The Mediterranean ... original colour ... I did nothing to it ... I think this blue is beautiful and so clear.
For those of you who have travelled, you will be aware of how intimidating travelling can be at times. Finding somewhere to stay, trying to navigate our way around a new city, a new culture and language can be a barrier at times. But we have found people to be very friendly and helpful when they can ... we have not been ripped of or conned yet by anyone in Turkey, at least not to our knowledge.
There are lots of people from Britain here. I guess Turkey is their 'go to' place for a summer vacation and I think that it is quite cheap and easy to get here ... of course the British pound is quite strong in the Turkish economy ... so they are getting plenty of bang for their buck so to speak. So are we!
Fethiyhe is right on the coast, it took us 14 hours to get here from Goreme ... there are heaps of yachts here. Some of them are stunning. I thought of Ben ... his love of yachting and the trip that he took Mike, Chris, Sash, Ashley, Angel and others on a few years ago. I can see the attraction. The ocean here is a beautiful colour and great swimming. If you love sailing you could have a fantastic time here on the ocean .... spending days sailing around the bays, swimming, fishing ... what else do they do? I guess eat, drink and be merry. We met two couples at our accommodation ... 1 from NZ and 1 from UK, who are of on a 8 day cruise. I was tempted!
Again we have had excellent accommodation ... we have met interesting people from all over the world ... they are a lot younger than us, of course ... we sit around chatting about where they have been, where they are going, how long they have been travelling for etc. We enjoy getting to know these people and learning about their lives.
We are taking our time ... neither of us feel a great sense of urgency ... we are going at our own pace. We both feel very grateful to be here and to see what we are seeing. We are doing well with our budget, but of course it is quite easy here. We take time to rest and relax ... we are spending a lot of time reading and loving it. Pete is reading 6 volumes of Winston Churchill and loving it. There is a lot of history relating to the first and second world wars that is very relevant to Turkey and Bulgaria. Pete spends quite a bit of time educating me ... we often talk about Rob and how much he would love Turkey and he probably would have planned to meet us in Gallipoli and talked Viv into coming along ... that would have been a treat! I can see Pete & Rob talking for hours about Churchill and the history of Turkey.
Where ever we go there are some remains of Christian life ... a church or a village ... Christians had a hard time here in Turkey, they gave a hard time as well. I am fascinated by the religious history here ... towns and villages were built around churches and they built a lot of them in small areas. I find that intriguing that so many people lived together and shared a similar belief that they built towns or villages around. Religion was important to these communities. The great gift of the west is to replace religion with money and things. I guess that is a philosophical discussion and I am really just raving, I may have it completely wrong. I see the west everywhere ... coke, music, dress, cars, Macdonalds ... what is it about us that other countries want so bad. I don't get it!
Turkey is a fascinating meeting place of East & West ... almost like a clash ... their toilets for example ... photos following. They have very good ATM machines, but businesses prefer being paid in cash. They are labour intensive ... they have someone to collect your money when you go to the toilet and clean the toilet several times a day ... I am not complaining ... I am happy to pay for a toilet because I know that it will be clean. At bus stop/depots they have someone to go along and yell out the name of the bus or where it is going and someone completely different driving the bus. BTW ... their buses are mini vans and get very full ... like people standing! There is someone on the mini van sometimes to take the money, who is not the driver. My biggest discovery is the tea men ... they have a little room where tea is made and then they put glass cups of tea on a tray with lumps of sugar on the side and go and deliver them to people in their businesses ... this is a full time job.
Photos ...
The Turkish Tea delivery man ... I found these men intriguing ... in his little kitchen, the size of an ensuite, is his wife brewing the tea to be delivered on his tray ... note the lumps of sugar. This is their work! Of course Turkey is known for their Tea.
The Balcony outside our room ... in Fethiyhe, the light is lovely in the morning and we found it so relaxing sitting here.
