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.

A Lycian Way mini-adventure: Rest day in Kemer

Happy toes in the sand

You know you're in an Antalya beach resort when... your friend leaves her wallet on the minibus and you're alerted to this fact by your Turkish fellow passengers calling out not "Abla" or "Hanımefendi" or "Bayan" or even "Hey lady" but "Devushka! Devushka!"

In case it wasn't already clear from the Cyrillic signs on shops selling fur coats and skimpy bathing suits, that was a pretty good hint that the holiday town of Kemer is known as a destination for Russian tourists. And though I try not to be overly judgmental, it was hard to escape the feeling that they'd given all foreign visitors a pretty bad rap.

Cheers to new adventures

There were exceptions, of course -- the friendly, chatty hunter who had just come down from Tahtalı Dağı and showed us photos of the cave where he'd set up the blackened çaydanlık that he'd hauled up to the summit in his backpack comes to mind.

But on the whole, we received the surliest welcome in Kemer that I've ever experienced in famously hospitable Turkey -- from brusquely impatient waiters to the hotel staff pounding on our door and following us down the hallway to repeatedly demand payment up front for our room. One woman I sat next to on a bus softened noticably when she found out I was American, and not Russian. Finally! A country with an even worse international reputation than my own.

Last sunrise in Lycia (for now)

Though Kemer's beautiful long stretch of both sand and pebble beaches was whipped by wind in the afternoon and marred by cat-calling magandas in the early evening, our little band of hikers was happy to trade our boots for sandals, sit in the sun, and finally make a proper toast to adventures just had, and those yet to come.

A Lycian Way mini-adventure, day 5: Tekirova to....?

Poppies and a misty mountain

Fortified after yesterday's exertions with börek and eggs at a local pastane, we picked up the trail again (after plodding across none-too-memorable Tekirova) on a service road behind the sprawling Rixos hotel, whose waterpark and shabby outlying buildings butt up right against the woodlands on the outskirts of town.

It was an inauspicious start to the day's hike, but after a short jaunt through sparse forest, across a campground/equestrian center, and past some flower-dappled fields backdropped by a mist-shrouded Tahtalı Dağı, we were back on favorite territory: curving coastal paths above the Mediterranean Sea, more slate blue than turquoise on this overcast morning, but beautiful nonetheless.

Lovely Phaselis

The promise of visiting the ruins of Phaselis had been a major motivation to get our tired legs moving once again, though having not been to the site in nearly five years, I'll admit I feared for the worst. Would it be blighted by garish concession stands, filled with ham-fisted restorations, or marred by new roads? Thankfully, the remains of this ancient maritime city were exactly as I remembered: an evocative series of arches and tombs and column capitals half-hidden away in the woods, centered around a wide paved-stone road leading to the sea.

There weren't many other visitors at Phaselis when we passed through, but those who were there seemed to be having so much fun, their joy was infectious: a young pair faux-fencing with sticks, a Turkish woman flamboyantly play-acting on the stage of the ancient theater, a group of tourists arraying themselves on the theater steps for cheesy-album-cover-style photos.

Seaside serenity

We took a few band photos of our own on the dramatic, volcanic-rock-like cliffs past Phaselis, then lost the trail in a maze of low brush before deciding to break for lunch overlooking the sea, across a small bay from the town of Çamyuva. Continuing on through a predictably garbage-ridden picnic area, we followed an asphalt road to the main highway, where the trail waymarks led -- in very Hiking Istanbul-esque fashion -- through a graffitied underpass and across a large construction site where a fresh pair of tunnels emerged from the hillside.

What our guidebook described as a forest track seemed to be en route to being turned into forest road, with rocks piled underfoot and some new crash barriers alongside. With one member of our party hobbled by painful blisters, we stood little chance of reaching the next village by nightfall, and after climbing up this unappealing series of switchbacks for about 45 minutes, we decided it wasn't worth continuing on.

