TURKEY EAST TRIP 2
FRIDAY, 8/5/11: 10:07PM, type DREAMS:8/5/11. Pee 2:15. Take 2 acet, receive swabs(?). 3:51 dream, call at 4:40AM! 4:50AM Adnan knocks on my door, says, "Room service," and hands me my SHIRT, neatly pressed and folded, refusing to take any money for it. I get out my packed deodorant for a quick use. 5AM shit again, not exactly expected. Pack lots into my shoulder bag, take extra toilet paper, and get bag and me out at 5:14AM! Note: wildplanetadventure for Assam from Malcolm. Breakfast last and alone to 5:20 and onto bus at 5:35. Driver's name is Cink, which I mark on envelope with my $25 for 6 days at $4/day plus $1 for this morning's ride to airport. Arrive at 6:51. At 6AM I get out my green OAT book (and then he doesn't need my air flight code from it) and transfer my passport and money to my shoulder bag, since Siggy said I was crazy to leave it in my could-be-lost suitcase, which I took as an omen. Through gate at 6:14AM, moving quickly through everything. Joan would rather read when I corner her and ask how her LSD experience was. Board at 6:30, EXACTLY over wing! I "squat" behind Dennis in rear. Two OLD women get walked through the back door to take rear window seats at 6:45, but we can keep ours. Then doors close. Safety demo at 6:50. Back out 6:53, then a TINY BABY moves RIGHT across aisle from me! Off at 7:01AM, through three layers of clouds, hitting wing-flutter turbulence surmounting a thin fourth cloud layer. Out over Black Sea, surprisingly, and over clouds until they clear for hills and farms and then towns and at 7:42 we start down, finally to Ankara, going all around it while lowering to land at 8:14, circling for MANY pictures. The back was open during boarding, but NOT during exiting. I'm last off plane at 8:25, get the LAST bag at 8:32, and we're on bus at 8:40, which I call a record speed. Bus goes at 8:41. 9:18 to Ataturk Mausoleum, under which he's mummified! Into cavernous mausoleum 9:20-10:08, endless corridors and exhibits and battle dioramas with loud noises, the building filled with cute soldiers on a tour. I take 4-5 illegal pictures, most of which don't turn out well, and then the bus goes at 10:21. At 10:37 we take a short walk up a hill, winding me, for the old town streets, and quickly back down to museum at 11:05. 7000BC Catalhoyuk home is new, as is much of the gallery space and the pieces outside, so much so that I buy the 27L book for $20, getting 2L back. Leave museum, tired and brain-weary, at 12:10PM. To center of town to cross street to pedestrian area for one restaurant for eight of us for Iskander kebab at my suggestion, and everyone loves it, and then we go for ice cream, I having black mulberry, different and tart and almost black. To bus at 1:21, take pictures at the Tuz (salt) lake, which I don't bother to walk to the edge of because I'm still TIRED, and have a rest stop 2:33-2:55, and then to Migros 6-6:04PM: we leave because they sell no alcohol. Into room 203 at Lykia Lodge at 6:24 [dinner 7:30], unpack and sort last pills to 7:05, then sort papers and put last of index cards into jotting book to 7:17, and dress and to dinner at 7:24. Everyone's in a circle chatting, four drinking red wine (oh, we had an entrance wine, I grabbing the last red while the others had to settle for white wine, or for mango juice, of which I had the last). George and Judy leave to eat, giving me their first chair, and then Joan takes the second one and leans in to say, "I'd like to talk about LSD now." She says not much that's new, except that, though not religious, when she touched the walls of Sun Canyon in Death Valley she became one with the universe for a long time. Everyone leaves for the buffet dinner, Siggy and John last. We follow them, but they sit at a full table, so I sit next to Adnan and Joan sits next to Dennis, who turns out to be VERY interested in my IBM-LSD connection, and he's smoked grass, and Joan did LSD in 1969 when she was 30. I give Joan my card, and she says she'll look at my life, which I doubt. I have good chicken-garlic-curry soup, then a fried chicken wing, cucumber, potatoes, and very good fried eggplant for my main course, then a dessert plate of six or seven items, not finishing the black pudding or the rice pudding either, and then down a final plate of watermelon and melon while we continue talking as it gets dark and cool to 8:43. They leave and I join a table of eight where Murray is holding forth in his usual way. I'm up to the room to start typing at 8:50 and finish at 9:43PM, eyes almost closing from fatigue, happy that I can get into bed now. Forgot what time Adnan said breakfast is. Had put on green batteries to recharge AGAIN, so they wouldn't give out so early as replacements, but the light went out within an hour, so they must have been charged. Brush teeth, try (not too hard) to shit but only piss, then take cover OFF duvet and get to bed at 10:03PM, utterly exhausted. To sleep reasonably quickly.
SATURDAY, 8/6/11: 12:45AM: Up to pee. Again try to shit, but can't, to 12:50AM. 3:50AM: Pee and shit a nice, normal, little shit; take some Fisherman's Friends, and read New York magazine to 4:01AM. Feel good as I add two acet to my morning pills. Type first of DREAMS:8/6/11. Bright mympths, looking like yellow sunflowers (with the typical black dot in the middle) against bright-green grass. 5:24AM: While typing other notes, I forget dream I just had. Start Actualism, but drop off to sleep quickly. 6:33AM: Debate getting up, but, still slightly tired, decide to try some Actualism for about an hour. GOOD session to 7:25AM: I SHOULD feel better: this is a GOOD hotel; the FOOD is good; it's NOT that hot; my CLOTHES are holding up; the GROUP is tolerable; I'll sew on my loose shirt button before breakfast; I'll take a shower this afternoon after the walk; I've caught up with the journal. All should be GOOD! Sew to 7:44: ridiculously hard: 1) to thread needle, 2) to puncture cloth, as if it were STEEL, 3) to draw thread, as if it were ROUGH and not smooth, and to pull the thread through, as if the needle were slippery. But DO it, and when I cut it with razor from dop kit, find I have ANOTHER sewing kit THERE, probably with a needle threader! Ready for breakfast at 7:57, everything taken care of, I HOPE! GOOD omelet with Teddy and Joan, and to bus at 8:30. Walk 8:42-9:40 through "Love Valley," which I dub "The Valley of the Phalli," anxious about slipping on gravel over stone, eating lush white mulberries from a tree (hoping I won't get sick), taking pictures, always racing to catch up, out of breath---and the "hard circle" walk (which some don't take) is from 9:03-9:27, which I survive, while Judy, John, and Sigrid all slip and fall to their knees on the stones. 10:10 wait for Apple Church line---after about 40 girls from Taiwan. Out at 10:22, no pictures allowed. 10:29 outside Snake Church. Take illegal pictures in churches. 11:23 pay 3L for real orange juice, refreshing. Bus goes at 11:26. Last church is Tokali, off the road. DARK church is 8L, saying no photos, but no guard is inside, and after remonstrating with an Italian woman who's using flash, I take about a dozen pictures of by far the best and brightest frescoes of the lot. To market 11:49-12:10, again taking lots of pictures in the rushed busyness. Lunch 1:12-2:20, and the volcano was named Argeus and is now called Erciyes. Bus goes 2:28. To Kaymakla buried town at 3:03. Start down 3:17, some narrow low passages almost painful, but I make it without much more than scraping my shoulders and back and touching the top of my hat a few times. I think this is the one I was in before, this time with random walkers interrupting our group with Adnan leading. Up at 3:41, not that bad. Bus goes at 3:50. To hotel at 4:13. [Dinner starts 7PM; pickup for balloons at 4:40AM.] To room at 4:19. Sudoku 4:26-5:23, falling asleep. TV to 6:30, a wonderful mélange of Japanese movies, American soaps dubbed, Turkish soaps, and an incredible sci-fi epic with special effects. Shower to 6:46, great facility. Get ready for dinner to 6:46. Start dinner alone at 7, but Murray and Providencia join me, and then Ry and Jill, so I'm not solitary in my early-ness. Back into a dark hall at 8PM and Malcolm opens his door JUST when I need to see where to insert my card---he later complains about the hall lights not going on, and they go on ever after. I leave a call for 4:25AM, hoping it works out. Bed at 8:15PM, trusting my digestion has progressed enough to let me sleep. It does. Pee at 10:59PM.
