Strictly by the [Guide] Book

Today’s post is hot off the press from Kirazli Karyn at Being Koy, veteran jobbing blogger and top drawer freelance writer. When I say veteran I mean prolific not aged. Karyn is a mere slip of a girl. She normally writes passionately and evocatively about her Turkish village idyll. It’s all true. We’ve seen it with our own eyes. Today she vents her spleen at the travel guide industry.

Karyn

One of my friends visited Cirali recently, I suggested it, I thought he would find the ruins slowly collapsing into the forest beautiful, the tree houses were his sort of thing and as far as I was concerned seeing the flames of the Cimera on Mount Olympos was one of those big “things to see in Turkey”.  Turns out I was right, he loved it; he loved the whole hippy vibe, sitting around a campfire jamming on a battered guitar, swimming in the dramatic coves and camping in the trees by the side of a dirt road to the beach.  It was indeed, just his thing, but he got a bit nervous on the way there.

Cirali

On the bus from Konya to Goreme to explore Cappadocia before heading down to the coast he hooked up with some Japanese travellers, none of whom were going on to Cirali, in fact they’d never heard of it.  It turns out this is because it wasn’t in their guide books and if it isn’t in the guide book, specifically in your demographically tailored, distinctively marketed guidebook, it doesn’t exist.

Some locations that used to be popular have disappeared from the guidebooks altogether despite the fact that they are beautiful and interesting and unique and others have appeared for no better reason than they are considered “off the beaten track” by some gung ho backpacking writer who has cottoned on to the fact that being a reviewer for some obscure guidebook is a glamorous sounding job and gets you laid more often than pretending to be a BA pilot and part time dolphin trainer.  This makes up for being paid a pittance to go to shit places and eat rubbish food and pretend they’re great.

Where am I?

These days there are guidebooks for everywhere and every type of travel and traveller and if these were not enough now the guidebooks are supplemented by websites and forums and even apps for your phone, so the brave voyager need never again make an uninformed decision during the whole of their adventurous trek – that’s really character building.  Places once considered off the beaten track are now, as a result, definitely middle of the well trodden road.  If Leonardo de Caprio now jumped off that waterfall to find The Beach he’d have to push aside 200 tourists tweeting about their experience on their iPhones before he could surge into the water in a sexy and manly way.

This year my little village Kirazli made it into Lonely Planet, it gets mentioned as worth a visit, and the little paragraph about it bigs up a restaurant that is at best, mediocre.  It used to be good, five years ago, it is now ok.  I can think of three other restaurants in the village that are better and cheaper and have nicer staff.  So basically this village gets mentioned for something it isn’t very good at and all the things it is really good at don’t get mentioned at all.  This is typical of guide books really and is why they should be treated as a jumping off point for your journey, not a step by step instruction manual. Sometimes they’re wrong and sometimes you just need to turn off your iPhone, talk to a real person on the same road as you or take an unplanned turning, because getting off the beaten track is actually a state of mind not a place you struggle to and you can do it with a single step or a single conversation, you can’t do it with a multi million selling guidebook, that’s a contradiction in terms.


This is Karyn’s second guest post. Her first was Shaken, Not Stirred.

London Calling

The weather in Blighty has been challenging to say the least. Bright warmish sunshine has been rudely interrupted by frequent squally showers. In between the inclemency we enjoyed an all too brief sunny interlude that provided an opportunity for a congenial picnic along the side of the Mall in St James’ Park. It’s an annual indulgence and we were joined by a choice selection of our London life friends. The royal parks are the lungs of London and St James’ is arguably the prettiest. The imperial pile of Buckingham Palace was our al fresco backdrop. The Royal Standard wasn’t flying so Betty was out. We feasted on deliciously calorific M&S fare, washed down with Pinot Grigio Blush. Clive and his civil partner, Angus, presented us with an unexpected gift, a DVD of the second series of Glee. Liam’s eyes lit up like a bush baby on acid. He’d devoured the first series in two sittings and hungered for more. The riots seem a long time ago. Broken Britain? Not from where I’m sitting.

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No Tea and No Sympathy

My Blighty life friend Philip is a treasured old soul and the Imelda Marcos of scarves (the wrap-around-the-turtleneck kind, not the bad hair day kind). He never travels by open top car for fear of being strangled like Isadora Duncan. He and I worked together for donkey’s years. I managed him for a while, though I was always left wondering who really worked for whom. His innate intelligence is beautifully blended with creativity, wit and style – and the ability to drink me under the table. He’s one of two guest bloggers that I actually know in person (Karyn is the other). How sad is that.

