Pintmaster

Turkey

The verdict is in, and Turkey rocks. I had a fantastic time there and you can definitely see that from the Photos . We spent one night in Istanbul and were treated by some customers of my Dad to a fantastic dinner. I experienced an insane taxi driver who was overtaking on blind corners and proclaimed 'If everyone in Istanbul drove like me, there would be no traffic'. Most likely because everyone would be in hospital recovering from accidents. Outside of Istanbul, taxi drivers are a little more relaxed. We flew to Dalaman the next day which is South East of Izmir which is the home of the first internet celebrity, Mahir Cagri whom some out there may remember.

We boarded the boat about 20 minutes drive away in Gocek and then sailed around the Gulf of Fethiye for most of the week. A lot of the islands we stopped at had ruins of Greek villages left over from when Turkey enforced their borders more strictly after world war one. A lot of the islands are not densely inhabited with usually a restaurant in most of the major bays. We stopped in Fethiye and took a trip to see the ruins of the cities of Xanthos, Pinara and Tlos. Many of the old ruins were inhabited first by the Lycians, then the Romans, and then by the Byzantines. Tlos was also used as an Ottoman stronghold.

Some of the highlights of my trip were: Getting a leather coat custom tailored (yes, they made it from scratch) for me in about 6 hours using incredible leather for about 1/4th of the cost of an inferior quality, mass produced one from Banana Republic; Being astounded when we stopped at a farm to get some fresh vegetables and they refused to take any money for the bagfull of tomatoes and cucumber we had picked. The people's kindness towards strangers, to just give away something where we were completely willing to pay was tremendously kind; Lastly, buying a kilim was extremely exciting. I bought a small carpet for my living room which is a hand done, in two pieces, by two people on small looms and then stitched together. I will have a picture up there eventually.

I am now looking forward to going to Spain in a couple of days! More pictures in a couple of weeks!