SUNDAY, 8/7/11: Pee at 1:38AM, and at 3:24AM shit a little bit, a little loosely, a little worrisomely. Do Actualism to wake-up call at 4:24AM. I'm feeling OK and getting ready in time, when Malcolm calls to say, "The car is here," and I get down at 4:34AM and bus leaves at 4:36. At 4:42 we stop at another hotel for ten more, Japanese, two of whom have to sit in one seat because one wasn't planned for. To Kapadokya Balloons office at 4:55AM, an enormous room lined with rows of chairs for MANY balloons, and we get folders with the name Serhan on them, our pilot. We leave the office in one of the trucks at 5:25 and get off at 5:36, disappointed to find they haven't even started filling our balloon yet, and some are already in the air. I make sure I get a corner in our little compartment with an Italian father, mother, and son as partners, while the other four---Dennis, Teddy, George, and Malcolm---have a compartment of their own. I take lots of pictures, and Dennis says that we lift off at 6:03AM, staying close to the ground for a long time, moving up and down almost in the same spot, while others are soaring off to heights and distances. It takes a long time for us to get to a height at which the sun clears the tuff, and I start with silent movies to give the air of the silent flight, then add sound to let the audience know what it DOES sound like. Some start to land, and we lower, but go on and on while the trucks rush ahead of us. Land so gently we don't even have to take our crouching positions, though there is a slight lurch as the crew lifts the basket off the grass and deposits it on the truck while we're still inside. Sit on the railing to pivot off easily, and Dennis says we're off at 7:05AM, just over an hour, longer than the anticipated 45 minutes. The crew sets up a table with a cloth and 17 glasses, which are nearly filled with cherry juice and then ONE bottle of cheap bubbly is opened and poured into them---not very festive, but it IS champagne and it WAS a good trip. Into car at 7:30 and others are dropped off at their hotel high in Uchisar, going up streets I hadn't seen before and would see again later this afternoon. To my room at 8AM exactly. Shit a bit and go to breakfast at 8:08, having another omelet, and bus leaves at 8:44. Off bus at 8:55 for a walk through Uchisar, stopping at the first boutique stone-room hotel, where some order coffee, and the walk's not difficult, and then a kid calls down from a stone house and Adnan introduces us to Adnan, whose son was born the same day as Adnan's daughter. We sit and talk and have good apple tea on cushions and beds on the concave, carpeted, not-to-be-changed [landmarked] floor. Leave house at 10:25 and walk down to bus at 10:32. To weaving building at 10:45, where I sit on the side while they explain silk worming after showing the dyes, which I take a picture of, and then we're led into the showroom, where the carpets come and come, and Joan does a nasty trick of asking for the $36,000 carpet, which she's clearly not going to buy. Murray also teases about getting a carpet down to a price that the owner simply won't match. Malcolm makes the only purchase, so at least the group isn't a total loss. Leave at 12:25 and the bus goes at 12:27. [Malcolm counted 54 balloons.] Lunch in a little Firnak place of "meat and cheese pizza" with a hot lemon drink for me, for a total of 7.5L, including 1L tip. Malcolm talks of the 9-10 purchased rugs already on his floors. Teddy and Joan share a vegetarian pizza. Lunch is over at 1:21. [7:30AM departure tomorrow for a seven-hour drive to Antakya.] To hotel at 1:38, the others meeting at 5:30 for a longer and more difficult walk that I decide not to go on. Adnan asks how many want to see the guitar concert at 9PM and only Teddy raises his hand, so, with some relief, Adnan says the tour is canceled. I do sudoku 1:50-2:23, eyes closing, nearing the completion of the oldest book, and I doze to 3:30, actually having DREAMS:8/7/11. Shit and type dream to 3:45, and then back to sudoku 3:46-6:25, actually finishing all but TWO puzzles in the WHOLE BOOK. TV scan to 7:30, including a good part of Mezzo's super-dramatic Don Giovanni from Aix en Provence from 2000, though the final credit says 2002. Go down about 8PM to find John has "lost the group," saying Adnan and the others will probably be back in ten minutes, and that I can watch the end of the opera, since the dining room is open until 10PM, and when I ask about the Internet, Murray suggests I use the one in the hotel, so I try asking at the desk, get shown where the two terminals are, and mine doesn't work, so when the other guy leaves I click on Google and put in Mezzo Don Giovanni and get that it's almost 3 hours, but not when it's over. I keep watching (very dramatic staging, unknown singers' names at the end) until it's over at 8:40. I'm down to be the last in the whole restaurant, Sigrid talking about the goodness of watching opera on large TVs, and I have a chicken chop, more cucumber, two hard potato halves, some dark cubed meat, water from the bottle, and then, alone at the very end, lots of watermelon and melon. Then up for my camera for a great shot of the lit hotel and pool, and back to my room to type from 9:40-10:18, happy to be caught up. Decide to leave Adnan's wake-up time of 6:30AM and get to sleep now before packing. I'm just tired, having been up since 4:25AM!! Watch some silly modern dance on Mezzo while I brush my teeth, and get to bed at 10:35PM.
MONDAY, 8/8/11: 2:25AM: Pee and type DREAMS:8/8/11. 4:45AM: Shit normally, HOORAY! Thorough Actualism to 6:08AM, ready for anything. Up 6:20AM: simply tired of lying in bed. My phone rings at 6:33AM, and the one next door KEEPS ringing: Malcolm is already out? Totally packed by 6:45AM: bag out, shoulder bag coming along. Pay 6L for my juice at dinner the first night; have cereal and very dilute cherry juice, and then an omelet, and talk with crew, mainly George and Adnan, until 7:20. Bus leaves at 7:32. Walk fairy chimneys in the Pasha Valley 7:50-8:24, parting from the group (except for Dennis), and finding a camel to photograph against the rocks, and also pee at 8:15AM in a very deep corner, leaving my DNA for future history. Note passing "Hand Made Souvenir Shop," and think about noting to Adnan that maybe his stone-mason friend Adnan helped hand-make the shop, but don't. To the pottery shop at 8:32, where again I'm bored after taking shots of some nice pieces, and go back up the lighted tunnel to wait for the group as they return---so I think. But when they DON'T return by 9:20, I go back DOWN the tunnel and find ONLY Providencia signing the final bills for a piece that they bought, saying the others left through ANOTHER door. Thank goodness she's still there! Bus leaves at 9:35. Drive off the road to the Gumusler (gumus means silver) Monastery 10:58-11:22, from the 11th-12th Century, great shots, Adnan helping me with TIMING a shot to get the smiling Virgin and Child. Great "discovery." But I'm PANTING even as I just sit on the bus, and find we're at 4500 feet. Will THIS determine my future travel? Lunch 12:52-1:49; Adnan highly recommends the lamb over the chicken, so I agree, and am served what I take to be KIBBE: a long strip of ground lamb sort of deep-fried with spices, very tender and quite tasty (though I'd had a lot of bread before), and I love the honey that the waiter brings "for me" (and for all the others at the tables) for the yogurt; I barely finish half the meat. Pay 2L for a can of Fruko, which I have to take a photo of. Finish with lots of watermelon and melon and have a pee. At 2:27PM see a sign that Antakya is 191 km. I'm sitting in FRONT, by the door, where Dennis had been sitting before, and where I have a GREAT view of the brand-new highway connecting the north and south of the central part of the country. Very modern and free-flowing, with passing cars probably well exceeding 80 mph, even though the limit is marked at 120 kph at the highest. #1139 I think captures a dirty glacier atop Mt. Amanos, though Adnan insists it's only the tree line, at 3:23. Hot in front, but the views are incomparable, except to the side, where the vertical bands down the glass door make shots in that direction impossible. #1140 of mountains that are undoubtedly in Syria. #1141 is a blurred photo of a boat in the Mediterranean at 3:30PM. Get out at a gas station in Belen to pee at 4:05, getting a 75-kuru lemon ice, which is very refreshing. At 5:10 we all roar into Migros for others to buy wine and me to spend 12L on almonds and three chocolate bars. Into Savon Hotel through an INCREDIBLE traffic jam in the narrow streets of Antakya at 5:50. [Dinner at 7:30.] To room at 5:59, which smells strongly of diarrheal shit, but the odor leaves (or becomes habitual) soon. But it takes a while for the room to WARM from the FRIGID 16-degree setting when I entered, and I put it all the way up to 24°at one point, happy I found the tiny button that raises the cooling temperature. Find that I somehow lost ONE earplug. Adnan calls to see if everything's OK and tells me that happy hour is in room 137. I unpack and settle in to 6:15, maybe