Time to leave the loop.

If Istanbul struck me immediately as awesome, Antalya is just the opposite. Within a few minutes of arriving in the giant bus station I wanted to leave again, and the rest of the day didn't improve much. I'm sure the town has some good history, but right now it's crowds of complaining expats, Russians who look like they want to fight Rocky, and two (count 'em, two) things to look at.

That was fine with me though, since I was sporting a modest sunburn from my walk, my feet were still red and raw, and it was 37 C / 100 F yesterday. Cold drink and a seat in the shade, please.

The town grew on me a little though, particularly last night when I found myself in a park, at night, unconcerned about taking my camera out. Turkey so far has been a wonderfully safe experience, I have barely even had a sketchy feeling as I wander backstreets. (Maybe they just have discerning eyes for cameras, and know that 97% of the other tourists have cameras worth way more than mine.)

I'm knocking on the wood of my breakfast table as I talk about how safe it is, though. In a couple hours I fly to Diyarbakir, in far Eastern Turkey, which has a much less savory reputation. From there I plan to travel south to Mardin, a city that has lodged itself in my brain as someplace I need to go. I can't tell if the fact that it's quite literally 5 miles from the Syrian border is a plus or a minus in my mind.

I have nearly no idea of what to expect. Guide books from several years ago don't even mention Mardin, but a couple years ago they started including the place that has been “unofficially closed to tourism for 30 years due to the violent rebel conflict in the area”. It sounded like the Wild West, but then in this year's guide book, it mentions that tourism is flourishing.

If it's flourishing enough to have reliable internet access, I'll tell you what I find.

Otherwise, see you May 8 in Istanbul, the same day the Kurdish guerrilla fighters are scheduled to begin withdrawing from the Mardin area...

Antalya was consummately on the tourist loop. I'm ready to get off it.

Let's get lost until we bleed

The hostel in Fethiye was full, but they let me sleep on one of the hookah-smoking platforms on the covered terrace for half the price, so I woke to a view over the Aegean as the sun lurked below the mountainous horizon. That's a good way to start a day.

A good way to keep it going is a nice long walk through sun-soaked Turkish pine forest. So I did that.

After World War I, civil war broke out between the Greek and Turkish speaking populations in Anatolia, and religious differences made sure it was vicious. A 1923 peace treaty included a forced exchange of 1,200,000 Greek-speaking Christians for 400,000 Turkish-speaking Muslims between the areas that became the two countries.

Until a few years ago there was a woman living outside the town of Kayaköy, a few miles from Fethiye, who remembered helping carry her friend Maria's possessions down to the boats, and kept a chest they couldn't carry for the rest of her life, just in case her friend should return.

The people who resettled in Kayaköy were farmers who needed land but found the area unacceptable, and after a few years the town was abandoned.

An entire abandoned town? Sounds like a destination worth walking to.

I started on the 9 kilometer walk, delighted to find a trail which alleviated walking for two hours along the side of a busy road. The music was good (it's now the soundtrack for my walk, not just Gladiator), the sun was warm, and my legs felt invincible. Travelgasmic, if you don't mind the term.

I was enjoying myself so much, that in a fit of adventurous optimism I decided to explore a side road with the hope that it too would lead to Kayaköy.

It didn't.

After at least an hour of tortoises, dung beetles, and old women in bright headscarves herding gnarly sheep over rugged terrain, I came around a bend in the road to see my path extending out in front of me. And out. And out. It curved back and reached the horizon way off in the wrong direction. Nine Inch Nails' song “Corona Radiata” came on, and I thought I was going to die.

I hate backtracking, but I like living to see the next day.

I was still resisting turning around when I found a fountain-thing, with a pipe pouring water straight out of the hillside. There was a glass on top, so I took the vote of confidence and filled my water bottle. Turned out to be a good call, since the two-hour walk would take me nearly five.

I worked my way back, and descended the other side of the ridge, seeing the cluster of lifeless gray buildings approaching on the other side of a shallow valley.

A tourist kitsch bonanza has grown up at the base of the “abandoned” town, and I was having trouble finding my way through it and into the actual crumbling streets when a car suddenly backed up right next to me.

