East West Up Down

[A long, albeit long overdue post about my time in Turkey]

The minaret-studded skyline of Istanbul is most prominent in the bluish haze of early evening. The monotony of drab 4- and 5-storey concrete buildings that sprawl for miles from the city center is punctuated by these thin spires. Five times daily they issue the call to prayer that echoes above the urban din. Daily business continues as usual if a bit more quietly. At night the music on rooftop bars halts, though conservation continues. After two weeks in the country one is still caught off guard each time the strange words burst through the torrid air...

One of the most anticipated legs of our journey was the 4-day boat cruise on the Mediterranean coast. We had heard stories from other backpackers of the reverie, camaraderie, and exuberance of these worry-free excursions. Owing to such expectations, our dismay was all the more profound when we met the other 8 people on our cruise. There was a family of 5 from Pennsylvania, and their eldest daughter's boyfriend. When the mother told stories they often involved the help of angels from the good Lord above. And there was an elderly couple. Music off at 10pm sharp. If traveling has its downs, we found ourselves looking up from the depths of the Grand Canyon when we saw our company for the next four days.

About 20 minutes from Sultanahmet (historic center of Istanbul), along the main highway towards Ataturk Airport, lies Dünyagöz hospital. With 9 locations throughout Turkey and Europe it is the largest private eye hospital in the world. The quality of care is remarkable, the staff friendly, the doctors competent, and the entire operation shockingly efficient. And all at a reasonable cost. That it is successfully expanding throughout Europe is little surprise...

"If life hands you lemons, make lemonade." One of the best legs of our journey was the 4-day boat cruise. Seldom has my existence been so care-free. The days were spent lounging on deck, diving off rocks, swimming for the sheer sake of it, playing cards, reading (Sometimes a Great Notion), sleeping, and eating the delicious meals. Nights were spent drinking with the elderly couple, the father (turned out to be a pretty cool dude), and the crew. We sang songs, played more games, and around midnight the three of us raided the Albatros, a nearby ship. At least we tried to. Despite our elaborate preparations (mainly a series of not-so-covert clicking noises) the captain caught us boarding ship, and threatened to kill us. We were pretty sure he was joking but aborted our mission all the same. On the night we pulled into our final port, we met up with the crew and their Turkish sea captain friends (including our adversary) for some more festivities. We rode to bars in the back of a pickup truck driven by a one-armed captain named "Mr. Hook" (a good third of the other arm was lost to a shark off the isle of St. Martin) who occasionally raised his good arm out the window to join us in toasts. The youthful energy of these middle-aged men was contagious.

The streets of cities large and small are teeming with felines. Meals neither indoors nor out are immune to their plaintive stares. A dollop of butter wins purring affection. Kittens prance about equally engaged in the game of survival. Though still intolerably cute, there is something different, more abrasive, in the simple act of watching them clumsily navigate a few stairs...

Our first overnight bus ride was from Istanbul to Capadoccia. It was 11 hours long. At 5 minutes 'til departure we thought we had the bus to ourselves. At 1 minute 'til, we were shooting each other looks of abject horror. Our section of the bus had filled with a small preschool's worth of children. They cried, laughed, and scrambled about with the naive disregard for personal space unique to children. Our second bus was from Capadoccia to Olympos. 13 hours. Malfunctioning air conditioning. A dubbed Wayan's brothers movie until 1am. Turkish stand-up at 5am. All blasting over the speakers. The chain-smoking gentleman to my left repeatedly drifting towards my shoulder in sleep, before jolting awake and repeating the process. Selcuk back to Istanbul - more of the same. "Two birds with one stone" is the idea behind overnight bus trips. They bear greater semblance to a bizarre 3rd circle of Dante's imagining, complete with the complimentary gift of lingering neck pain.

Even the smallest towns in Turkey seem to have at least one internet cafe. Most are overrun by adolescents playing the latest games (shoot 'em ups, sports, and warcraft III seem the most popular), talking over instant messenger, browsing used car listings, and watching videos on YouTube. Everything the adolescents of our country do, but relegated to internet cafes by the absence of home computing. The only surprising aspect of these cafes is the nearly complete absence of social interaction among those gathered there.

Though the Turkish food we were eating became a bit repetitive (likely our own fault), we were treated to an entertainingly novel dining experience in the port town of Fethiye. There was a fish and produce market in the center of the city where we shopped and haggled over a wide array of sea foods and meats. After purchasing some sea bass (undeterred by previous incidents) and filet mignon, we brought it to a nearby restaurant where they grilled it, provided bread and salad, and prepared a delicious steak sauce, all for a nominal fee. Our enjoyment of the meal was best demonstrated by our return for lunch the next day.

As the first hints of dusk approach, chairs and tables are set up everywhere outside and tea is served. Middle-aged men engage each other in games of backgammon, rummikub, and cards. Both the tea and the games flow long into the evening, along with the idle chatter they engender. The ritual repeats itself daily, a tranquil routine of neighborly fellowship...

Many days of our travels in Turkey involved touring ancient Greek, Roman, and Byazantine ruins. The last two days of this were spent in 50 degree weather. Centigrade. 120 degrees Fairenheit. The scorching dry air sucked the energy right out of us. Kevin was starting to go a little crazy, though Jesse and I weren't too far behind. Our main respite from the heat during these tours was the stop at a carpet factory. Three out of our three tours involved stops at a carpet factory. "Did you know a carpet is not a purchase but an investment?" "It can take up to ten years to hand-weave a single carpet." "Carpets from the Hereke region are the most highly valued because of the labor-intensive double-knotting silk patterns." Needless to say, I had absolutely no intention or desire to buy a carpet.

The steady tide of capitalism is sweeping across the landscape, every few waves venturing further ashore. In the countryside the advance guard of this march are the Shell gas stations, the ATMs, and in larger outposts the Carrefour supermarkets. Their convenience is unquestionable, though their ubiquity and conformity seldom questioned.

Among the many remarkable sights we experienced in the surreal landscape of Capadoccia was the underground cities. The soft yet durable sandstone constituted an ideal medium from which early Christians could carve out underground cities as havens from persecution. It is difficult to describe the organic layout of these caverns that extend 7 storeys into the earth. During our tour of one of them we experienced something akin to the joy a child feels upon arriving at a sprawling new playground. We darted in and out of different alcoves and veered as far from our tour group as the lighting allowed us. At one point we discovered a ventilation shaft that descended into utter darkness. In our infantile curiosity we dropped a coin down it and counted the seconds until we heard a clattering. As simple as it may have been, this act of exploration and discovery was exhilarating.

[5 points for everyone who reads this entire entry]