You can catch more of Philip’s excellent foody tales on his marvelous blog, What’s for Tea Tonight, Dear

Philip

Whenever I think of Jack and Liam’s great adventure, and once my envy of their chosen life subsides, I often think of what I’d miss if I were to similarly uproot myself and transplant to pastures new. And being the glutton that I am these thoughts most often turn to food. Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel and a large slice of that affection belongs to the opportunity to try new foods and even whole cuisines. A trip to Cambodia last year for instance was quite an eye opener – from the fragrant markets all the way to the fried tarantulas! But these are usually just holidays, and knowing that my familiar comforts will all be waiting at home makes it all the easier to go native, culinary wise, with gay abandon. I’d be lying if I said I’d never eaten a “full English” on some hot, hung-over morning somewhere round the Med, but if that’s all you can think of when travelling abroad then stay at home with a tin of baked beans, a packet of sausages and a sun ray lamp, I say. Eating what those around you eat, sharing that most basic daily form of what defines a people or an area (i.e. their food!) is the quickest, most accessible and often most enjoyable way of beginning to understand your local culture, however temporary the arrangement.

But for the long-term emigrey (to borrow Jack’s term), however much you immerse yourself in the cauldron of your local cuisine, there must always be tastes of home for which you hanker. For years now It’s been something of a running joke with the Shopkeeper and I that as soon as we buckle our belts on an outbound flight we’ll turn to each other and say “Ooh, I can’t wait to get home and have a decent cup of tea!”. I’m a bit of a fussy tea drinker at the best of times and, after countless (and why always glass?) cups of lukewarm water in which a helpless bestringed bag of Liptons struggles in vain to radiate even the smallest tentacles of its brown beauty, I have entirely given up on drinking tea whilst abroad.

Cheese on toast is my other immediate must have just as soon as I’ve paid the taxi driver from Gatwick or Heathrow enough to replicate the holiday from which I’ve just returned. Having a cheese shop takes care of one principal ingredient, I’ll usually call ahead to make sure we have supplies of the other. And within a week, whatever exciting recipes, ingredients and ideas have come home with me, I will always be found making a roast dinner with all the trimmings.

So I wonder, for those who have taken the plunge, what foods do you miss the most? And how do you manage to fill the voids? Trips to the mother land with an empty suitcase just for food? Insistence that any visitors bring necessary supplies in exchange for board? Or maybe even local supper clubs where you can huddle over the latest import? I’m dying to hear you stories.

You’re Amazing…

This warms the cockles of my liberal heart and restores my fractured faith in humanity. Our imperfect world can be a sad, mad and bad place but it can also be glad. Let’s be grateful for that.

It’s All Greek to Me!

My fourth guest blogger is Bodrum vetpat and dedicated pansy fan, Carole Meads. Carole offers keenly priced, top-notch holiday properties in the pretty and peaceful resort of Torba, just 4kms from Bodrum. Take a look here if you’re thinking of visiting this part of the world (no, I don’t get a cut!). Here’s Carole writing about her attempts to learn Turkish. We’ve all been there.

Carole

Six and a half years ago I decided to make this idyllic coastal part of Turkey my home, along with a good friend who reassured me that learning the language wouldn’t be a problem. The Turkish language has its roots in Central Asia and the written form dates back to the 8th Century BC. in Mongolia.  As part of Ataturk’s reforms in 1928 he changed the written form of the language from the Arabic alphabet to the phonetic form of the Latin alphabet. He hoped this would aid communications and simplify things for non-Arab speakers…

Sadly, for a first time new language student, grappling with a different word order is hard enough and then it gets complicated. The Turkish language is based on vowel harmony and agglutination. It has to sound right and words are built up into sometimes incomprehensible length in order to make a point! So armed with a library of grammar, phrase books and CDs we set about teaching ourselves but somehow it never came to anything. ‘Speak to the locals’ knowledgeable ex-pats advised. These attempts at communication were met with confused expressions, grunts or replies in perfect English!