“If you run me over, I'm gonna be pissed...” I muttered, until I saw that it was my adopted Turkish Grandpa and family. Gramps!

They showed me where I could ascend the slope, then went on their guardian angel way after Grampops made sure that I had found a good place to stay.

The town was not much to speak of, and the glaring sun was beyond my skill to produce any good pictures, but that was okay because even if my legs were invincible, my feet were not.

In a fit of get-this-shopping-trip-over-with a year ago I bought sandals a couple sizes too large. The straps had now rubbed the tops of my feet raw, and as usual, my ankle was nice and garishly bloody. They are just short of smelling bad enough to require replacing, and I am looking forward to the day.

I hobbled around for awhile, then descended to search for the bus back. I tried a likely spot, but got nothing but periodic facefulls of dust from passing cars. Where was the bus?

I had a question, a problem, a need. I'll give you one guess who showed up. I kid you not.

Grandpa's daughter showed me where to wait, and before long I was riding home, talking to a young Aussie couple on one side, and an expat English retiree on the other (who told me about the local woman and Maria).

Even on a day where you almost wander off to your death, the Travel Gods may well be ready to help (with a little help from your Turkish grandpa).

Grandpa for the day

Rockface tombs above Fethiye

When we got to Aydin, the driver of the dolmuş shuttle bus gestured me to go with an older Turkish man who was also headed to Fethiye, and could show me where to buy a ticket.

The older guy didn't look quite sure what to do with the American stray who had suddenly been dropped in his lap. We established that I speak no Turkish, then when he tried German I answered in Dutch and we agreed, with much hand gesturing, that the two languages are similar.

The ticket seller asked my temporary Grandpa's name, but didn't feel like trying a foreign one so issued side-by-side tickets to Mehmet, meaning technically I couldn't get on without him. My Turkey-gramps was not yet done with me, I guess.

We stood in the bus station for about an hour, surrounded by clouds of cigarette smoke from the bus company men. The vendors smoked with one hand while they passed bread with the other. Passengers, men and women, stood by their bags and sucked in nicotine. Adolescent boys held cigarettes between lips that don't yet require shaving. I'm pretty sure I saw a stray cat or two puffing away in the shadows.

When our bus came, my loaner Grandpa and I stood outside to keep an eye on our baggage underneath it, agreeing through gestures that it was a noddingly good idea to wait until they closed it before getting on.

It was only a four and a half hour ride to Fethiye, but the bus companies aren't in too much of a hurry, and we had two rest stops. Each time, Gramps and I would stand outside the bathroom (“Tuvalet”) and try to converse with GermaDutchesturing and much chuckling.

My new grampy is a thorough man, and when we arrived in Fethiye he gestured me to wait while he made a phone call, then explained “mein tochter...ah...English...hotel...du”. His daughter did indeed speak English, and she told me about a shuttle into town and where the budget hotels were clustered.

I already have families in two countries, but suddenly it felt like a third.

Teşekur edirim, Turkish grandpa!

Zeus is just the beginning.

Today was a beautiful day for love at first sight, and then heartbreak.

I took a local shuttle bus, a “dolmuş” in Turkish, to The Cave of Zeus, (one of three hereabouts) named for the legend that young Zeus, being a mischievous godling, would antagonize his brother Poseidon, then hide out in a cave until the storm blew over, so to speak.

The cave was filled with lucid water tinted blue with minerals, and cold enough to require a little pep-talk before I jumped in. Bracing. Do I have super powers now?

But if the cave belongs to Zeus, then the path leading to it belongs to Cupid.

I could hear her cries from a fair distance away, and it took a minute to find her. She stood, unsteady, plainly in need of assistance and love.
And probably some milk.

I don't know where her mother was, but this kitten was far too cute to be left alone, so I volunteered for a few minutes. Then a second shift. After a pep-talk longer than the one required to dive into freezing water, I managed to put her down and walk away.