shitting a bit, and scan through TV to 6:52, mesmerized by the inane prancing models in the Fashion Week coverage on Channel 18. And looking for a bit at the violence in London for the second day after a boy was shot by the police for some unclear reason. And at the world markets' panic at the Standard and Poor's lowering of the US rating from AAA to AA+, which John explains means that many countries, including China, who are compelled to buy ONLY AAA bonds, have to SELL enormous quantities, trillions of dollars, of US bonds, probably causing them to drop in price---though he refuses to say that this would be a good time to BUY them, since they'd undoubtedly go back up to "normal" AAA in a couple of months at MOST. He doesn't comment on that. I'm in to happy hour (after mistakenly entering the open door to Providencia's bedroom) with my walnuts and take tiny tastes of two untasty red wines, avoiding Murray's vodka and Teddy's gin and Joan's Scotch (I offend her by saying it looks like a urine sample). We stay there to 7:30, and I'm last down to dinner through the hot hallways and am faced with a plate of five appetizers: one clearly of humus, another of a red mixture of some vegetables (that's later identified as baba ganoush), another of reddened rice (with, maybe, tomatoes), another of eggplant, and a center bowl of spicy olives that I eat a lot of, though I have only about half of each of the others, with some of the bread. I avoid the salad completely, and the lentil (surprise) soup is good, as usual, and then the meat comes: flattened like hamburger, very dark and well cooked, but greasy tasting and vaguely rancid in effect, between what Adnan calls "two sheets of paper." I eat somewhat less than half of that, leaving most on the plate---I simply don't feel hungry. Then load up on the watermelon and melon for dessert, though most of us leave the unpeeled plum on the plate. Leave the table as soon as I reasonably can, drinking maybe three glasses of water that the very proper waiters quickly refill, and get back to the room at 8:23. Watch more ABSURD TV fashion to 9:44, eyes closing, and leave a call for a 6:30 wake-up, floss teeth, and get to bed at 10:22PM, sadly noting that even if I sleep RIGHT through, I'll have trouble getting eight hours' sleep.
TUESDAY, 8/9/11: Pee at 1:04AM, and again at 3:55, comfortable enough, looking at my watch as I do Actualism spottily, dozing between, and get up at 6:33AM just as the phone rings. Wash face, fix room for maid, and get down to breakfast at 7AM, thinking it'll again be inside, but this time it's outside, and a round table for eight is filled, as is a square table for four, and I debate sitting at a table by myself, but ask if I can pull up a chair to the table shared by Murray, his wife, a reproving Joan, and a distant Dennis. Of course they say OK, and I finish my mostly watermelon breakfast listening to endless tales by endlessly talking Murray. Leave table at 7:25, when Adnan announces some silly piece from the daily Turkish paper. Bus goes through increasingly hilly countryside 7:30-8:25 to the edge of the Mediterranean Sea at Cevlik. Up a slope to the start of Titus's Tunnel, and walk through a cleft for a distance, then up stairs to meet Ry and Jill, who came along the easier top roadway, and find an old stone bridge across the canyon which once housed the tunnel, and go in farther than any of the others, risking climbing around a rock on a slippery slope to get to an inner chamber where my flash proves to be more powerful than George's, who had followed me in. Out to look at Judy's photos of the tombs farther along the path, and decide to go look at them, encouraged when we pass Ry and Jill on their way back to the bus. George leaves early, but I take pictures of most of the tombs, including the description (so I can transcribe it later), and even take a pee to again add my DNA to Turkey's historical soil. Leave at 9:04, hoping to catch up with Jill (and almost panic when I don't for a long time), and that I remember which road to take, and that the higher road has only ONE destination, and doesn't lead me AWAY from the bus. See Jill ahead with great relief, catch up with her just as we get to the final slope before the bus, and find the group continuing to walk along the road into town. Catch up with them in a small shop where many order beer at 9:25AM (ugh), and I decide to walk farther into the town, taking pictures of a tour boat on the sea and kids playing on the shore, and wander down a side street, where a local man insists on talking to me and hands me a very nice brochure about the area (which Adnan even wants to buy from me, and I say he can come back and get dozens of them if he wants, but I'll only be here ONCE)---and he ends up saying farewell in German, so I can thank him with a "Danke." Back to the group as the bus has pulled up to the shop. I'm entranced by the hunk who may be the son of the owner, and I get up the courage to ask for his photo, for which he poses quite professionally (after making sure I don't want to take a picture of his father, the chef), showing his tattooed shoulder and a smoldering expression. Great take! To bus at 9:45, and then the group asks for both of the two choices Adnan offers, and we drive over a TERRIBLE road past NUMEROUS windmill farms to Vakifli, from 10:21-10:45, getting a lecture about Armenians living in Turkey and the building of the church five years ago (which doesn't permit photography), and the bus meets us at the top! I'd really PANTED on the way up the hill in the heat and humidity! Lots of talk about the Armenian Genocide on the bus on the way back. [6PM meet for dinner.] To the Museum at 11:40, where Adnan, to my GREAT relief (I'd feared finding my way there and back on my own) suggests he pay our way in---but then OAT can only afford 3L apiece, and we have to supplement our entry with 5L each, but it's worth it: GREAT display of ENORMOUS numbers of ENORMOUS murals from the area from the 2nd Century AD, with a GREAT book that only costs 15L AND that I can get with my credit card! GREAT! I have to get my NEXT set of times from my CAMERA pictures, since we left the museum, stopped at a number of shops for a number of processes, and I took some movies. I wearily sit upstairs at the Vitamin sign at 1:15, waiting for the rest of the group and talking to Me-shit (that's what he said!) as he sets the table for us. Good lamb with spicy bread, water, and good cold Coke, of which I drink at least four glasses. Out at 1:52 to be led into a men's area where they're playing some version of tile-rummy seemingly called OK, which Adnan teaches to us, and Joan, Malcolm, Teddy, and Adnan play the first game, which Joan wins, and then they play a second game that Teddy wins, and then Joan lets me take her place, and John takes Adnan's place, and Siggy and Teddy win the third game: great fun! To 2:50. Walk back to hotel by 3PM, not expecting it where it is. Again get hooked into the TV Fashion Week channel to 3:46, razor off some of my longer toenails to 3:58 (which had been hurting my toes by pressing against the insides of my shoes), shower to 4:23, nicely temperatured, though slimily soapy even at the end of much rinsing. Most of the water stays in the drain, too! Look at Hatay book to 4:48, FIND my umbrella (which I REALLY thought I'd lost until I found it at the bottom of my suitcase), put on my penultimate clean socks and shorts, raise the temperature to 23°, and start typing at 4:56, finishing with GREAT relief at 5:46PM, just in time to dress and get out for the 6PM bus, hoping to retain my "just showered" freshness through the evening. What a GREAT PLEASURE to be caught up once again! Leave room at 5:53PM. Fill my water bottle; bus leaves at 6:01. To Harbiye, ancient Daphne (where lots of the mosaics in the museum today were from). [I forgot to take my PILLS.] The dot over a Turkish capital I STILL looks odd. Pass a shop labeled "Bad Boy's VCD." 700,000 people in Antakya. Stop at a silk shop 6:25-6:31, where I sit in the owner's chair and Murray makes a joke about how quickly I take over a business. To drinks to 7:10 at the extraordinarily kitschy place, with its numerous waterfalls, endless shops, and tacky statues with water squirting out of their ears, and tables stretching off into the grape-arbored, sun-spotted distance. We stop there only to drink, and lots of the women say they don't like it at all, maybe because the running water over many of the stone stairs makes it dangerous for their sandals or unsteady legs. I don't order anything; the beer is 6L, and Malcolm and Murray share a bottle of raki for 35L. Lots of jokes and laughs, and we walk a long way to a Hideo restaurant, Adnan delegating me to stand in the street and direct Ry and Murray in where we'll be, but by the time they get to me, we've all left because the place was taken over by a wedding party that would last too late for us to wait for them to leave. So we start walking in the excessive humidity again, to 7:35 to Camalti Cafe Restaurant---and we don't even stop there but continue walking down a VERY long street to its VERY end at Kule