Turkey Part 2

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Turkey Part 2

I don't know what it is with all these Mediterranean countries, but they eat

Olives, they drink olives, and,

yeah, probably do that with olives too! All the breakfasts we had were full

of olives. Some were marinated

ones, some stuffed and some pickled. There were even some plain green

olives. All their salads are

drowned in Olive oil and the food is also cooked in Olive oil. Thus we did

not get plain boiled rice. It was

rice sautéed with olive oil and butter. It tasted very nice, but think of

all the weight gain!

Ankara is the capital city of Turkey, but Istanbul beats it hollow in pomp

and glory. Nice broad avenues

and huge buildings are there all over. There are two main places of interest

in Ankara. The first is the

Anatolian museum.

This museum houses really old artefacts, yeah, older than Advaniji. Some

date back to the 6th century BC.

There is a sculpture of the earliest God worshipped by civilization. Called

the Mother Goddess, she is a fat,

corpulent and ugly lady with fat lips, beady eyes, thick nose and a smirk on

her face. After a few centuries,

I think, when they dig up Uttar Pradesh, they will find similar sculptures

of a fat, corpulent and ugly lady

with fat lips, beady eyes, thick nose and a smirk on her face. Maybe, then

they will say that she was a

Mother Goddess worshipped in India, which is true in a way.

As in all early civilizations, people have always worshipped things that

they did not understand but provided

for them. So we have Sun gods and Planet gods and animal gods. Nowadays we

worship Windows and

Ipods- things that we do not understand but provide for us.

There were also early coins and jewelry exhibits. My wife was fascinated by

one particular piece, which

proves that tastes have not changed through the centuries. From this ultra

old museum we then shifted to

the ultra modern one, the Mausoleum of Attaturk.

Mustafa Kemal was a great military leader and then first president of Modern

day Turkey. Before a

hundred years, the Turks did not have any surnames. Mustafa first proposed

that to compete and live in the

modern world, the Turks need to have surnames. Hence he got a legislation

passed, and now all Turks

have surnames. The people lovingly bestowed upon Mustafa the surname of

Attaturk, which means first

Turk. Thus Mustafa Kemal Attaturk is a demi-god worshipped in Turkey and the

only one allowed to have

Attaturk as a surname.

The Turks sided with the Germans during both the world wars. Thus they lost

all the major wars. Attaturk

led a united Turkey to reclaim all the lost lands after World War one and to

unite the disjointed tribes into

one united nation called Turkey. He was also the hero of the one war which

Turkey won against the other

countries. That was the war of Galli Poli.

The Mausoleum of Attaturk houses the remains of this leader along with many

items from his daily life. He

was the first person to recognize that following the strict Islamic way as

interpreted by the Wahabis was not

conducive to progress. He introduced education and voting for women and

discarded the burkha or chador

from daily use. (Thank you Attaturk for all those mini skirts.) Thus, though

99 % of Turks are Muslim, it is

not considered an Islamic nation.

The Mausoleum house some incredible 3-D scenes from the GalliPoli wars, when

Turkey won. The lifestyle

of Attaturk was somewhat like a mix of Nehru and Churchill, what with

Jodhpur hunting trousers to

Cheroots, to ornate cigar holders to swanky Limousines. Attaturk finally

died of Cirrhosis of the liver in

1938, and with him died all the progress of Turkey. Turkey then stagnated

midst political squabblings.

After Ankara, we proceeded to Cappadocia. Now this place is pronounced

'Kapa-dough-kiya' by the

locals, but elsewhere in Turkey, it is called Kapa-dough-sia'. As it is

located on heights, it was quite cool

here. We went to Goréme, which is called an open air museum, but which is

actually a mountainside with

many caves and dwellings where the ancient Christians lived. There are rose

and white coloured tapering

rock formations. Some caves have orthodox churches with early frescoes on

their walls and ceilings. A

beautiful vista is there all over and the cold mountain air is truly

bracing.

Some ancient people here lived in dwellings which had doors in the ceiling.

So there were walls all around

and one needed to climb down cliffs or use ladders to enter these homes.