We soon decided that living in Bodrum, learning the lingo was going to be no mean feat. To be fair we quickly picked up basic chat and essential phrases – we got by but as soon as the conversation went ‘off-piste’ we were flummoxed. Then eighteen months ago a minor miracle happened. We heard about a new Turkish course starting up locally and at a price which matched our “non working” status! By this time I had become convinced that I would never learn Turkish, my friend already having mastered a couple of other languages was not so easily put off and immediately signed up. Her enthusiasm spread, several of our friends joined up and eventually even I gave in and decided to give it a go.

Erhan our teacher can only be described as ‘saintly’. He painstakingly prepares idiot proof lessons, listens to our horrendous annihilation of his native tongue, laughs with us not at us, all the while trying to understand the idiosyncrasies of the English language and ex-pats.

These days I lurch between declaring that I will never be able to speak this damn language and catching the jist of overheard conversation as I sit crammed in amongst the locals on the Dolmus. They say you have lost about 90% of your ability to learn a new language by the time you reach nine years old. Having reached an age considerably past nine, perhaps I shouldn’t be giving myself such a hard time?

We’re All Asians Really

We’re All Asians Really

Geographically, Anatolian Turkey is in Asia and Thracian Turkey is in Europe. A simple glance at a map confirms it. Istanbul is not called the city that straddles two continents for nothing. For commercial convenience, the whole of Turkey is often classified as Europe for such things as travel insurance and flights. Lonely Planet lists Turkey under Eastern Europe and the Caucasus when it is part of neither (apart from Thrace). Is Turkey also part of the Middle East? This is less clear. The Middle East is an ill-defined term that always includes Arabic countries, but may or may not include the nations of North Africa (who speak Arabic) and may or may not include non-Arabic Iran. Where does Cyprus fit in? It’s closer to Asia than to Europe and the Greek side is part of the European Union (nominally on behalf of the whole Island but that’s another story).

Does any of it matter? Certainly not to long gone conquerors who marched across Asia Minor from all points of the compass at the drop of a helmet. Take a look at this to see what I mean.

It only matters to me when trying to catch the weather forecast on BBC World. The Beeb doesn’t seem to know where Turkey is either and generally ignores us altogether. Consider this. Geologically, Europe isn’t a continent at all. It’s an appendage to Asia with an arbitrary border drawn along the Ural and Caucasus Mountains. Those in the know describe the entire landmass as Eurasia. You see we’re all Asians really.

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Summer Redefined

Today’s guest post is from Linda at Adventures in Expatland. Linda writes prolifically and brilliantly about her life in the Netherlands and the expat experience. I’m certain she was a spook for the CIA in her former life, though she denies it. ‘If  I told you,’ she said, ‘I’d have to kill you.’ Here she writes about the glories of summer. When I read her post, my own childhood memories came flooding back. Remember the days when summers lasted forever? These days, the years just fly by. At this rate, it won’t be long before I’m six foot under.

Linda

Growing up as a child in upstate New York back in the US, summer was a gloriously sunny season that seemed to go on and on. That is, when it wasn’t raining. Which wasn’t all that often, but still. After morning chores were completed, my days were generally my own, filled with swimming, riding bikes, the annual family vacation. More than anything else, summer meant just hanging out with friends.

We finished the school year in mid-June, and didn’t have to report back until the day after Labor Day. Since this national holiday must fall on the first Monday in September, that usually meant we headed back to school sometime during the first week of the month. The entire months of July and August were summer, pure and simple.

A few times I recall the thrill of September 1st arriving on a Tuesday. That meant that in those special years Labor Day Monday would fall on the 7th, and we didn’t have to go to school until the 8th. The 8th! I still recall that magical feeling that we’d somehow wrangled a few extra precious days of summer.

As I got older and moved around the country a bit, I learned that school districts in other cities and towns had sizable leeway in setting their school calendars. When we lived in Arlington, Virginia (outside of Washington DC), the local school district chose to cut back on a few vacation days during the year to allow children to finish earlier in June, yet they still adhered to the day after Labor Day as the start of the new school year.

Imagine Son and Daughter’s dismay the year we moved further south to North Carolina: school started and ended two weeks earlier. Their summer freedom that year was shortened by two full weeks. They were livid. I recall unpacking boxes in our new home to the sweltering chorus of Two full weeks! We’ve been robbed. Cheated!

Let me tell you: Handel’s Messiah it wasn’t.