Restaurant at 7:46, where I rush past and don't even notice the three poor white flamingos in a cage just inside the entrance. We're shown to a table at the very edge of a finger of land overlooking the town, twinkling through the sunset haze, but the open window creates much too much of a breeze to tolerate. Start with hummus and baba ganoush (which was the red stuff we had last night as part of the five appetizers), and the bread is very good, and I drink at least six glasses of cold water, which tastes very good at the time. Then, at long last, the special chicken comes, buried under thin red-coated bread, and the taste is familiar: I've had something like it on Atlantic Avenue, I guess, and Adnan says someone from this town must have opened that restaurant. I can barely eat half of the chicken, avoiding the greens (and my mouth BURNED, until I had some bread, when I tasted the green pepper under the parsley that was served first) and drinking even more water. Finally the bills are added up and we finish at 9PM EXACTLY. Walk out expecting to see the bus right outside, but AGAIN it's a walk to 9:07. [Leaving 8:30AM tomorrow.] I'm astonished at how many people are gathered on their balconies along the streets, I guess because the apartments aren't air-conditioned---though I see LOTS of units on other balconies---and it's much more comfortable outside in the later evening. Bus goes back slowly through the restaurant-strewn streets of Harbiye, and finally to the hotel at 9:35, Adnan stopping traffic to let us cross the street, and get my key while leaving a wake-up call for 7:30AM. To the room at 9:39, SORE of left knee and back---my body is REALLY breaking down toward the end, and Adnan mentions that one can take a MULE up the steep 30-minute walk from the bus to the heads on Mount Nemrut. So if I can, I surely WILL. Pee, undress, take night pills and put morning pills into containers for tomorrow, and start typing at 9:55, stopping, tired, now at 10:12PM, ready to go directly to bed. Brush teeth, pee again, and get wearily to bed at 10:22PM, counting five days to go, only fifteen more meals. Fall asleep quickly.
WEDNESDAY, 8/10/11: Pee at 12:35AM and 3:06AM. Phantom phone rings at 3:28AM. Type first of DREAMS:8/10/11 until 4:07AM, and start typing second dream at 5:15AM. Raise air conditioner from 25° to 26° before peeing again at 5:21AM: busy night! 6:10AM: Type third and fourth dreams to 6:14AM, debating whether to try to shit or not. Succeed in a perfectly normal shit with an as-usual-not-abnormal totally clean wipe to 6:30AM, reading an oddly depressing New York magazine article on Cheap Eats: I guess it sounds like the mooshy food served in Turkish restaurants that looks dangerous to eat because of the green, maybe-washed-in-filthy-water vegetables and probably-tough chunks of mystery meat, sometimes swimming in dubious grease. Anyway, my intestines seem to be in good shape at the moment, blessedly. Had started Actualism twice, getting almost nowhere, and now at 6:33AM will try again in the almost-hour before my wake-up call. Still hear the toilet water running. 7:23AM: Finish an Actualism session that was more like pulling teeth than enlightening my mental, emotional, and sensory awarenesses. Kept obsessing about my need for more lira, but possibly losing my HSBC card in the process; asking Adnan to look up zuegma/zeugma as an English grammar term; keeping my intestines in working order; the Cheap Eats article in New York magazine; all the things I want to do when I get back to NYC and HOME and BED and WATER that I can drink; should I start taking Valium for my clearly accelerating sense of anxiety as the end of the trip nears; and the worry about getting to the iconic heads on Mount Nemrut. But now to wash my face, take two acet for the increasing pain in my left knee, and get ready to move to the next-to-last hotel, in Gaziantep, which now seems to be very GOOD, rather than the nadir (as ironically promised by Adnan at the beginning of the trip). And again obsessing about tips, particularly to room maids (which George talked about as if he KNEW that I never left a dollar for a room maid in my LIFE!). Finish this at 7:28AM, also wondering when I'll have to switch from a full file 3 to an empty file 4. 7:31AM: FIND a used earplug in my shoulder bag pocket: could it have been the one I lost a few days ago?? Phone rings at 7:34AM as I prepare for one last pee, then take two acet with the last of one bottle of water, and type this obsessively, with the perennial thought (aside from how to spell perennial) that NO one will want to read through all this data about shitting and pissing and the exact times and the FUSS of travel, rather than the JOY of seeing new things in new places with new people, which has been, I fear, sadly missing from the last few trip journals as my increasing age has made the FEARS of travel overwhelm the JOYS of travel [GOD! THIS IS SO TRUE!]. Close my suitcase, still gratifyingly easy---which now falls onto its side with a rattle of omega-3 pills---to do, along with the wonderful discovery of the top panel for PAPER, which takes EVERYTHING with ease until I sort AGAIN into the two packs of "past" and "future" at the next, penultimate, hotel. Pack a Savon Hotel matchbox into my dop kit, since I'd searched before for matches and found none. Also take their little cookies, just to TAKE them, so as not to leave their "With Our Compliments" little cardboard box. Check BBC News to see London "being cleaned up," stock markets rebounding strongly, and other trivia to 7:53AM, when I put out suitcase and go down to breakfast. Take last of watermelon at the end of a small breakfast. Bus goes 8:28AM. "The original" St. Peter's Church 8:33-8:52, much new added, with pictures of Antakya in sunlight below. Zeugma is a common word linking two clauses in one sentence with the same concept. It means "bridge" in Greek, for the bridge across the Euphrates there: so it's a bridge in two senses now. It's not on my map of Turkey because it's an ancient town, says Adnan. O with an umlaut, followed by Z, is the word "pure" in Turkish. My suggestion of tourists talking about "best" and "worst" is a flop, partly because I'd wanted it to be "good" and "bad," and Siggy said it WASN'T a flop, and some people talked about these things already at breakfast and didn't want to repeat them, and some people, like her and Judy, were listeners, not talkers. 10:29 Adnan passes grapes, and I can't risk having one. Shutterstock.com, bigstock.com, and istock.com take photos, if good, and pay commission when others download them. Look into it. Some ask for best three for test. Also Lulu.com, per Malcolm, who has his own site for Malcolm Smith Calendars. John says there's a ROMA nation, with a flag, without a territorial country, in the United Nations. I give my card [#3] to Adnan. Into Gaziantep at noon, 1.4 million people, 5th largest city in Turkey, much modern, though our hotel is in the old section. [To bus at 1PM from lunch in modern mall.] I have liver on bread from a place Adnan forces me to when I'm about to line up at Burger King, and join them at their eatery, where Jill has her favorite eggplant dish, which is complicated by cutting, paring, and mixing it with the meat: more work than she wants to do; Adnan does a bit to show her how. I buy a 1L dondurma: vanilla Softee. To bus at 1:10PM, having gotten 200L more cash with John, before anything else. 1:30 to Zeugma Mosaics Museum, with lots of photos, but, unlike yesterday, these aren't displayed from above and appear dusty, and some are still covered in plastic, and the place isn't really finished yet, and the silver Mars is impossible to photo, so I get out to shop and buy 1L postcard of him, pay 22L for a magazine that talks about lots of places, and splurge 34L for a encyclopedic book on Commagenes, the last two seeming to be the last copies of each, which makes me feel good. The hardcover selection from the Zeugma Mosaics Museum is 75L and the complete hardcover is 275L: for rich people only! Hot as blazes out. Leave at 2:57. Mutfak = kitchen. Leave bus at 3PM and walk hot town in 103-degree humidity. TAKE a cold beer for 10L and go to my room at 3:45, picturesquely small. Read Commagenes to 4:23, lie exhausted (after telling Adnan that I don't feel like dinner), and then continue to lie limply to 4:55, when I talk to Siggy on the phone, then out at 5:20 to walk market, look at stuff, and take photos with Joan and Teddy, finally Judy and George, and Siggy lagging behind to 6:20. [Dinner at 7PM.] Scan Archaeology magazine to 6:35, very tired, A/C going strong. To dinner at 6:53, even eating salad, since everyone is doing so and not getting sick, and it's not really bad, though it's hot in the open dining room. Then bald meat for doner dinner, with rice cooked with orzo cooked yellow. Baklava for dessert, and a guy comes to teach me to turn on TV at 8:15. Watch "Real" channel of car crashes, accidents, auto-race crashes, crash-dummy tests, crazy-people and cat videos, a TRUE NUT channel that I can't turn off until 9:50, when I leave a wake-up call for 5:45AM; get to bed at 10:10AM.
