Turkey Introduction: An Acid-Trip for Non-Druggies

The Middle East turns sane people crazy and crazy people crazier. I have never dropped acid, but the past year and a half of living in this part of the world, I feel like I’ve been on a very long acid trip. Weird things just happen here.

My latest adventures took me to Russia and Turkey. I assumed that Russia would be full of entertaining anecdotes, and it was. I thought a man was going to steal my suitcase and he didn’t, I hung out with some Americans taking acting classes in St. Petersburg, I went to a fabulous ballet, spent time in impressive museums, watched bridges separate, turned 33, wandered wide-eyed through a palace, the Kremlin and the world’s fanciest metro, enjoyed living with an adorable, young Russian couple for four days, and basked in the beauty of a free country. I could combine all the stories taking place in that incredible week, but it still wouldn’t add up to the entertainment value of almost any given day I spent in Turkey.

I spent a week in Turkey as a solo female traveler. I know. Crazy. The best way to describe what that feels like is to imagine trying to crawl through a kennel full of puppies. You’re not gonna get hurt, but you need to deal with a lot of noise, playfulness and pawing before you emerge with your massive headache. After my sixth day I was ready to curl up in the fetal position and never do anything stupid again, so I spent almost all of my final day in Turkey in my expensive Istanbul hotel room, gladly paying top dollar for self-imposed solitary confinement.


The last day I spent in Capadoccia was the oversized dollop of icing on the cone-shaped birthday cake. I enjoy icing almost exclusively in small doses, and this time was no exception.


Capadoccia is a quirky part of Turkey that looks like it’s made out of petrified meringue. The first two days were pretty cool, filled with meeting both tourists and locals, checking out the scenery and exploring the small town of Goreme. Everything went more or less as expected, but the third day put an end to that.

Turkey Part 1: Morning

I started off my last day eating breakfast in the beautiful garden area of my cave motel. I was all set with my backpack, sunblock, water, and sunglasses.


The 27-year-old motel manager and I had discussed the pros and cons of me ditching the tour bus that day, but I decided to go with the original plan and hop on the bus. I waited for about half an hour, then asked the manager to call the tour company. No answer. He said something about running on Turkish time, so I waited some more. Another half hour came and went, and still no bus. He called again. Still no answer. Fifteen minutes later he called and they answered. They said they were not coming, and asked to speak to me. They said that my hotel manager canceled my tour the previous day, saying that I wanted to do my own thing.

WHAT???!!! I told them that I never told him to do that, and they should have verified the cancellation with me. I made it clear that I was not paying for the tour that never picked me up, either. They said they would talk to their boss about refunding me, then call me back.

I hung up the phone, then the manager’s father who owned the motel asked what happened. I explained the situation, the son denied telling them that I wouldn’t go on my tour, and I went out to the garden with their phone, waiting for the phone call.



The manager came over, asking for his phone. I asked if I could keep it a few minutes until the company had a chance to return the call. He retorted that they were not going to call back. I said that I would keep the phone until they did. He grumbled something, turned around and walked back into the lobby.

After about ten minutes, I got impatient. They had already wasted enough of my time, and the day would only get hotter. I wanted to get a move on my final day of site seeing, and I was angry enough at all the crap I had dealt with. I went to the lobby and handed the manager his phone. As I walked to the door he asked me what the company said. I replied that they never called back, put my hand on the door and opened it. I began to walk out when I heard him say, “I told you so.”

“What did you say?”

“I said that I told you they wouldn’t call back.”

Okay, that’s enough. I removed my hand from the doorknob, fixed my icy eyes on him and moved in on him, ready to go in for the kill.

“What’s your problem? Why have you been so rude?”

“I am not rude, you are rude.”

Seriously, one of the most frustrating parts about the Middle East is a steadfast denial of fault, regardless of how glaring it may be. Every time you point out someone’s unprofessionalism, their only weapon is to parrot the same fault back, even if it doesn’t make sense.

“You cancel my tour, let me sit here for over an hour waiting for it, then have the balls to make fun of me when I think that they will actually do what they say they will? That’s so rude!”

“No, you are rude!” The father walked in the room about this time, but the guy continued. “You are talking to me rude.”

“You really want to fight in front of your father, fine! Ever since you drank wine with me the other night, you have treated me like crap ever since. What’s wrong with you?”

I knew that would piss him off. His dad was as Muslim as mine is Mormon. Saying anything about breaking rules during Ramadan has the same affect as if someone would tell my dad something like that about me while he’s at church.

The guy stormed out of the room, and I followed right behind. Being married taught me a lot about how to not let someone get out of being yelled at, so I kept right on yelling as I followed him to his car. He turned around and I yelled for a couple more minutes about how much he sucked.

His reply, “Don’t talk to me. Fuck off!”

Done. “Okay, I’ll go talk to your father.”

