For better or for worse we have become part-time curios on the crème de la crème dinner party circuit adding exotic seasoning to various pretentious repasts. It’s all very Come Dine with Me and the competition is frightfully fierce. We attended a meal at Chrissy and Bernard’s imposing pile in Torba.
Around the fussily arranged table, we met vetpat Viv from Dereköy. Impeccably turned out, fifty something Viv is elegantly statuesque but struggles to raise her slender forearms due to the weight of clanging bangles. In bygone days she owned a Battersea bistro with her ex-husband until the day she found him in flagrante with the pastry delivery boy. She never suspected that her ex batted on both sides of the net though his treasured collection of classic Judy Garland vinyls was a bit of a clue.
Viv has since carved out a prolific career as a serial VOMIT hopping on top of one Anatolian after another. The boys get younger as she gets older. Despite the predictable pattern of broken heart and emptied purse, she remains irrepressibly upbeat about her lot. We make attentive listeners to assorted emigrey tales. The complement is rarely reciprocated. Do I have agony aunt tattooed across my forehead?
At the close of play Viv gave us a lift home taking the back road to evade the Jandarma. Naturally, we small-talked about the evening along the way. I commented how appetising the food had been. ‘The rice was cold’ came Viv’s withering verdict. We are not confident cooks and have no intention of being subjected to microscopic scrutiny from the affected. The most anyone can expect from us is a bottomless cellar and a few savoury nibbles.
After a calm Christmas Day with Liam’s folks and a boisterous Boxing Day with mine, we left frosty Blighty where the cold had given us colds to return to balmy Bodrum. On the dry night flight home (my first ever sauce-free flight) we chaperoned Sassy Nancy, who has finally forsaken the sticking plaster life of a social worker to seek winter solace in the ample arms of her long-term amour. We chattered away the four hours where she laid bare her tempestuous dalliance with wedded Captain Irfan. He’s a giant of a man (and giant in every department, apparently) who has assembled a flotilla of autumnal ladies vying for his favours. Nancy is undisputed chief concubine, his Nell Gwyn to her improbable Charles the Second. Nancy has the ripest mandarins on the peninsula.
Irfan skilfully manages to keep all his romantic plates spinning with an occasional wobble when he finds himself inadvertently double booked. The ensuing choppy waters serve only to nurse his ego. Business is slow during the inclement months so Nancy can expect his undivided attention.
Irfan was expectantly waiting as we emerged from the terminal building. He was everything I had imagined – charming, jovial and the size of Luxembourg. Nancy threw herself into his generous arms, giggling like an adolescent school girl as he spun her round like a failed audition from Strictly Come Dancing.
Irfan offered us a lift home to avoid the extortion of a taxi fare and would not take no for an answer. He is a large man with a small car but managed to insert us and our large suitcases into his micro hatchback. Nancy sat on a case on the front seat with her legs sprawled and her feet resting on the dashboard; a position she will be repeating later.
We flew home on the emigrey express. To our fore was a banquet of bleached, bottle-blonds whose tinted tresses disguised a sea of solar haggard, sour facades. Obviously a peroxide barnet is a VOMIT prerequisite.
To the aft lay a sallow, loud-mouthed, drunken imitation of Archie Moon cuddling an empty bottle of Bells. He’d spent his time in the departure lounge downing the duty free and popping frequently to the tuvalet for an illicit fag. He dozed through most of the flight but awoke ten minutes before touchdown and casually lit a cigarette which was rapidly dispatched by the horrified staff. Meanwhile, Liam munched his way through two packets of chewy caramel, soft nougat and crispy chocolate balls that cost more than the airfare. We landed just before Gatwick was closed for the winter.
Blighty life pal, Karen, is housing us during our trip to the mother country, storing us in her delux en-suite loft. She is blessed with a wonderful home – chic and bohemian at the same time. She is a classy, off the wall lady of taste, charm and substance and fancies herself as a Mrs Madrigal type. The cap really fits. Karen’s husband, Peter, died of cancer a couple of years ago. His decline had been indecently swift, and she is slowly emerging from the disabling pain of grief: a hard slog that I know only too well.
With the weather set fair, we accompanied semigrey hedonistas Greg and Sam on a road trip to reconnoitre some of the tumble down sites north of Bodrum, establishing ourselves at a secluded hotel on gorgeous Lake Bafa. We wanted a cute log cabin with charming rustic fittings. We got a Spartan concrete bunker decorated with blood red squashed mosquitos, a lumpy hard bed and stiff, thin towels. The entire complex is shabby chic but without the chic. However, the views across the lake are spectacular and the genial proprietor, Wilhelmina the beefy, bearded lady, is welcoming and helpful. She attempted to persuade us to participate on a five hour eco-trail walk. Not unless there’s an organic bar at the end, I thought.
Our first excursion took in Euromos where there’s little to see apart from the well preserved Temple of Zeus so a five minute stopover is enough for most. Onwards we drove to Didyma in search of the Temple of Apollo. We journeyed across miles of tedious, treeless, tatty flatlands broken only by occasional heaps of building rubble and skeletal erections. This is not the best of Asia Minor and provides an unappealing gateway to the truckloads of tourists who flock to Altinkum during the summer scurries. Now I know why Thomas Cook prefer to ferry their clients after dark. We passed through dire Didim, an ugly and unfinished urban sprawl, and arrived at the temple to find it fenced in by a shanty town of scruffy establishments. Despite this encroachment and the vandalism of Christian fanaticism, earthquakes and frequent plunder, the vast shrine is an impressive pile and well worth the entrance fee.
