Üç bayan on the loose on the Karia Yolu

Pretty but scratchy
vegetation

"Three ladies, aren’t you scared??" the farmer asked incredulously as he pointed us in the direction of the gate that led out of his field and onto the dirt road climbing out of Bağlarözü bay.

Used to getting such responses to our hiking adventures in Turkey, we scoffed amongst ourselves at the question. But had we known what we'd be getting into before we finally reached his farm, we might indeed have been a little trepidatious.

Our first hike on the Carian Trail as it winds its way around the Datça Peninsula in southwestern Turkey started off easily in the beachside village of Palamutbükü, following rural roads past newly tilled fields with chamomile flowers growing wild on their edges. The signpost for Knidos pointed us up a trail into the scrabbly hills, and then down again onto a rocky path overlooking the watery gradient of blues where the Aegean Sea blends into the Mediterranean.

It all seemed so easy
at the start... 

Somewhere around the halfway point of what was supposed to be a 7.5-hour hike on "a mix of path and dirt road undulating around the coast," I was brought up short. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. But how? A rocky slope rose up steeply to one side of the narrow path; to the other side, there was only the sea. Pausing to contemplate the situation, I leaned on one hand against the rock and realized there were red and white paint stripes blazed onto the stone right next to my palm. So we were still on the trail after all. But there was nowhere for me to step next.

Right beyond my feet, the path ended in a steep drop-off to the sea, where the incoming tide crashed against a large, jagged rock, thwarting any thought of jumping into the surf. I sat down and scooted myself as far over the edge as I could go while still holding on, but my feet still dangled above the slippery rock. Even if I could make it down without twisting an ankle, or worse, we would be in the sea, with who-knows-how-many similar maneuvers ahead.

The path was supposed
to go above the shore,
not in the sea...

I recalled seeing a dirt road branching off up over the hills some ways back – maybe we could scramble our way up to reach it? Neither option seemed great, but we had to choose one, so up we went, trying to pick our way along loose scree and around unforgiving scrub. The undergrowth released aromas of rosemary, marjoram, and lavender while sharp, hard branches of other plants scratched into our legs.

Judging by the gap in photos on my camera roll, it was a good two hours before we emerged onto the surprised farmer's land and were gratefully reunited with the fickle trail markers and (at least for a while) a wide road. As the daylight began to wane, shapes started to emerge from the rocky landscape we now shared with a few herds of goats – remnants of the city walls of ancient Knidos, our destination at last.

Cheap-beer chic

A few years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled "Better things to do with a can (or bottle) of Efes than drinking it." If I were writing it now, the list would most certainly be topped (no pun intended) by this bottle-cap purse hand-crocheted by the wonderful craftswomen of Çöp(m)adam.

Founded by longtime American expat Tara Hopkins, who I previously profiled for MORE magazine, this social-entrepreneurship business (the name is a play on words that means "garbage ladies") is based in the Turkish Aegean town of Ayvalık. Hopkins hires women who have never worked for pay before to create playful, beautiful handicrafts out of recycled materials -- bags, aprons, stuffed animals, wallets, frames, tea towels, cushion covers, keychain decorations, and more.

Their bottle-cap bags come in various sizes, from shoulder bags to clutches to wallets, and are made with an assortment of colorful soda and beer bottle caps. After eight years of loving to hate Turkey's most famous beer, however, I just had to special-order an all-Efes version.

If you want one all of your own, you'd better hurry -- rumor has it that Efes will be switching over to pull-off bottle caps in the near future. The mediocre taste of the beer inside will surely remain the same, but the good crafting materials will become in short supply.

Check out the full catalogue of products, and inquire about your own special orders, over at the Çöp(m)adam website.

The glamorous life of the guidebook updater

"You must have the best job in the world!" the couple at the next table gushed, having just learned that I was staying at their Assos hotel while updating part of the Fodor's Turkey guidebook.

While there are certainly some jealousy-inducing perks to guidebook work – like getting the VIP treatment at that lovely establishment (including a divine breakfast featuring fresh-baked bread, local cheeses and olives, spicy pepper dip, and homemade pistachio and chili jams) – most of what's involved is far less glamorous than fellow travelers might think.

My days on the North Aegean (one of my favorite parts of Turkey) last summer were largely spent getting up early, guzzling copious amounts of Nescafe, and then racing from one hotel, restaurant, or historic site to the next, checking opening hours, prices, menus, room features, and other nitty-gritty details, then collapsing in a sweaty mess (it was August, after all) on a bus that would take me to the next destination, where the process would start all over again.

Nearly a year later, the fruits of these labors have made it into the 8th edition of Fodor's Turkey, with "Chapter 3: The Sea of Marmara and the North Aegean" – much of which is also available online – bearing my mark as updater. Friend and colleague Vanessa Larson's imprimatur is on the "Istanbul" and "Cappadocia and Central Turkey" chapters. I hope our work helps point travelers in the right direction – and that on my next trip to the North Aegean, I'll be packing my bikini and beach towel instead of my reporter's notebook and pen!

