Turkey Wrap-up

Turkey is definitely one of the most interesting countries I have ever been to and for anyone who is thinking about going in the future, I would suggest taking more than two weeks as I found that too little time. I could have easily spent an additional two weeks, spending a little more time to explore each of the places I went, plus adding in a couple more including Eastern Turkey.

Part of the reason I had such a great trip was the Turkish people I met who must be some of the most friendly and helpful people on Earth. Part of that helpfulness and overt friendliness seemed to come from a desire to learn and to make their country better by learning.

As far a prices go things were a tad bit more expensive than I thought they would be in someplaces and less in others. What was really strange though was that the Turks have not really figured out how to prices things across the board, for example a large bottle of water could cost anywhere from .35 to 3 YTL, but often in the most remote places where they could have gotten away with the highest prices it was cheapest. Somehow they don't seem to grasp the concept on people's desire to buy things and how that changes when prices do.

Another thing that was interesting about prices was that the same product (a nights accommodation or a tour of Cappadocia, for example) without any regard for the quality level of the product. This enourages (or at least should) consumers to shop around and be distrustful.

Turkey is not really the Middle East, but it is not really Europe either. The main reason that its not Europe, however, has a lot more to do with the development of the country being too slow (for example, you still see donkey karts plodding along on Interstate highways.) I think Turkey can fairly be called Middle Eastern despite being hard to define what it is.

Day 36 ( 12 July): Cavemen

I went on another tour of the Cappadocia region today. This time I was lucky to have it be just me and a Turkish family. We went to the Goreme Museum (which has a lot of churches carved into 'fairy chimneys'), a whole town where people lived in cave houses until the Turkish government resettled them in the 1980s, we saw a fortress/look-out for the town, went to 'Pigeon Valley' from where we could see Mt. Erches (one of the volcanic responsible for the rock formations in the background), and to a couple more valleys and viewpoints.

Observations:
1) "Green living" is not a new concept. While it may be a fad or a new reality to find people trying to save energy in their homes the concept is not new. One of the advantages to the cave houses was that they stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
2) Sometimes you have to get creative to fill needs. The inhabitants of the area in olden times created cave dwellings for pigeons so they could collect their dung and use it as fertilizer.
3) Ataturk is everywhere. He (real name was Mustafa Kamal) was the father of modern day Turkey and largely responsible for Turkey's stability and economic success today. Among other things, 1) he got rid of the Arabic alphabet for the Turkish language so outsiders could learn it easier and 2) gave women the right to vote and the right not to wear head scares if they choose not to.

Weird/amusing sightings:
1) Lemon juice based multi-purpose solvent. Just like in the movie 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' where the father uses Windex for everything, the Turks have some kind of lemon juice based spray that they seem to use for everything from making rooms smell better, to washing hands, to washing dishes.
2) Fashion is always more important than function. I saw aJapanese girl in stiletto heels trying to roll a suitcase up a hill that is not even passable for cars as it is rough dirt and loose rock.

Day 35 (11 July): High Desert along the Silk and Spice Roads

Early in the morning, the overnight bus arrived in Göreme which is in the heart of Cappadocia (which is the heart of Antolia, literally the motherland in Turkish.) Cappadocia is a high desert surrounded by mountains with a lot of interesting rock formations (think Moab, Arches, Badlands, or Joshua Tree National Parks in the US) from volcanic activity. In addition to the cool rock formations, the area has a lot of history as well, as it is the first point where the Spice Road (to India) and the Silk Road (to China) crossed.

I spent my first day there exploring (with a small tour group since it was the easiest way to get around) the Underground city of Derinkuyu, Ilhara Valley (a Canyon with Christian churches built into the walls for miles of it), a Caravansari building (former Inn along the trading routes) at Aksary.

I also had a great dinner at a restaurant named Alaturca and some interesting conversation in a carpet shop with its owner and a Korean Chemistry Professor in Turkey for an academic conference.

Observations.
1) The value of shelter (homes) can be really high. It must have taken years to buıld the underground city as it could house over 3000 people at its peak and went six stories deep. In ancient times, people would hide in it to avoid foreign invaders.
2) Crossroads on trading points have always been and always will be important. The reason that there was so much development in Cappadocıa is because it is where trading took place and where markets were made.
3) Turkey is developing quickly. I met a guy from San Diego who actually lives only blocks from where I did there, who was back in Turkey after coming here on his honeymoon nearly 15 years ago, who was telling me about what it looked like then and what the standars of living were like then.
4) Carpet shop conversation topics:
a) US travellers do not seem to be buying carpets anymore although Asian ones (Japanese and Korean primarily) have increased their buying. Maybe this is a reflection of the economic conditions at home?
b) When both the carpet shop owner (who spent time in Sommerville, MA) and the Korean Professor (who lived in Chıcago and Palo Alto) spent time living in the US, they noticed how they stopped caring about what was happening in the rest of the world and in their home countries they said. They seemed to think their was something inate in the American lifestyle that lets people forget about the rest of the world, esp. since the US is so bıg.
c) The carpet shop owner worried about future ethnic tensions within the US, which he thought would be bad for the rest of the world since he thinks the US is a good example of mixed ethnic communities that the rest of the world should be able to follow. He seemed to think this was going to happen based on a perception that new ımmigrants to the US are caring less and less about assimıilating which he thinks is very important.
d) Islamic culture dictates that if neighbors are in need that you help them at your own detriment. This means in the carpet business that sometimes you refer people to other shops because their shops are not doing well, rather than trying to quash the competition.
e) The carpet shop owner seemed to think (like many other Turks I met) that the US should have done more during the first Iraq war and that he hopes the US government keeps a presence in the Mıddle East until there is real democracy in Turkeys neighboring countries.

Days 31-34 (7 July - 10 July): Crusing on the Med

I spent the majority of the last few days "sailiıng" on the Mediterranean. I say "sailing" because we were under motor for most of the trip and when we were under sail there wasn`t enough wind to even really move us. It was a fantastic trip, nonetheless, as I can think of few other times in my life when I had no option but to relax. The family that owned the boat took care of everything else, so the hardest decisons I had to make over the last couple of days were how much to eat and should I swim or sit on the deck?

We made a number of stops along the way at sites that had mostly ancient Greek ruins as many of their cities were originally (and many still are) only accessable by sea. Among them standouts were a town currently ınhabited that had a fortress on a hill to defend ıt and a city that overtime as water levels changed is now underwater. We also stopped by St. Nıcholas Island (since as it turns out Santa is Turkısh.)

Pictures are probably the best way to illustrate this part of my trip since its hard to describe how blue the water was, etc.

Observations:
1) The ice cream man comes by boat (and so does the pancake lady.) The people here have gotten crafty enough to figure out how to put a generator and a frezzer on a power boat to motor out to people on cruises to sell their treats (at a premium of course.)
2) Summer break from school. The family that owned the boat had their two kids (about 8 and 13 years old) working as crew which seems like it must be a pretty cool job durıng the summer and educational too since being around a bunch of tourists helps the kids out with English and general learning about other parts of the world.
3) Sea-based economy. Its pretty amazing how much of life ın Ancient Greece had to be based on water and by boats. Without that as a form of transportation they probably would not have been able to flourish as they did.
4) London Bombings. It was interesting to see the reactions of others on the boat to the London bombings as we only had fragmentary information about it via text message from a couple of people`s friends in London since their were several Austarlians and New Zealanders who were either just moving to or away from London onboard. Most of all, none of them were surprised it happened in London, but many do not want to go back now that it has.