She's baaaaack!

It’s been well over a month since I wrote in this diary and reading over my early Turkish additions I find that I was either in a very strange head space when I wrote them or I am somewhat changed. From memory I –was- quite unnerved when I penned those thoughts but I almost find myself hoping it’s the latter. And isn’t that what travelling is all about? Anyway, as I’m not paying you buckets of money and reclining on a chais lounge and you are not concernedly taking notes, this is neither the time nor the place for such discussion.

I loved Turkey. Every time I have a spare moment I think about it from waking until sleep. It takes all my strength and reason not to run back a third time and stay there forever.

Anyway, best you don’t read this all at once.

Monday 3rd October
Off to Turkey today which was very exciting. Had an extremely early flight. I was told the tubes started at 5 only to haul my luggage all the way down to find out they start at 6. One very expensive cab to Heathrow later (although it had a TV in it - sweet) and I was on my way. Was no drama leaving the country but when I got to Istanbul (not Constantinople) I had no cash to get a visa and the only cash machine wasn’t working so I was stuck there for 3 hours, in tears, because no one wanted to help me. Not good. Eventually I was escorted to the other side to get cash but then I had to bloody line up in customs again for another hour.

One slightly mad ‘taksi’ ride later and I finally caught up with Wes at the Istanbul Hostel (Sultanahmet). Very good hostel all in all and the people who worked there were lovely. Had a beer and then took the bus to Taksim (the place to be) to meet a slightly drunken Claire and her Turkish friend, Pelin. Went to a bar called The Secret Garden (and my was it secretive) where we met with a few of Claire’s other Turkish friends, giving us the chance to experience a slice of Turkish lifestyle. Sometime after we moved on to another place for even more beers. The Efes beer is too easy to drink which is lucky as it’s about the only one you can get. Wes and I went on a mission for nibblies and ended up at a bakery where I instantly fell in love with Turkish pastry. In fact it’s about all I could talk about for days thereafter. Stopped for a kebab on the way home (yum) and then back to our hostel for sleep.

Istanbul is very cool. There are lots of stray animals which roam the streets (and bizarrely even the dogs look Turkish), which is pretty sad but most people are good to them and the local government seems to have quite an efficient way of dealing with them (not involving death). Istanbul is a bit of everything so it’s quite hard to describe, but I loved it, it was wonderful. In Turkey, in general, everybody seems to smoke. You have to throw your toilet paper in the bin and not the toilet. Most toilets are modern but you did get the occasional hole in the ground variety. The men are hot and the food is awesome. Claire has lived in Turkey for about 5 years so she could help us with the language and knew a number of Turks so we got to experience elements of the actual lifestyle. Wes had an ingenious way of tackling the language barrier which involved just speaking to them like they all spoke English fluently including throwing in some Aussie slang here and there. He was right though, because more often than not they seemed to get what he was saying, or at least pretended to.

Tuesday 4th October
Bakery / pizzeria for breakfast. Peas on pizza! This was a bit too odd for Wes but I was quite keen on it. Then we went for a roam to the Grand Bazaar, which was totally different from what I expected. I thought it would be more like a kind of grungy marketplace but it was generally just lots of small shops, most a lot more glamorous than you would expect. We didn’t get hassled too badly. Didn’t buy anything which I was a little disappointed about. Then we checked out one of the mosques and walked around trying to find the spice bazaar, which we never did find.

Had a tea under a bridge over the sea and there were about 100 people fishing off the bridge. There were a few catches but they were pretty tiny fish. Was keen to have the infamous apple tea all day but nowhere bloody had any. On our travels we saw this shop called Alf Jeans that had pictures of Alf (the alien) all over it which was terribly amusing. Some of you will have already seen the picture.