Unlovely construction

We hiked back down, crossed through the construction site and the underpass again, and ended our hiking adventure -- this installment, at least! -- hailing a minibus by the side of the highway.

Four-and-a-half Lycian Way segments down, just 24 ½ more on to go on future excursions before I can get the trail's waymark tattooed on my arm. Kidding. Kinda.

A Lycian Way mini-adventure, day 4: Çıralı to Tekirova

Tired as my legs were, I nearly broke into a run when I spotted the yellow signpost in the distance, at the end of yet another field of rough red rocks. But when I reached the post, my heart sank. We had already been walking for nine hours on what we'd been led to believe was a hike of about that length, the daylight was starting to wane, and if the yellow sign was correct, we still had more than three hours to go to reach the next town.

Can't get enough of that
turquoise water

We'd started out the day from Çıralı in high spirits, if a bit leery of the dark clouds roaming across the sky. A short climb above the seafront took us on a route leading up and down a series of small coves and the rocky cliffs overlooking their beaches, each vista seemingly more photo-worthy than the last. Turning inland brought us first across the exposed, drab, rocky remains of old mining operations, then into an overgrown meadow that hid any official trail markers, leaving only other hikers' rock cairns to follow through a maze of bushes and tall grasses.

Then we climbed and climbed over rocky slopes where hardy flowers bloomed between the stones, going higher and higher until stopping for a rest at one point, I turned around to be awestruck by the vast panorama below, spreading out to the ocean and those little coves we'd visited hours before, each inch of the view earned by our calloused feet and straining muscles.

Hardy and beautiful flowers

Invigorated by the sight of how far we'd come, we marched forward until the pine-needle-strewn paths turned again into rocky outcroppings and the time we'd allotted for the hike passed without any indication that we might be nearing its end.

Night started to fall not long after we came across the yellow sign, and the question of whether it would be more dangerous to continue on in the dark, make a a treacherous beeline down a steep ravine to the distant highway that was the only sign of civilization in sight, or try to find shelter (since we were carrying none of our own) in the woods for the night shadowed our every footstep.

We started all the way down there
at sea level

I tried to quicken my pace even as I felt my feet begin to stumble from fatigue, the red-and-white slashes of paint on rocks alongside the trail becoming harder and harder to see as the light faded further. Digging out extra batteries for one of two failing flashlights, we continued on in the dark, tracing the uneven path and searching for trail markers with our narrow beam of light.

It was hard to know if minutes had passed, or hours, but eventually the hum of cars on the distant highway had started to seem louder -- or was it just our weary minds' wishful thinking? Then the flashlight's beam caught a piece of styrofoam on the ground, then a wire fence, then an electric pylon, then finally, mercifully, a dirt road. Never had I been so happy to see the signs of development encroaching on nature.

So damn many rocks

For our final hours in the dark, I'd driven myself forward with thoughts of a cheeseburger, a giant plate of fries, and a cold beer (if not three). But by the time the dirt road turned into an asphalt one and reached town, it was past 10pm, too late to buy alcohol from the shop, and the only restaurant within crawling distance was dry. We fell upon our kebabs and pide like a pack of wolves on their prey and toasted our safe arrival with soda and ayran.

Tomorrow, onward to Roman Bridge?

A Lycian Way mini-adventure, day 3: Adrasan to Çıralı

Green hills above Adrasan

The path out of Adrasan rose up above the greenhouse-dotted valley, across high meadows bright with flowers and fresh green shoots of grass, past a shepherd perched on a rock under a tree as his small flock grazed nearby, and alongside a rough shack where an enterprising local had set up shop selling fresh-squeezed orange juice to thirsty hikers.

After these bucolic scenes, the trail took a turn for the monotonous as it wound up into rocky forest, pretty but with little to differentiate one stretch from the next. The remnants of ancient Phoinikous, which we'd eagerly noted in our guidebook as something to make up for the lack of sea views on this inland segment of the Lycian Way, failed to reveal themselves amongst the craggy natural stones scattered all over the hillside.

