Istanbul to Troy

Apologies that the formatting below is inconsistent. Blame blogger not me, or if me then only my failure to grasp blogger's occult secrets.

I didn't stay more than a day in Istanbul (which means 'The City') because I spent a week there in April 2004. Not much had changed, except for the bar area of the hostel I used to stay in. It was nice to remember the same young assitant from that time, who's now opened his own hostel across the street. The hostel's belly dancer had certainly improved. Over my expensive Effes beer (so long, Bulgaria) I incredibly met my sixth French person in two days, after having met none for over a month. He told me he hadn't heard of the 'Bay of Biscay' (they don't call it that apparently) and that although the French do call this country 'Turkei' (spelling?), that word to them has no alternative meaning, indicative for example of the Christmas feasting of Crusaders. He also told me, in a broad chuckle, that I am in no way unique for asking him what he thinks of Sarkozy, his new President- a chuckle that reassured me I wasn't being too dull in asking.

I only went to that hostel for a nostalgic drink. I actually stayed in the highly, justifiably recommended 'Bauhaus', just round the corner, a curious feature of which was a never before seen toilet seat covered with revolving protective paper. Hmmmm, I'd known that crouching asiatics argue with some justification that their way is healthier and more hygienic. Yet in toilet seats, as in much else it seems, Turks want to look west (in western Turkey anyway). Presumably this curious device is invented to ease the transition for horrified crouchers.

NB: Below, for conceptual ease, I shall refer to Turkey as NOT being in Europe. Clearly the Thracian section is, it seeks EU membership, and since Ataturk it has looked west longingly in many respects. Nevertheless, historically, culturally and religiously it is not European and it ain't for nothing either that one speaks of Asia Minor.

Bizarre and/or funny things that have happened to me so far, in the land of the Crescent hugged star:

1. Having my hair shaved in Istanbul. The barber coiled a thin scarf round my neck, to which was attached the cape one gets (even in Europe). An ingenious trick which, as well as dashing in appearance, prevented all stubborn hair fragments from rustling my neck. His later taking out a cigarrete burner and flashing flame at my ear drums was a bit more alarming, for a split second anyway, until I realised the bold genius of the ear fluff removing gesture. Has anyone received this treatment in Europe. Is it only me who thinks it unusual, and inspired?
2. Laughing at the sign in the Bauhaus hostel toilet: "For God's sake switch off the light."
3. Seeing again (after 3 years) the sign on the carpet shop beside Hagia Sophia declaring "Sorry, we're open". And yet I was sure it used to be yellow, not white. Sure enough, as I suspected, and the laughing owner confirmed, they decided to keep it after realising their mistake, presumably because so many tourist found it funny.
4. Using coins smaller than their smallest coin to gain access to the efficient tram system, which wasn't here in 2004.
5. Confusing a second hand bookseller when I noted that the Lonely Planet Turkey guide I wanted to buy didn't have a code, signalling how much it would cost according to their syetm. "No code" I said, pointing at the absence of a code sticker. He didn't understand. After I repeated my words 'No code' he pretended to be in a boxing match with me saying, confusedly, 'Knock out?', 'Knock out?' while shadow boxing and throwing his head back and down.

The Turks certainly have a lively sense of humour. That said, they are quick to anger and easily offended. Or maybe eveyone is quick to take offence but not everyone will show it as readily. The Slavs for example. Maybe they find my tendency to quick- tempered exasperation, when it surfaces, just as rude as the Turks do, but only react to it internally such as to not make me aware of their feelings. Having lived in Slovakia for 6 years, I can believe this; and the greater volatility of humanitas on this side of the Bulgar border makes me believe it equally of Bulgarians too. I have often thought that Slavs are very unpretentious people, in that they don't tend to spin tales about themselves, don't wear elaborate persona masks, and will not hide that they are bored or unhappy, even when greater profits would flow from such a hiding (for example in the Bar or Catering industries). But maybe their general aura of reserve and passivity-in public (compared to Asians and Meditterranean peoples anyway) conceals them in another sense not covered by pretentiousness. So maybe that's why I have sometimes had the lingering suspicion that I don't know where I stand with them- i.e if they like me or think me a prat. That sense of not knowing, born of a reserve which one might readily commend as politeness, can sometimes feel unnerving.

The Turks in any case seem far less hidden. This in-my-face ebullience I have found pleasantly refreshing. Certainly, they seem far more confident and assertive. That whole burly-whirly, who-needs-private-space, freneticism perfected to an art in Egypt and India, generally associated in my eyes with Middle and Central Asia, makes a defiant stand here, and is as visible as it is absent across the border. It makes me aware that I've crossed a cultural fault line far more significant than the one between Northern and Southern Europe, for example.

Twice I have been offered lifts on guy's motorbikes without asking for a lift when trudging along a road. Twice I have been offered directions to where I wanted to go, again without asking. While it's true, especially in the tourist hyper-zones, that a great deal of this friendliness is mere preable to carpet and trinket hawking, I still get the impression that a lot is mixed with geniune warmth. And of course I can symapthise with their having to endure wave after wave of processed tourist, whom quite possibly they have grown to disrespect for their ability to be ripped off?

After Istanbul I went corporate and took a package tour to Gallipoli, shock horror. I'm glad I did as the various ANZAC monuments are stuck out miles apart on different ridges and hills. My British patriotism was bruised far more, actually, by the fact that so little mention is made by the tourist industry of the British and French operations to the the south of the ANZAC ones, than it was by the occasional dig one gets from the literature about British incompetence and perfidy sacrificing the lives of noble Kiwis and Ozzies, much of which I can believe. I was struck by the sense of Turkish-ANZAC friendship in the shared memory of the atrocities, and reminded of what hadn't been as apparent before - that it was a major conflict for the Turks too, a defining moment in the emergence of their post Ottoman history, and the first time they'd had to defend their homeland.

Combined with the Gallipoli tour was a stroll around Troy, or what's left of it anyway, which isn't much. To be frank, not that impressive, though Mustafa the chirpy tour guide and author of the guide book he waved at us, was great. Alas, I did climb inside the gimmicky wooden horse and have my photo taken peering out of the windows in its side, just like all the Korean tourists.

I would write more but, as it happens, I've had enough for now and must stroll some more around Selcuk, near Ephesus, to where I've come after Pergamon.