Must have been quite a deterrent

to the visiting mother-in-law, besides other enemies, of course. The stone

here is not too hard, so the

ancients could carve out large cavities and live deep inside. The

ventilation was done using chimneys (called

fairy chimneys) which were burrowed out of the ceiling through the mountain

top. Quite an interesting

concept!

In fact, there were some modern day hotels housed in just such caves. We had

food in such a restaurant. It

had seats and tables made of carved stone of the floor. This seems a rather

great arrangement for children

who keep shifting and scraping their chairs. Though the ventilation was

through a fairy chimney, not for one

moment did we feel suffocated or claustrophobic.

The food, as in all over Turkey, follows a set pattern. First they lay lots

of bread in a basket. This is usually

warn and crisp, like the ones we call 'butter' in our local bakery. It has a

crisp exterior with a soft interior.

This is followed by a soup. Nine time out of ten, we were served lentil

soup, which is our Indian Daal, but a

bit thicker and cooked in olive oil (what else). Then they serve large

servings of salad, which seem healthy,

until you realize that they are laden with olive oil calories. The salad is

literally doused with this oil. The main

dish follows, which is a tandoori roti at the bottom with grilled meat or

fish served on top. Vegetarians have

a tough choice between Brinjals and Brinjals, saturated in Olive oil. To

offset the bland taste, we needed to

add a lot of red chilli powder, which fortunately is available everywhere.

In Kebab joints, the meat is

replaced by kebabs made in charcoal ovens. Mmmm that succulent taste! After

the main dish comes the

dessert. Surprisingly, there is a sweet dish which looks like a fat barfi

and is called Shakkar Parre. And for

so many years I thought Shakkar Parre (Or Shankar Pali in Marathi) was an

Indian word. The number of

desserts is mind boggling and at buffet joints you can never taste all the

various varieties.

Besides the regular food, we also had Turkey-special yoghurt. The Turks

claim that they invented Yoghurt

(pronounced Yoohoort, as the Turks have a silent g). Their Yoghurt is thick

and served with equally thick

honey and poppy seeds. Yummy! The Middle Eastern favourite Shawarma, is

naturally available

everywhere on street corners. We also tasted a dish called Hoshimira, which

is a bit like the Indian Sheera,

only with egg.

Nearby is the city of Kaymakli. It was inhabited by the Hittites in the

second millennium BC. During

invasions, the people would quickly disappear from the surface and take

their animals and grain to huge

underground living cities. When I say huge, you may not get an idea. These

are sometimes eight or more

stories deep and come with granaries, animal quarters, wine making vats and

store rooms for the wine

extracted. The wine here was famous because of the constant temperature

attained in the underground vats,

giving it a special taste. The ventilation was through concealed ventilation

shafts which could not be easily

spotted by invaders, and the entrances were guarded by circular stone

devices, which could be locked in

position from inside. The only problem was that we had to literally crouch

and waddle like ducks while

negotiating the cramped narrow stone passages. An amazing way of underground

life, which sometimes

continued for a long time until the invaders disappeared.

To make the valley fertile, the ancients hit upon a unique idea. They

started promoting pigeons by building

special dove cotes for them. The pigeon excreta did make this valley

extremely fertile and productive. The

ancients have long gone, but the pigeons are still there in the Pigeon

valley. Their dove cotes are well

preserved.

There are lone pine trees here, where people tie a blue Medusa eye charm to

make their wishes come true.

The whole tree is literally full of these charms. The turquoise blue

circular charms are available all over

Turkey, some as keychains and some as table or wall decorations

This area was also famous for its tulips, which were later grabbed by the

Dutch and now is their main trade.

There is an imagination valley here where the many rock formations can be

imagined to be many things. In

one of my photos, I imagined that I was with a beautiful girl, and lo

behold, there were two beautiful

Japanese girls next to me in the photo. Magic!

A nearby area called Uchisar has to be translated into Hindi to understand

it. Uchi means high and Sar

means head. So we have high mountains here tipped with a darker coloured

rock, giving the appearance of

a fairy castle. All these magical formations are due to rock erosions.

The next day we were off to Konya and Pamukkale.. to be continued.

Kishore Shah 1974