Traveling- it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller…

I landed in the United Arab Emirates in March last year to spend time with my daughter and my two grandsons who were living in Sharjah (one of the 7 Emirates) at the time. My daughter and I planned a trip to Turkey for the Easter break. 

On a warm, very busy morning, Carter, my two year old grandson and I were sitting in the Sharjah airport coffee shop. Why? Because we had both been ushered through passport control with no suggestion that we had a choice. Alex, my daughter and George, my 4 year old grandson had been detained. At this point I was wondering if Carter and I were going to Turkey on our own or to be more honest, if we were going at all.

The reason I was at the coffee shop was that it was directly opposite where people emerged from Passport control so I felt that it was the best place to be. Clearly I had to buy something and it wasn’t like I didn’t need a coffee (although I could have gone something stronger, but as it was only 10am). Carter is a bit of a pushover when offered food so while feeding him some croissant, I hoped he couldn’t sense my intense disquiet. Of course, Carter needed to go to the toilet and you guessed it, while we were attending to that, Alex and George emerged and we missed them.

I knew that the Passport control officer was concerned that George had a British passport, and the rest of us did not, so she had demanded to see his Australian one. Alex explained that the Australian Passport had less than 6 months left on it so she thought she should use his British one. So while I waited with my coffee, Alex rang one of her neighbours and her colleague brought George’s Australian passport to her at the airport (A distinct advantage of leaving your house key at home and living in a close, safe community!) This took a while of course but thank goodness, this satisfied Passport Control.

So, I was still waiting at the coffee shop, not believing that the timing of the toilet break could actually coincide with Alex’s and George’s appearance. However, the next thing I remember was looking at my phone and seeing a message from Alex to say that the plane was boarding and where were we? I ran to the Security checkpoint. I say ran but in reality, it must have looked like I was both creating and trying to navigate an obstacle course. I stumbled, fumbled and juggled as hurriedly as was possible with the 2 year old, 3 backpacks and 2 carry on sized suitcases. (I had offered to take the majority of luggage from Alex, once she was detained as I imagined that she was going to have to catch a cab home and I was trying to lighten her load, physically and emotionally.)

I got through Security (without throwing Carter on the conveyor belt) and spotted Alex and George in a distant hall and breathed again. 

One would have thought that that was enough drama for one day, wouldn’t you?

But, after our five hour flight, we managed to secure a taxi whose driver clearly had had his phone surgically implanted in his right hand. It sat firmly ensconced the whole way down the highway from Istanbul airport. He dodged the “slow” cars, texted and scrolled with relaxed abandon – which wasn’t even close to how Alex and I were feeling as we watched him. We did arrive in the ˜old town’ of Istanbul, safely but the driver stopped the car, opposite the Magnificent Hotel, at an intersection, unloaded our bags (with his left hand) and told us that our hotel was one minute down the street with a vague wave of his hand. What? Which street? Where?

We stood on the pavement with two very tired little boys, luggage in a pile and no idea where we were going. Rescue came in the form of a local who picked up some of our bags and told us to follow him to the hotel after what seemed like a heated Turkish discussion with the driver.

Just as well that we were tired as the room at the Haja Sophia Family Hotel might have kept us up! Alex and I admitted that maybe we went too cheap on this stay but we thought as it was only a couple of nights, we could manage.

However, the bathroom was a bit stinky (although this, we worked out, was common), the toilet unstable, one cupboard door fell off when opened, the tv didn’t work, there was no wifi nor anything much “family’” about the hotel and the steep narrow stairs up to our room were in complete darkness. But once you had tripped over the top step which had an extra lip on it, the auto lights did come on which was good assistance to pick yourself up off the floor. This hotel wasn’t a Magnificent choice!

The local who had assisted us in the street had a good strategy as it turned out. He had a van which did airport transfers so of course we used him for our next foray to the airport which happened to be on Easter Day. There was not a hint of Easter celebrations in Istanbul that I could see but George and Carter knew that the Easter bunny was supposed to visit, so the night before, they left a carrot out on the side table.

The nibbled carrot was discovered at about 4am in the morning as we woke the boys in preparation for our flight to Cappadocia. Carter devoured his couple of little chocolate eggs and then finished off the carrot – apparently it was too enticing to leave! 

Lots of Hot Air

Cappadocia was very special. We had a lovely 3 days there in the Canela Cave Hotel – the Honeymoon suite actually – so appropriate for a mother and her daughter and two small boys! We had one queen-sized bed – and a pullout couch. Alex and I did wonder why there might be a pullout couch in this suite, but the best thing about our room was the giant heart-shaped spa bath that delivered a pool-sized experience for the boys!

                                                                                 

Watching the hot air balloons from the roof of our hotel each morning felt like pure magic.