THURSDAY, 8/11/11: 1:57AM pee and switch temperature from 21 to 25 degrees. 2:09 wake still cold and shut off A/C. 4:04 type DREAMS:8/11/11 to 4:09. 5:05 turn on A/C to no-reading setting. 5:32 my phone rings as I'm debating getting up. Shit semi-loosely, still clear on toilet paper, but I hope that does it for the day. Start typing at 5:44 and finish to date to 6:02AM, ready to finish dressing and get to breakfast. Pack everything (including jacket, umbrella, Commagenes book, almonds, chocolate bars, and acet) into shoulder bag by 6:06AM and go to breakfast. WALK long dusty street to bus 6:30-6:43, tired already! Bus goes 6:46. 7:13: 130 km to Adiyaman. Lots of Yaman Tur minibuses, which I think is a TOUR company until Adnan says it's merely an intercity BUS line. I think (but doubt) I see a TURTLE on the shoulder of the road. 8:04AM: Adiyaman 60 km. Besni has 29,000 people, at 8:15. Pee stop 8:27-8:32. [Checked with Adnan: we were SECOND out of his seven groups to see Ararat.] Adiyaman has 300,000 people, at 9:05. 9:14 stop in Migros. [OAT is buying lunch for us.] [I lost the slip from the shop: paid 2L for a Ulker bar, 2.4L for a Magnum ice cream bar, and 2.2L for "tortilla chips with spicy flavor." 6.6L total.] Get FRONT seat in NON-A/C minibus at 9:36, Dennis and Ry and Jill joining because there's more room, and then we turn out to have A/C anyway. See sign (wrong) at 9:36 that Nemrut Dag is 44 km. Driver introduces himself as Zay-nell, later writing it on his car's business card: Zaynel. Kahta has 63,000 people at 10:10 (again relying on camera-shot times to say what we passed when). The scenery gets increasing dramatic, the Mezuman (?) Valley being preternaturally green in spots where the Ataturk Barrage (dam) furnishes needed water to the dry southeast of the country in a series of 21 or so dams, water coming from the Black Sea mountains, seemingly flowing forever. Hillier and hillier; Zaynel points out Nemrut, an unlikely light-yellow pyramid atop a roughly pyramidal mountain. Not a palace, but a burial ground. The top was LEVELED and stones piled up for EFFECT as a background for the terraces on two sides; the other two possibly were planned for successors of Antiochus I, who seemed to have died aged 38, but were never finished, since the project probably bankrupted the country that only lasted 200-odd years. After a dramatic series of "infinity roads" that leap off into space at the horizon above, we finally pull up at the 7000-foot series of huts for the start of the final ascent: how TERRIBLE it must have been to climb before they put in these new roads---oh, yes, we went up ONE way to pass the Kaskara (?) tumuli, where I could only glimpse the three columns featured in the book as being atop them, and then down roller-coaster roads to the largest existing Roman bridge (over a branch of the Euphrates), getting out in the humid heat to take pictures and walk across the bridge, which, until five years ago, [Start file 3 at 6:54AM 8/12/11] had been used for BUSSES to cross the river on TOURS. Again exhausted: how am I going to survive at the top? Adnan carries maybe a dozen bags to the long picnic table under a leafy roof---sweet red peppers, tons of bread, olives and pickles, a sausage that has to be sliced and another package of meat that's pre-sliced, lots of bottles of water, plates, knives and forks---and requests help peeling cucumbers and slicing tomatoes. I stand back and watch as the women and some men take over, and I sit at one corner and eat some salty string cheese to start, with chips, and water; and I eat a bit of everything [which probably made me sick that evening: KNOW I shouldn't have eaten those tomato skins!]. I buy a Sprite from the kiosk at 3L to "support the local people, since we're bringing up most of our food." Feel full as we eat to 1PM, blazing hot outside, and I pay 1L to pee and ask Adnan to negotiate for a mule for me. He asks who else wants one, and only Murray phumphers and finally takes one. Ride mule up 1:13-1:29, truly an ordeal: have to hang on TIGHT to slender strap at the front of the fat saddle, finally stopping to put my jostling camera into my shoulder bag, which I prop in the back. (Later, John says he could SEE that I was sitting sideways in the saddle, causing the mule to walk awkwardly, in danger of falling, and I say I'm sure glad I heard that AFTERWARD rather than during my ascent.) Hassan is handsome, sweet, and helpful, and I never get a shot of him or a chance to give him the 5L tip he well deserves for clutching my arm, saying I'm doing OK, "No problem, no problem"---while I think I have a problem at every fumbling stone-rattle from the mule's hooves, and at lurching close to the cliff edge at the turning points, and at the narrowness of the path (where Hassan has to run beside the mule, keeping me upright, telling me to scootch to the side when needed). I pass some of the people going up the powdery-looking path, with more rubble than steps to negotiate, always happy I'd chosen the mule, but drastically unhappy WITH the mule! Then Joan falls, and I see blood streaming from her knee to her ankle; Malcolm and Adnan and John hover around her, and they call for another mule to take her to the top. Others recall Murray screaming at his mule in Yiddish behind me. Finally get to the top, and get off with enormous relief, feeling dizzy and disoriented for the first dozen steps away from the mule onto the slippery, jagged, uneven stones at the summit. But the heads are dramatic, the altars unexpected, and I take picture after picture, marveling at the pyramid of rubble as backdrop, and the scenery dropping off to the sides from the top of the highest peak in the neighborhood. Heads and bodies and rubble and photos and walking around and angles, and then to the other terrace, where Adnan takes pictures of individuals against a large, dramatic head, but "Don't touch!" He assures me he got many good ones of me [and I haven't even looked yet, glad that my camera held out and I didn't have to replace the batteries, which might not have worked]. Photo and photo, people leaving on the long walk down, and finally a muleteer hollers at me to come to him to go down the other side, saying "Now water" exasperatedly as I take a drink before committing myself to the downhill mule from 2:02-2:14, delirious with pleasure that I've survived the top; and the trip down is possibly easier, but the man is grimmer than Hassan, and at the end I simply hand him the 50L bill with a parting glare from him, and I stagger down to sit, and buy the 10L special book and another Sprite, and prepare for the ride down, waving happily to Zaynel as he drives up in his bus. Into bus 2:30, and at 3:35 Joan leaves the other bus to get into a wheelchair at a hospital, another of which Adnan had stopped at on the mountain, which had been closed, but we hadn't, at the time, known why he'd stopped. Our mini leaves the hospital with added passengers from the waiting mini at 3:50 and gets to Adiyaman at 4:29. The second mini arrives quickly, Joan having had four stitches in record time, feeling no pain now [but it increased through the evening]. Bus leaves at 4:39. Sit mesmerized in the front seat as others all seem to go to the rear: have my urine-stained jeans started to smell and people are avoiding me? NO STOP on the way to Gaziantep at 7:03, I fearing I might shit my pants on the way, but the kilometers pass, the towns pass, the sun lowers, Teddy and Joan talk about apartments and rent control, and we're told it's 9AM tomorrow departure. Walk ENDLESSLY to hotel at 7:15, put on A/C and SHIT LOTS LOOSELY to 7:20. FEVER again? 7:36PM: Two cannon shots and a call to prayer. I lie miserably on the bed in my shorts, wanting something for dinner, but too weary to move. Adnan rings my phone at 7:59, saying I should have some chicken and bread, and I dress as Siggy comes to my door to urge me out. I leave at 8:07, eat three tiny cubes of dry chicken, take three aspirin at her behest, bring out water from my room and get another bottle from the server. I sample three liqueurs---banana, coffee, and cherry---and have decaf green tea with five sugars, feeling somewhat better with the cheery talk among the intrepid adventurers. Complain they've charged me for the water that most places serve free, and Adnan frees me of some of the charges. I'm back to room at 9:25PM, thanking Siggy for "getting me out" [and I wish I could remember the sexually loaded phrase I DID use with her, and she blushed and laughed and "welcomed" me]. I leave A/C off, take three more aspirin and a melatonin. Brush teeth, pee again, and get to bed at 9:48PM. Remind myself that I owe Ry 5L for my tip to Zaynel. Pee at 11:22PM, then take a SECOND flooding diarrheal shit. Take two Imodium, which I think at first says expired in 1997, at 11:38PM. Pee again at 11:42 and see that the expiration date on the two remaining Imodium is 3/11.
