Turkey, first impressions.

The photo above was taken from Kos, and is of the sun setting over the hills in Turkey. You may have thought that Turkey was east of Greece, but then the whole thing about Turkey is that East and West are bashed against each other and come out the scuffle with little of their original meaning attached. (The country with its head in the west, and its heart in the east, as the saying goes.)

I arrived at my hotel a bit frazzled from an early start, passport hassles, and finding a taxi at the docks, but was pleasantly surprised when the hotel owner came out to welcome me, payed my taxi fare, then sat me down and gave me a free welcome beer. As I later sat enjoying a flawless shish tawouk (grilled and spiced chicken), I had a strange feeling that after long wanderings I had finally come home (strange mainly because I have never set foot in this country before).

I can trace it partly to the friendly welcome, partly to the years spent with my great friend Yalchin, who taught me so much about Turkish food, coffee, and the culture in general, all of which I now see in their natural habitat. I have lately been immersed in Orhan Pamuk's book of childhood reminiscences of Istanbul, so maybe that's part of it. But it also reminded me of a similar feeling I (and others) had when returning to Egypt after visiting Israel... I'll leave the interpretation of that to others.

Well, that's my impression after one afternoon, lets see what happens next, but so far I am loving it!

I am in Bodrum, a little resort town just across from Kos. All day there was a big fire looming down the hills towards the harbour, which cut off all electricity and water supplies for some reason, but things seem to be back to normal now...



That's it for now...
xx all.