Strange trees and rock cairn

Then the forest became thicker and lower, closing in on us almost jungle-like, cutting off phone and GPS signals and restricting our vision to no more than a few meters as the narrow path zigzagged through unfamiliar trees with twisted reddish trunks that felt as smooth and cold as carved and polished wood. It was easy to imagine ourselves in some kind of fairytale, or perhaps -- remembering the disquieting howls we'd heard earlier from an unseen male voice, or catching a glimpse of a dark green snake slithering across our path -- a darker kind of fable.

Sarcophagus in ancient city of Olympos

Following a long descent, the trees around us opened up once again and we emerged into the ruins of ancient Olympos like explorers stumbling upon a lost city (never mind the parking lot and ticket booths across the river). Moss grew over the inscriptions and carved reliefs on heavy sarcophagi and stone walls seemed to melt into the surrounding greenery and soil. We walked under sturdy arches and through a crumbling theater half reclaimed by the landscape, marveling at how such historical richness could be left in such glorious disarray.

Olympos beach at dusk

Just when we thought we'd reached the end of the site and the seafront beyond where our path should continue... we ran up against a fence. Laden as we were with our heavy packs and having already walked for 16 kilometers, backtracking was not an option worth considering. So like the seasoned urban hikers we are, over the fence we went -- onto the gleaming white stones of Olympos beach, the long sweeping curve of the sea framed by dramatic cliffs catching the last gleams cast by the setting sun.

Tomorrow, onward to Tekirova!

A Lycian Way mini-adventure, day 2: Karaöz to Adrasan

Trail marker in flower-filled meadow

Re-scrutinizing our maps over breakfast this morning, we realized we had spent a good chunk of yesterday's walk near, but not actually on, the Lycian Way, which would apparently have taken us over a long stretch of beach rather than through the town of Mavikent and its outskirts. So it wasn't until today that we were really able to get into the swing of one of the key elements of this long-distance hike: spotting little red-and-white stripes of paint on tree trunks, electric poles, and rocks large and small, high and low, and sometimes nearly covered by the flowers gloriously blooming all over the trail.

Field of cairns

"There's one!" became a frequent cry between us as we peered down two paths after a junction, trying to figure out which one to take. After a while it became almost second nature to scan the landscape for these trail markers as we picked our way up the steep, hot climb after the Gelidonya Feneri (lighthouse) or strolled through shaded woods. At some points, there was extra navigational help from rock cairns perched on the side of the path or on top of a larger rock. In one rather spectacularly odd case, we crossed a rock field dappled with dozens of cairns, giving the area an eerie, almost funereal feel.

Korsan Koyu ("Pirates' Cove")

Early on in today's hike we came across a group of sleepy backpackers breaking camp in a gorgeous cove, the turquoise water lapping gently at the shore. The sight gave me a bit of a pang about not sleeping under the stars, but given the dire state of Turkey's tourism industry lately, I'm happy this time around to be putting some money in the pockets of the families running the pensions we're staying at instead. Nothing like a socially conscious excuse to enjoy a few creature comforts.

Tomorrow, onward to Çıralı!

A Lycian Way mini-adventure, day 1: Kumluca to Karaöz

When you've been trying for nine years to find a friend or two who wants to tackle part of Turkey's most famous long-distance hiking route with you, the last thing you want to hear before you finally set out on the trail is pouring rain. But pour it did as Katrinka Abroad and I lay in our beds in our pension in Finike last night, the rumble of thunder adding to our trepidation about what the morning would bring.

Amidst the holiday homes and hotels
of Kumluca

But with the skies clearing as we ate our breakfast, we set off in high spirits from Finike, hopping a minibus (as suggested by our guidebook) to skip 10 kilometers of plodding down the flat and scruffy shoreline that ran alongside the road and start our on-foot adventure in Kumluca. Frankly, we should have followed the book's recommendation to the letter and minibused it all the way to Mavikent, sparing ourselves an outskirts-of-Istanbul-esque ramble through half-built housing developments and around greenhouses and water-treatment plants.