FRIDAY, 8/12/11: Get to sleep quickly, since I'm exhausted, and up at 3AM to pee. At 3:52AM it's COLD though the temperature is at 25 degrees, and I put it up to 28! Then turn it off again. At 4:05AM diarrhea #3 and take a THIRD Imodium, hoping desperately I won't have to graduate to Cipro again. DAMN! Call to prayer rings through room. Wake at 6:22AM, and lie and brood to 6:38, then decide to type before taking a shower, putting A/C on at 27 degrees, and finish up-to-date, with great relief and a painful slouch in my back sitting on the side of the bed by the lovely Art Deco desk lamp of a sylph with an art glass flower atop. Finish this at 7:22, SO happy we don't have to start until 9AM, and I've got LOTS of repacking to do after I shower, which I determine to start now at 7:23AM. Take three MORE aspirin with the end of the FOURTH bottle of water, just hoping to KILL discomfort until getting home THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW!!! Do I wait for my wake-up call at 7:26AM before showering? Phone rings at 7:31AM after I put second adult diaper into shoulder bag in case I need it today, put my penultimate (used) socks and shorts into "clean" bag with swimsuit in case I mess up my LAST clean set today, and sort out tons of paper to be stuffed into the top of my case, not yet packing my jacket and jeans. The A/C feels good at the moment: making it less humid, slightly cooler, yet not causing me a chill. Is Imodium working? Oh, GOD, I sure hope so!! The thought of telling Adnan to stop on the bus because I've got to shit (or using the facility on the bus?) is just too horrible. BUT ONLY THREE DAYS LEFT IN TRIP: NINE MEALS, roughly SIXTY-NINE HOURS. Truly start shower at 7:35AM. Finish at 7:53, feeling virtuous, for hopefully the LAST shower of the trip. Gingerly to breakfast at 8AM. A simple bowl of corn flakes and water with my pills until 8:12, telling Adnan I might have to ask him to stop the bus. He sympathizes. Suitcase, jammed on all sides and edges, out door at 8:20, probably last of group. My shoulder bag is loaded, too. Everyone's packed and in the central space by 8:30, but the walk doesn't start until 9AM, so Malcolm and John and I commandeer the three reclining footrest-equipped seats, which leads Ry and Judy and Siggy to take our pictures stretched out. I feel good just to SIT for a few minutes in the non-humid morning breeze. We start walk at 8:57AM, filming baklava-making at the Imam Bages restaurant next door (amazing for its flour-fogged atmosphere of heat and humidity) to 9:17, then the now-open slipper shop in the converted caravansary to 9:24, and walk streets to curious looks from shop owners to 10:12, and take self-guiding headphones through the Gaziantep City Museum to 10:48, where I joke, "There's too much about Gaziantep." On bus, tired, at 10:50. Bus goes at 10:58. 1:10PM (after long drive in hilly countryside) down a rough road into a green valley, to the Kilim Cooperative for our worker-prepared lunch, to which Adnan has brought water and cheese. I'm not hungry, and eat the small portion of lentil soup, maybe half the half-portion of rice on my plate, but all of the tangy yogurt (better with Adnan's added rose jam), and lots of water and Coke, and six or seven pieces of the cut-up melon, some of which Adnan donates to the cooperative. Then we're into the shop, where Malcolm buys a kilim and the others are bored. To bus at 2:05, having peed with no need to shit---only farting dryly, a good sign. Over more dirt roads to the Hittite Fortress from the 8th Century BC at 2:35, walking laboriously up the pine-needle-strewn road, having been told we chose a good day, but it's still blazing hot and 100% humid. Impressive aluminum-covered open-air museum with walls of carvings and two kinds of hieroglyphs, one set providing a Rosetta Stone for the unique Leween (?) script from the cuneiform text next to it. Shots of everything: glad to see it, impressed by its availability and lack of vandalism, but really getting tired of the trip. To bus at 3:10, having bought a 3L brochure, and having taken shots of what turns out to be a rich, red, peeling tree related to the California madrone tree. Leave at 3:25, hoping to get to Adana at last, but stop at the Kastabala excavation (being done for the last two years by Gaziantep University) of the 3rd Century AD Roman city of maybe 10,000, judging from the almost complete theater seating 4,000, and the sizeable baths and roadway lined with still-standing columns: the site had been standing for ages without proper financing for excavations. Wander fields dotted with warning "tick" signs (not allowed to take photos of recent excavations), and carved stones abound, with lazy students laughing as we move past. This goes to 4:20. I'm exhausted, dry, and hot, and start to need to shit. At 4:30 Adnan stops and takes orders for five beers (but they're not available because of Ramadan) and five Sprites (but THEY are not available)---so some get Coke and I get a Turka Cola that's fizzy and cold that I sip from the bacteria-infested can lip. I lie with my head back to avoid the sun and to rest. [Tomorrow: start 8:30AM, to Tarsus, then back to town because he checked with a friend to find that all the restaurants along the beach will be closed, so there'll be no "half-naked Turkish ladies" to look at. Lunch in town, then maybe a museum, then at 5PM a walk through town to the bus at 6PM that will take us to our final dinner that will end about 9:30PM, sounding much too late for me for our 5:30AM departure the next morning.] Drive AGES through Adana, when I just want to get to the hotel, going two ways past the largest mosque in Turkey, thanks to the richest family, the Samagis, in this fifth-largest city of two million, where S.A. means that the Samagi family Association owns it. Finally stop at another damned "boutique" hotel at 6:11, where our keys are in the room to keep the A/Cs going, and I get room 203 and wait in line for the two-person (and crowded even then) elevator to reach the room at 6:20PM, exhausted. Shit the tiniest bit, which makes me hopeful, take my shoes off and lie down on the bed to have Adnan knock on the door (I'm glad I hadn't stripped yet) at 6:30 to show me how to operate the two remotes for the TV set. I go through the 118 channels, mostly not working, and eat some of the chips and make a list of the channels to watch: 3 for CNBC and Old Martina, or whatever series Julia Dreyfuss-Lewis (?) is in; 20 for music videos; 24 for fashion, different from the other channel at the last hotel; 43 for Aljazeera in Arabic and 44 for it in English, reasonably informative; 51 the equivalent of the bizarre "Real" in Gaziantep; 61 for cartoons, mostly VERY kindergarten-pretty; and 100 for crazy Hawaiian-looking exercises with a reasonably attractive shirtless man. I'm clearly desperate. Flick back and forth to 8:45, when I try the other remote by mistake and can't get back to my original pattern of watching. Have an awful diarrhea #4 (but still brownish, rather than the real-sick yellow liquid) and take my fourth and last Imodium at 9:03 with my evening pills, having decided I really don't want to eat ANYTHING for dinner: I can't even finish the small bag of chips without feeling slightly put off by the thought of eating more. Get to bed at 9:32PM, opening a bottle of water from the fridge, not caring that the list shows that it's 2L, and, having had the A/C off that made the room too warm, put it on at 28° and feel good enough to leave it on. Fall asleep fairly quickly.
