Change In Plans

Greetings from Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, where the rich diversity of human culture is always on display.

We have played the ‘packing for Paris’ word game with Tallulah about 9 million times. It drives her crazy when I say I am packing “a Tallulah.” She says, “I’m a person, DAD! You are supposed to be packing things, DAD!” It is difficult to capture in written form the mix of exasperation, humour, and polite indulgence (as if for a not-very-bright puppy) that Tallulah expresses with the word “DAD!” The mix may shift toward exasperation over time.

So yesterday we were packing for Paris for real. India, Tallulah and I all felt woefully dowdy and un-hip, in our Cape Town duds. It’s a paradox: South Africa has great design and housewares, but ugly clothes and shoes. Not sure why. Zola was oblivious. India and Tallulah have made clear that they will be packing a lot more on the trip back from Paris than on the way there. The woman at the check-in counter even remarked, “You are traveling light.” Ha ha. Wait until she sees what we come back with.

On paper, Turkish Airlines is a convenient way to get to Europe. Direct flight from Cape Town to Istanbul, with an hour stop in Johannesburg. Easy connection to anywhere. The planes are brand new, and the in-flight entertainment is great (important for traveling with kids). It is also much less out of the way than changing planes in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

So in theory, this should have been easy and pleasant. Back in our travel-round-the-world days, I think it would have been fine. We are out of practice, though. No one slept well on the flight. External factors played a role. The screamingest baby in the history of air travel was seated one row in front of us. Even the flight attendants, who are used to this kind of thing, realized it was a hazard to flight safety: someone might pull the emergency exit to get away. They seated the mother and baby in the galley for most of the flight. Seriously.

Even though the flight was not very bumpy, a half dozen passengers around us got airsick and barfed. Zola was awakened when the woman sitting behind him spattered projectile vomit on his hand and arm. Nice.

About an hour after the vomiting, the cabin was filled with a horrible smell of rotting meat and pumpkins. Zola had gotten his unintended revenge by taking off his shoes. I double bagged the shoes in plastic, and put them in the overhead compartment. His socks were still pretty offensive, but at least we didn’t get moved to the galley with the screaming baby.

Finally, my fingers swelled a lot during the flight (sympathetic reaction to watching ‘127 Hours’ on the awesome in-flight entertainment system). I switched my wedding band to my pinky, which wasn’t quite swollen enough to hold it on. Somehow the ring dropped deep into the mechanical bowels of Zola’s seat, clanking as it fell. When we landed, after all of the other passengers had disembarked, they sent an engineering team to disassemble the seat. 15 minutes later, we all applauded as a flight attendant slipped the ring back on my sausage-like finger.

We straggled down the steps to an airport bus, jammed with our fellow passengers, who had been waiting for all of this time. If looks could kill, all four of us (even sweet little Tallulah) would be lying dead on the tarmac. I felt badly for a few passengers who must have had tight connections, and shoved us out of the way as they sprinted out of the bus at the terminal.

So, we are slouching around the airport in Istanbul for a few hours. Tired, ratty with each other, and generally off of our peak travelling form. When we get to France in 5 hours, we can rest a little, unpack for Paris, and start enjoying our holiday. Adventure awaits.

I’m heartsick about missing Tallulah’s birthday today, and generally I hate being stuck somewhere for hours with not much to do. The only saving grace is that I’m stuck at the Istanbul Airport, which is one of my favorite places in the world.

Full disclosure: for the first time, I am waiting out the hours until the midnight flight to Johannesburg in the business-class lounge. And it is nowhere near as exotic as the rest of the airport. Mostly middle-aged business guys watching soccer on TV and reading newpapers. Collectively, we miss our families, and wish we were at home.

Many of my other experiences in this airport have been memorable. I spent hours one night drinking beer with South African mercenaries who were going home from Iraq on leave. I stood in an endless passport queue with the Latvian national basketball team. They weren’t as tall as I would have expected.

While boarding a flight to Istanbul, my small children got elbowed aside and nearly crushed by a mob of Mecca-bound Algerian pilgrims. I have idled away time wondering what the appropriate collective noun is for a large group of women who are completely covered by black tent dresses, head and face coverings. Pails of veils? A boatload of burqas?