“Nooooooo!!!!!!” But it was too late. I was already heading into the lobby.

Enough with the frustrating stupidity. I remembered my friend from work telling me that Middle Easterners hate it when you cry, plus the dad was an older gentleman so I knew a cry would do good things for me. I tossed my backpack onto the couch, plopped myself down and burst into tears. Admittedly, the tears were real. Enough was enough.

The father sweetly sat down near me and handed me tissues, looking very concerned. He asked me what happened, and I told him about how his son had been such a good friend to me when I first got there, and how I felt like we really bonded. He saw that I needed a friend and knew I was struggling in his exhausting country, so he was so nice to me and made me feel so welcome in Turkey. Then, once Ramadan started, he had been so nasty. I asked what kind of a man treats people well one day, then turns into a different person the next.

The dad gave me a cute little pep talk, told me that he was my father (I don’t know if my mom would agree), and that if I needed anything for the rest of the trip he would help me. I wadded up my tissues, cheered up and announced that I was going to go see the rest of their town. Then he excused himself so he could go spank his son.

Turkey Part 2: Afternoon

I headed out the door with three liters of water in my backpack, my camera around my neck and some cash in my bra. I went to the Goreme Open Air Museum, which looked a lot like everything I had seen the day before.












By the time I was caved out, I was also ready for a break. I sat right on a patch of grass by the entrance and guzzled water while I eavesdropped in on a young lady’s phone conversation.

From what I could tell, the young lady was bidding adieu to someone she had been traveling with and was now on her own. When she hung up, I asked her how she was doing. She told me about a man she had traveled around with for the past week or so, and he left for the airport that morning.

We talked for a little bit, and I learned that her name was Keun Ah, she was 19 and came on a solo adventure from South Korea. Any 19-year-old brave enough to go to Turkey by herself wins some serious coolness points, so I invited her to hang out with me that day, or at least we could grab some lunch together. She thought about it for a second, then some security guard came over and motioned for her to cover her legs a little more because he could see her underwear if he bent his head down far enough.

I spent a lot of money getting away from Saudi, so I wasn’t going to tolerate this on my vacation.

“Quit looking up her skirt! You pervert! It’s Ramadan, you’re supposed to be better than that!”

Her hesitation to spend the day with me stopped immediately and she agreed to join me, but wanted to see the museum first. We decided on a restaurant and went our separate ways for the next two hours.

I wanted some pics from the top of the hill overlooking the valley, and after about twenty long, hot minutes a man pulled over and offered me a ride. His English was limited to “OK?” and “OK!” but that’s enough sometimes. My Turkish consists of two words, too (saw=right, soh=left), so we were even.

Before I admit to climbing in the car with a strange man, let me quickly remind my American loved ones that this isn’t America. You would have to be crazy to do that! Allow me to restate my opening sentence in my introduction: "The Middle East turns sane people crazy and crazy people crazier."

I appreciated an escape from the heat, so I hopped in the passenger seat. This man kindly drove me around to all his favorite sites with good lookout spots of the valley. His car definitely wasn’t built for off-roading, but he didn’t seem to mind.




After an hour or so, he pointed at his mouth and stomach. Cute, but I declined the charade version of an offer to take me to get something to eat because I knew he was fasting. He took me to the town, then I handed him ten lira (about $6) to pay for gas. At first he declined, then he handed me two magnets shaped like slippers and took my money.

I met Keun Ah at a small restaurant and enjoyed an entertaining conversation about her adventures. My favorite part of our chat wasn’t about her wild times in Turkey with a man she met in Istanbul, or the year as an exchange student in Texas, it was her reaction when she asked me what I did for a living. I told her that I work as a nurse.

She looked at me for a minute, then repeated, “You are a nurse.”

“Yes, I’m a nurse.”

“And you work in a hospital.”

“Yes.”

She looked at me a little longer. “I never would have guessed that you would be a nurse.”

“What would you have guessed?”

“A bank teller.”

Is that supposed to be a compliment? I pretended it was, and asked why.

“Because you talk like a bank teller.”

“How do bank tellers talk?”

“Like you.”

Okay. Anyone out there know how bank tellers talk, because I really don’t know what sets them apart from anyone else.

We kept up our friendly conversation while we did some people watching. Lots of scooters and motorcycles filled the streets, and I had a great idea.

“Wanna rent a scooter with me?”

“I don’t know how to drive.”

“You just hold on and I’ll do all the driving.”

“Okay.”

We found a scooter rental store that didn’t require a driver’s license. The man behind the desk asked us if we had tried any local wines yet. I replied in the affirmative, but Keun Ah hadn’t. He said that he would give us some when we returned the scooter, and told us to keep it a few hours later than the amount we had paid for. I questioned his motives, but appreciated the extra scooter rental time.

