Day 30 (6 July): Relaxing by the Mediterranean
I woke up this morning to find that the gullet Boat that I intended to spend the next four days on would not be leaving today as planned but would be leaving tomorrow instead. This meant that there was little rush to get to Fethyie and that I did not need to take a bus that arrived at 1 AM because of the delay in Aydin. While this was frustrating it was also probably a good thing, as I have think I may be traveling at an overzealous pace at least thus far. After the overnight bus which pushed me over the edge to feeling somewhat sick the recovery time was nice. It let me catch up on this blog, respond to numerous other e-mails, plan the rest of my trip, etc. (Despite, getting good comments from a lot of people, I may have to start condensing some of these, since internet connections keep getting slower and I want to spend my time enjoying traveling, but we'll see.) It also meant a chance to go to the beach in nearby Calis and taking in some more Roman ruins in town.
This does, however, mean that I will not be able to make it to Eastern Turkey which I had planned to do. I was particularly excited about Eastern Turkey because it is more authentically the Middle East than the rest of Turkey. At the same time that is probably a good thing considering there have recently been some terrorist attacks in the less progressive Eastern part of the country. (Also while I was in Istambul, a suicide bomber tried to kill a high level government official, I believe the Foreign Minister, in Ankara, which I doubt made news in the US.)
If there is nothing over the next several days, that's because I'm on a boat, not because something bad has happened to me.
Observations:
1) Transportation reliability. No one in Turkey seems to care if transportation goes slowly or stops working. It is just a fact of life that people here accept.
2) Local/regional transport. The Dolmus here is a van that travels along certain fixed routes and stops for people who flag it down. This seems to be more effective than public bus routes in many ways as there are no established stops and it can go longer distances. It is a little bit confusing to me, however, as I do not know the routings.
3) Internet. It is also not reliable here. The ADSL connections for everywhere in town today went down for about 5 hours and nobody got upset. They just think it is how the technology works. If the connection were more reliable, more people would probably use it, although a lot already do.
4) Fresh fish. Fish here are probably about as fresh as they were in Sweden. Guys in motor scooters pull up to the docks, load fish from boats into baskets on the sides of their bikes and then drive off to nearby restaurants. Quite impressive.
5) Muslim women covered up sitting on the beach. I saw a couple today and it just seems odd. They look like they have to be quite hot all of the time, but especially so when they are sitting out in the sun on the beach wearing dark clothes. They either must have a lot of faith or a lot of fear to put up with such things.
This does, however, mean that I will not be able to make it to Eastern Turkey which I had planned to do. I was particularly excited about Eastern Turkey because it is more authentically the Middle East than the rest of Turkey. At the same time that is probably a good thing considering there have recently been some terrorist attacks in the less progressive Eastern part of the country. (Also while I was in Istambul, a suicide bomber tried to kill a high level government official, I believe the Foreign Minister, in Ankara, which I doubt made news in the US.)
If there is nothing over the next several days, that's because I'm on a boat, not because something bad has happened to me.
Observations:
1) Transportation reliability. No one in Turkey seems to care if transportation goes slowly or stops working. It is just a fact of life that people here accept.
2) Local/regional transport. The Dolmus here is a van that travels along certain fixed routes and stops for people who flag it down. This seems to be more effective than public bus routes in many ways as there are no established stops and it can go longer distances. It is a little bit confusing to me, however, as I do not know the routings.
3) Internet. It is also not reliable here. The ADSL connections for everywhere in town today went down for about 5 hours and nobody got upset. They just think it is how the technology works. If the connection were more reliable, more people would probably use it, although a lot already do.
4) Fresh fish. Fish here are probably about as fresh as they were in Sweden. Guys in motor scooters pull up to the docks, load fish from boats into baskets on the sides of their bikes and then drive off to nearby restaurants. Quite impressive.
5) Muslim women covered up sitting on the beach. I saw a couple today and it just seems odd. They look like they have to be quite hot all of the time, but especially so when they are sitting out in the sun on the beach wearing dark clothes. They either must have a lot of faith or a lot of fear to put up with such things.
posted by Traveling Brian at 11:41 AM
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