Category: Turkey & Turkish

Vile Coffee and Nobody Famous

When Liam and I got hitched we asked for Thomas Cook vouchers as wedding gifts. We had already made the fateful (or was it fatal?) decision to migrate to Asia Minor and didn’t need a brown Kenwood toaster with a cornflower motif. Nor did we want his and his John Lewis bath robes. Since then we’ve slowly used up most of the vouchers for our Blighty flights but the process was becoming a bit of a drag. Vouchers can only be exchanged in Thomas Cook travel shops and these are as rare as ethnic minorities on Midsomer Murders. We decided on a final spree and used what we had left on business class tickets to London via Istanbul with Turkish Airlines.

We could hardly contain our anticipation when we arrived at the domestic terminal at Bodrum Airport. We breezed past the hoi polloi like minor celebs to the business class check-in and onwards to the business class lounge – vile coffee, limitless booze, dry croissants, nobody famous. The flight to Istanbul was pleasant enough with a welcome glass of bubbly and a hot breakfast from a fixed-smile waitress wearing too much tarty slap. Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport was a frenetic potpourri of the exotic and the mundane. The bazaar medley included a mysterious sect of elderly men in Persil-white towelling togas. We fled the bedlam to the utter indulgence and serenity of the business class lounge – vile coffee, limitless booze, dry croissants, nobody famous.

We boarded our Heathrow-bound plane expecting to turn left into unashamed comfy luxury and regal pampering. Our excited smiles crumbled as we were directed right towards our hard standard size seats. There was no more extra leg room than ordinary emergency exit seats and the food was only distinguishable from economy fare by the china crockery. The much vaunted entertainment selection consisted of an obscure disaster movie about a runaway train and an hour of adverts from the flickering mini screen that descended from the bottom of the overhead lockers. I’ve been better diverted on charter. Booze was provided only on request. Worse still, just a thin curtain divided us from the plebs back in coach. The experience left us disenchanted with a wasted wedding gift and lamenting our decision to reject the brown Kenwood toaster with cornflower motif. What an expensive flop.

Nine days later we returned to Heathrow with heavy hearts. We breezed past the hoi polloi like minor celebs to the business class check-in and onwards to the business class lounge – delicious coffee, limitless booze, butter-moist croissants, nobody famous. We boarded our Istanbul-bound plane expecting to turn right into our barely above economy cabin. Our resigned expressions were transformed into crazy grins as we were directed left into unashamed comfy luxury and regal pampering. We sank into our soft capacious seats with sixteen button-operated positions and in-chair massage. The individual screens provided entertainment of boundless possibilities. Spoilt for choice, Liam couldn’t decide so flattened his seat and took a cat-nap instead. The three course supper was haute cuisine and our camp thin-wristed attendant silently filled my glass without prompting as he swished down the aisle. Just the ticket.

Back in Istanbul, we headed to the business class lounge – vile coffee, no croissants, no booze, nobody famous. We boarded a dedicated business class mini-bus to our return flight to Bodrum – glass of bubbly, cold supper, proper crockery. All our flights provided stainless steel mini cutlery. I assume terrorists can’t afford business class.

Birds Without Wings

Click for Full Size

Award winning novelist Louise De Bernières is coming to town – well to Kayaköy a tumble down deserted former Greek village actually. Expect a civilised, sunny afternoon of recital, chat and nibbles to chew over his superb novel Birds Without Wings. If only I could write like him. Profits from the event will go to local children in need so it’s not yet another jamboree for street dogs.

Birds without Wings is a beautifully crafted, intensely human tale set in an imaginary Aegean village called Eskibahçe. Although fictional, the village is based on the hamlet of Kayaköy (Greek: Levissi) near Fethiye. The story unfolds against the backdrop of the defeat and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of the Turkish Republic and the innocent sounding ‘population exchange’ that occurred in 1923. This cruel trade was a curious and unique episode in modern history as it was mutually agreed by both governments and sanctioned by the League of Nations. 1.5 million Greeks from Anatolia and 500,000 Turks from Greece were forcibly expelled from their centuries-old communities and ‘repatriated’ to their so-called homelands. It was religious rather than ethnic cleansing since ethnic Turks who were Christian were out and ethnic Greeks who were Moslem were in, and vice versa.