 

 

 

The Cappadocia landscape is curious and the idea of living in caves a little absurd – I couldn’t imagine getting a weekly shop up the steep hills and how these people coped with the dust from the soft rock all around them, I am not sure.

I needed about 4 outfits but packed 35 just to be safe..

Alex and I predicted that we might be travelling in cool weather and as we were only taking carry-on luggage we had to be frugal about our choices. I bought a jumper, a long-sleeved top and leggings before I left Sharjah because clearly, I couldn’t get my packing mind past going to the UAE in summer. I neglected to realise that Turkey might be cold and had not packed anything warm to bring from home. It turned out that we overcompensated for the concern that we would be cold: we had absolutely beautiful weather for almost the entire time we were away. Some days were cool but others were definitely warm as toast.

However, when we arrived in Cappadocia and unpacked I told Alex that I must have left a bag of underwear in the Haja Sophia Family hotel. I noticed that I still had a few pairs in my luggage so I thought I would probably cope.

When we were leaving Cappadocia, we hired a car to drive to Safranbolu in the north. The car was parked right outside the hotel and we had packed the boot and got the little boys in and were about to head off when one of the staff from the hotel ran out waving at us and I thought he was speaking in Turkish. He seemed to be saying “klotzi” – which I realised later might have been him saying “clothes”. He signalled to wait and ran off to get whatever it was that we had left. Alex expressed her fear that the young man was going to come back and hold up a pair of undies (you know, the ones that you knew you should throw out but figured you could get another couple of wears out of) and wave them around for all to see. Thankfully, for a couple of reasons, he saved me from leaving my jacket.

We stayed in Safranbolu which was a delightful town in the north and it was very cool there. When I got there I realised that I did not have my only jumper. Alex rolled her eyes and asked if I was going to leave something in every place we stayed. (Turns out that my jumper had just been bundled into one of the other bags and I found it at our next stop.) 

I did not manage to leave anything else in Turkey. As well as that, I found the bag of underwear that I thought I had lost, in my room back in Sharjah. So in actual fact, it turned out that I only increased my luggage load by buying souvenirs, and the title of this section was just a funny meme from the internet. (I do tend to overpack however.)

 

You are what you eat..

If this is true, I was a heel of bread with cheese on the top by the end of our trip. 

I am sure I consumed my body mass in bread in Turkey. Eating bread or ekmek is apparently a cultural habit there. It was the first thing given to us each time we sat down to eat. (You don’t get water.) We were presented with beautifully fresh bread at every meal, to soak up the juices and oils from our meal, or flatbreads which wrapped our food or were the base for our pide (like a pizza). It was hard to resist or avoid! Note: I never saw any bread that looked like the “Turkish” bread we are familiar with at home. 

I also possibly consumed Carter’s body weight in cheese. As you can see here, there were 10 types of cheese offered at breakfast! Oh and I have never consumed so much or so many pomegranate seeds and juice in my life!

 

We were not excited by the name of this dish, “Testi Kebabi” either but as it was the signature dish of the area we were in – Cappadocia we thought we should try.

 

We tried one Turkish coffee. The man who made the coffee spoke no English, so despite the fact that Alex showed him a photo of what we would like – he either did not have that or perhaps thought he knew better what we might fancy. While the presentation was exquisite, it was difficult to smile while we attempted to swallow the hot, bitter, thick liquid. We were the only guests so he was watching closely. Thank goodness the coffee was small, and for the Turkish sweet, water and the pomegranate juice that came with it!

The boys both loved the apple tea that was on offer in most places. It was sweet and delicious, I must admit. 

The ice cream experience for the boys might just have been the highlight of the trip for them. Each ice cream vendor puts on a complicated show, teasing their customers with their slight of hand, as they offer an ice cream cone in a serviette but at the last second just leaving the outstretched hand with only the serviette or an empty cone. It was wonderful to watch the boys eyes widen in disappointment, wonder and delight!

If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough

..

I am not sure that we ever felt in control.

While Alex was confident that she could handle a geared car, as she got in the car, she did say, “oh yeah, I forgot that the gear stick would be on the right!” Then she labored for a good 10 minutes with breaks to huff, over trying to get it into reverse. She asked me to have a go from the passenger seat, because at least the gear stick was on the side it would be for me if I was driving in Aus! But neither of us could work out why it was not going into its groove until, by accident we realised that you had to lift the ring at the bottom of the stick while you moved it into position. Perhaps that was something that the hire company could have pointed out. 

Anyway, I was just so grateful that Alex drove. We covered a lot of kilometres on the wrong side of the road!

The Car hire company delivered the car to our hotel which was nice. The Petrol light was on which was not nice. When the driver opened his door, it struck the car next to it and he didn’t blink. We were not sure whether that could be an advantage to us or not (?).

We had already realised that the DUR signs were not always a guarantee of anyone stopping!

