Grunt, Point and Sign Language

Barb, from Barb's True Stories asked how Tanya and I communicate in Turkey. Where we vacation, everyone speaks Russian. Where the Germans vacation, everyone speaks German etc.  The resort areas specialize.  The tour companies for those countries feature those resorts.

It was different in Usak. No one speaks anything but Turkish, other than Murat with whom I work and his co-worker Hakim at the company office.  Even the folks at the hotel had virtually no English.  The first evening we were there we went wandering looking for some place to have supper.  We like to try small local cafes just to get a taste of real Turkish food.

We walked past this one place about three blocks from our hotel.  Very small downstairs but most seating was upstairs as it extended over the shop next door which was not a restaurant.  Clever use of street space.  I had no idea what they served but it looked interesting and smelled wonderful so we went in.  There was a man and two boys working downstairs which was the kitchen.

They served submarine type sandwiches made from rotisseried lamb tripe, wrapped like ribbons on a spit, then chopped up fine on the sandwich   With or without lots of hot chili powder.  (I had with).  The younger boy brought us  and gave us menus.  The older boy understood the situation.  He came to our table and held his hands apart to show the sandwich sizes.  Worked like a charm.  We asked for tea (chai in every language) but he brought us ayran which is a fermented milk drink, very popular in Turkey.  So that was new to us both, too.

We had no luck getting our tea so finally we finished and went downstairs to pay and the man says "What about your tea?"  So we sat and visited with him at the downstairs work table and drank our tea.  He asked where we were from and we said Canada and Ukraine. Tanya didn't think he looked very Turkish and wondered if he was from Armenia or Azerbaijan.  So we asked him.

He said he was Turkish and I said where is your moustache.  Many Turks wear a heavy black moustache. He dug in his wallet and showed us a picture of him from several years back and he looked Turkish.  Typical haircut and moustache. Then he showed us a picture of his wife, a lovely woman, so I showed him the picture of Masha which was on my mobile phone.

This whole conversation is with no mutually understandable words other than tea, Ukraine, Canada and Turkey.  If we are ever back in Usak, we will go there again as we are now friends.

The bill was $9.

Murat said there were only three places in Usak that served this style of sandwich and we had found the best one.

More Turkish Countryside

These are photos I took in 2008.

Turkey has some of the best roads in the world.  In the past 10 years they have rebuilt or resurfaced 70% of them.  The main highways have not so much as a ripple on the surface.  Railways have been neglected to the point that a smelter on the coast could bring ore from Ukraine cheaper than from a mine within Turkey according to one report I saw.  New high-speed rail links are now being built between major centres such as Istanbul to Ankara and Ankara to Izmir.

Tertiary road to a village

Secondary highway

From a distance the farm villages of the Turkish countryside look enticing.  Every village has its mosque and the red tile roofs and white or pastel stucco houses look quite pretty.  But when you get into the villages you can see the poverty.  Farms are small, in Usak averaging about 7 hectares ( 17.5 acres), flocks about 20 to 25 sheep and goats and herds about 4 or 5 head of cattle

Typical Turkish village

Farm house and sheep pen

 Summers are hot and dry, with very little rain from June through September.  Irrigation is a must for any kind of productivity with summer crops such as corn, sugar beets, vegetables, and forages.  Turkey has water but accessing and managing it is the problem and takes money.  Usak province has increased its irrigated land every year.  The old systems were concrete channels such as the picture below, which with flood irrigation, were highly inefficient.  New systems are pipeline and trickle Israeli type systems.

Typical old irrigation water channel.

 Over grazing has been a problem in Turkey for millennia. As the number of people increases so do the number of animals.  Shortage of grazing land is a major problem as is the fact it is mostly common lands owned by Forestry or Treasury Ministries and therefor not managed in any way.  Turkey is working very hard to address these issues but is making less progress than one would like to see for reasons I could rant about but won't.

Heavily over grazed pasture area

 Most of the agricultural land I have seen in Turkey has been relatively poor quality, low in organic matter.  Partly due to use of crop residues for livestock feed but mostly because that is just how it is.  The mountains in behind Kisladag mountain in the background are home to the largest gold mine in Turkey.

Light brown soil,  Kisladag mountain in the background

Uşak (ooshak) History

Turkey (more correctly Asia Minor or even Anatolia) is old.  Civilizations in Turkey go back 10,000 years. Agriculture passed through Turkey on its way to Europe.  Everywhere you look in Turkey are ancient ruins of one civilization or another.