The expulsions were a harsh and deliberate plan by both adversaries to create states of religious and cultural homogeneity. This might be forgiven as the inevitable consequence of two paranoid, insecure nations attempting to foster a loyal citizenry but the fall out still resounds to this day both in the Aegean region and in the wider world.

Louise de Bernières is perhaps best known for his earlier book Captain Corelli’s Mandolin which is set on the lush and verdant Greek Island of Kefalonia during World War Two. My very first holiday with Liam was to Kefalonia. Our debut jolly was marred by a manic Franco-Algerian woman, a bird with bingo wings. She took far too much of a frisky shine to Liam. She chased him around the pool like a bitch on heat and I had to tell her to keep her wandering lusty hands to herself.

The Hills Have Eyes

Clement has fled to the hills to his village bungalow. I must confess to a slight sense of ambiguity by his exodus. In many ways he’s been a gracious and kindly neighbour but his quaintly old-fashioned views are way out of kilter with the modern world, a bit like an eccentric maiden aunt. I shall not to miss his angry evening discourses – how dear old England has lost its moral compass and is going to Hell in a handcart. He is emotionally and spiritually drawn to the warmth of traditional Turkish family values. It reminds him of the Blighty of his youth where everyone knew their place and were happy with their lot. Those were the halcyon days of consumption, grinding poverty and backstreet abortions where the love that dares not speak its name would result in persecution and a stiff prison sentence. I wish him the best but fear for the worst.

Hold the Front Page

Jane Atakay, Fethiye correspondent for the South Monday Supplement of the Hurriyet Daily News contacted me recently. Would I mind if she included me in a feature she was writing on English language bloggers in Turkey? Mind? I nearly bit her hand off. We had a long chat on the phone and Jane came across as a top drawer vetpat of distinction and depth, rare qualities in these parts.

Jane has cleverly inter-woven the views of five different bloggers, each with their own unique perspective on expat life. The article was published this morning and it’s a ripping yarn. You can find it here.

Land of Confusion

Beats Me!

We’ve made the decadent choice to retire early before we start to feel our bones, against the better judgement of many. Nothing is going to compel us to return to the world of the waged. We’ve grown fond of our foster land but are constantly astonished by its many paradoxes. Turks are eager to please but slow to apologise, love their country but careless with the countryside, promote rigid social rules but tacitly accept our own rebellion against time-honoured conformity. Despite this confusing conundrum Turkey is a benign host for our leisure.

Our Daily Bread

The momentous political upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East have prompted a number of concerned messages and calls from friends in Blighty thinking that the winds of change may blow next towards Turkey. After all Turkey does have an unenviable history of military coups. They needn’t worry. Whatever I may think of the current Government, my host country is a functioning democracy, not the personal fiefdom of some murderous dictator, mad mullah or medieval monarch. However, Turkey does share the same demographic time-bomb with her Arab neighbours. Half of the population is under 30 and with too few jobs to go round the Devil might make work for idle hands. Young people across the Middle East are fighting for their daily bread as much as for political freedom. Turkey mitigates the risk with strong economic growth, conscription to keep the restless boys onside, a rudimentary social security system to dodge destitution and European Union ambitions to export spring-loaded surplus labour. Lonely ladies of Europe be afraid.

Politics is a Dirty Business

We were suffering from an advanced dose of cabin fever. We braved the inclement weather to stroll down to the village and take tea in the municipal café along the Yalıkavak harbour front. It’s a nice spot if it’s not too breezy. An earnest young local man with intense eyes and passible English engaged us in conversation, curious as to why we were in town out of season. Clearly, an educated and reflective individual it didn’t take him too long to turn the chat to politics, particularly the differences between the British and Turkish brands. We have been warned against talking politics and tried to keep it light and frothy, but he persisted. I mentioned the positive result for the Government in the constitutional reform referendum last year. As a passive observer, I thought the proposed amendments to be reasonable, and so too did the European Union. He assured me that politics is a zealous and divisive business in Turkey, and the referendum exposed the deep fault lines that exist in society. He said that many people passionately believe that the constitutional changes are just part of a larger, more sinister plot by political Islam to undermine the cherished secular state. Politics is a dirty business in every country and we shall see if the sceptics are right.

