The screens have gone blank in Turkey and I hear there is much speculation about whether I should expect a knock at the door. I must confess, I have been slightly worried; have I unintentionally transgressed some Turkish Law or other? The explanation is both more prosaic and more ominous. It seems my blog has been caught in a blanket ban on hundreds of thousands of websites hosted by Google. When I first set up my site, Google assigned what’s called an ‘IP Address’ which I share with tens of thousands of others. At least one of these other sites has fallen foul of the authorities so the IP address itself has been blocked. So it’s one out, all out. I’ve looked at some of the other sites affected; they include many Turkish businesses and a lady in Istanbul promoting her pretty sketches. How sad.
As Churchill famously said “We’ll fight them on the beaches”. That’s the wartime prime minister by the way, not the nodding dog in the car insurance adverts.
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.
We sought provisions in the Thursday pazar. Split into two, edibles and non-edibles, the market is a splendid melting pot of punters, peasants, spivs, hawkers and pick pockets. Bazaars are big business and the whole enterprise is a travelling circus with stall holders moving from town to town each day. The edible section is a pot pourri for the senses – great quality fresh fruit and veg, aromatic herbs and spices, exotic dairy produce, the odd chicken in a cage and the usual selection of Turkish delight. Prices are cheap.
The non-edible bit is less agreeable: stall after stall of tatty household and electrical goods without a kite mark between them, poor quality fake designer wear, overpriced linens and the hard sell carpet traders. We are pestered with ‘Hello Jimmy’ and ‘Cheaper than Primark.’ Of course, the answer to the latter proclamation is that nothing is cheaper than Primark.
Chrissy calls three or four times a day for no particular reason, liberally dispensing unsolicited wisdom on all matters Turkish. She assumes we sailed up the Meander on a banana boat. This is even more galling since she thinks ‘Anatolia’ is a city in Southern Turkey.
In a half-hearted attempt to integrate into the overwintering emigrey community we popped along to a local restaurant for a quiz night. We’re good at quizzes or so we thought. It was like a Derby and Joan Club with a sorry collection of depressed looking people in BHS knitwear. We stuck out like black people at a Ku Klux Klan convention. We sat next to George and Phyllis from Birmingham. We engaged in the usual exploratory conversation. We overheard George whisper to Phyllis “Look, they’re even wearing wedding rings”.
It seems that Phyllis and George have somewhat mislaid their family. They found out about their daughter’s wedding and pregnancy on Facebook. The are pooch people and their clever bitch can tell the difference between a Turk and Kurd because they smell different. Oh dear.
We came last in the quiz. Phyllis helpfully explained that many of the questions originated from BBC World so we should keep watching for next time. There won’t be a next time. As one of the answers was ‘cruet set’ I asked Phyllis when was the last time she heard cruet set mentioned on the BBC. That shut her up.
I have a new best friend in the blogosphere. Her name is Karyn and she writes a tasty piece on village life called ‘Being Koy’. It’s an erudite, juicy read full of mouth-watering morsels of wit and wisdom tinged with a little irony – a real mouse clicking screen turner. She’s an old pro at this blogging lark with more hits than Cliff Richard.
She doesn’t know this yet, but I have decided that we are to be married as soon as my divorce comes through. I’ve been meaning to lose my virginity since puberty, and she just might be the girl to turn me to the path of righteousness. Naturally, Liam is devastated, and has reserved his cell in an Irish nunnery and picked out a habit. He’s gone for navy blue hot pants to complement his eyes.
Karyn contacted me a while ago to congratulate me on my modest blog which she found purely by chance. It must have been a quiet night down in the koy if she was travelling that deep into cyberspace. Her effusion made me blush. Since then we have established a mutual appreciation society, an exclusive club with a select membership of just two. To further cement the bond between we jobbing bloggers Karyn graciously invited me be a guest writer on her hallowed site. I bit her hand off. As a mark of respect, I penned something a little less irreverent and bit more thoughtful called Good as You In Turkey. I’m going to scratch her back by returning the complement. I think she intends to do a little piece on being constantly accosted by swarthy men offering comfort every time she leaves the house. And the point is?
I make liberal use of the word Blighty. I assumed it to be a relic from the days of the Raj and was curious as to its exact origins. Wikipedia defines Blighty as…
…an English slang term for Britain deriving from the Hindustani word vilāyatī (pronounced bilāti in many Indian dialects and languages) meaning ‘the country’, a word which itself is derived from the Arabic word wilayat meaning a ‘kingdom’ or ‘ministry’.
I have detected that a defining anatomical characteristic of the emigrey male is an unsightly affliction called emigrey arms. No, this is not a popular watering hole for the expats but a kind of muscle wasting condition of the upper limbs, brought on by over-exposure to the sun and alcohol abuse resulting in leathery flaps of wrinkled loose skin dripping from sinewy triceps: bingo wings without the lard.