Had meze for dinner (like tapas) with another of Claire’s friends, Bilge. She was really lovely. Had a little drink at a pretty expensive bar and then went back to her house to see what Turkish living was like. It was pretty cool actually. Much better than the shitbox I live in. Then back home for sleeping. I forgot to mention the call to prayer where at about 5:30am (never established the exact time) all the mosques turn on their loud speakers and some important dude does a bit of singing. It’s rather cool but on this morning it inspired some mad cat to join in for bloody ages which really, really sucked.

Wednesday 5th Oct
Today Claire had a visiting mission so Wes and I did a spot of sightseeing. We went to Topkapi palace and learnt about harems and dudes with beards. Then back to the bazaar as I was especially keen to buy something. Ended up getting a bowl thing and a pashmina. Finally got some elusive apple tea. Then we tried some Turkish delight. Good stuff I tell you! Headed back to the hostel where we had some ‘quiet’ beers with a bunch of other Aussies. Two of them were farmers in Perth and I jokingly asked if they knew Marty from Big Brother and they did! Nice. We ended up having dinner with them all which turned into a very large night of drinking. Wes said I molested some kids but I was just giving them a couple of innocent kisses. Really! They were selling roses I think. It’s all a bit hazy really. Was a good night though! (I think.)

Thursday 6th October
As a result of the previous evening I decided not to mince with gravity today and so stayed in bed whilst Wes and Claire went exploring. This is how I came to miss the toilet paper incident as some of you will already have heard from Wes. Probably for the best really, probably for the best. They came back in the afternoon and I dragged myself out of bed as I’d decided seeing Istanbul from a horizontal stationary position was rather dull.

We headed off for the ferry to go over to the Asian side of Istanbul. I’m still a little perplexed as to why this side was different from the side we were on. I had some tang which made me feel a million dollars for about a minute and looked longingly at Wes’s chip sandwich before we jumped on. All I remember of the ferry was laughing an awful lot and some guy trying to sell a bunch of crap unsuccessfully. But full power to him for trying!

Over the other side we were to meet Pelin again. Wes had his shoes shined as we waited for her and my, didn’t they sparkle. We strolled through a marketplace which I rather liked and then caught a dolmus which is like a taxibus but is actually just a bus. It’s quite strange actually but terribly handy. We then went for a rather long walk by the sea. I would have enjoyed this if I’d not been so hungover but such is life. For our afternoon we decided to sit in a park by the sea and have a small feast and a few beers to while the hours away. We’d also positioned ourselves by a great old but very spooky abandoned mansion which added to the atmosphere. One of Pelin’s friends came to join us, which, as we found out later, was actually the first time they’d met. Yes, blame the internet. She turned out to be quite crazy which is just more evidence that meeting people over the net is shit and I don’t know how anyone can do it. *Smile*

We witnessed a wonderful sunset, the first of many as it would turn out, and the crazy girl (a photographer by trade) kept making me do stupid things for her photos. We made yet another stray dog friend who we named Ossoman and who decided he owned us and barked at any threats that wandered by. That’s about it for the story of this day. We did visit some bars and become more and more convinced of the insanity of Pelin’s friend but nothing else was particularly notable, excepting when Pelin jumped into some guy’s bulldozer and tried to look tough. Great chick that one.

Friday 7th October
Our last day in Istanbul and as I hadn’t even started to do the things I wanted to do so I rushed off to see the Blue Mosque in our last remaining hours. A few notes before I continue this story.
* This is the first time I’d been in Istanbul alone
* I’d been warned to avoid people who will try and take you on a tour and then charge you an extravagant amount
* The giveaway. Men who sell carpets are generally sleazes. Their job seems to involve selling carpets and failing that, getting laid. I imagine if they managed both with the same person they’d become a small demigod amongst their peers. (I did not know this at the time.)