But then she would immediately chase after me, mewling desperately, fuzzy kitten paws clumsy as she romped-ran after me. Still no sign of cat or human to take care of the little thing, and the sound of a kitten's purr is surprisingly effective at manipulating full-grown human males. (And no it's not just me; one of the things I love about Turkey is that the men, so brusque, stern, and mustachioed, clearly have a nationwide soft spot for felines.)

Tourists of various nationalities passed me on their way to the cave, inevitably pausing to coo at the wee fuzzball. And time after time, as they returned to their cars after seeing Zeus's cave, there I was, still unable to walk away from this kitten.

Ruthless cuteness.

More of the cute kitten pictures on the wordpress version

But I finally had to go, after seriously considering bringing her back to the hostel as their new mascot. Walking away from her plaintive cries was awful!

Luckily the rest of the day was a walk along a winding road through Dilek Yarimadasi National Park, where new (to me) Black Keys, Elbow, and Macklemore songs had me feeling fine. My shirt went in the bag and the politely earnest Turkish sun warmed my shoulders and the pavement with equal magnanimity.

I took a swim in the surprisingly cold Aegean Sea, pointed Odysseus towards Ionia, and sat down to a cold soda and some sudoku, the sun drying my back. Not too shabby.

Behind me a foursome of pensioner Australians made of leather and goodnatured sass were being themselves, and I noticed when their chortling turned to alarm. I looked up to see the cafe's adorable dog, a white retriever of muddy forepaws and drippy smiles, being attacked and chased by two absolutely massive wild pigs, while I third looked on with porcine belligerence.

Luckily the hound was fast enough, and the pigs went along their way without tangible mayhem. The Aussies and I looked at each other, curious if the other could name that feeling. I went with “You don't see that every day” and went back to my sudoku.

It was about a 7 kilometer walk back to the entrance, where I hoped to find another dolmuş back to Kuşadasi. I paid my dirham and started up the road, and was joined by the retriever, who followed a pace behind me in the proper regional dynamic. Once we were out of sight of the cafe her/his boisterous nature prevailed and off s/he went, sniffing stuff, peeing on it, and looking for more.

For the second time that day I was in love, and named my companion Horace.

But I was running on two consecutive days of well-above-average sun exposure, and my skin felt like pancakes ready to leave the grill, so when a car passed, I stuck out a thumb. It sped by, and Horace and I continued on, only to see it reversing back around the turn to get me.

The young Turkish couple seemed willing to take both me and my dog, but I managed to sign-language that Horace was not actually mine. So for the second time that day I had to move away from an animal love, innocent and pure, explanations impossible.

Today was a beautiful day for love at first sight, and then heartbreak, twice.

I enjoy being abandoned by the side of the highway in a foreign land.

I woke up on the side of a warm highway, somewhere in Turkey.

My bus was getting smaller in one direction, while from the other a tractor was approaching with more noise than speed, and to both sides stretched farm fields of small trees growing...something, presumably. Apricots?

The morning sun was slanting straight into my eyes, my mouth tasted like I'd eaten the last portion of a tavuk kebab sometime during the early morning hours, and I noticed I was wearing my backpack, although the belt strap wasn't fastened yet.

With effort I remembered leaving Istanbul the day before. Cramming myself into the third tram to stop at Sultanahmet after the first two repulsed my efforts, then standing in the sardiney insanity of rush hour in front of a guy who kept sighing and grunting in irritation, somehow unaware of the horrid stench that came out of his smoker mouth every time. Rush hour is a crime against humanity.

A couple bus stations, and a small screen with first Bruce Willis bleeding, then kung fu, all of it in Turkish. At some point the bus drove onto a boat, and we crossed dark water glittering orange with reflected light from the armada of other ferries crossing the Sea of Marmara in every direction.

There was one giant restaurant bus stop complex that stank like old urine, and one where I didn't bother getting off the bus. Then a fuzzy recollection of the bus kid waking me up and gesturing that I should get off, here, among the orchards on a stretch of unlabeled pavement in a foreign land.

Okay then. But what now?