Pete and I having fun in the ocean on our day cruise round the bays ... we had a glorious time. The photographer on the boat was hounding everyone all day for their photo ... we were getting really annoyed. Of course at the end of the day he wanted to sell us a disc of all the photos he had taken, maybe 50 of them for 90TL (Turkish Lira), we said no. As we were coming back in to Fethiyhe, the photographer came up to Pete and said how much ... Pete said 20TL and he gave Pete the disc. Pete came back looking very pleased with himself!
Me jumping of the boat we were on ... so much fun in the ocean ... so warm.
We met this group of men on our boat ... they were holidaying together in Turkey ... from the UK. We had some pleasant chats with them and enjoyed their company ... Pete says our boat is more like a big yacht ... I regret we did not get a photo of it.
Hard not to become addicted to doing nothing but sunning and swimming ... that is what Turkey is all about really.
Kayakoy ... the deserted city ... I found this historical site upsetting ... all of these houses are ruins and empty.
Some close ups of the deserted homes ... I like the frames of their windows and doors in this house.
I think water was gathered in these ... it rained a lot in winter ... not much in summer. How did they stop it from going of??
Church ... on a hill ... there are three churches in this town.
The history of Kayakoy is disturbing for me. This village was inhabited by Greeks ... who had lived there for a few hundred years, they had established themselves successfully here and lived well with their Turkish neighbours who became their friends and part of their community ... they were a well integrated society. In the early 1920s there was a war between Greece and Turkey ... the war had a strong Christian verses Muslim flavour to it. In 1923 the war was settled and part of the settlement was that over a million Greeks living in Turkey were sent back to Greece and few hundred thousand Turks living in Greece were sent back to Turkey. Kayakoy was one of these Greek settlements ... virtually over night the people living here were sent back to Greece. At the turn of the 20th Century there was an estimated population of 2,000 people of Greek descent living here. Families living here left some of their precious belongings with their Turkish friends and neighbours, to look after until they came back to claim them ... they never came back. This story sounds so familiar to me ... somewhat like the colonisation of NZ and also our experience with River Road post 2011 EQ and living in the Red Zone. This must have been so traumatic for these people who had lived in Turkey for 100's of years ... established themselves successfully ... built schools, churches, work ... spoke Turkish and for all intents and purposes probably saw themselves as Turks ... to suddenly be told that you have to go somewhere else and never come back. You are no longer part of our communities or our country. This must have been so heart breaking for them. Kayakoy is the remains of their lives and their story. Even writing about it I feel so upset ... the loss must have been tremendous for them. When these people landed on the shores of Greece it was very difficult ... Greece had just lost a war ... they were economically poor and they did not have the infrastructure to integrate over a million people who suddenly landed on their doorstep. These Greek/Turkish refugees probably did not speak any Greek and were really immersed in Turkish culture ... I can only think what a shock it must have been for everyone ... that awful sense of feeling dislocated ... not knowing where home is anymore ... feeling completely disoriented ... where do I fit here ... where is my home ... the loss of their community and some cases the loss of family ... I remember those feelings when we left River Road and moved from Avonside Ward to Cashmere ... I felt so confused. I do realise that it is a poor comparison ... I/we did not have to move countries ... I still remember the sense of powerlessness and the tremendous sense of loss ... sometimes that can still feel quite raw for me. I cannot even begin to imagine how these people must have felt. I wonder how their Turkish friends and neighbours must have felt to see their good friends and in some cases family members ripped away from them with the stroke of a pen. Of course history is full of these kinds of stories ... the Berlin Wall is another example. When do we learn that people, their lives and relationships are so much more important than power and policy. If history is our teacher it would appear never!
Tombs in Fethiyhe ... they look so Gothic ... Dracula type ... there is a wonderful view over the Harbour from here. They are pretty run down.
We got of our bus too soon on our way back from Kayakoy and got a little lost ... we stumbled on a local food market.
Pete sitting in the doorway of the Big Tomb. I love Pete's smile. Feels like home to me.
More Tombs
No reason for this photo, I just liked all the colors ... and the light!
East (this will be familiar to those of you who have travelled through the East ... I have seen some pretty disgusting sights in this type of toilet ... when there is a choice I will always choose West for my toilet!)
Meets West ... choice.
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