ANYWAY! Moving right along. The Blue Mosque was about 5 minutes walk from where we were staying. All I wanted was half an hour to check out the holy place and head back to the hostel. Innocent enough you might say? Wrong! Walking up the steps simply to enter the courtyard I was pounced upon by a Turkish man who I instantly mistook as one of these guides I’d been warned about. After telling him so he just laughed and redoubled his efforts in making me accept his offer of showing me around. What could I do? I was flattered and stupid. So after stuffing about with him showing me everything in the area besides the mosque I insisted I must see it and finally did, for about a minute before he decided I’d had enough and made us leave again. Anyway, much hand kissing and flattery later (keep in mind that cynical voice in my head was on overdrive the entire time – but as all women know and as all men should, flattery is the key to any woman’s attention), we ended up in a café where he told me all about his red porsche and house by the sea. ‘Lovely’, I thought, ‘now how do I get out of here’. At this point he became a little forward and I, armed with the greatest excuse ever, ‘I have to get a plane’, got the hell away from him. Lesson 1 about Turkey – the men are extremely forward. Lesson 1 about myself – must learn to be more assertive. But hell, it makes an amusing story, at least Claire and Wes thought so, which was why I stuck around as long as I did.

We bid Istanbul adieu or gorusuruz as the Turks would say and flew away to Antalya on one of the greatest air trips ever. You take off, eat, and land again. However, with me around something shit is always bound to happen, for instance, me getting mayonnaise all over the wall of the plane.

Olympos, our destination, is roughly 1.5 hours from the city of Antalya, and Bayram, the owner of the place where we were to stay and one of Claire’s nearest and dearest picked us up to take us there. We stopped off in a shopping centre to eat the best kebab I’ve ever had and Bayram gave me a present which made me the envy of everyone, a lighter with a switchblade. I tell you, in the days following, everyone wanted this and I had to guard it with my life, which isn’t so hard when it’s armed with a knife. I thought I was tough. Anyways, Olympos is it’s own entry so today ends here.

OLYMPOS (Part I)
Olympos is a little village surrounded by mountainsand by the beach on the southern coast of Turkey. I’ve heard people explain it as an ewok village, which sounds pretty cool but as I’ve never been a Star Wars fan, the reference is lost on me. Bayrams is one of many tree house establishments with the added benefit of being quite near the beach. The 1st few days we got to get to know all the wonderful people who worked there, hang out with Claudia and her very hot Turkish boyfriend, Yousef, and do not very much except drink, swim, eat and sun bake. I attempted to make a list of ways to relax until I was severely reprimanded by Wes.

Some notable facts about Olympos:
1. Just across the road from Bayrams is the Orange Bar. Roughly 100m along a rubbly path you reach what Wes has described as the thunderdome, an outdoor nightclub with a view of the mountains and the stars. On our numerous visits there, the place was all but deserted and it’s truly a great thing to dance to loud music with a dance floor all to yourself, under the stars.

2. Olympos ruins – The Turkish seem to have little regard for their ruins. Don’t get me wrong, they say ‘here’s a ruin, isn’t it great, feel free to climb all over it!’ Olympos has rather a lot of such ruins but I became terribly paranoid about having ancient ruins in my shoes. If, in the first few days of being in Olympos, you’d caught me having a chuckle to myself it was because this idea rather tickled my fancy. It turns out I wasn’t the only one but more on this later.

3. Olympos houses the chimaera, eternal flames, but we never got off our lazy asses to see it so I shall spare no more words on it.

4. The beach had donkeys! Mini ones!

5. The complete paradox of doing nothing all day, yet being surprised come nightfall that the day has gone so quickly and you haven’t managed to do all the nothingness you’d planned.

I loved it.

Unbeknownst to me I was developed a crush on one of the boys who worked at Bayrams, Servet (his name). He, on the other hand, was developing a crush on someone different every day, but that’s neither here nor there. Perhaps if he hadn’t come to the beach that 1st day and not taken his shirt off and not decided throwing rocks at me was fun and not carrying all my shit back from the beach for me, this may never have happened. But then, as Wes rightly observed, it would have happened anyway the day he took his glasses off and we noted the Clark Kent – Superman transformation.