The morning sun gave a sharp slant to the shadows of trees lining a nice path that paralleled the highway. It ended to my left, and hopefully began in the town of Selçuk somewhere to my right. I started that way, passing farm driveways where guard dogs looked at me with sleepy requests that I not make them work yet. I was happy to oblige.

Between the trees and above the fields, the parapet outlines of a hilltop fortress were matte finished by the morning haze, though I could see the rich red of Turkish flags hung down the walls. Was that were I was going?

I found Love Street, where the tourist infrastructure was still sleeping, chairs piled inside the Turkish ice cream stand and rugs not yet hauled out to sit in the sun, and on a side street was a guesthouse that I'd read about online before leaving Istanbul. The reviews had been positive, but they hadn't mentioned the small cat who ran down the steps to meet me, climbed into my lap, then up on my shoulders.

Okay small feline one, I'll stay here.

As soon as they wake up.

Shock and awe

The Hagia Sophia

I've reached saturation point. I can't take any more. I am in stunning-mosque shock, have had all the beautiful Istanbul views I can handle...and I feel like a toy with the battery taken out.

The Hagia Sofia, or Ayasofya, is an absolutely amazing place, well worth the wait and fee. I could have wandered around there for days. I don't know if this is the best photo, because my eye can't differentiate between the variations of beauty any more.

Any walk on the streets of Istanbul is a spectacle of sound, smell, and sight, and if there is rain touching your face or you stop to eat something, you can involve those senses too. Busy streets make room for small red carts cooking corn on the cob and/or chestnuts, and the smoke is part of the air here.

The Sultanahmet Camii (aka Blue Mosque) is another gorgeous place, worth more of my time than I had to give it, though since then I have visited two more epic mosques whose own visions of exquisite architecture hold strong in my memory. In the last one I realized after a few dozen photos that I was kind of phoning it in, my eye worn out on soaring arches and details climbing massive walls over intricate carpets layered in history.

But all of that beauty is something I can handle. My battery, my core, that left yesterday on a flight to Brussels. My walks have a little of the flavor of city-wide mopes, and I'm not sure if I'm walking because I want to see, can't think of anything else to do, or because I am scared to sit still.

Istanbul is among my favorite places on Earth, and I think I would like to come back here, but right now I need a change of scenery.

Sultanahmet Camii, the Blue Mosque

Besides, people have started asking me for directions, and that's always a sign that I've been somewhere long enough.

So in my bag is a bus ticket to Selçuk, which is the accommodation town for the ruins of Ephesus, and is rumored to be a nice little spot in its own right. It's about 550 kilometers from here, and will take upwards of ten hours on an overnight bus.

Sleeping on buses is a hit-or-miss thing for me, and though I tried to sleep in this morning, the Call to Prayer, beautiful as it is, is hard to ignore. It may be a long night.

I'll set this to post after midnight (if I can figure out how) and let you know tomorrow what state of reality I was in when it posted...

Istanbul makes a man out of me

It was K who noticed the barber shop. “Did you want a haircut?”

My head felt like a chia pet left untended somewhere with plenty of water and sunlight, and it was speeding through my supply of tiny bottles of hotel shampoo. I would have gotten it cut in Belgium, but I suspected a Turkish haircut might be interesting.

Good call.

A not-tall man with short gray hair was reading the paper when I opened the door, and gestured me to a seat. He spoke no English, and I can only say “thank you” in Turkish, but my gestures and shoulder shrug of “something like that” were met with a nod of understanding.

He started with the buzzer, which seemed to have a hard time with my long hair. One spot in particular was giving him trouble, and he went over it again and again, slowly, until I looked in the mirror and saw he was watching the TV in the corner, where overly emotive sighs and gasps sounded like an adult movie.

We see you watching TV, Mr. Barber Man

It wasn't the first time a barber has gotten sucked into a soap opera while cutting my hair, but as long as he wasn't holding anything sharp, I didn't mind.

After the buzzer came the scissors, and soon I felt ready to go. But we weren't done.

He asked something in Turkish, and I agreed. Why not? He pulled me forward and pushed my head into the sink, and I retroactively heard the word “shampoo” in his question. Shampoo what is 97% buzzcut? Oh well.