Old beach house in Mavikent

Things got better as we passed through the small town of Mavikent, where there was a beautifully overgrown cemetery, a sweet old lady growing gorgeous roses all around her house, dilapidated wooden houses on stilts along the beach, and a big rock to clamber up on and eat our packed lunch.

It was there, by the rock, about 10 kilometers into our walk, that we found our first official signage for the Lycian Way, the 540-kilometer route stretching along Turkey's Mediterranean Coast from Fethiye to Antalya. (We picked the trail up well into its second half, and will hike for less than a week -- this time around!)

From there, though the path largely continued following a road, it became a much more scenic and dramatic one, undulating above the coast with picture-worthy views of the turquoise sea around nearly every bend.

En route to Karaöz

By late afternoon, we'd reached Karaöz, a small farming village near the water, and found accommodations at a simple pension run by a friendly couple with a dog, two ducks, and at least one green thumb for gardening. Though it was a fairly easy day hiking-wise, our dinner of yayla çorbaşı and grilled çipura still felt well-earned -- and tasted delicious.

Tomorrow, onward to Adrasan!

When politics intrudes on paradise

This time of year, the Mediterranean village of Adrasan used to be bustling with backpackers, spending a night or two in town as part of their trek along the Lycian Way. But this week, I seem to be the only tourist for miles.

"We would be on full staff in March," the owner of the otherwise empty hotel where I'm staying tells me. "As you can see, the weather is so good for hiking, but with the terrorism and the politics..."

Such cares couldn't feel further away while walking alongside Adrasan's serene beach, looking out over its glimmering bay from the tree-dappled mountains that rise up from the shoreline, or eating a hearty home-cooked meal alongside its lazy river. Yet for those who depend on tourism for their livelihood, the effects of distant disasters and decisions are felt especially keenly in places like this.

Before opening the hotel, its owner had operated a pair of restaurants on the nearby beach. All told, he's been in the tourism business in Adrasan for 25 years, but is originally from Diyarbakır, in southeast Turkey. I asked him why he left his hometown. He shrugged. "Same as you moving to Istanbul..."

I hadn't said anything about my reasons for relocating, but it was a more than fair point. I don't have a ready answer as to why I uprooted myself from everything I knew nine years ago. In some ways, it doesn't really matter what someone is seeking, or escaping; we end up somewhere, we may struggle a bit (or a lot), but eventually we build new lives. And then the bombs come -- or the tourists don't -- and we may feel like we're too invested to leave.

What's going to save Turkish tourism this week?

War across the border and conflict and terrorist bombings at home have sent Turkey's tourism industry into a tailspin. The downing of a Russian jet didn't help matters. Neither, probably, did attacks on Asian visitors. The situation is so dire that the headline of a satirical news story was echoed by hotel owners' actual complaints to a real news outlet after the most recent bomb in Istanbul: that there are no reservations left to be cancelled.

With 8 percent of the country's entire workforce employed directly in tourism and the downturn showing no signs of abating, this is no laughing matter. But the seemingly endless list of attempts to save the industry is by turns sad, hilarious, head-scratching, and appalling (and ever-so-occasionally pragmatic). So what's going to save Turkish tourism this week? Is it...

1) Shooing away those unsightly refugees?

2) Giving school kids an extra two weeks of vacation?

3) Organizing a Justin Bieber concert?

4) Taxing Turks who travel abroad?

5) Building Chinatowns in major Turkish cities?

6) Promoting halal holidays?

7) Offering submarine tours of the Mediterranean?

8) Sinking an airplane into the ocean?

9) Filming a new soap opera?

10) Subsidizing charter flights?

11) Building the world's largest duty-free shop?

12) Praying?

