Countdown: 1!

Fethiye: 30th March, 2014

On humour, as a valuable resource.....

My tooth and I are on our way to Fethiye! (Dolmus to Aydin 7TL; Coach to Fethiye 38TL.)

I can feel myself relaxing more and more into my adventure, and I'm recognising the value of humour as a personal resource. I am collecting funny moments that buoy me....

One locked-in memory is from the Gallipoli trip. On the journey down to the Peninsula, when we stopped for breakfast, I asked Noah, a young American lawyer - the only non-Aussie-or-Kiwi in our small group - about his interest in visiting Gallipoli. "Gallipoli?" he said, "I thought we were going to Troy!" We all laughed, and Noah most heartily, and then he said, "So, what do I need to know about Gallipoli to get the most out of my day?" Ha! I will recall that one when I find myself somewhere unexpected.

I have some funny Turkish moments too. I really enjoy the Turkish sense of humour - it's very familiar and playful. Yesterday, when my Kurdish tour guide, Nizam, had helped me to arrange my dental treatment, I said to him, "Your dentist seems like a very nice man", to which he replied, "Yes, a very true gentleman. It's a shame he is such a bad dentist!" Ha!

The dentist, too, said to me later, as I sat in the chair and he put on his gloves, "So, how are you feeling?" "A little nervous." (The offending tooth was a second from centre, top tooth, and I was hoping I wouldn't emerge with a huge gold filling - or worse, amalgam!) "Don't worry," he said, " I watch this procedure two times before - last year!" I love how laughter dissipates stress, and all things negative - even second-hand, recalled humour, so I lock in this moment too.

I have no plan once I arrive in Fethiye. I should be there about 4pm and, when the weather is as beautiful as it is today, nothing seems urgent. I guess I will go to a cafe and book one of the hostels where I can get a private room for two nights. (Hostelbookers.com is an excellent website.) Meanwhile, the bus journey is very pleasant.

Oh, oh, oh - look where I am!

View from Ideal Pension

Fethiye is so beautiful! I arrived in town at the Otogar and caught a Dolmus into the central/harbour area. Found a cafe with Wifi by the waterside and had a coffee and booked myself into a double room with bathroom at the Ideal Pension - for 40TL/night. Soooo happy here! A few pics and I'm off to explore.....

"Home"!

The walk to my accommodation...

Where the dolmus dropped me - kids roller skating here

 

 

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Countdown: 2!

Ephesus, a carpet and a dentist..... Saturday, 29th March, 2014

Arrived in Selcuk at 8am after a very comfortable overnight bus trip (sadly left my blow up pillow on the bus when I changed at Izmir) and found my way easily to the Urkmez Hotel. Here I have a nice room for 29E, found on Booking.com. Very nice, friendly place.

After a complimentary breakfast on the rooftop, I joined a day-tour of Ephesus, the Temple of Artemis and St John's Basilica (45E). Very interesting tour which included a lunch stop at a village crafts co-operative. We saw women spinning silk and weaving it into carpets and wall-hangings. Such skill and such beautiful works! The co-operative runs with mainly voluntary helpers and 85% of the sale price goes to the creator of the piece. The government sponsors the co-op, in order to retain the skills, by eliminating sales taxes and re-imbursing postal charges. So, yes, I bought a lovely silk carpet....

After the tour, I was walking back through town with the guide, at about 5pm, when he said, "Look, my dentist is right here. Let's stop by and see if he can fix your tooth." (I had broken a significant piece off a tooth the day before and had mentioned that I was keen to get to Fethiye and find a dentist.) We called by, the dentist tacked me on to the end of his day and, at 6pm he reconstructed my tooth for me. Yay! Problem solved, at a cost of 150TL. So pleased!

Library, Ephesus. Once held 12,000 parchments - all lost

 

 

 

250,000 people once lived in Ephesis. It was the second city to Rome

 

 

Nike, Goddess of Victory

 

 

Mosaic floor tiles

 

Latrines

 

Archaeologists piece together the puzzles

Inside the terrace houses of the rich

The amphitheater

Only 20% of the city has been excavated so far

 

Sold to the lady with the backpack!