And the speed signs were confusing at first as they had 3 speeds on them and while this one does indicate why, the first ones we saw did not.  (And we are not sure how they determined that another 2km/hour above 80 would be an advantage!)

On one of our days in Safranbolu, Alex took the car to find a petrol station on her own and she was followed by a Police car with lights flashing and then the siren chirped. She, of course, was worried and pulled over. The Police car drove by. Apparently, Police cars drive around all the time with flashing lights and use their siren like a warning for people to get out of their way, not necessarily when they are in a hurry. It would also have been nice to know this before that event.

We encountered a few road blocks which were organised by the Jandarma – a general armed, law enforcement organisation. (I am pretty sure a requirement of the job is to have no sense of humour). They looked formidable as they waved us over to the side of the road with their automatic weapons. The first time we got stopped, Alex wound the window down, and I got the passports out. The guard looked at each of us in turn, and then told us to drive on. Okay, we thought, maybe we looked angelic or maybe he didn’t want to deal with two women and two children. We shall never know. The second time we were pulled over we clearly did not have the same effect on the officer. He spoke little English, I am guessing, (or he just wanted to intimidate us perhaps) as he gave all his instructions in Turkish. We could hear the word “passports” clearly however. We were not prepared this time and ended up being another in a line of cars with boots open and tourists with their bums up, digging in their suitcases. He didn’t just want to see Alex’s passport; he examined each of them and each of us closely with an unhappy demeanour, but we passed whatever the test was.

We drove from Eskisehir to Bursa where we had planned to return the car and catch a ferry back into Istanbul. When we arrived in Bursa at the address we were given to return the car, it was a backstreet with no discernible business in sight. We tried the phone number on our rental receipt and we were told that that phone number did not exist. While we had plenty of time right then, we were on a timetable to get to a ferry that we had booked so Alex was understandably very stressed. She had driven so far and this seemed like an impermeable roadblock. Alex got out of the car and breathed herself back to as calm as she was going to get. She trawled back through her messages to find one from the Hire company and while a person answered, they told her they could only deal with her by text. This may have been a translation thing but she was not told. Anyway, the upshot was that we were to take the car to the Bus Station which was 25 minutes in the direction from whence we had come. (Sad and angry face emoji!)

We caught a taxi to the Ferry which was a long way but we got there reasonably quickly as the taxi driver drove at 140 kmph down the highway. Yikes! This was too fast. Courtney and I, (with every possible physical element clenched), held the boys tightly as well as each other! 

In Istanbul, the traffic was absolutely nuts. It often  seemed like gridlock was the norm at all times of day. Drivers pass each other with centimetres to spare (or not – as there were plenty of dings in most cars), park wherever they like and while we did actually see a few accidents, we felt that there should have been more! There does not seem to be rules about using seatbelts or motorbike helmets and baby seats are rare, I think. We saw children sitting on dashboards as cars drove around the city.

The kindness of strangers…

The people we dealt with in this country were lovely and we managed the language barrier with ease mostly. But the random acts of generosity were simply uplifting.

We were walking down the street with the boys in Eskisehir and a driver stopped and pressed two chocolate bars into my hand. For the kids, he indicated with a huge smile, and then drove off.

On the 7th April, we told the restauranteur that it was George’s birthday and he brought out a cake (admittedly, it looked like mashed potato but actually tasted sweet) with candles and his guitar and sang to him.)

 In the Grand Bazaar, Carter picked up a lolly from a stall – I mean, to be fair, the boxes were at his height and were extremely colourful and attractive. He stuck it in his mouth and Alex just spied what he had done at that moment and cried Carter! To his credit, he took the sweet out of his mouth and replaced it! The shopkeeper was not at all concerned and said “no worries”.. (Perhaps, though it might have been the next customer that should have been worried!)

After Alex’s and my stressful day, returning the car, travelling at light speed and then catching the ferry back to Istanbul (which was packed and hot with no fresh air), we jumped in the first taxi who stopped for us and showed the driver the address of our Air B&B. 

Our driver was tall and wore big flowing pants, a collarless shirt and a skullcap. He drove us there with reasonable calm amid the late afternoon traffic and we presented him with a credit card. He shook his head. He had no facility to accept a card payment and we had not checked that when we got in. We panicked now as we had very little cash left. He exuded a serene attitude and said “no problem”, unpacked our suitcases from the boot and smiled, preparing to drive off. We had to practically pressure him to take the few Turkish lira that we had left as well as a few Euros. Wow! What a wonderful life mindset.

Apart from travelling with Alex, George and Carter, the highlight of the trip was my visit to the Haja Sophia. I learned about this building at high school. It always held a fascination for me and I never quite expected to visit it in the flesh. It was more beautiful than I could have imagined.

Our trip was full of fun and laughter as well as a few tears but that is the nature of travelling I think.
I can’t believe I have written so much! I won’t apologise.

But in Carter’s own words “Im had enough! I imagine you might have too.