A few days down the track we met a girl going on the boat cruise and Claire decided it would be good for Wes and I to go. I was a little reluctant which, I didn’t realise until we were on the boat, is because I didn’t want to leave Servet. It’s a bit shit how things like that creep up on you. As a result I probably didn’t utilise my time on the cruise as much as I should have by romping around and adding various ruins to my shoe collection. But still did my fair share of romping nonetheless. I won’t go into toooo much detail about it because of this reason. There were 9 of us onboard, every single one Australian (well 1 was from NZ but had lived in Oz for 9 years). We were roughly the same age except for one middle aged couple who tried terribly hard not to appear as posh as they were and failed. There were also 4 ever-changing crew who mostly kept to themselves (including an Australian girl who was dating the captain – god knows why, he was awful). I should whip out the brochure and dazzle you with the places we went but I can’t be bothered.

Started off on a bus to somewhere where St Nicholas’s church is located and a surprising number of Santa related objects were sold. Who would have thought he was Turkish? Then we boarded our pirate ship and over the four days, in no particular order, we saw various ruins; trekked up Butterfly Valley to the least exciting waterfall I’ve ever seen in search of butterflies who’d all migrated for the winter, only to find out the boat crew had seen one on the boat while we were away; tried to find the best shopping in Turkey in this beautiful town called Kas where we had an almost astounding parade of animal tour guides, only to completely fail in finding the shopping district and get incredibly wet after the city flooded from a very serious downpour; got very drunk in a bar in the mountains in a little village which only really contained the bar and the guy who owned it’s house. We hung out in his house with him for a little bit after the bar shut. I’d lost my jacket somewhere along the way (I bought it again when I got back to London only to find out it was made in Turkey) and we discovered that one of the girls on the boat was a little “disturbed”. She’d had four abortions and thought she might be pregnant again but that’s a whole other story; paraglided over the Blue Lagoon (Wes lost one of his shoes on takeoff but luckily got it back); met THE funniest guy selling pancakes from his boat; saw another boat packed full of dirty, fat, ugly, old men and gorgeous women wearing next to nothing which was absolutely hilarious (some kind of penthouse/playboy cruise); ate bunches, drank loads, discovered the key to truly enjoying Turkish delight, and possibly had a little something with a Turkish sailor. I’m not saying exactly who had that little fling, but someone did, plus sun-baked, chatted to the lovely Aussies and swam loads and loads.

It was thoroughly enjoyable but both Wes and I were very glad to get off when we did. It disembarked in Fethiye and we got a five-hour bus back to the main road in Olympos. While waiting for the second bus to the village Wes was a little delirious and invented some “fun” games like building mini ancient ruins (his civilisation collapsed in on itself before building completed) and “throw rocks at me”. Luckily I’m a spastic and couldn’t hit him anyway. The highlight for me was when he nearly asked the bus driver to take a photo of us standing by his mini ancient city. I tell you, I have never laughed so much as I did in Olympos.

So, here we were again. I had two days left before I had to leave. On returning, Claire had some friends staying (it was their final night) and I was displeased to learn Servet had a crush on one of them. Lucky for me (at this point) he was so incredibly fickle. To be honest I didn’t actually care. It’s only in retrospect that these things seem to matter. Well my story ends soon. Actually, it then goes on for another 3 weeks but this part of it is coming to a close, which is handy as I’m on the last page of my diary!