I romanticize this airport as the epicenter of exotic.

A few sightings just now have made me laugh, and think of our family trip around the world.

I waited in a check-in line with a planeload of passengers bound for Ashgabad, the capital of Turkmenistan (of course). Every passenger had a trolley piled high with 5-f huge soft-sided bags, wrapped in tape and plastic. Every single passenger. I gather that: Turkish Airlines doesn’t charge for extra luggage, that consumer goods must be hard to come by in Turkmenistan, and that customs enforcement must be a little lax. The sheer amount of stuff being transported made me think that we could have carted a lot more around on our trip if I hadn’t been such a grouch about luggage.

In the lounge they are serving a cold drink that reminded me of one of the funniest moments of our entire family trip. We were in Gocek, Turkey, geting ready to go out on a sailboat for a week. We stopped for lunch at a pizzeria before boarding the boat, for what we thought would be our last fishless meal for a week. The restaurant had this awesome drinks machine, that was gushing a frothy, creamy, vanilla milkshakey drink in a circulating fountain. Both kids locked onto this spectacle, and ordered by pointing. The anticipation grew when the waiter pulled two giant frosted mugs from a freezer, and made a huge production of filling the mugs, and blowing the foam, and making comic sounds like “Mmmmmmm.” The mugs he set in front of the kids were overflowing with magical, cold, foamy white stuff. Zola grabbed his first, and took a big sip. It turned out to be sour milk, and I thought he was going to keel over, barf, and scream, all at the same time. The gap between how awesome it looked and how awful it tasted was as wide as any food experience I’ve ever had.

I bought an ice cream cone from a classic Turkish ice cream guy, wearing a white top hat, and scooping with a long metal paddle.

This trip to Istanbul was too short to see or do anything in the city. Still, I just love it here. The energy, and the determination, and the pride of the people are powerful and exciting. The economy is booming, and there were more English and American banker types around than I have ever seen before. Turks believe (with great confidence and some justification) that this is their time, and here they come.

I think I will go out and wander around the main part of the airport for my last few hours. Maybe I can transport some of that confidence and energy back to self-doubting South Africa.

Greetings from Ataturk International Airport, in Istanbul.

As I stood in the “All Other Passports” line at Turkish immigration yesterday, I realized that this may be the most exotic place in the world (or at least the most exotic place that my travels have taken me).

From where I stood, I could see Russian mafiosi (and their spectacular-looking gun molls), burqa-clad Muslim women, a team of black youth soccer players from Flanders, Belgium, migrant laborers from Pakistan or Bangladesh, and doughy Eastern Europeans of all varieties. Life’s rich pageant, for sure.

This impression was strengthened tonight as I waited for the 11:50 pm flight to Singapore, taking me halfway back to my family in New Zealand.

I spent a very entertaining 90 minutes drinking beer with 3 South African mercenaries, They are all ex-SA Defence Force officers, Afrikaners, working security in Iraq.

At first they discouraged me strongly from considering a move to Cape Town. They cited statistics on the relative violence in Baghdad and Johannesburg. They explained that they sleep with their weapons under their pillows in the Free State, but over in the corner in Iraq.

Eventually, one said, “Move. We need white voters.”. In the end, they were very patriotic and proud, and resollutely South African. For what it’s worth, they were not impressed by the US Army (although they respected the Marines), and they were certain that Iraq will explode into civil war, approximately 10 minutes after the Americans “retreat.” They claim that they come under fire - guns, grenades, or IEDs - twelve to fourteen tImes per day when they are on mobile security details. Not in Kansas anymore, dot com.

While we were talking, several dozen white-sheet clad monks, a trio of Mongolian women in traditional dress, two score Japanese tourists, a few Hasidim. and countless proud Turks walked past us. The variety and beauty of the human species could not be more apparent.

The last 10 days have been fun - more than fun- but I am thrilled to be finally on my way back to India and the kids. I miss them terribly, and feel as though I have missed a large piece of their childhood (horse riding, math homework, new friends) in the short time I have been away. It isn’t like being a South African mercenary, gone for months at a time, and exposed to tremendous danger, but it is long enough for me.