Cellular confusion

Despite their many and long-held animosities, Turkey and Greece have a lot in common. Not that either of them would admit it. When I visited Athens a few years ago, people often stiffened noticeably when we told them we were from Istanbul, and then insisted we absolutely must try "Greek baklava," "Greek coffee," or "Greek kebab" -- all of which tasted pretty much exactly like their Turkish counterparts.

See my toes? They're in Turkey. That island offshore? That's Greece.

The similarities are so strong that while riding in a minibus on a winding road hugging the cliffs along Turkey's Mediterranean coast, even my cell phone got confused about exactly where it was.

"Sayin musterimiz, yurt disi operatorden sinyal almakta oldugunuz icin Turkcell Dunya tarifesi ile ucretlendirilmektesiniz," read the first in a barrage of text messages explaining call and SMS fees in Greece and touting the "avantaj" of Turkcell's international calling packages.

Dear customer, you are getting a signal from an international operator and will be charged Turkcell World fees...

The nearness of Greece is particularly keenly felt on Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean coasts, where places like Ayvalık, Bozcaada, and Kalkan retain the distinctive architecture of their historical "Greek quarters," if not the residents, relocated in the population exchange of 1923. Near Fethiye, an entire town, Kayaköy, stands empty, its stone homes never re-inhabited after their owners were forced to leave. Continued saber-rattling today over Cyprus and an Aegean territorial dispute are further proof, though, that closeness doesn't always lead to comity.

Better things to do with a can (or bottle) of Efes than drinking it

Make a row of clanking "wind chimes" for your garden:

Gülpinar, Turkey

Cut it into strips and turn it into a model airplane, as in this Efes-sponsored art exhibition:

Via: My Modern Metropolis

Stack up cases containing 72,000 bottles in a pyramid shape inside an art museum, then invite visitors to climb the sculpture and consume its contents:

Photos: KW Institute for Contemporary Art

The artist, Cyprien Gaillard, described the work as a commentary on the destruction and displacement of the Pergamon Altar at the original "Efes" (Ephesus, to most tourists). I call it a clever way to get other people to drink your Efes beer for you.

Bravo, güneş!

Perhaps everyone was just in a laudatory mood after spending the afternoon cheering runners (myself included!) as they passed the finish line set up in the little town square during the first Bozcaada Half Marathon and 10K Run. Or perhaps it was an island ritual little observed by big-city dwellers.

In any event, a few hours after the run concluded, as the warm early summer's day began to draw to a close, caravans of cars headed to the far side of the island. There, a long stretch of rocky cliff near a row of wind turbines overlooked the ocean, offering an unobstructed view of the setting sun.

In groups and pairs, people chatted and drank wine and snuggled up and plucked out a few tunes on a guitar. The blue and gold sky turned to shades of pink and purple as the sun dropped toward the horizon, casting a long glowing reflection on the Aegean Sea. When it finally dipped out of sight, everyone applauded.

Ordinary encounters I won't forget

"Çekme! Çekme!" Though I couldn't see the source of the voice as I squinted into the low sun, which had been setting ever so beautifully on one of Ayvalık's old cobblestone streets, the message was clear: Don't take that picture. I lowered my camera. "Çekmiyorum," I called back. I'm not shooting. Afraid of what faux pas I might have committed or what awkward situation I might have stumbled into, I approached the woman who had called out to me. She wasn't angry at all.

"I just look so ugly in my house clothes, I didn't want you to take my picture," she explained (in Turkish), laughing. The heat of the early summer day still hung on the street and like many other residents of the old part of town, this thirtyish woman was sitting on her stoop to stay cool, chatting with people as they passed by. She invited me to sit and I spent the next two hours or so amidst the ongoing neighborhood conversation, meeting her teenage son as he sped by on his bike, answering curious onlookers' questions about where I was from, getting tips on which beach to go to, sipping juice, and finally joining my new acquaintance and her equally friendly daughter and mother (pictured) in the courtyard of their home, talking about the differences between Turkish and American culture.


I recalled this experience from my first summer in Turkey this past weekend, while taking another trip to the relaxing seaside town. No matter how frustrated I get with my halting progress in Turkish, chance encounters like these remind me of how glad I am to be making an effort to learn the language, something that has served me especially well -- in terms of both practical and entertainment value -- on trips out of Istanbul, where the people I meet seem ever interested in chatting with the foreigner who has somehow not found herself in Cappadocia or at a Mediterranean resort. If not for Turkish lessons, after all, I never would have been able to joke with the bored attendant at Saklıkent Gorge about his time working in Bodrum, where all the middle-aged female tourists seem to be on the prowl for young men. Nor would I have been part of the gem of a conversation my friend Matt and I found ourselves engaged in last year at Göbekli Tepe, an archaeological site outside of Şanlıurfa.