Seems your (and my) guess is as good as anyone else's, so what would you propose to save Turkish tourism? I considered suggesting that Turkey steal an idea from its neighbor Georgia and welcome foreign travelers with complimentary wine, but a free bottle of Turkish plonk might scare even more visitors away.

UPDATE (13 July 2016): With fences mended with Russia, and domestic travel boosted to record levels by the declaration of a nine-day holiday following the fasting month of Ramadan, things may be looking up for the tourism industry. But Turkey is taking no chances: The Black Sea city of Samsun recently announced that construction is almost complete on the world's first golf course on an artificial island. 

(Almost) alone at the Artemis Temple

I'm not proud of it, but I've got to admit, over the years, I've become a bit of a ruins snob.

I've been lucky enough to be able to visit some stunning, awe-inspiring, downright reverence-inducing ancient sites -- from the colosseum of El Jem, where you can walk through the cellars that once held wild beasts of all types, to the temple complex of Baalbek, with its mysterious megalithic stone blocks -- many of them blissfully free of crowds.

The downside of this good fortune is that it takes more than a towering structure or a well-preserved frieze to impress me (and that it makes me embarrassed to feel so blasé when other visitors are clearly wowed). A ruin usually sticks in my mind and my heart not because of its size, age, or level of preservation, but because of its setting and the experience I was able to have there -- whether hearing the call to prayer rise up from the modern city of Bergama while gazing out over the ancient ruins of Pergamon, poking my head into the 2,000-year-old shops of Ostia Antica, or rambling freely over the remains of Patara.

So while intellectually I can appreciate the value of Ephesus, heralded as the the best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean, traipsing down its mile-long main avenue along with thousands of other camera-toting, flag-following tourists can feel more like a slog than a privilege, especially in the midday summer heat.

The Temple of Artemis, annoying tout not pictured

I thought I'd found my Selçuk-area bliss instead at the Temple of Artemis; one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it now scarcely merits a single-line mention in most guidebooks. But what could be more evocative of the tides of history and twists of fate than this once-grand temple reduced to a scant few architectural remnants rising out of a murky green swamp, birds nesting atop its scattered capitals? I sat happily on part of an old column in the shade of a mulberry tree for some time, listening to the birds all around and watching them wade, swim, and dive in the plant-filled waters. The dusty, hot modern town was largely hidden behind layers of green, affording a wonderful view of the İsa Bey Mosque and the Basilica of St. John.

Just one thing disturbed my reverie, like the buzzing of a mosquito all the more difficult to ignore the longer it went on: the insistent voice of the sole other person at the site, a vendor calling out "Lady, postcard! Postcard, lady! Laaaady!" 

Ode to the night bus

I love the feeling of waking up in a new place, of drowsily realizing that the rolling hills out the window are not the concrete caverns you left behind....

I love the bustle of the mola dinlenme tesisi, with its rows of giant buses being hosed down and crowds of people shopping, eating, and smoking as if it was midday and not two in the morning...

I love arriving not at a sterile, interchangeable airport but at a dusty small-town bus station or boisterous big-city otogar, its halls echoing with the shouts of touts calling out their company's destinations, or the drumming and singing that sends a young man off on his way to become a soldier...

I love watching families being able to accompany their travelers until the last minute, coming onto the bus to make sure they're settled into their seats, waving madly as the engine starts, even running alongside the bus as it starts to pull away...

I love stamping through snow at a midnight stop en route to the beach, where it's still warm enough to swim in the sea, reminding me how big and geographically diverse this country is...

And, I'll admit it, I love the little paper cups of Nescafe, and the snack-packs of processed cookies too.

Be here now

Riding the train between Chicago and Ann Arbor, I notice the girl across the aisle has taken off her shoes. A tattoo on the side of her foot reads "Be Here Now."

As I gaze sleepily out the window, it occurs to me that's just what train (or long-distance bus) travel encourages: Faced with hours of forward motion along a predetermined route, with no control over where or when you stop, the traveler's mind drifts readily into a meditative state.

