Article Fourteen
Turkey 20 Sept. 2007
Once again, as we near the end of the week, we decided to have yet another rest day. We planned to clear our Journal and Internet promises and look at paying any bills and checking our banking. I managed to contact one of our investment advisors and discovered that they had made some mistake implementing my instructions…this was for investing my half of the proceeds from the sale of our Nudgee Beach property, which was only finalised on the 24th of July. The bottom line is that I have missed about five weeks of market gains. Now they have admitted it was their error and are calculating how much I have lost or missed out on, because they didn’t invest as I instructed. They have promised to make good the shortfall. The Company? Colonial First State. I can just imagine various banks doing this or other investment companies! Just no-way! I am most impressed and more impressed by the fact that they admitted their fault when I didn’t even know and most likely, never would have known when I consider the volatile share-market trading of the last few months ! We have been completely out of touch with the share market since 10th August.
I have been observing the people here from a Tourist and/or writer’s perspective that is, studying them from their shoes up. Most of the older age group fall into the range of pictures of Turkish peasants/population taken in the 1930s. That is, the older men wear what seems to be very old topcoats, baggy black or brown trousers, a waistcoat plus swornout shoes or boots and, all have very large straggly moustaches. The older women wear black or dark coloured floor-length dresses with a large shawl covering their shoulders and the top half of their body. Those that are Muslim, wear the headscarf, mostly white or very pale colours. The point here is that once a woman has reached about forty, her more elderly relatives start dying off and, thanks to the Turkish/Muslim custom of 12 months morning (Black Skirt/White Shawl indicating mourning) this has then become the national dress for middle-aged women. One morning period elapses but another has already started! Extended families are a Turkish norm.
There is a lot of cross culture in the Turkish features with the more swarthy evidence of Arabic and Greek intermarriage over the centuries. This leads to some of the most beautiful women I have ever seen whilst they are under 25 but after this, their fattening heritage breaks out. The young men fall into about three different categories, very tall, pale skinned, dark hair; that is, very Caucasian. Then there is the very Arabian, hook-nosed, swarthy and short men who appear to be the working or tradesman of Turkey…these men may even be imported simply to work as tradesmen…I don’t know. Finally, there is the poor male who is a bad mix of the first two types?
Both men and women vary greatly in height from well over six feet to those barely notching the four-foot mark. The all appear to be loud, forceful people, much like the Greeks and, like the Greeks, they shout at each other without appearing to listen to their conversation partner. The Turks, generally, totally disregard cars driving around shops and street markets and will stop in the middle of the road, halting both lanes of traffic, whilst loudly haggling over the price of an onion or whatever!
Nevertheless, put them behind the wheel and they all become power-mad maniacs with total disregard for all other traffic and people…pedestrian crossings are used as marked Turkish parking zones! Travelling the highways, the Turks drive on the side closest to the mountain irrespective of which side they should be on. Blind corners and oncoming Turkish drivers result in much squealing of brakes; revving of motors; blowing of horns; and arm and finger gestures given violently. This, from both vehicles, eventually forces these idiots to move over to their correct lane.…However, you are left with the distinct impression that YOU are in the wrong and it is so strong a feeling, that you almost stop to investigate if there is something dead, hanging on the front of your car! On the more positive side, we have seen only a few accidents or results of accidents throughout Turkey
Turkish Drivers seem to believe in the same driving rules as Indonesians…get you car’s nose in front and you have right-of-way. There don’t appear to be any other driving rules enforced except to drive on the right! Everywhere we have driven in Turkey we have remarked on the huge numbers of Police vehicles patrolling the highways. Policing taken to the nth degree much more than what would appear necessary.
Looking at a Turkish TV channel’s weather map, we have been very lucky. Absolutely perfect
days, ambient temperatures of 10 to 26 degrees Celsius and cloudless deep blue skies entice us onto the road. Being so high here (3000 metres) the sky looks a lot darker than at lower altitudes. However, the rain is coming according to their Weather Man, with a bit of luck, we will be driving south towards Ankara, and the rain may follow us down from the mountains.
Went for a walk this morning and the quietness is astounding…almost quiet enough to hear your own heartbeat but not quite. The other night, going over to dinner, I again thought to myself how quiet it was and then, away, way in the distance I could swear I heard a wolf howling! I asked the manager about wolves and yes, there are many in the forests, with bears, deer, wildcats and all sorts of other nasties! Yet we haven’t seen a single spider or spider’s web and the flies are rather annoying when walking in the open air. Once they have found you, they send out urgent messages to their mates and suddenly you have many, many ‘friends’ all trying to share your eyes, nostrils, ears, and, if you are foolish enough to open your mouth, what you had for breakfast.