Incidentally, the South African mercenaries were not impressed at all with the Haute Route trip. They were interested in the fact that I could speak Afrikaans a little, but ultimately realized I was a chardonnay-swilling brie eater. Tough guys.

Next stop, Singapore!

This post recaps family consensus on the most spectacular sights we saw in Turkey. As India and I wait anxiously for Tallulah in the lobby of a surgi-center in Nashville (the baby is having dental surgery), we are catching up on posts from the second leg of the trip.

Overall, Turkey is pretty spectacular: the religious and secular history, the natural beauty, the grandeur of Istanbul. We had a difficult time reaching consensus, but here are the Top 5 picks:

Top 5 Most Spectacular Sights in Turkey

#1 - Cappadocia. My favorite was the view from the terrace of the Museum Hotel (where Zola and I got haircuts), looking down the valley at the rock formations. The view from the hot-air balloon was also breathtaking, but I was too busy worrying about Tallulah. The hikes and the outdoor museum were also amazing.

#2 - Old Istanbul and the Haghia Sophia. The stretch from Topkapi Palace past the Haghia Sophia to the Blue Mosque, around to the old cistern, up toward the grand bazaar, and down to the Bosphorous, is all amazing. We should have spent days just admiring the architecture and absorbing the history. The Haghia Sophia is particularly special because of its mosaics and its history as a grand cathedral, a mosque, and a (compromise) cultural center.

#3 - Turquoise Coast. Everywhere that we anchored during our week on the gulet boat was pretty spectacular. The picture at left was from a sunset hike up St. Nicholas Island, just as the sky was turning pink behind us. Rugged beauty all around us.

#4 - Istiklal Boulevard - Istanbul. Istiklal is the huge pedestrian boulevard that slopes gently for about a mile from Taksim Square down toward Bestiklal. Unlike Las Ramblas in Barcelona, which feels intense and very crowded, Istiklal is so broad (maybe 70 feet across) and has many fewer flow impediments (kiosks, shops cafes, street performers), so it feels spacious and unhurried. That said, up to a million people will walk on Istiklal in a given weekend. There is so much to see, and such beautiful views down to the Bosphorous off the sides, that it is a truly spectacular place. We only spent an afternoon on Istiklal, but if we lived in Istanbul, we would go all the time.

#5 - Dolmabahce Palace.

This is the $900 million residence that bankrupted what was left of the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century. Zola, in particular, loves to tell people about the palace: the opulence, the symmetry of the furnishings, that Ataturk died there at 9:05 am. I am sorry that I could not join India and the kids to see it, but will go the next time I am in Turkey.

Overall, again, Turkey is a pretty spectacular place.

This post is about our long day of travel yesterday, taking us from the gulet boat on the Turkish coast to a seaside hotel in Positano, Italy.

We got into the gulet’s launch a few minutes after 8am, after saying goodbye to the crew (kisses on both cheeks for all of us). By 8:30 we had transferred our bags to a minivan, and were on our way to Dalaman airport.

For the first time on this trip, we cut it a little close at the airport. There were long lines at seurity check #1 (x-ray and metal detector to get into the airport), baggage check in, passport control, security check #2 (to get into the departure gates). For some reason, our seats were scattered all over the plane, and even getting us seated in two groups of two (ie, not having the three year old sit by herself) put additional strain on the system. It is nearly the end of the 9-day post-Ramadan holiday,and Dalaman airport and Turkish Airways were not coping.

The layover in Istanbul was about three hours, which gave us enough time to wander around, spend money on magazines, look for a few gifts, and get the kids lunch.

Even without our checked baggage, I was hauling three heavy daypacks and a big steel drum (souvenir of Morocco). A better man would have borne these burdens stoically, but as I got sweatier and more frustrated with our rambling, I was pretty grouchy company. We definitely need to drop ballast when we get back to the US next week.

When we boarded the flight for Rome, the cultural change was immediately evident. Most of the plane was filled with Italians in their 60s and 70s, on their way home from a package tour of Turkey. The chatter, in sing-song Italian was comically loud throughout the flight. When we landed, everyone applauded wildly, and half of the passengers jumped out of their seats and started for the exits while we were still taxiing. Reinforcing wonderful cultural stereotypes.

