After 1,500 very hilly miles and 2 months on the roads of Turkey I wanted to blog about some of the many memorable aspects of Turkish society as experienced from a bicycle!
Turkish Generosity & Hospitality
We have been totally humbled and in awe of Turkish hospitality and generosity. I have never known anything like it and it has left a huge impression on me. Throughout Turkey people have been giving us free food and drink and offering their help at almost every turn. As an example, we stopped one afternoon for a drink and an old timer came over and bought us tea, while we were drinking the tea a man selling simits (a popular bread snack) gave us each a free simit. An hour of cycling later we stopped by the roadside to eat the simits and a man dashed into his house and came out and gave us 2 ayrans each (a type of yogurt drink)!
On countless occasions we trıed to buy food and drink only to be given it free. When camping rough, farmers would come over and give us their produce - sometimes to comic effect - twice we were given 4 melons, impossible to carry on the bikes and resulting in bloated melon bellies.
Whenever we have paused to look at the map drivers have stopped to check we are ok and when cycling up mountains truck drivers have pulled over to offer us a lift over the top. Even the Jandarma (army police) have offered us lifts and given us food and drink!
We have been most touched by the hospitality shown us by the kurdish families on whose doors we knocked on in the dark asking for a place to pitch the tent - who invited us into their homes and gave us food and drink and a place to stay (and even a wash) - and did so with such pleasure and asked for nothing in return.
Beep Beep! BEEEEEP! Beepedy Bloody Beepedy Beep Beep!!!
Our presence on the roads of Turkey caused much excitement amongst the Turks. On our way into Istanbul we were beeped as a friendly gesture by 86 vehicles in 50 miles. This did not include the 'get out of the way before I run you off the road' beeps which were probably equal in number, or the people shouting greetings or waving from vehicles or the roadside. We estimated that someone was beeping or shouting at us every 2 minutes. This is a fantastically positive experience for the first hour of the first day but regrettably wears thin very quickly - especially truck drivers blasting their horns in our ears at a range of 2 feet. Out east it is a rarity when a driver does not beep at us and we also have whole villages full of children rushing down to the road to wave and shout at us (and throw the odd stone!). After 2 months of constant beeping there have been days when T has been about ready to do the next 'beeper' in. So much for quiet roads!!!
Call to Prayer
The 5 times a day call to prayer belted out through tanoy systems on the minarets and mosques almost becomes a soundtrack for travelling in the muslim world. Depending on the situation it has felt exotic, romantic, soulful, a raucous din, intimidating and nearly always atmospheric (except at 5am when you are trying to sleep!).
The Shame of Turkey's Rivers
I have never known a nation turn its back on its rivers and waterways like the Turks. I have never before seen rivers that run black, that you can smell a long way before you can see them, rivers that are full of plastic bags and dumped rubbish. I don't mean one or two rivers - I mean nearly every river we saw except those in the mountains that had not yet had the chance to be abused. Apparently 75% of industrial waste goes straight into Turkey's waterways untreated.
The real insanity is that all the industrial and domestic pollutants and rubbish are all flowing into the Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas and will eventually wash up on Turkish beaches destroying the tourist industry that is so important to them economically. Perhaps only then will they do something.
The Turks love their nation and sometimes that is justified but they should be ashamed of what they are doing to their waterways.
Çay (pronounced chai) - Tea
Çay is the national drink. Turks drink it everywhere and at all times. In some places it seems that the men do nothing but sit around in huddles on tiny stools drinking tea all day. It is served black in a small tulip shaped glass on a small saucer and drunk sweet (2 sugar cubes is common). The Kurds put the sugar cube in their mouths and then drink the tea.
As we have cycled along it feels like we've been beckoned over to every shop, restaurant, petrol station, tea room, workers hut, picnic and roadside stall to drink tea - very often given free. If we had accepted even half these offers we would still be on our way to Istanbul!
Drinking çay is a social experience and we have enjoyed the interaction it has given us with local men and honed Tracey's pictionary skills as we tried to communicate with them. In this respect Ramadam was a major blow as no-one could eat or drink during daylight hours (when we were cycling through) there was no çay to be had and no social interaction - we would buy food and drink and then cycle out of town to consume them out of sight.
The Rubbish Dilemma
Turks do not see litter - at least not in the way Europeans do. Rubbish is thus dumped everywhere. Many (most!) small towns and villages do not have a proper rubbish dump and instead it is just dumped in a strip along the main road into town and periodically set fire to. Something you might not notice too much ıf whizzing past in a car but something which seems quite terrible and interminable when going 3mph up a hill in the heat of summer. As you might imagine the wind scatters plastic bags (for which the Turks have a mania) across the countryside for miles around. Some dumps seem strategically placed to facilitate this process (ie on sides of windy hills)!
Our dilemma was thus: We would camp out in the countryside and diligently collect every tiny piece of non-biodegradable waste we produced and take it away with us to put in the bin in the first town we came to - whereupon it would be carted back to the countryside to be blown around.
Roadworks Rant
Please allow me a rant. Turkish roadworks have been doing my head in for 2 months. It has to be fair to say that when it comes to roadworks the Turks are not completer/finishers. At times its felt like half the nations roads are undergoing 'improvements' - widening to 4 lanes, resurfaced or diverted to a new road - yet we didn't see a single traffic jam outside Istanbul or Ankara and many roads had less traffic than a quiet country road back home.
My gripe is that the roads are dug up for huge stretches (eg 100 miles) and the traffic is expected to drive through the roadworks - negotiating miles of mud, potholes, loose aggregates and huge construction vehicles is not much bother in a car but is a nightmare on a bicycle, when in addition you have to deal with aggregates vehicles thundering past, covering you in dust and blasting their horns in greeting! Many a good days ride was ruined by having to cycle for hours through what was effectively a construction site. The maddening thing is that they seem to have no intention of finishing the improvements, which are surely just employment schemes. On one 150km stretch of works there was only one tarmac vehicle and on another there were small bushes growing out of the 'improvement' it had been waiting so long to be surfaced!
Güzel!!
The Turks have a great expression for indicating if something is good - they touch all fingers and thumb together and raise the hand which is then shaken - if they are within speaking distance this is accompanied by the phrase for good, 'güzel'. Turkey is always referred to this way. On good days when the weather has been fine and we have been cruising along drivers have waved the 'guzel' gesture at us as they passed to show their appreciation of our efforts. However they also have another hand gesture which is the hand held flat with the palm raised upwards and the hand moved up - this seems to mean 'what the hell are you doing you crazy lunatics' and is most commonly seen when we are half way up some enormous mountain in the rain as darkness approaches!!
Attaturk
Attaturk or 'father turk' (real name Mustafa Kemal) was the founder of the modern Turkish state and is revered in Turkey in a way that I have not seen anywhere else. There is not a town or village that does not have an Attaturk statue or road or school named after him. There is not a tea room or office that does not have a picture of him looking down upon you (often with an Attaturk quote). But unlike other dictatorships the Turks seem to have a genuine love and respect for this national hero. Cycling through Turkey his image is everywhere and one that seems to define the country in some way.
It's a Man's World
I will probably say more about women in muslim society once i've left the muslim world! For now its suffice to say it has been weird, especially in Eastern Turkey. To walk down a seemingly normal pedestrian street with hundreds of people about and then realise that there is not one woman among them - I can only try to imagine how Tracey must feel in a society where the public realm is almost entirely male. When we stop for supplies I go into the shop and when I come out Tracey is usually surrounded by an inquisitive group of about 10 males of all ages, which interestingly often seems to disperse once I reappear!!
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