It was the first time someone else has washed my hair since Jennifer, the Elizabeth Shue lookalike who was the object of one of my 6,000 Middle School crushes. It was kind of nice, actually.

Another old Turkish man had come in by the time the barber was toweling my head dry, and for some reason, there under the towel, I got the giggles. I tried to stifle it before either man noticed, or the concealing towel was removed.

“Why is he giggling?”

“I don't know. I do nothing. I just wash his hair.”

“Foreigners are very strange people.”

Thanks to K for the photos in the mirror

Luckily I was composed in time, because we still weren't done. Next was a warm-foam shave with one of those little brushes and a straight razor. A friend once recommended I have this done in New York, saying it would make me feel like a million bucks. I should have taken his advice. There is something relaxing in a uniquely manly way about having another man scrape your face and throat with a razor blade.

We still weren't done. Next: aftershave. The kid in Home Alone was overreacting, but I see his point.

Still not done. A cotton swab swished around in my ear, then out came the cigarette lighter. I have the fuzzy ears of an 80 year old man, but Turkish Barber was going to help me. With artistic brushes of flame, he singed those bad boys right off.

Almost done. Just a few puffs of cologne across my chest, and I was ready, emerging onto the Istanbul street a new man.

Or at least smelling like one.

Teşekür ederim, Mr Barber Man.

It's all ending; it's all beginning.

On the night I left for Nicaragua, a year and a week ago exactly, I took a moment on the drive to the airport to take my hands off the wheel (the road was clear and it was just a moment) as an acknowledgment to the gods of Travel and Chance (who are cousins) that I was not in control of the world, then I took the wheel to start piloting my way as best I could.

This time I have no illusions; I am not remotely in control. The foundation of my life as I know it, the incarnation that began four years ago when I became more the person I am today, has crumbled out from beneath me.

I've made mistakes I never thought I would make, and I don't yet understand how. Four years ago I changed who I was, and I thought that meant I knew myself. Turns out I was wrong, I'm not yet there. I've had blessing beyond belief in this life; love and friendship to make the angels cry, but there is something missing, something in me that I've lost sight of.

I don't know exactly how to find it, but my path starts now. I am sitting in a corner cafe in the airport in Istanbul, where they charged me more for the orange juice (whose price is not obviously listed) than they did for the sandwich (which is), and looked uncomfortable when I remarked on it.

I guess that's the lesson: it's easy to be good when everyone is watching, but it's what you do when you can get away with it that counts.

K gets here on the next flight, T minus three hours and counting, and leaves on Sunday, D minus 3.5 days and counting.

So the next few days will be an Eden of company, then a Hell of farewell.

And after that?

I have no idea.

Walking in the world

They spoke Dutch when I got on the train and French when I got off, though the ads were always English.

Brussels North Station is next to the Red Light District and surrounded by neighborhoods of Middle Eastern immigrants, so you quickly go from women showing most of their skin to women showing none.

On the street I heard Turkish, Arabic, and Farsi, though I confess I cannot always tell the difference between the last two.

I started off walking but it was farther than I thought, and I was running by the time I found the embassy I needed, between those of Ghana and Lesotho.

Walking back, I heard Spanish, saw a note posted above a mailbox in Polish, and bought a piece of the tortilla-like flatbread I used to eat in Morocco, which I remember being called msemin, though I can google no confirmation of that.

As I ate, I passed a corner store called “Madina-gsm” (Americans: gsm is European for cell phone), which advertised calling cards to Kenya.

I stopped to take a picture of a blue door, and the names on the mailboxes were Azzaimi, Garcia, Deryckere, Ahmed El Kamoun, Boeckx, Tsuranova, and Baschirov.

Brussels gets a bad rap in my opinion (though I wouldn’t necessarily want to live there) but as I walked back to the train station with my visa for Myanmar in my passport, I was in love with the brazen internationality of it.

That’s a good sign, since I’ll catch a flight to Turkey in three days.

I have good news for you. Are you ready?

You know how governments are useless at best, and evil at worst? And how everything was better back in The Good Old Days, is going downhill, and basically the world is totally screwed?