I fired up the scooter, Keun Ah hopped on the back, and we headed off to see all the sites I was supposed to see on our tour from earlier that day. Driving the scooter over the cobblestones and winding hills of Capadoccia was a little trickier than riding my scooter, Sophie, around Tucson, but we managed. Keun Ah and I constantly adjusted our ill-fitting helmets as we savored the wind in our faces and the feeling of freedom from hagglers as we rode through the peaks that looked like KKK hats, the boulders resembling Smurf houses and small cities built to charm even the most calloused of tourists.














We dropped the scooter off a little early so Keun Ah could go pack for her bus ride back to Istanbul. I walked her to her motel and we hugged goodbye. We thanked each other for the fun time, and I gave her my email address so she could email me some pics. Then she said the best line I’ve probably ever heard in all my life.

“I can’t wait to tell my mom that I spent the day riding in the back of a scooter with an American woman!”

Turkey Part 3: Night

I walked back to the hotel and had the misfortune of running into the same scooter guy who offered us wine. Dang it. I hoped that I wouldn’t have to see him again. He was on his scooter and offered to take me back to my hotel. I felt a little weird about that offer, so I declined. He told me that he was going to watch the sunset, somewhere that all the locals go every night because it is such a great view. He invited me, and I accepted. I climbed behind him and we drove up a hill much steeper than any scooter I had ever been on could tackle.

We sat on the white rocks and watched the valley turn orange, red and yellow with the sinking sun. He moved in a little closer, put his arm around me and pointed somewhere. Sorry, guy. I only agreed to this because I thought that having lots of other people around would keep you from pawing me. I stood up and reminded him that he had to get back for Iftar. We drove into town, and he invited me to join him and his family as they broke their Ramadan fast. Seemed safe enough to me, so I went with it.



Eating Iftar is one giant feeding frenzy. Hardly anyone noticed I was there for the first fifteen minutes because they couldn’t chug water and shovel food in their faces fast enough. Then we began some cute chit chat about how I liked Turkey and what I had seen so far. Dinner was over much quicker than I imagined, probably because everyone was dying to smoke. I liked the feel of being with people who had waited 16 hours to eat or drink.

After dinner I announced that I had to go home. He tried to convince me that I should join him for wine, but I could tell from the way his hand found my knee at dinner that he was really aiming to make my last night in Capadoccia end in a grand finale. I was sick of it. I just wanted to go home, call my mom, take a shower and call it a day. He got a little pushy, and I finally told him that I felt like he was trying to sell me a rug that I didn’t want. He got the message and left me alone as I walked back to the motel.

I got back to the motel and sent out a quick email to a couchsurfing friend from the night before who offered to take me to his store before I left. I let him know that I was too wiped out to hang out. He quickly emailed me back saying that he understood, but was disappointed because he had canceled plans so he could be my friend that night. I’m a sucker. I can’t do that to someone because I’ve had too many people do that to me. He was really nice, so I felt bad crapping out on him. I emailed him back and let him know I would be coming after all.

I walked to our meeting spot and saw that he was waiting for me. He drove me to the town next to Goreme and we grabbed a container filled with lots of flavors of ice cream. Right next to his store was a charming café, so we sat down to eat. He invited all his friends within sight over to share the ice cream. The café owner brought out spoons for the five of us and pulled up a chair to join in. It was really cute eating ice cream on a hot summer night with so many Turkish people.

After the last spoonful of ice cream was snarfed down, we went into his store. It was like walking into that cave in Aladdin filled with all the treasures. I didn’t see any piles of gold, but there were plenty of other sparkly things piled up around the shop. I picked up about a million things that I would have bought if I had more suitcase space and more money, but I needed to keep my purchases to a minimum. I still regret not buying an amazing red silk scarf, a cool blue wall hanging with gold thread accenting the design, and some great silver jewelry.

I watched him help customers in Turkish, English, Korean and French. He didn’t use the hard sell tactics that annoy people like me, he just kept himself available and made himself useful when people wanted to try on every pair of boots in the store or take two dozen scarves out from their plastic wrap. I have met a few Muslim men like this, and their gentle patience always leaves a sweet impression on me.

Before we left, I asked him to ring me up for a small stash of items that I could easily fit in my suitcase. I planned on paying exactly what they were marked, because it was a fair price. I guess I’m pretty lucky in a bunch of ways because he said that I was his good luck charm that night. A bunch of people bought stuff right before it closed and that usually doesn’t happen. Conclusion: he was going to keep me feeling lucky and give me everything at a great price. Awesome!!!




We drove to a couple cool rock formations before he took me back to my motel. I laid in my cave bedroom, reviewing all the randomness of the day and decided to take the rapid pace of my adventures down a notch. I’m getting too old and ill humored to keep this pace up for long. Either that, or I’m ready to trade in this crazy acid trip for a taste of boring old normal life.