I don't remember how it happened, but somehow one of the guys showing us around decided we would be a good audience for his conspiracy theories about how Israel is trying to take over Southeast Turkey. Which is rich in, uh, watermelons and pigeons? Trying not to get too engaged in this one, we demurred, saying a few wishy-washy things about how there are good and bad people in every country, etc. etc. When he started asking about our family's religious backgrounds, I thought we'd be in for more of a tirade. But instead he seemed delighted, summing up the encounter as if he had discovered the secret to global peace: "Look at us, me a Muslim, you a Jew, and you a Christian -- all together! If only the whole world could be like this."

NOTE: People make the place, wherever you go. Check out other Lonely Planet travel bloggers' encounters around the world with interesting locals -- from teenage village girls to famous astronauts -- in the Blogsherpa Blog Carnival: Travel Encounters, hosted by Camden Luxford of The Brink of Something Else.

Off-season on the Aegean

Come summer, or so I'm told, the Aegean towns of Çesme (right) and, especially, nearby Alaçatı (below) will be mobbed with rich İstanbul'lus as some of the city's poshest and most popular restaurants and nightclubs open up their fair-weather outposts in these seaside villages.

Empty of the hordes to come, Alaçatı in late February looks like a stage set, with its charming cobbled streets lined by shuttered buildings promising boutique-hotel accommodations, wine tasting, tapas, sushi, and French bistro food -- just as soon as the weather warms up.

Seeing the locals leisurely carrying home their groceries and chatting amiably in the quiet streets, it's hard not to feel a sense of impending loss, whether residents in fact welcome or disdain their annual visitors. (Not to mention a twinge of shame about my small contribution to the tourist-ification of this and other places.)

But more than that, I wonder if the people who come to enjoy fine dining and private beaches ever peek behind the stage that has been set for them. Do they see the people living in crumbling houses or tending hidden gardens? What about the sheep and goats grazing in empty lots just a couple of blocks off of the main road? Somehow I doubt it. Though imagining a late-night encounter between a well-heeled couple who took the wrong route back to their hotel and a small herd of goats is somewhat amusing.

Deve güreşi

First, let me clear up a couple of misconceptions: Turkish oil wrestling has nothing to do with girls in bikinis and camel wrestling does not involve men tussling with dromedaries. Having now witnessed both sports, I can say that there are some surprising similarities between the two. In both cases, the contenders often do not possess what most of us would think of as, shall we say, athletic physiques. The "action" consists of a lot of slow, lumbering pushing and grappling before the decisive move, and what exactly one party has done to ensure victory can be a bit mysterious to the uneducated spectator. Maybe that's true of all wrestling.

But when it comes to sheer entertainment value, the camels win hands (hooves?) down. First, the outfits. While the human wrestlers don a minimalist garb of tight leather pants and a healthy coating of olive oil, their animal counterparts are bedecked in every kind of colorful carpet, banner, headband, scarf, and other ornament you could possibly think of.

Second, the spectacle. The stadium full of men watching the Kırkpınar Oil Wrestling Festival in Edirne seemed to take their sport of choice very seriously. There was no apparent beer drinking, no raucous applause, no bare chests painted with the names of their favorite wrestlers. Women and children were entertained outside the arena with shopping stalls and carnival rides, but inside it was just intent attention being paid to the two men in the ring trying to put their hands down each others' pants.

Camel wrestling, in contrast, is an all-day fun fair, with the sidelines often more entertaining to watch then the field itself. Children and stray dogs run everywhere, men knock back plastic cups of rakı and get up to dance, sucuk sellers grill up greasy camel-sausage sandwiches on tiny grills, and children and adults alike don festive orange scarves that actually (and awesomely) are embroidered with the words "camel wrestling souvenir." Plus, the oil wrestlers never make a mad dash for the stands, causing spectators to scatter. They don't spray thick, frothy spit everywhere either. (OK, that one's a point for the oily dudes.)

Next up, Turkish bullfighting and men on horseback trying to hit each other with javelins! Who's with me?

UPDATE: An article I wrote about camel wrestling, "Close Encounters with the Wrestling-Camel Kind," was published in the March 2011 edition of Time Out Istanbul magazine. Check it out!

On the road again

Strange as it may seem -- and I know it does seem very strange to some -- there's something I really, really love about sitting at a makeshift roadside bus stop, eating crackers and watching the traffic go by. About showing up at some dusty otogar and having to figure out how to get where I want to go next. About bumping down tiny rural roads in a dolmuş, gazing out the window at everything and nothing. About waking up on an all-night bus ride to the blazing lights of a rest stop, surreally bustling with people eating, smoking, and shopping at 3 a.m.

I love it so much that where I end up almost doesn't matter. If it's a tucked-away backstreet where I can sit on a little rattan stool and eat cheesy pastries and drink tea, or a rural village strewn with 2,000-year-old ruins*, all the better.

* Like the lovely remains shown here of the Temple of Artemis in Sardis, capital of the ancient kingdom of the Lydians, the first people to mint coins.