Wrong and wrong and only partially right! (We're not talking about the environment today.)

This one is relevant because it's in
Brussels, the UN capital,
and I think it's purty.

I submit for your consideration this article about how every country that the UN has data for has made improvements over the last decade or so in a number of areas, according to the annual Human Development Report.

I've noticed that few people actually follow links, so I'll save you the time and give a couple quick quotes.

“in fact, 'all countries' have 'accelerated their achievements' in education, health, and income. Not a single country for which data was available scored lower on the UNDP's human development index than they had 12 years earlier.”

“For example, violent conflicts are on the decline and freedom (in the form of electoral democracies) is on the march. Indeed, inter-state war has largely disappeared from the global system; and when conflicts do occur, they tend to be far less violent.”

I hadn't thought of that. How often do nations go to war against other nations anymore? Not that it can't happen again, or that other conflicts aren't horrible, but the level of organization and industrialization of death that can be realized by a nation-state is capable of creating far more misery than any militia, as far as I can tell.

“there will by the end of the decade be approximately 3.25 billion members of the middle class, a dramatic leap from the 1.8 billion of just 4 years ago.

More people around the world can read and write; more go to school, more attend college and more women are getting an education than ever before. The latter point is of critical importance because we know that female education is one of the single most important development tools”

This one's relevant because that rabbit clearly
knows the good news.

Yes and yes! And as for the news-network-forcefed talking point that governments are inherently useless: “All of this good news hasn't happened by accident. As the HDR makes clear (pdf), they are the direct result of governmental policies on economic, trade and public investment, including a particular focus on investments in health and education.”

And to back this up, good old TedTurner asserts that without the UN, “World War III would have already been fought and we as a species would have lost.”

It all kind of falls apart if you think about the environment, but for now, I'm just going to focus on the fact that humans, lots of them, are productively working to make life better for lots of others.

And that's today's good news. I just thought you should know.

Life is one big game of Super Mario Bro's

My brother-in-law pointed it out.

We were talking about how to drive a hybrid car in the most efficient way possible, and noting that even though our efforts didn't make much of a difference, we couldn't help but try our best.

I thought it was just an ecological ethos, but I think he had the right of it.

“We were raised on video games; we want the top score.”

They were more right than I realized until now

My video game credentials are pretty poor. The last system I played on a regular basis was Sega Genesis, which dates me to about 1992. “Look! Three buttons!”

I've played a little playstation 2, and found being a Spartan warrior with swords flying off one's forearms to be eminently enjoyable, but most modern video games make me yearn for a game of freecell and/or a good book.

In '92 I liked Mortal Kombat, with 8 characters and half a dozen moves. I tried Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance around 2005 and lasted about five minutes. 22 characters, each with three different fighting styles, 3D movement...I was already nauseous.

I just want to hit C rapidly. Sega hockey was in my wheelhouse.

But that fundamental video game frame of reference persists, and combines well with my OCD tendencies until I have a particular method for most everyday tasks. I don't have to follow them, I'm not that neurotic, but I prefer to rinse dishes over the other soapy ones so the falling water does half my job for me, and if left to my own devices I will pre-sort the groceries before putting them away so that everything that goes in the refrigerator is laid out within arm's reach.

The less time the refrigerator door is open, the better score I get.

But one of the cardinal joys of video gaming is harder to find in real life: the level up.

I am in the intermediate stages of teaching myself to juggle, I count that as a level up, but yesterday I received a more tangible example.

The customs stamp for Iceland joined one for Morocco on the penultimate page of my passport. The rest are an artwork of ink fading faster than their corresponding memories. With Asia on the horizon, I was out of room.

Three hours of torture in the waiting room of the US Embassy in Brussels, where CNN blared its relentless assault of profane idiocy at us (arguing about Michael Jackson's doctor? Really? Really?), an $82 fee(!), and I now have a Level 3 passport.

(It was the same price to add 24 pages as 48, so I skipped right over Level 2.)

All those pristine pages...I can't wait to start putting stamps in there. Think of the XP I will earn!