Huddled Masses

Misir

We watched the drama unfold in Egypt on BBC World. The dictator was finally toppled by the “…huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” to misquote the inscription on a bronze plaque mounted inside of the Statue of Liberty. History demonstrates that authoritarian regimes, whether left, right or theocratic that rule by fear eventually collapse under the weight of their own oppression. Egypt, the most ancient of nations, has no experience of democracy and I sincerely hope that the experiment will be real and lasting. Let’s wish for a pluralist, secular state that respects individual rights and not for a ‘one man, one vote, once’ process that might cast Egypt back to the Middle Ages and would make the Middle East an infinitely more dangerous place. That would be scary for everyone and Egyptians deserve better.

I also sense my foster land may be sliding imperceptibly backwards. The first sign of compulsory head-scarfs will see us booking the first available Easyjet flight back to flawed but free Blighty.

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Lord Acton (1834-1902)

Gone to the Dogs

I love dogs. We always had dogs at home. Petra, Pepe, Rocky and the rest were all emotionally interwoven into the rich tapestry of my family life. When they died, I cried. I even wept when my hamster, Goliath, performed a fatal somersault off the top of the freezer though I confess my pain was short lived and Goliath was quickly replaced by Samson.

After we migrated we were taken by surprise by the volume of stray and feral dogs sniffing aimlessly around the streets. Liam’s often waylaid by a wet snout playfully jammed into his groin and we are often tempted to take Rover home, hose him down and feed him up. I’m not at all surprised that animal welfare is an emigrey preoccupation. The story of an animal-lover leading her pack to a Bulgarian Promised Land like a modern day Moses is but an extreme example of the canine devotion that seems to dominate the humdrum lives of many.

Animal welfare is a noble cause but so too is the care and protection of children. It distresses me to hear and read so little about the plight of the thousands of children in our foster land who lead brutal and miserable lives, trapped within abusive families, rented out by the hour or thrown onto the streets to fend for themselves. Take a look at the following articles if you can bear to know more.

Istanbul home to 30,000 street children

Rise in sexual abuse of minors

Child Labour

Contribute

It’s easy to think that the problem is overwhelming and nothing can be done, an all too comfortable mind-set that is underpinned by the apparent dearth of children’s charities and non-governmental organisations working within Turkey. However, it is possible make a difference no matter how small. Why not sponsor a child in Turkey or make a contribution to Unicef?

SOS
Sponsor

Care for the animals by all means but care for the children too.

The Beating Heart of Bodrum

I’d like to give a big hand to Natalie, author of the Turkish Travel Blog. Natalie kindly invited me to be one of the contributors to her splendid post on Anatolian wonders in words and pictures. Her eclectic selection evokes some of the best that Turkey has to offer to the curious traveller, from magnificent high drama to the gloriously humdrum.

My pretentious piece describes Bodrum Otogar (bus station),  a modern day kervanseray where nose to nipple dolmüslar vie for space and custom. I wrote:

That’ll be two lira

 

To imagine daily Turkish life think of sweet baked sesame seed simit stalls, lemon scenting cut throat barbers, piercing purveyors of rapid kebabs, entrepreneurial pantaloon’d grannies on the make, baffled travellers lost in Left Luggage, mobs of weary eastern boys bussed hither and thither, carefree western girls shocking the eye, sallow sightseers with brats in caps and tea sipping cabbies dropping off in the sweaty midday sun. This magnificent entrepôt of the exotic and the ordinary is a typically Turkish tussle and bustle of commotion and chaos.

Take the look at Natalie’s delicious box of Turkish delights here.