Light and clouds play across the sky, wind-blown leaves whip down the track, weathered farmhouses fade into the trees, two stenciled eyes gaze back from the wall of a utility shed, skyscrapers rise in the distance.

All here, now, but just for a moment before disappearing past the window, carrying with them any pain over what's been left behind.

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!

Famished in Phaselis

Schedules may often be more like suggestions, "no"s may sometimes mysteriously turn into "yes"es, and procedures may change from day to day, but if there's anything you can count on in Turkey, it's that there will be a dolmuş (private minibus) going where you want to go, and that when you get there, someone will be selling something to eat.

So there was no reason to doubt the Lonely Planet Turkey guide when it said you could buy snacks at the site entrance to Phaselis, the ruins of an ancient city set along three small bays on Turkey's Mediterranean Coast.

"Snacks," though, turned out to be a cooler of sodas and a few overpriced candy bars. My faith in the certainties of Turkish travel badly shaken, I bought a Twix bar and headed onward. I had spent three hours on the dolmuş to get here; there would be no turning back in search of tost.

The ruins and beaches, fortunately, were exactly as advertised.

Read more »

Up the stairs and back in time

With its clean-swept sandstone steps and lush, well-tended foliage, this little neighborhood staircase could be located in any number of warm-climate, well-to-do communities around the world. I could easily see people in Los Angeles, or maybe Santa Fe, or even somewhere in Spain, walking up these stairs after work, and going home to one of the handful of houses lining the steps on both sides.

What these imaginary people wouldn't find at the top of those doppelgänger stairs, however, would be what these particular steps led to: a 2,000-year-old Lycian rock tomb, carved into the hillside above.

There was a pretty nice view of the sunset from the top too, but those aren't quite so unusual outside this beautiful and history-rich stretch of Turkish Mediterranean coastline.

TO VISIT: This tomb, and some less-well-preserved ones nearby, are easy to get to from the town center in Kaş, though you won't find any signs until right at the base of the steps.

Go up from the town square on Uzun Çarşi Cad. (you'll pass an impressive free-standing sarcophagi dating to the same era on the way) until you see the big Phellos Health Club on your right. Turn left on Likya Cad. and continue uphill until you reach the tombs.

The original Twitter*

A dear friend back home recently ran across a postcard I had sent from a long-ago work trip to mining-blighted rural West Virginia and wanted to read the message I had penned back to me over the phone. The trip had made a strong emotional impression on me and I cringed inwardly at the thought of hearing what banalities my eight-years-earlier self had seen fit to pen. Surprisingly, the few sentences I had jotted down really seemed to capture the feelings that my time in and around Whitesville, WV, had evoked.

I know I've written my share of trite "XXX is beautiful, wish you were here" notes on the back of postcards, but the chance to pair a few pithy -- but funny, heartfelt, informative, or otherwise meaningful -- words with an appropriate keepsake picture keeps me firmly in the camp of those practicing the lost art of postcard writing, as a recent New York Review of Books essay described it.

Travel blogger Doug Mack complained, and rightfully so, about essayist Charles Simic's seeming contention that the doddering elderly are the last keepers of the postcard-writing flame, but the piece is otherwise a loving tribute and the flurry of comments it inspired show that postcard fandom is alive and plenty creative.

On my first trip abroad, writing postcards gave me a reason to linger in dauntingly sophisticated-seeming cafes or bars without feeling so horribly lonely and out of place. It's sent me poking through dusty shops in small Turkish towns for something to remember an obscure destination by. Perhaps best of all, it's led me to some very memorable places: An imposing concrete monument to Soviet bureaucracy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (top); a battered and weathered trailer in Dead Horse, Alaska (above); a grandly renovated 17th-century caravansaray in Mardin, Turkey (left). All post offices.

* Props for the post title idea to "james," a commenter on the NYRB article.