Our 45-minute flight from Rome to Naples would have required another 4-hour layover, so we cancelled that, and rented a car. After a week on the boat, we felt as though we were seizing back control of our destinies.

The 250-kilometer drive from Rome to Naples was fast and very easy (unlike my last driving experience in Rome, which was horrendous), and included a dinner stop at the Italian equivalent of a Howard Johnson’s. Our kids fell on the pasta and pizza as if they had been starved during our five weeks in Islamic countries. Zola said, “Finally this meat is from a pig, isn’t it?” At least he learned something about Islamic dietary restrictions.

The 50-kilometer drive from Naples south to Positano is hairy. Narrow, twisty roads perched hundreds of feet above the sea.

Finally, we arrived at our hotel in Positano at about 10:30pm, almost 15 hours after we started moving. Aside from my sweaty grouchiness in Istanbul, and a couple of raucous-kid moments, everyone was on good form throughout a long day.

We woke up to see the spectacular views of rugged mountains and of the sea several hundred feet below our hotel balcony. The sun is bright, and the temperature is perfect. We are off to explore the Adriatic Coast, the last segment in our Mediterranean circle.

This short post is about leaving Istanbul, flying to the center of Turkey, and driving west into the Cappadocia region.

Yesterday, India and the kids spent a last day of sightseeing in Istanbul. They went to the 500-year old Rumeli Castle at the north end of the Bosphorus (built in 4 months by Sultan Mehmet II, as part of his strategy to conquer Constantinople). The castle’s walls run 300-400 feet up a steep hillside, with stairs cut directly into the walls. The lack of railings gave India some pause, but apparently both kids climbed all the way up, and no one fell off the side.

They also went to the Dolmabahce Palace, which was the administrative center of the Ottoman Empire for most of the period from 1850-1922. The Palace has the largest chandelier in the world, and also the largest collections of Bohemian and Baccarat crystal (including a crystal banister). Because it is absolutely symmetrical, there are two of every item of furniture. The palace cost 35 tons of gold to build (which is about $900 million right now), and essentially bankrupted the Empire. Whoops. Dolmabahce is now mostly thought of as the place where Ataturk, the secular god of modern Turkey, died in 1938. Every day at 9:05am (the time Ataturk died), everyone in the palace stops and thinks about him. The kids were blown away at the opulence.

For the first time on our trip, I have been working for the last two days. I am on the board of a Turkish company, and we had the opening of a new factory (close to the Bulgarian border), and a board meeting in Istanbul. It felt strange to be away from India and the kids all day for two full days. It is amazing how quickly we adapt to “new normal.” Obviously, a few months ago, it would have been normal to be away completely for five days in a row. Being gone for only two days, and “home” in the evenings, would have been a special occasion.

We regrouped at the airport in the late afternoon, and boarded a 60-minute flight for Kayseri. Further evidence that the Turkish lira (YTL) is overvalued: a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses which cost $120 in Nashville was priced at YTL 426 in the airport. That is $352 at current exchange rates.

Because we were flying at sundown, Turkish Airlines served a special Ramadan “break fast” meal with hot soup, a sandwich, and baklava. There was even the traditional dried date and water. My seatmate said, “If I were flying on airplanes, I would wish that every day were Ramadan.”

We landed in Kayseri, which is a prosperous industrial city of a million people. It has been continuously inhabited for the last 3,000 years: the Romans called it Caesaria. We drove west along the Silk Road for an hour, up into the mountains, toward a small town called Nevsehir. Along the way, we passed a huge roadside inn, called the Yellow Caravansery, which has been welcoming travelers since 1250 AD.

We are staying in a place called the Museum Hotel, which is carved into the soft rock of a Cappadocian hillside. There were a number of caves which people have lived in for centuries, and by linking those together, hollowing out some additional caves, and building only a little, the owners have created a spectacular boutique hotel. I will have India add some photos, which would be much better than any description I can write. It is unlike any place I have stayed before.

This morning, we woke up (in our comfortable cave), and looked out at 20 hot air balloons floating up the valley and over our heads. We may do this tomorrow. As I write, Zola is having his hair cut by a Fez-wearing “traditional Muslim barber,” whose chair sits on a terrace, overlooking the mountains and the valley floor 500 feet below.