 

My hero: Mustafa Fatih Dundar

 

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Countdown: 3!

Gallipoli: 28th March, 2014

A wonderful day on a Crowded House tour from Istanbul to Gallipoli, with overnight transfer to Selcuk - all for 70E. Can't recommend them highly enough. They even gave me a room with bathroom, in Eceabat, for my 6-hour wait for the bus to Selcuk, and breakfast and lunch was included.

Pleased to have visited Gallipoli with a Turkish guide. His stories differed from those I've been telling my students in interesting ways. According to him:

1) If the Anzacs had landed at the "right" beach (now called Brighton), the casualties would have been much greater, because Turkish forces were concentrated there. The Turks were clued up from a British spy-turned-counter-spy.

2) A diary entry suggests that the landing at Anzac Cove was intentional. In anticipation of strong defence at the right beach, someone (sorry, the guide spoke too fast) turned the wheel twice to the left to slightly change course and land elsewhere.

3) Contrary to the song, the Turks were not ready and waiting for them at Anzac Cove. They did not anticipate a landing there, because it was too difficult, and only numbered 160, against the 1500 in the First Landing. Two further landings during the day, took Anzac numbers to (15000??). The Turks had no machine guns and not much weaponry as they were only there to observe. After doing what they could to defend the area, they in fact had to retreat and the Anzacs achieved at least one of their objectives before the Turks could rally and re-group.

The whole Gallipoli Peninsula in now a Peace Park. No development is allowed, although farmers can use the land for grazing and crops. Canola is a big one.

Preparations are well underway now for the Anzac Day Dawn Service at Anzac Cove and a second commemorative service at Lone Pine. Surreal to walk in original, untouched trenches, with Turkish trenches, at one point, just 20m away. According to the guide, grenades sometimes swapped hands 3 times before they exploded.

In Eceabat

 

Brighton Beach - the "right" beach

 

Anzac Cove - the "wrong" beach

 

 

Anzac Cove - Dawn Service site

 

 

 

 

Lone Pine

 

Lone Pine

 

Original trenches

 

The Nec

Looking from The Nec, back over Suvla Bay

 

 

 

Mustafa Kamal Ataturk

 

Relief model of Gallipoli Peninsula, at Eceabat

 

Commemorative model of trench warfare, Eceabat

 

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Countdown: 4!

Istanbul: Friday, 28th March, 2014

Well, I leave Istanbul this morning, for Gallipoi, with my phone/Internet issue still not resolved.

Ahmet joined me, on Wednesday, on my mission to get an Internet SIM for my iPad. We discovered that, instead, I needed a SIM for my iPhone to which my IPad could then connect wirelessly. So, I paid 75TL for a SIM card, 55TL to register it with Turkcell and 120TL to register it with the Tax Office! (Cousin Turkcell proved correct about the exorbitant charges.) I'm told my phone, which was locked soon after I entered the country, will be unlocked in a couple of days. (I hope Cousin Turkcell is not correct in saying it can take a month.)

I have an App on my iPad called Maps With Me Pro and it shows me where I am on the planet with good detail. I think as long as I have good Internet access, it will be very helpful in keeping me on the right path. I hope I get to find out. Without that, I only have my compass. Ahmet reminds me that I also have my intuition. Hmmm..... Better, I will have fellow trekkers, so I may just be a dependent, tag-along walker. No, no, no - my phone will be unlocked very soon!

Spent a lovely day yesterday on the island of Heybeliada. It's an hour away by ferry and cost just $3 for the round trip. It is one of four of the Prince's Islands that I could have visited, and the one recommended by Ahmet. The islands are all quite hilly and well populated but there are no cars on them, and never have been - except for municipal vehicles. (The only overweight person I saw was the postman, who rode a motor scooter.) They have horse-drawn carriages for tourists, and bicycles; and people have electric tricycles to cart their shopping home. Old people also have a sort of mobility scooter, apparently, but I didn't see one.