The territory of Uşak Province was once within the borders of the Hittite Empire, then within the Phrygia Kingdom, Lydian Kingdom and Persian Empire. The famous "King's Road" built during those times passes through Uşak. The province was incorporated into Macedonian empire in the 4th Century BC. It was taken under the rule of Roman Empire at the end of the 2nd Century BC. It was ruled by Byzantine for 700 years. After the 1071 Malazgirt Victory of the Seljuk Turks, Uşak was controlled by various Turkish Principalities and in 1429, it came under the Ottoman rule. It was occupied by the Greeks between August 29, 1920 and September 1, 1922 during the War of Independence. 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karun_Treasure

King Croesus was the ruler of the Lydian Kingdom between 547-560 B.C. and is known for minting the first gold coins. The gold for his coins and for the treasures of his reign came from Uşak province. His treasure, known as the Karun Treasure, which was found in Uşak  province are some of many artifacts on display in the Archaeological Museum in Uşak city. The treasure is said to be cursed as the villagers who found and stole the treasure trove seemed to all come to bad ends.


More pictures HERE

The current museum is small, under staffed and under funded.  Construction has begun on a modern museum that will house the famous Karun treasure, the symbol of the Aegean province of Uşak, as part of a new museum complex in the Historical Uşak Train Station. The museum is scheduled to open this year according to this article

Otel Dülgeroğlu, Uşak, Turkey

Otel Dülgeroğlu, Uşak, Turkey is my favourite hotel in Turkey.  I have stayed there several times over the past 10 years.  It was built over 110 years ago as a caravanseray or inn with an open courtyard.  In the mid-80s it was purchased by the Dülger family and converted to a hotel by putting a roof over the courtyard.

I had hoped the client would book us into this hotel as I knew Tanya would love it. We were only there two nights but long enough for Tanya to fall in love with the hotel and with Uşak which is a small rural provincial capital (180,000 people according to my local source) in west-central Turkey.

Outside view of the unique angular shape.  Photo from here.

Courtyard

Rooms open onto a landing that looks down on the courtyard

Flash shot of the landing

Another flash shot of the landing

Daylight shot looking up from the courtyard

Me at work Sept 2002

The bed in our suite

Four meter ceilings and fancy drapes

This many centuries old mosque is over a meter below current ground level

Street scene from Usak

On the Road in Turkey

We traveled from Ankara to Usak city and then Esme and Ulubey in Usak Province.  West Central Turkey, like all Turkey that I have seen, has some pretty unique landscape.  The country has more fault lines than an old man has wrinkles, plus volcanic action in times past, all of which adds up to the country looking like it was assembled one bit at a time by slamming together bits of land, leaving mountain ranges, plains and hills sort of at random all over the place.

Rock formations sort of stick out of the ground in places

Semi-flat country side 

Snow capped mountains in several places along the way

The other side of the road is flat with hills in the distance.

Rolling hills leading up to jagged rocky hills jutting sharply out of the ground

Continuation of the above picture

Tree plantation 15 year old red pine

Kisladag mountain

Village in the distance, scattered oaks in the fields

I am sure a geologist can make a better description but this flat land prairie boy is used to large tracts of land all looking essentially the same, so I find this interesting.  Tanya took some pictures on the fly and so did I.  Some other pictures are from a few years back and can be found here. 

Turkey Trip

Tanya and I have been in Turkey since Sunday on business.  Ankara and Usak.  It is impossible to be creative on a laptop keyboard in a hotel room with no real desk or chair so I have not done any blogging.  Will have lots when we get home.  We leave for home tomorrow but it remains to be seen if we get home tomorrow or sometime Sunday.

Expecting aircraft weather in four airports in one day is somewhat of a stretch this time of year. Tanya expects we will be sleeping in the airport in Kyiv over night and not fly to Dnipro until Sunday.  There is no space on the train or we would take that from Kyiv. 

Dalyan, Turkey: turtles, crabs and ancient ruins

Every year on our holiday in Turkey, Tanya and I take a one-day excursion to someplace with ancient ruins.  We both love history and Turkey has a great deal of it.  The first year we went to Demre and Myra, then to Pamukkale and last year to Phaselis. This year we went to Dalyan (not to be confused with Dalian; THAT would have been an expedition).