SATURDAY, 8/13/11: 1:17AM: Pee, take a Valium, and lie thinking until getting up at 1:41AM (maybe I doze a bit?), wondering if I still have that last Lomotil. Have a very liquid diarrhea #5, and take two of the last four (very outdated?) Lomotil pills at 1:57AM, eating four squares of chocolate, which again doesn't feel very satisfying on my finicky stomach. Look at the Adana book on the telephone table until 2:11AM. Then wake in morning light and type DREAMS:8/13/11 to 5:56AM, and have a SLIGHTLY more solid shit to 6:06AM, taking the LAST two Lomotil, leaving me ONLY with the five Cipro from before if I still have a problem. Will I wear my diaper today? Finish typing to date at 6:43AM, slightly sweaty and smelly in the too-warm room, wondering where breakfast would be---upstairs in the restaurant I didn't go to for dinner last night? On the ground floor somewhere? And then have to get someone to fix my TV in case I decide I want to stay indoors today on the LAST DAY OF THE TRIP before the flight-day tomorrow that TAKES ME HOME! Try to convince myself I had enough sleep: 9:30PM-5:50AM, but with over twenty minutes awake from around 1:17-1:41AM. At least I don't have to do my final packing NOW! What do I do now at 6:47AM? Lower A/C from 28° to 26° and blow my nose, first. Wash face and put Cipro and Valium in shoulder bag, but 6:54AM is really too early to venture out to see where breakfast might be for our 8:30AM departure! Lower A/C from 26° to 24°, since it STILL feels warmish. Start re-sorting EVERYTHING for the end of the trip, and Adnan phones at 7:30 with a wake-up call, and I ask him to fix TV, and he comes in to explain that one remote is ONLY for on-off, the other is for switching channels. I chase him down to the breakfast room with my credit card for the balloon trip, and type this at 7:43AM, ready to go down to breakfast. 8:11AM: Up from good omelet (had to RETURN to room to get morning pills), cherry juice, water, and watermelon, finding we're NOT walking to bus, just going to Tarsus. I put out "Do Not Disturb" sign on messed-up room. Type this to 8:13, preparing to go out for the morning, at least. Bus goes at 8:28 to Tarsus. 9:17 off at waterfall; we leave at 9:30. Then off again at 9:37 to see Roman street fifteen feet down at 10:08, after looking at wood-cut toys that remind me of what Robin Mazey had done 30 years ago. Photo licorice "hair" used in making juice. Then photo orchid bulbs used for ice cream at 10:50. On bus at 10:57; it goes at 11:01, and take photos of Cleopatra's gate of entry to Tarsus at 11:21. Then travel to another part of the city and get off at 12:18 to have lunch at 12:30 of kebab and Coke, but I'm not very hungry. Finish at 1:15, particularly put off by awful taste of a turnip drink. Walk more of the town, getting some seemingly gay stares back. To mosque at 2PM, and then to hotel, elevate to the roof for a lookaround, and walk down to room at 2:18. Find that my left eyeglass nosepiece is gone! THAT'S why my nose felt slightly sore. Change to spare glasses, read Tarsus to 2:45, then watch TV, switching between "Real" (actually, here, "Shipshack"), fashion---and come onto Doctor Who for the end of an episode to 4:08PM. Switch A/C temperature up when the room gets too cool. Feeling rather good, considering, but now I'll try to see what happens on the toilet at 4:16PM. 4:29PM: Sadly, another loose diarrhea, so I guess I MUST start another sequence with Cipro #1! Decide to give driver $40 and Adnan $170. Try packing most by 4:46PM, when I dress in my flight costume for tomorrow: North Face long-sleeved shirt and brown pants---and I'll carry my diaper in my shoulder bag, in case it's needed on the flight if the Cipro doesn't work. [Got to get the driver's name!] Leave room at 4:52PM---I should be home AT THIS TIME tomorrow, but after a 7-hour time change. Malcolm hands me another single Cipro wrapped in a napkin: a real help. [Driver's name is Ersan]. Adana mosque is 210 feet high, 120 feet wide, each dimension three feet larger than Hagia Sophia to make it the largest in Turkey, and second only to Hassan II in Morocco. Lots of photos, including from closed-off court that we open up---very hot. Bus goes at 5:42. [Breakfast at 5AM, into bus at 5:30, wake-up call at 4:30AM.] Along river to a restaurant that will sell the beer that Adnan promised yesterday, except then it was five and now it's ten that are wanted. We sit on the riverbank, watching a water-skier, and I offer some of my beer to others, who don't want it, so I have to finish it myself. To Restaurant Aslaanta on the shore, and Malcolm and I grab the riverside-view seats, which of course are the loudest from the traffic below. Later, a full moon rises over a housing project among the trees. I pass on the salads, though I take yogurt with some green mixed in. Order the sea bass because it's said to be less fishy than the sea bream, and it comes filleted, and the cute waiter gives me four cubes of ice for my ill-tasting white wine. He later gives me another glass of wine to which he adds ice, though Siggy, the only other white-wine drinker, doesn't want another glass. Dessert of watermelon, melon, and untouched grapes arrives. It's not quite dark when we leave, seeing that there IS lobster on display but we didn't get a chance to choose. Other diners fill the riverside seats. Back to bus at 7:51, gratified that it isn't the threatened 9:30PM. To hotel at 8:10 and Malcolm invites us all to his room across the hall to finish off his raki, which we don't manage to do, even though Murray fills his water glass half-full of pure raki before thinking to add some water. I take the littlest bit, and finish before others, and excuse myself to go back across the hall at precisely 8:30: eight hours to wake-up call. Adnan says we had Ersan as a driver for 11 days, but it was actually only 10, so two twenties is perfect for his envelope. We're going to be wakened a half-hour before breakfast, so I decide to delay my note transcription till then so I can get to bed as soon as possible. Have diarrhea AGAIN, but slightly hardening, and brush my teeth and get to bed at 8:50PM, DRUNK, and raise the A/C temperature from 22° to 24°. At 8:51PM I get up to light the match I forgot to quench the smell with before, and raise the A/C from 24° to 25°. 11:06PM: Cold when I wake, so I first shut off the A/C, then get up and pee and get back to bed, leaving the A/C off.