Cappadocia is very, very popular with visitors to Turkey, and from what we have seen this is entirely reasonable. After haircut and school we are going off to hike and explore the rocks and caves and ancient sites.

This short post describes what we have been up to over the last four days in Istanbul. Overall, we have found Istanbul to be an outstanding place to visit. The history is fascinating, the scenery and climate are great, and the people and culture are engaging. The language, of course, is impossible, but we are doing our best.

Over the weekend we saw many of the major Istanbul sights:

• The Grand Bazaar - a huge covered market in the old part of the city. Apparently it is the oldest continuously operated place of commerce in the world. Now it is about one third tourists and two thirds local people buying things they need.
• The Haghia Sophia - an ancient, huge cathedral which was converted into a mosque and then converted into a secular museum (good compromise). I found out that it is pronounced “I-uh so-FEE-uh.” The cathedral was built by the Emperor Justinian, starting in 532, designed as “an earthly mirror of the heavens”. It was finished in 537 AD, which was extraordinarily quick work, given how massive it is. 900 years later (!), the Moslems controlled Istanbul, and the building was converted into a mosque (minarets added, vestibule indicating location of Mecca, etc.). 500 years after that, Ataturk declared that it should be a museum, which probably prevented a lot of squabbling. Walking the marble floors, which are grooved with 1500 years of foot traffic, looking at thousand-year old mosaics, and thinking about the people who have worshipped there was truly inspirational. Haghia Sophia is a special building.
• Basilica Cistern - a huge underground water tank, also built by Justinian in 532 AD. The reservoir measures 165 meters by 65 meters, and is 8 meters high. It’s arches are supported by 336 stone columns. We drank coffee and hot chocolate at the small underground cafe, listening to the water dripping around us, and imagining the lives of the workers who built the cisterns 1500 years ago.
• Sultanahmet Mosque (Blue Mosque) - with its 6 minarets, and beautiful tile and stained glass, built in the early 17th century. It is still used for worship, so the building was packed with Moslems coming in for sundown prayers.
• Galata Bridge - crossing the “Golden Horn” into the old part of Istanbul on foot, seeing hundreds of fishermen, and being tempted by the cafes and fish restaurants on the bridge’s lower level.

We have been able to walk and take the tram (which was fun on its own) pretty much everywhere.

Yesterday, we took an hour-long boat trip on the Bosphorus. It left from a little square just north of our hotel, with a picturesque old mosque next to the ferry dock. We motored up the European side, toward the Black Sea, and down the Asian side, looking at the houses and fishermen on the banks. We also saw dozens of huge jellyfish in the water.

This evening, we walked the length of Istiklal (Independence) Street, along a ridge in the Beyoglu district, from Taksim Square. The street is a mile-long pedestrian boulevard, lined with cafes, shops, backgammon parlors, and 19th-century apartments. We finally found an English-language version of the last Harry Potter book (at Robinson Crusoe, great bookstore). We also bought him an official Fenerbahce soccer jersey, which they customized with “zola 9″ on the back.

We had dinner at a restaurant, Leb-i-Derya, on the 6th floor of an Istiklal hotel. The windows looked out on the Bosphorus, on the Asian side of Istanbul, and down to the old city. The view was spectacular.

Overall, everyone in the family is giving Istanbul two thumbs up. It is not cheap (the Turkish lira feels overvalued by 30-50%), but maybe more on that later. Tomorrow we leave for Cappadoccia, and then for a week of sailing ont he Turkish coast.

This short post records some observations we have made in Istanbul in our first three days here. It is too early to develop any themes, or draw any conclusions about Turkey, but I thought these were interesting.

• When I drew cash at an ATM, the screen asked the standard “do you want a receipt for this transaction?” question. The choices were illustrated on screen by a cartoon of a thriving forest (next to the “no receipt” option) and a cartoon of a deforested and eroded hillside next to the “yes, give me a receipt” option.

• There is an ornamental gate at the hotel restaurant. The four handles are identical little bronze statues of a chef preparing to strangle a live chicken. Definitely weird, but I bet the chicken is fresh.