The hilarious highlight of our visit was tripping over a pair of horny tortoises. The smaller, younger male pursued his ardour with all the steely determination of a spring-loaded waiter chasing a VOMIT, banging his head on the rear of her shell until she relented. Typically, the no nonsense, no foreplay intercourse ended as soon as it started and the old broad looked bored throughout.
After a couple of hours surveying the ruins we travelled onwards to Altinkum, the playground of choice for those on a budget. We expected little and the resort lived down to our expectations. Few seaside towns look appealing out of season (and Southend looks unappealing in any season) but the pretty beach is utterly wrecked by the paltry parade of trashy hassle bars lining the frayed promenade. I don’t mind down market resorts for those on a fixed budget. I’m partial to a full English and a tuneless, tanked-up karaoke myself from time to time. Nevertheless, Spain does it so much better. It’s small wonder that a holiday home in Altinkum is cheaper than a Bournmouth beach hut.
We returned to the woods to drink the night away, star gaze and UFO spot. The frequency of alien sightings rose as the wine bottles drained.
In the fine old tradition of ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’ I’d like to introduce my first guest blogger – clever, courageous Karyn from Kirazli. Vetpat Karyn lives in a traditional Turkish village about 10 kms from Kuşadası. She describes her arcadian idyll as ‘surrounded by flowering fields of cherry trees, figs, vines and olives. The village is a traditional Turkish Koy of narrow twisting streets, stone and whitewashed houses and terracotta roofs. Cooled by fragrant pine scented breezes Kirazli is a world away from the hot and bustling tourist centres of the coastal strip’. Sounds like a lot of old fragrant flannel to me so Liam and I will just have to check it out and dish the dirt. Take a look at Karyn’s own blog Being Koy. It a class act. In the meantime, here’s her provocatively unkoy take on the plight of a woman alone in Turkey. Enjoy.
Karyn
I am immune to the charms of Mediterranean men, I grew up on the Costa Del Sol and after a brief bout at thirteen with the virus that is the Spanish Waiter I developed a life long immunity to all those sons of the southern lands who flash dark eyes and mutter unlikely compliments in clichéd accents.
Of course this doesn’t stop them hitting on me, any time, any place, anywhere; because Turkish men in the tourist resorts are the Martini boys of love.
Hyped up on exaggerated tales told in tea houses across the hinterland through the dark days of winter the men who flock to the resorts for work in the season are brainwashed into believing that western women are not only very rich and bang like barn doors but are blind and have no sense of smell, so even blokes who look like the back end of a goat and smell similar are in with a chance.
Of course there is a grain of hope in their dreaming, and every summer season will throw up a friend of a friend who swept a British woman off her feet in nanoseconds and landed a life of luxury and indolence in return for climbing on top and thinking of Turkey.
This all makes life difficult for me and those of my expat sisters who really aren’t interested; nobody minds a mild flirtation, sexual attraction makes the world go round, but there is a time and a place for everything and the Turkish Lothario has boundary issues.
Top marks for inappropriate timing likely to get you at the very least a broken jaw go to Salatin, a taxi driver with broken English and a manic gleam in his eye. He propositioned me on the drive to the airport when I was flying my husband’s remains home for the funeral. He really wanted a British wife; I really wanted his gonads crushed beneath my boots.
Top marks for seizing the moment go to the Manager of Burger King in Kusadasi who managed to fit a sleazy come on into the two seconds it took me to order a meal. “You want to go large?” he leered at me whilst stroking his groin suggestively. I picked up a limp French fry and peered at it; it drooped pathetically between my fingers. I looked at him; I maintained deadpan eye contact until he withered noticeably and slithered off.
Top marks for trying to cop a feel at any opportunity go to the noxious and extremely short market trader who, when my friend agreed to buy a pair of jeans, showed his delight by grabbing me and rapidly groping all he could reach. A heavy stamp with a finely engineered Kurt Geiger heel onto his bare toes sent him limping away.
It seems the only place to avoid unwelcome advances is my village. Here the older men nod respectfully at me and the young men politely step out of my way with murmured greetings. It couldn’t be any other way in the village, disrespect me and my male neighbours will be compelled to hurt you and my female neighbours, who are infinitely more imaginative, will find ways to make your life a living hell for the next fifty years!
Obviously the only thing they talk about in the tea shops here are how ripe the grapes are, not how ripe are the yabanci women. I am very grateful for that.
The mirror image of the predatory Turkish male is a sub-species of the emigrey called the VOMIT, or Victims of Men in Turkey: vintage desperate ex-housewives with a few lira to spare who shamelessly chase younger Turkish men. They jump ashore like eager Shirley Valentines straight into the arms the willing waiters who hang around the docks. Predictably, such relationships rarely last once the money runs out. Listen up ladies. Have a little fun and shag the boys by all means, but never fall in love. While he whispers sweet nothings in your ear, he’ll dip his fingers into your purse and when the takings are spent, he’ll be off like a rat up a drainpipe.
For better or for worse we have become part-time curios on the crème de la crème dinner party circuit adding exotic seasoning to various pretentious repasts. It’s all very Come Dine with Me and the competition is frightfully fierce. We attended a meal at Chrissy and Bernard’s imposing pile in Torba.
Perking the Pansies 