We left our hotel at 5:00 am.  Dalyan is a 4 hour bus ride mostly east from Antalya on very good but very winding roads crossing at least four mountain ranges. We stopped for breakfast going and supper returning, all included in the Odeon Tour price.

Southwestern Turkey from Antalya to Dalyan

Turkish country side

Dalyan is a popular tourist resort area with a sandy beach, sea turtles, crabs galore, muddy sulphurous hot springs and ancient ruins.  The Köyceğiz-Dalyan Special Environmental Protection Area covers an area of over 460 sq km and is home to many unique plants, animals and birds.  The Iztuzu beach, a sandy spit at the end of the Dalyan River  estuary is the nesting site for the Loggerhead Marine Turtle and includes a sea turtle research centre run by the University of Pamukkale.

If you click on this link HERE, you get a very detailed picture of the beach and the estuary of the Dalyan River which is slowing filling up with silt and forming reed bed islands.  While we could have driven to Iztuzu beach, we were given the "three hour tour" down the river.  We stopped to go crab fishing.  A simple process in which a piece of chicken is tied to a string and thrown overboard.  It is immediately grabbed by a crab which will not let go and is scooped into a net.  For $10 they would cook us one for dinner.  Yeah, right.

Dalyan Estuary

As we approached the beach, we saw a crowd of boats around one boat which had raised a sea turtle with a bait on a line.  We got close enough to see it.  It was still at this boat when we left 1 1/2 hours later which made me wonder.  Either the turtle was dumb as spit or it had the gig down cold and would perform for treats or, and I hoped this was NOT the case, it was somehow anchored to the spot.

Loggerhead marine turtle

One our way back from the beach to Dalyan we stopped for lunch.   After lunch we threw pieces of bread into the water for the fish.

Feeding frenzy.  The fish loved bread.

From there we went to the mud baths, which were swarming with tourists.  Tanya and I are just not team players.  We didn't have crab with our lunch, we didn't go swimming at the beach and we didn't go into the mud baths.  What we wanted was to tour the ruins of the ancient city of Kaunos,  Kaunos (2nd link).  It was not to be. The ruins are a local tour and not included in our day trip.  We only saw the tombs and some rock structures from a distance, while we were on the river.

Ruins of ancient Kaunos

Lycian rock tombs similar to those at Myra

 Anyhow, it was still a good day, we saw some new country and got back to our hotel about 9:00 pm dead tired. 

Staying at the Hotel Sydney 2000 in Turkey

Beldibi is a "town" that runs along the beach from Antalya to Kemer, about 30 km. It is wall to wall resorts from 3 to 5 Star and at least one 5+++ Star.  There are mainly Russian and Ukrainian guests along the strip and russian is the second language of the business people.  Other strips attract other countries as when we were flying home there were about 6 charters headed to different parts of Germany, for example.

The Hotel Sydney 2000 is right next door to the Sumela Gardens where we stayed last year. We liked Sydney much better and think we have found a "home".  We talked to others who have been coming there for 8 to 10 years.

Sydney is a small 3 Star; simple rooms, maybe 150 at best; simple fare.  The food was fabulous, though.  While there had to be some kind of rotation, in the 17 days we were there, there were no repeats.  You could not tell it was "Tuesday" by the menu.  Four hot dishes, a big salad bar and a dessert bar.  Even the salad and dessert bars had a certain amount of variation.  Always some fresh fruit on the dessert bar, too. Wi-Fi in the lounge but if you needed a table to work on, it also reached into the cafeteria.

Because we were end-of-season, the hotel was only three quarters to half full.  Not many staff but great service.  End of season is cheaper and not deathly hot.  We like +30C (86F) much better than the +45 (113F) in peak season.

The beach is narrow and gravel, not sand and drops off rapidly as you move out from shore.  Not small kid friendly yet there were always several small kids there who had a great time.  One mom was there with four very rambunctious kids ages 11 to 2.  Every Babushka in the place helped her look after them.

Cost for the two of us for 17 days, end of season, including airfare from Kyiv was $2050. I have no idea if there are American and Canadian packages available but Turkish Airlines is a very good airline and not expensive to fly.  I am sure that something could be worked out.  For those who love history, Turkey has 10,000 years of it and ruins from every culture and civilization.