San Francisco Saturday Night

Long, low-slung cars race down Mission Street, their drivers honking furiously while their passengers wave Mexican flags out the windows. Girls in body paint and butterfly wings pass boys in hot pants and headbands on the corner, reeling slightly from drinking in the sun. On the table, an amber microbrew and a plate of pulled pork, pimento mac & cheese, and collard greens with ham hocks, served by a forgetful Rastafarian. On the agenda, cheering men in tights, metal Ts, or just a sweat sock and an American flag as they air guitar their way to humiliation or glory. It's good to be home.

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.

A wide-eyed look at an Uzbek bazaar

In late March 2004, two suicide bombings tore through the Chorsu bazaar area in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, killing 15. I found it hard not to think about this while touring the sprawling market eight months later, but if the vendors and other shoppers felt any nervousness about a potential recurrence -- or tension due to a then-ongoing dispute over selling licenses and regulations -- there were no obvious signs of it amid the bustling trade on a crisp November afternoon.

The outer rims of the bazaar were filled with rickety stands and itinerant vendors selling staple items of modern life -- watches, belts, sunglasses, clothing, cassettes -- while the covered area at the core of the market held foodstuffs of all sorts. Squash and pomegranates were splayed open to display their colorful interiors. A rainbow assortment of candies for the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of the Ramadan fasting period spilled out of their sellers' stalls.

We dipped our fingers to taste honey dripping from a knife and spices sold out of canvas sacks as nearby vendors sat and churned huge vats of a marshmallow-like substance and offered tastes to passers-by. From another stand, we sampled what looked like balls of dough, but turned out to be tart rounds of cheese.

(From a Nov. 8, 2004, journal entry.)

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NOTE: Other Lonely Planet bloggers share their experiences -- wide-eyed like my early encounter, savvy, or quizzical -- with market cultures around the world in the Blogsherpa Blog Carnival: The Marketplace, hosted by Kiran Keswani of Indian Bazaars.

Going back to Berlin

What I remembered most about Berlin was the cranes. They towered over the city, sprouting from blocked-off squares and empty lots and half-finished buildings. It was almost a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall and to a wide-eyed visitor, the city still seemed to be in the messy middle of ripping itself up and starting again. The ruined tower of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church stood amid broad and empty avenues; the crumbling path along the remaining part of the wall, painted with faded murals, was eerily deserted. Berlin's scars had not yet healed, and in the scant day or two I spent there on my first trip abroad in 1998, I was moved by the way there seemed to be an agreement not to cover them all up.

When I had the chance to return in 2010 to cover an environmental conference, the cranes were gone, their work done. People strolled through parks, lined up to see the view from the Reichstag's glass dome (top right), rode their bikes along the spruced-up East Side Gallery (bottom right), ate Thai noodles in sleek restaurants, and drank in a beer garden in the shadow of an abandoned-department store-turned-prison-turned-artists-collective. I was saddened to learn that latter spot, the Kunsthaus Tacheles (left), is at risk of being shut down, and I could see how people who had loved Berlin through its tough times might feel that its gritty uniqueness has largely been lost. But coming from crowded, grimy Istanbul, it was hard to see much to dislike in this green, cultured, cosmopolitan -- and completely transformed -- city.

While wandering one day, I found myself in the vicinity of the Brandenburg Gate, a former barrier between East and West Berlin and an iconic symbol of the fall of the wall. What I saw there, though, looked so small and sedate that I had to ask at a nearby souvenir shop to confirm that it was actually the place I remembered. The area around the gate, like so much else of central Berlin, was attractively refurbished, pedestrian-friendly, and rife with outdoor cafes. I wanted to like it, but I didn't. I missed seeing cars whip between the once-barricaded columns, emphatically demonstrating that people were free to move and the city was one again.

NOTE: Revisiting favorite places can be comforting, vexing, or bittersweet. Check out other Lonely Planet travel bloggers' experiences with return visits in the Blogsherpa Blog Carnival: Going Back, hosted by Natalia and family at No Beaten Path.