It is so relaxed and peaceful on Heybeliada - such a contrast to Istanbul. Old ladies sit on chairs in the street, chatting and enjoying the sun and the view; confident cats cruise town; kids claim the streets for their games; the smell of horse manure and hay pervades. I wound my way up to the top of one hill, believing I was going up another. (My confidence in my intuition is thin....)

Looking past the hill I thought I was on, to Istanbul

 

 

 

Elections are on Sunday

 

 

A nursery, on the footpath

 

Had planned to go and see the Whirling Dervishes with Lalitah, Utsav and Dilek in the evening, but tickets had sold out. I decided not to join them in an alternative plan; so, after a lovely dinner in a nearby restaurant, I came home and packed.

 

Now on the bus, headed for Gallipoli. Will post this while I can.

 

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Countdown: 5!

Istanbul, 26th March, 2013

Innocent, abroad? Or, Ugly Aussie? Thoughts on cultural dissonance, at 3am....

I'm finding here that my natural disinterest in shopping is actually a strong aversion and I am hating being hassled to buy stuff I couldn't care less about. At the same time, I'm aware that I cause cultural offence by declining invitations to sit, have some apple tea and just appreciate the quality of this one's carpets or that one's ceramics (which they can easily post home for me), especially after they have been so willing to help me with tourist information. I resent the constant pressure, and the fact that that they don't back off in the face of reluctance and discomfort - I am in danger of becoming agoraphobic.

The Cousin Turkcell experience leaves me baffled. He was charming (of course!) but my natural suspicion was obvious throughout our dealings, and rose as he kept trying to reassure me that he was honest and simply trying to be helpful, and as he over-explained what we needed to do. (Yeah, yeah, blah, blah.)

He comes to the nearby Turkcell shop with me and I explain that I want SIM cards for my phone and iPad. After a brief chat with a Turkcell salesman, he tells me it will cost big money and then bigger money to register them both and that it will be a month before they work. He comes up with a wonderful idea for me. He wants my iPhone "because it is original and has been used by a good person" - so, he will swap an unoriginal iPhone 4S, belonging to his son, for mine. That way, no money changes hands and I have a phone that doesn't require registering and will work immediately. Forget the iPad - wifi hotspots will be everywhere in the mountains. (I have already decided that I will pursue the iPad issue elsewhere.)

I tell him that, as long as I can get all data from my iPhone, the swap might work for me, so off we go to get the other phone and transfer the data. This involves an interesting tour of the backstreets of Sultanahmet. We stop, first, at his carpet shop, where I am offered a carpet or kilim of my choice for free (oh sure, that would be posted!); we call in at a mosque, where the man who has his car keys is praying; we drive to his home where he yells up to someone who lowers the iPhone from an upstairs window in a bucket (she greets me in native-speaker English); he makes a phone call to an American woman, puts it on speaker phone, and gets her to tell me how long it took for her newly-registered phone to work. "It never worked", she says, and he nods at me and says, "at least a month"; we drive to the cousin's Turkcell shop but he can't transfer the data. It's easy, however, so off we go to the man who can do it - but, no he can't do it, either. Although I'm kind of enjoying the mad dash, I'm over the iPhone issue by now and suggest an alternative plan of just buying a basic second-hand phone which won't need registering, and so back we go to the cousin's shop and the deal on my new Samsung is done. He drops me back where we started, asking if I'd like to contribute something towards his petrol (I say no, because I feel ripped off); then he says he doesn't mind having helped me as long as I appreciate it. Huh? I don't recall seeking his help or encouraging his involvement in any way - and I just bought a phone from his cousin.

I really want to maintain an openness to the people I meet, but I feel vulnerable because I have an important problem to resolve and no inside knowledge of how things work. My internet research tells me how things should be, but stops short of pointing me in the direction of an English-speaking service that can help; so, a measure of trust is necessary - but who to trust, when your own culturally-specific indicators of trustworthiness don't apply?

I must tackle the iPad issue today, so I will ring Utsav for inside info and advice....

Here is an iMovie I made of Istanbul impressions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxWYY3pa76Q

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