If you care not for my short-lived holiday romance story, feel free to skip this bit.
So with much nothing to tackle the next day I inadvertently and accidentally found myself flirting with Servet. *(You know I don’t think I’ve flirted with anyone for at least four years. If anyone begs to differ, please let me know.) Apparently this made him go “ooo, she likes me” and as I was walking to the bar a few hours later he grabbed my hand and held it, just for a second, which made me feel like liquid for a good while afterwards. More hours later and he followed me to my room and kissed me. Hmm, I’m actually wondering now if I should be telling this story at all….. *blush*
I became very quiet pondering how to keep this all secret whilst playing a game of Okey (love this game), Claire says to me ‘you’ve been kissing Servet haven’t you?’ and I was so shocked by her having the slightest clue that I admitted it straight away. Anyway, 2 nights and 1 day later (with a visit to a fabulous fish restaurant thrown in) of Servet being very sweet and begging me to come back in two weeks, it was time to leave (at 6am, oh the injustice!) He drove me to the main road, I climbed on the bus and he yelled at me to call him. And that, my friends, is where the love affair ended (and the torment began). My god, I’m so ridiculously dramatic. I’ve now been writing this diary for four hours (not to mention the 5 hours it’s so far taken me to type up) so you must forgive me.


LONDON
I had the shittest plane journey EVER back to London where surprise, surprise, the tubes were all screwed. After being in Turkey I just found being back in London horrifying. I couldn’t stand the people. I couldn’t stand the conversations. I had a truly, truly terrible week (although, I did get my first present from a patient at work) of which, one event in particular which I hope never to discuss or think of again, fuelled me to get back to Turkey as fast as possible despite only being able to get a one-way flight. But, like any human being, I decided I’d much rather be stuck in Turkey than stuck in London, with little mind to the consequences. And 9 days later, I went back.

OLYMPOS (Part II)
So, one tube, one train, one flight, a taxi and two buses later I felt like I was back home. Should pay a little attention to a guy I met on the 2 hour bus ride. He spoke no English, I spoke no Turkish but we managed to carry on an amusing conversation for the journey. He was nice but incredibly dodgy and he knew it. His phone screensaver was this really obese English woman wearing a bikini on a beach. He explained she was his “lover” who he’d put on a plane that morning. She was 50 odd and he was my age and the two of us just laughed about it. Anyway, there’s another little example of what Turkish men are like.

This time around two of Wes’s friends were staying, Shane and Kristyn. For a good few days the most ambitious thing that happened was some guitar playing by Shane and Wes. Otherwise the days passed as before. Shane tried to work in a joke every single day about how the ancient ruins weren’t so great because they were ruined until we killed his confidence in it completely.

The love affair you ask? OK, so you didn’t ask, but bugger you.
Let’s just say the boy I left, the boy who called me twice while I was in London, well, he was no more. There was a new Servet now who was cold and abrupt. I don’t know why and I never will. It may have something to do with a minor incident where I got a little drunk and slapped him and threw him out of my room because he told me to shut up. And while I may be in denial, although I think this was partly the reason, I know deep down this wasn’t it. I could relate to you every little detail of everything that happened with him, because it didn’t end the first time I left. However the truth is I’ve thought over every little detail so often that I can’t bear to do it one more time. It’s fruitless.

I must pay a special mention to the fact that Wes, somehow, had managed to get himself a stalker. This guy he'd never met had taken to calling him many, many times a day telling him all sorts of lovely things in a mix of Turkish and English. In the end it got so bad he just used to answer it and then put it in his pocket until stalker man hung up. Funny, funny stuff.

After a few days Claire, Wes, Shane, Kristyn and I all piled into the minivan for a day of carpet shopping in Antalya. Had a great day actually and we did so much. As much as I loved Olympos, I also loved being in the cities because something interesting was always happening. That night we picked up Naomi, Wes’s sister, from the airport and took her back with us to Bayrams. At this point I’ll just say, as much as I loved the lifestyle and the people (except for one but even then, even then) in Olympos more and more each day I’ll just stick to the prime facts in telling the rest of the story (don’t you wish I’d done this from the start!).

Naomi struck up a little love affair of her own over her 3 days there and my, my, she did well. Servet continued to be shit but just when I’d had enough he’d do something nice and confuse me further. He accidentally drank rather a lot of petrol when trying to siphon it one day and considering how incredibly hyper and annoying he was generally, when drunk on petrol it was one of the most amusing and disturbing things I’ve ever seen. I honestly thought he’d lost his marbles for good. I couldn’t go nearer than a metre from him because he reeked of petrol so badly. Most people would spit it out. Obviously, he thought it might be fun to swallow a litre of it first. It did look like fun though I must admit.

