

capture and the Kurds demonstrating in The Hague were fighting the

police just a mile away from our house. We, in our protected tourist

area, had no idea. I phoned Ethel on thursday to hear if Cookie had

molested Fritz yet and she told me all about it. It was only then we

started paying attention to the photos on the front pages of turkish

newspapers. The turks were jubilant at first, but they soon realized

they in fact have a major problem now.

The man in the souvenir shop where I bought 8 lovely hand painted plates

showed me the paper with a smirk, but when I asked him what he thought

would happen now his face dropped and he said, it's in Allah's hands,

whatever happens will cause trouble. I suggested he be tried at the

international court in The Hague and he agreed it would be the best, but

i'm afraid he was just being polite, i'm sure he would willingly have

participated in a lynching expedition...

But thanks to Ethel I enjoyed scaring the shit out of all our fellow

tourists at the hotel, who started getting real nervous about the flight

back and fearing terrorist attacks. Anyway, all was peaceful at the

airport, and we came home safely yesterday morning and immediately

rushed to the computer to read all the emails.