It was a breezy but sunny afternoon. We decided to take advantage of the benign climate and sink a sherry or two in Yalıkavak. We sat at a sheltered table outside a restaurant and ordered a couple of Efes’ (the ubiquitous Turkish brew). Sitting at an adjacent table was a small clutch of emigreys; one woman and two men. The woman was a skeletal, severe looking creature with angular face, beady eyes, austere short cut home-highlighted hair and a shrill voice. As she held court, her emasculated companions attended her silently, nodding in submissive deference as required. She complained stridently of all things Turkish. iam innocently lit a cigarette, provoking her immediate high octave wrath.
“I can’t believe” she screeched ‘how people can smoke while I am eating. How disgusting. It should not be allowed!’
We had hoped that we’d left sanctimonious anti-smoking fascists behind when we migrated. Alas not. We tolerated her invective for a few moments but when Liam could bear it no longer, he coolly but firmly asserted
‘Excuse me. Would you mind not bitching behind my back. If you have anything to say, please say it to my face.’
Clearly, a woman unused to such a direct challenge from anyone, she stuttered out her request lamely.
‘Fine,’ he replied.
Once she had finished her meal, he lit up again and chain smoked. The contest of wills that followed descended into an undeclared war of attrition to see who would leave first. We ordered a second drink, then a third. Finally, she conceded defeat and departed with one of her companions following meekly behind. As the clicking of her witches heels faded into the distance, her liberated second companion sank into his chair and lit a long-awaited cigarette.
Hairdressing, like undertaking, is a steady trade which never goes out of fashion. Having sampled a few establishments in the village, we have settled on a high street barbershop run by a delightful father and son combo. Our number two cut requires only a few minutes with a hair trimmer. However, this cannot be said of the average young Turk. Generally blessed with abundant tresses, even the humblest waiter vainly adorns his head with elaborate, gravity defying sculptures held aloft by a vat of gel. Armpits though, are not always so well groomed.
Our genteel Yalıkavak barber is a far cry from Liam’s first skirmish with a Turkish coiffeur. The fun began on the final full day of our gloriously romantic honeymoon in splendid Kaş. I persuaded Liam to join me in the exotic pleasure of a Turkish shave, an indulgence I have enjoyed many times on previous visits to Asia Minor. The barbershop boys saw us coming, and we were mobbed by eager young bucks queuing up to service us. The routine began innocently enough – an efficient double shave with a cut throat razor followed by ear and nose fuzz skilfully dispatched with a flaming cotton bud soaked in petrol. I thought it unusual to find that we were stripped of our tops for the neck and shoulder rub. My young man asked if I would prefer a full body massage in the little room at the back of the shop. I naïvely accepted thinking nothing untoward could occur in a busy barbershop on a main thoroughfare.
He led me into the room and lay me face down on the padded table. His expert hands kneaded and pounded my torso into rapturous submission, and my mind wandered into semi-trance. The spell was rudely broken by a tug of my shorts, which were expertly and unceremoniously whipped off in a single movement. I had gone commando that day which rather startled my young masseur but which only added to his vigour. His pummelling went into overdrive. I opened my eyes fleetingly to find him standing to my side inches from my face, shirtless, scarlet-faced and sweating like a dray horse and obviously aroused. For the remainder of the rubdown, I kept my eyes firmly shut and my arms religiously tucked to my side for fear of displaying the slightest encouragement. It was my honeymoon, after all.
Meanwhile, Liam was relishing an upper body rub. However, he became alarmed when the crimper’s fingers started to walk south towards the small of Liam’s back, playfully plucking the waistband of his shorts and continuing their passage into the abyss. Liam grabbed the boy’s wrist firmly giving a whole new meaning to the word hayır.
It is not hard to imagine what raced through Liam’s mind as he endured the grunting, murmuring and bed squeaking that emanated from the back room. Shortly afterwards, my tellak and I emerged into the light, me shaking uncontrollably, he drenched in sweat. We concluded our business with a quasi-post-coital cigarette.
The screens have gone blank in Turkey and I hear there is much speculation about whether I should expect a knock at the door. I must confess, I have been slightly worried; have I unintentionally transgressed some Turkish Law or other? The explanation is both more prosaic and more ominous. It seems my blog has been caught in a blanket ban on hundreds of thousands of websites hosted by Google. When I first set up my site, Google assigned what’s called an ‘IP Address’ which I share with tens of thousands of others. At least one of these other sites has fallen foul of the authorities so the IP address itself has been blocked. So it’s one out, all out. I’ve looked at some of the other sites affected; they include many Turkish businesses and a lady in Istanbul promoting her pretty sketches. How sad.
Perking the Pansies 