Should throw in a mention about how the bar girl and I did NOT get on. This is the one person you don’t want to be on the bad side of but luckily she quit part way through and then Bayram wouldn’t give her her job back. Stupid cow.

Ended up missing rather a lot of work as I couldn’t get a return flight but eventually Wes and I got one for the Friday night, the night after the end of Ramadan. I desperately wanted to be there for the end of Ramadan (Thurs). And as luck would have it, we would be. Or so I thought. On one fateful night (Wed) we decided to go on a bar crawl (all three!) This is not my story to tell, however without giving too much away, Claire and Bayram got in a fight. The fight got physical and due to various village politics no one would help Claire and Wes had run off somewhere (although not with the girl with the lazy eye. Ha Ha, ha ha ha ha ha!), and I was temporarily back at Bayrams. I went to help her and it was all very scary until I managed to get her back to my room and the protection of Servet. I decided it was best for her to stay there and slept in Wes’s room. And the next morning it was decided that it was best if we left. I was so, so torn. I didn’t want to leave (even though it was only a day earlier than I was supposed to) and I cried for about 3 hours, for about 20 reasons. In the end I decided to stay until Servet in his over dramatic fashion told me to go and so we did. The whole Olympos story was so much more horribly complicated than I’m telling it but these are all the facts you need. Bayram drove us to Antalya where it was raining and freezing and made the sadness of it all so much worse. After our last night in Turkey we bid Claire farewell and started our 3-plane journey back to London. The best part was flying into London at night on Guy Fawkes day watching fireworks go off all over the city.

DREARY OL LONDON TOWN
This story almost needs an epilogue doncha think? I read too many books. I’ve been back in London for 2 weeks. It’s bitterly cold and I hate it. I’ve been reprimanded at work for being AWOL but I could only laugh as I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I still have two more chances before they can officially sack me and I’ve heard management are surprised at how well I’ve taken it.

I’ve caught up with Wes, Paul, Shane, Kristyn and Naomi on numerous occasions and we even had a boozy Sunday with a couple from the boat trip. We’ve eaten lots more good food and on one occasion in true Hayley style, I poured a bowl of miso soup over my lap and you know the little floaty bits? They don’t look good on pants. Wes’s bright idea was to wet them in the bathroom and use the hand dryer to dry them, which I promptly did only to discover with a soaking lap region that the hand dryer didn’t work. Sigh.

Pretty much hating work. They’re enforcing even more ridiculous rules and turning part of my job into a proper call centre with monitored calls and structured conversations. You may remember this is precisely what I did not want to do. However with it being so, so cold the prospect of another job, not just across the road from my house, is equally as painful. You might have seen my hospital on the news as George Best is dying here. I nearly knocked the tray of food out of his celebrity son Callum’s hands today at lunch. Imagine that. The press were surrounding the hospital for almost a fortnight which was turly digusting but at least they had to suffer in the bitter cold. There was also an amusing Eric Clapton episode but you had to be there.

I need to change my life dramatically but I don’t know how or when yet. And there’s that thing called money that makes everything tough. One day I will run back to Turkey, I’m even learning Turkish now, but I figure I need to see more of Europe before I do something quite that rash. Because if I go, I won’t leave!

I must also mention the fact that the one shower where I live (shared *supposedly* between 17 flats) clogs up every single month. It has been clogged for 10 days now and I am forced to use the bath which I absolutely detest. The weird thing is, no one else who lives there seems to care. Do the British not shower? I've become a bit of a spy because everytime I hear running water I sneak around trying to figure out where it's coming from but I've not yet found the source. Very bloody frustrating.

Anyway, the end, for now!

Did any of you make it this far?