Many of the mountain roads have been ‘cobbled’. This I can understand because cobblestones can survive the heat and cold cycles of the hot summers and freezing, snow-bound winters in Turkey. Driving on them is another thing. They set up a whine and rumble sound that exactly mimics the sound of driving with a flat tyre. In addition, they are slippery and, due to the onslaught of summers and winters past, they have developed ridges and hollows not unlike a low swell on the sea. This causes the car to sort of, slide down into a low point then skid side-ways as the cobbles form a ridge. Most disconcerting. The cobbles do have another advantage; they make every driver slow down a huge amount.
Turkish maniac drivers abound and on the mountain switchback roads, there is always one who screams up behind you from the last bend, twenty metres back, blows his horn and scoots around you down the highway at breakneck speed. Unbelievable to watch them skid from one corner into another…they must all think they are the world’s best rally drivers. If they did misjudge a corner, one would never know, the drop-off is thousands of feet almost vertically down…any car leaving the road at these points would roll, head over heels, for a good three or more minutes and would, once stopped, be invisible from the road!!!
Back at the Resort, the chalet rooms are sometimes, heated. We have yet to find out what the controls are for when the heaters are on or off, for that matter. They are steam heaters, one or two in every room including the bathroom and entry foyer. The are absolutely magic for drying wet or newly washed clothes. They were on at 1400 the other day when the outside temperature was over 22, which made us open some windows in the apartment, because it was stifling! Then at another time, it was very cold, inside and out with a stiff breeze and no heaters? I asked the management what controls the heaters? His ambiguous answer has us totally confused. “…We can arrange to have the heaters on every day in your apartment but this will substantially increase your electricity charges…” so we said not to worry. Electric Steam Heaters? Something doesn’t jell here! We seem to strike out…when we have a lot of wet washing, no heaters…when we don’t wash clothes, the heaters somehow know and come on! If we find them on, or realise they have just come on and race away and do some washing…the heaters go off an hour later! I’ll bet that they will come on the moment we leave the apartment, to check-out on Saturday morning.
Just back from dinner and we have noticed with the cuisine at the Resort and the endless advertising on twenty Turkish TV channels that the diet is very limited. We have seen sides of beef going into butcher shops, cattle, sheep and goats in the fields. To us outsiders, it appears that the bulk meat is reduced to ground meat, which is then made into sausages, rissoles or similar or the bulk meat is cut down and ‘cubed’ for stews. Either way, the bulk of their meat dishes consist of a stew made with cubed meat (beef, lamb/goat or chicken) or sliced up sausages and/or meatballs of various types all in a wish-washy sauce with plenty of vegetables. The difference between what dishes are named, appears to be the type of meat and the various spices that are added.
The only difference is kebabs made from big pieces of chicken, lamb or beef interposed with chunky-cut vegetables. We have not seen a roast, a pie, a chop or a steak since we entered Turkey. Their top priority seems to be the multiple variety of very good salads and their glorious Bread! What a pity we have been unable to find any salted butter anywhere…what passes as butter is a white, soapy grease called ‘somethingmarjsomething’…so we presume it is margarine.
Tonight must be some sort of official day. The fire in the main lounge is alight and roaring. This fireplace can take pine logs, two-foot in diameter and four-foot long and still leave room to roast a lamb on a spit above. It would have to be lamb or goat…pigs are not seen and/or pork and pork products are just not available throughout Islamic Turkey. Pity, I could go a good serving of roast suckling-pig right now! Look out Malaysia…Sweet and Sour Pork, Roast Suckling-Pig, and…dammit, a simple HAM sanger will do!
Found a Resort-waiter tonight, who speaks fairly good English. This gave me the opportunity to ask what is the history behind all the paintings, photographs and statues (all over Northern Turkey) depicting young women hauling ammunition and guns over mountainous terrain in the middle of winter. The young woman is a national heroine and was leader of the Peasant-Womens’ resistance in 1921. This resistance group helped bring about the end of the Turkish War of Independence against a combined force of Greeks and Italians, which, at the end of the First World War, thought that a badly mauled Turkey would be a pushover for their joint expansionist plans. The Greek/Italian forces were thoroughly thrashed!!! Turkey has been independent since the Ottoman Empire and still is!
I have been wondering if I should go back and number the pages in each journal story? But then again, I have them combined into a straight, single document and I will number the pages there should it ever go into print!
Enough for now, there is nothing on 27channels of Turkish TV…well nothing I can understand! And so to bed, Cheers, Lynne