We settled in, and for five years it was fine. Then we moved to The Netherlands. And you’ll never guess what we learned. (Yeah, right, like you couldn’t see this coming a mile away.) Their international school started one week – all together now – earlier than their schools back in North Carolina.

Go figure.

I’d like to say that they handled it better this time because they were older, more mature, and guided by my stellar parenting skills. Actually, it was because Son and Daughter were so bored not knowing anyone and so overwhelmed with culture shock that they were happy to get back into the school day grind just to meet others who could help them make sense of their new world. Oh, and we didn’t have cable television at home yet.

With school starting August 17th this year, I’m going to be at home by myself during the final days of August. And what will I be doing? Working, of course. Except for those extra special days of fabulous weather when I reclaim summer and steal away for a few hours, riding my bike on beautiful trails to the beach.

Shhhhh…don’t tell the kids.

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Jack’s Turkey Top Five

Sasha at On UR Way invited me to recommend my Turkey top five in her World Experiences series. I was really pleased to be asked. When you’re thumbing through a brochure or studying a guide book do you sometimes get the feeling that some of the authors haven’t actually been to the places they’ve written about? I’m not a travel writer (though who knows in the future) but at least I’ve seen and experienced the activities I’ve selected.

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Turks and Tampons

My third Guest blogger is Alexandra from Death by Dolmuş. Alexandra is a Yankee lass who teaches in Istanbul. She writes about the quirky side of life in the ancient city and has a mild obsession with public transport. Alexandra also publishes an amazing photoblog. If you don’t like discussions about women’s itty bitty parts, don’t read the following (oh, go on).

Alexandra

There are strange things that occur in Turkey. I am pretty on top of most of it, but from time to time things do catch me off guard. I’m unfazed when a man brings a 12 foot (4 meter) ladder into an over-packed dolmuş (roughly 5 meters long itself.) I’m unfazed when my bank calls to ask permission of my employer when I wish to close my account (obviously a mere mortal like me can’t be trusted with such a serious decision.)

I was caught off guard when my colleague, a punk, riot-grrrl feminist with red hair (not Irish red, but like, the color red) and combat boots, moans to me, doubled over in pain, ‘Gahh, I wish I hadn’t left the window open last night.’ It had been a sweltering 80 degrees (25 C) and I couldn’t understand what that had to do with her abdominal pain. ‘The wind, the night air, you know, it gives me cramps.’ Efendim?

Now, I’m fairly certain that cramps are caused by your uterine walls contracting to expel the lining. But, you know, who can say for certain…

I was constantly appalled by the lack of knowledge these university educated women displayed about their own bodies and the science contained in them. I know Freud thought that hysteria (that vague, female-ish complaint) was caused by a ‘disturbance’ to the uterus, but I’m pretty sure somewhere in my 6th grade sex-ed class, I remember learning something different…

As I was moving out, I had an enormous amount of tampons that my roommate and I had hoarded like we were preparing for the apocalypse. God knows when we would be able to find tampons again, so every time we ventured out of the Islamic Republic of Turkey, we bought up the store like they were going out of style.

Not having space in my luggage for 47 boxes of Tampax Pearls, and with the confidence that I could pick some up any time nature called at my nearest pharmacy (that’s a chemist’s for you Brits), when back in the US, I decided to give them away. Because honestly, who doesn’t like free tampons? Apparently, Turkish women.

So that’s how I found myself, on my last day of work, sitting in a locked office with my colleague, demonstrating how to use a tampon. I unwrapped it, showed how the applicator worked, as she dissected the tampon I had handed her, checking that the string was in fact well secured at the center. I extolled the tampon’s virtues: you can go swimming! (Her face lit up, what do you mean? She asked in disbelief.) You can wear white pants with no fear! Thinking back to all those tampon commercials of my youth, you can go shopping with your fresh-faced friends and laugh to your heart’s desire while spinning around in circles to demonstrate your new-found freedom!

Here Comes the Bride

Our first whistle stop was Bristol, to attend my niece’s wedding. It was a fun and emotional affair. The bride looked gorgeous, the groom dashing. Both looked ectastic. The only variance from the ceremonial norm was the string trio in the church – the viola player hadn’t bothered to turn up. I advised my brother to demand a 25% discount.

When my niece was 15, my first born brother thought it was high time that his daughter knew I was gay. ‘Oh Dad,’ she said. ‘I’ve known for years.’ She’s one cool niece.

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