Back of the hotel, pool and dining area

Path to the beach, grassy sunning area, kids playground on the right

Beach.  Most sunning is on lounges for comfort.  It is a swimming beach

Weekly entertainment night included a fire-breathing juggler

Tanya took this one.  I wish she'd have taken one of his girlfriend too in her white bikini

Front walk to the street

 

Things go swimmingly

People familiar with the sea and who can swim, will read this and wonder what the big deal is but for a flatland prairie boy for whom 4" of water on a Saturday night bath was significant and who never learned to swim, it is an achievement.  I let go of the shore line this holiday and ventured out into deep water.

They say during the Second World War that prairie boys signed up for the navy and merchant marine in great numbers.  Partly perhaps, because vast empty expanses with horizons at 180 degrees held no fear for them and partly because they already knew how to work and being a grunt held no attraction for them compared to shipboard with no marching under heavy packs.  But maybe mostly just the sight of so much water at one time.

Water deeper than 3 feet and wider than I can see across has always fascinated me and I have paddled around in lakes when opportunity afforded it and a few times in the ocean - once in the Pacific, twice in the Black Sea and now four times in the Mediterranean.

This was the best holiday ever for me and our fourth vacation in Turkey.  I had nothing hanging over me and was able to totally relax.  The sea is almost always calm in the mornings; some mornings there aren't even wavelets washing the shore. And it was warm; 27C or 80F.  It wasn't like I hadn't been in the water there before but for some reason it dawned on me I could not sink regardless of what I did.  Tanya said that the Mediterranean has 30 grams of salt per litre, which combined with my body massive index mean I was pretty much guaranteed to float unless I hit an iceberg.

The fat in my head and the lead in my ass balanced so well that I stood at attention in deep water and floated, with my head above water.  Long ago I had learned to float on my back even in lake water so I was off.  Using my arms as oars I rowed my way around.  A rowboat from Ukraine; a veritable Hunky Dory.

Now I didn't move very fast and sometimes when Tanya was in a hurry to get to shore (lunch time??) she would get behind and push me like a tugboat pushing a barge.

There was a rope barrier way out there to separate swimmers from boaters and I actually swam/rowed my way out to it twice every day, a few times three times out and back.  It was an awesome feeling not to panic simply because I had no sea bottom to touch.  The only time I did almost panic was one morning I got out there and found the barrier had broken and drifted away.  There was NOTHING between me and the entire Mediterranean.  There was no limit to how far I could go and that was scary.  A good psychologist could have a heyday.  Analyse this!

Narrow gravel beach.  Drops off quickly.  Great swimming

The rope barrier is about where the white line is.

Along the beachfront are piers every so often for sunning and diving

About 2/3 of the way there and rowing for all I am worth.

Turkish Pizza

The Turks make a very nice thin crust pizza.  For teh first week we were on vacation, the resort would serve fresh pizza at the outside bar between 10:30 and 12:00 for those of us who were too lazy to go to breakfast or wanted a snack after swimming.

The pizza is baked in a wood fired oven.  The coals are pushed to the back and the surface dusted relatively free of ashes, then the pizzas placed in the oven using a traditional long handled paddle; turned once during baking and retrieved, cut up and served hot.

The second week there were too few people there and the practice was discontinued.  There is a reason for lower rates late in the season. But it was good while it lasted.

The Ancient Port City of Phaselis, Turkey

One of the stops on our boat cruise was at the ruins of the once major port city of Phaselis.  It is located a few km south of Kemer on a small peninsula with three harbours.  According to the information at the site and also on Wikipedia and TravelLinkTurkey, it was founded in the 7th century BC by people from Rhodes and finally abandoned in the early 13th century AD.  The Phaselitans were traders not politicians and the city prospered under a variety of rulers - Persian, Greek, Lycian, Roman, Byzantine and finally the Seljuk Turks.  Most of the ruins are of Roman and post Roman origin.

I am posting a few pictures but if you Google Phaselis, Turkey and click on images, you will see some wonderful photos.

With Google Earth, you can look down on the peninsula and see through the pines the main street and some of the ruins

The peninsula is covered with ruined stone buildings.  We had no real time to explore.

Certainly some of the city site has tumbled into the ocean over the centuries

 

The Romans were great for bath houses

More bath house

Ruins of a market place or Agora

We both saw this brave little flower blooming away in the middle of main street