• There are manned metal detectors at the doors of most museums, hotels, restaurants, and public buildings. Given Turkey’s challenges this might make sense, but the guards don’t seem to react when someone sets off the detector. There is no search or wanding or second pass through.

• Ramadan (or Ramasan, as the Turks call it) does not seem to be observed anywhere near as widely or strictly in Istanbul as in Morocco or Tunisia. Adults are eating during the day all around us, which was a very uncommon in the last three weeks. We have even seen many adults drinking alcohol during the day in Istanbul, and not just tourists!

• My favorite: Turkey has been an official “candidate state” for EU membership since 1999, and in political circles there is no greater objective than becoming a full member. Turkish automobile license plates are like ones you would see in any European country. They are about 30 inches wide and 6-7 inches high, white with black numbers and letters. The leftmost 3 inches are a blue rectangle, with small letters “TR” in gold capitals on the bottom half of the rectangle. In every EU country, the top half of that same blue rectangle has a circle of connected stars, representing the EU itself. On Turkish license plates there is just a lonely and forlorn empty blue space. The plea to the EU member coutries for acceptance, for validation, cries out from every single license plate.

We are having a great time in Turkey. Our sightseeing in the old city (Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Cisterns, Grand Bazaar) has been spectacular. I will post something more structured and coherent after we have been here for a few more days.

This post is about the Fenerbahce vs. Genclerbirligi football match that Zola and I went to watch this evening.

Turkey has gotten very good at football, making it to the semi-finals of this year’s Euro Cup, and beating Germany along the way. They have taken the sport seriously for a long time, and have a well developed domestic premier league, with old clubs and established rivalries.

Tonight, Zola and I went to see Fenerbahce play. Fenerbahce (which I think is pronounced “fen-ur-BAH-chay”) is one of the famous Turkish football teams, founded in 1907. Even though Fenerbahce was not playing one of its big rivals (Genclerbigligi from Ankara), and the game was a 3-0 blowout, it was a special experience for us both, and it was a great father-son evening. Zola was particularly excited because the stadium is across the Bosphorus, on the Asian side of Istanbul, and it represented his first trip to Asia. He has now been to five continents at the age of eight.

Because the game started so late (9pm), India stayed at the hotel with Tallulah, watching our newly acquired Elmo DVD in Turkish on her computer, and filling in a Turkish Strawberry Shortcake sticker book.

This was the first time that either Zola or I had been to a big-league soccer match, much less one in Turkey. We were surprised by many things:

1. The security/police presence was very heavy. Zola and I went through metal detectors, and were body searched at all four of the gates we entered (I didn’t understand the tickets, and we ended up walking all the way around the stadium to find the right place. Minor Dingle on my part). Zola was particularly interested in the dozens of guys with riot shields. Every officer was armed, and we saw hundreds. They don’t appear to have much of a hooligan problem now, if they ever did have one.
2. Observation #1 notwithstanding, the whole experience was very wholesome and family oriented. Roughly 75% of the fans were wearing Fenerbahce shirts and/or jackets and/or scarves, and there were loads of kids in the crowd. Everyone seemed to participate: cheering good plays (from both teams), booing bad referee amd linesman calls. Without a trace of irony, the fans sang and chanted and waved scarves throughout the game. Zola and I had a grand time singing along, although we had no idea what the words and shouts meant.
3. The only refreshments available were bags of sunflower seeds and cups of spring water. (note to Fenerbahce management, there may be a revenue-enhancement opportunity there). At halftime, as people got up around us, Zola asked, “Where are they going? There is nothing to buy.” When we bought two cups of water they gave Zola a free candy bar, which was good, because we hadn’t gotten dinner before we went to the game.
4. Turkey is rich enough, and its football is big-time enough, that it attracts professionals from other countries to play here. Fenerbahce’s first goal was scored by a Brazilian forward (one of three players named “De Souza” on the team). Overall, there appear to be 11 non-Turks (of 27 players) playing for Fenerbahce, and 9 non-Turks playing for Genclerbirligi.
5. We could see essentially the whole stadium, and aside from Zola and me, no one left the game early. When we ran for the taxi stand after 82 minutes of play, everyone was still singing and clapping and chanting.

More about our first days in Turkey in a later post. This was a great experience for Zola and me.