SUNDAY, 8/14/11: 2:02AM pee, fuss with stuff, and get back to bed at 2:15AM. At 3:51 type disturbing DREAMS:8/14/11 to 3:56. Phone rings at 4:38AM, waking me from solid sleep, though not enough of it. Take my 1/2 melatonin and a Valium. Then take three aspirin for my back (which doesn't bother me for the next many hours), Cipro #2, and a shit. Put my suitcase out (closing easily in both compartments) at 5:03AM and then bring it back to transfer my sharp pens from my shoulder bag to it and put it back out at 5:04; they haven't yet started collecting bags from the dark hallway. Wash face, dress, and put stuff into shoulder bag, and try to organize last things, and don't get out of room until 5:15, having been called by Adnan to make sure I'm on my way. Down to turn in my key and pay 4L for two bottles of water, and dash into the empty breakfast room to find rolled sandwiches waiting on the tables. Take one [which I find, shockingly, in my shoulder bag on SATURDAY when I'm unpacking; I open it tentatively, but rewrap it hastily and throw it away] and get out to the lobby to claim my suitcase as the last to be boarded. Get on bus and hand Ersan his envelope at 5:17, bus loading, but I get the front seat. Bus goes at 5:27; Joan, all in white, on last. To airport by 5:36. To check-in at 5:43 with frequent-flier card to make sure---I hope for BOTH flights. Gate isn't open at 5:48, except for Malcolm, as a Golden Flyer, and a companion, Teddy. Many screaming babies at 5:53. Gate open now and I board at 6:07, with a RIGHT rear window seat (into the rising sun?). Adnan offers me seat 10A, but when I walk up to check it, it's squarely over the jet engine, so I stay where I am, with an empty seat between me and the guy at the aisle. Except there are two kids behind who keep screaming, kicking my seat, and making pests of themselves even through my earplugs. Take shoes off for 90-minute flight. Back out at 6:45 and captain announces a flight time of 85 minutes. Off at 6:53AM. Clear over a monotonous Adana, and then into scattered clouds as breakfast is served at 7:03: a white-cheese sandwich in a soft roll with lettuce and tomato that I, maybe stupidly, assume is edible, and a container of yogurt with apple puree, and a sealed cup of water; I request a glass of mediocre, boxed, orange juice. Earplugs in at 7:24 for kids SCREAMING! Hazy clouds out, dry mountains below. We fly directly above Tarsus, so we all miss it. Return to LAST sudoku in book. Window is clouded, too. Find that last sudoku is undecidable at 7:50, 28 minutes left to Istanbul. Cloudy over the Dardanelles, busy with ship and freighter traffic, southern coast glittering in the morning sun. Some buildings visible out the LEFT windows as we glide toward landing, but I think no one sees Istanbul proper. Land at 8:03AM, having been a SEVENTY-minute flight. Let's hope the eleven-plus hours of the trans-atlantic flight is proportionately shortened. Kids---what's the word that's louder and more annoying than SCREAM! Judy suggests SCREECH. Decide to give Adnan all my 95L in cash and keep the 4.15L in coins for either spending in airport or as souvenirs. All of $3. I guess I can't buy water for the flight, so I sit drinkless as I type this, gate 219 area crowded, particularly with three or four people stretched over two seats sleeping. Ask him how much 100L is and he says, "$70," until I say it's for his tip, and he jokes "$42." He AGAIN, for a second, mistakes me for Teddy, who is on his FIRST OAT trip. I decide to add $110 in cash to give him $180, roughly, for his great guiding. That leaves me $109 in cash. Onto bus from plane at 8:16, and onto international line at 8:24. Through check at 8:35, and WALK to International Terminal from 8:45-8:52, through parking lots and across roads. Through another security, and onto LONG passport line 8:56-9:09. Pee and wash hands and get to gate 219 at 9:19. Start typing and finish now at 9:56AM---I THINK they may be calling for boarding, scheduled on our tickets for 10AM. It was good I put my screen on file 4, since the last time it went alone through screening, I saw the screen ON, with infinite "d"s being printed out. More announcements about gate 219, and people start lining up now at 9:58AM. Pass checked at 10:01 and onto YET ANOTHER security line to 10:11, and they must TURN ON my Neo, since it's ON when it comes through again. They take my empty water bottle out, puzzle over it for a moment, and leave it. I've learned to put my metal pen and my 4.15L into my shoulder bag so nothing buzzes, yet they scan me ANYWAY. Sit in a LOWER lounge now. Flight scheduled to leave at 11 with arrival at 2:45PM, with weather at 23° (which I guess is NOW, at 3:15AM in NYC), with rain, so let's hope it's not much warmer, and clear, when WE finally get there. Well, now, the way it's displayed on the board, it appears to be PREDICTED to be 21° and raining in NYC at 2:45PM! Glad I have my umbrella in my shoulder bag and my long-sleeved shirt on. Still lots of screaming kids running around with the encouragement of their inconsiderate parents. Guess I'll turn to my reading material now at 10:18AM. Board at 10:40, look at seat 25K over wing when requested by my seatmate, but refuse to change. Put in earplugs again. Finish the New York magazine "Cheap Eats" issue at 10:57. Flight announced at 10 hours 10 minutes. 11:04: "Ten-fifteen-minute delay." Back out at 11:19 and sit again for a long time, finally off at 11:56AM. That lands us at 3PM in NYC? #948 is distant view of Bucharest? Take Cipro #3 at 1:44PM. Clouds cover view approaching Prague as they serve lunch. The rest of Europe is invisible beneath clouds, but the North Sea is clear, and I get a good picture of the two bridges over the Firth of Forth. Then pass over what I take to be many of the Hebrides, and take many shots, hoping to identify them later, but don't see any island that's removed enough to be St. Kilda. Stewardess has DEMANDED that the window blinds be closed, which pisses me off, but I jam the pillow around my head against the window and let whatever light gets through get through. Neck starts getting sore, the islands pass, I have no more pictures to take until Greenland, so I search through hundreds of films before deciding to re-see Chris Evans in Sunshine, which is just as incomprehensible the second time as it was the first time, and we really don't get to see much of his body, though he's always a convincing character. That goes to 4PM, over the Atlantic, putting movie on pause to glance out at Greenland in the distance, but I have far better pictures of that from before. At 4:16PM start How to Steal a Million (Comment Voler... in French) with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole, both rather charming. At 4:47PM I'm starting to feel anxious, so I take a Valium. #958 is Goose Bay at 7:39PM. Dinner at 7:58 with white wine, pasta, tomato sauce, eggplant, shrimp salad, rice pudding, and my night pills without simvastatin at 8:33PM, counting 94 minutes to NYC. Fill out customs form to 8:41. Pee at 8:59. I eat chocolate and almonds and am eager to start down. Clouds have been continuous all down the coast after the stark rockscapes of northern Labrador. Land at 10:08PM in fog. 20° and rainy, with a range of 70°-86° today and 68°-78° tomorrow. Sit on the tarmac and look at rain. It was a 10:14 flight. I'm relieved to be home, but numbly tired and eager to get off the plane. It finally docks at 10:33PM. Passports are being checked as we GET OFF PLANE at 10:53PM. I ask security guard why they're checking passports NOW, if it's only for Turkish Airlines or for ALL airlines, and he says, "We're looking for something, but I can't disclose anything more now." I wonder what's going on. Onto long immigrating CITIZENS line at 10:59PM, astounded by the number of BLACK families---why would they be coming from Istanbul? Have my passport checked at 11:28, annoyedly stating that they'd never asked for the Duty Declaration at THIS desk before, but he says I mustn't have traveled recently, because they've been doing it this way for years. By the time I get to the baggage claim area (having been at the VERY rear of the plane, with FEW behind me on the passport line) they've REMOVED the flight from the board, so I have to ASK where the Turkish Airlines luggage is, and he points to a STOPPED carousel, which I go around to find my bag sitting under a heavier one at 11:33. Hand in the customs form at 11:34 and pee at 11:38. Into taxi at 11:45, asking to be taken to Atlantic Avenue via the Conduit, and the black driver makes a big fuss about it, but I insist: "I've been over it 3000 times, and it's the best way to go." I ask him how long it's been raining and he either doesn't hear me or refuses to talk to me. Glad I have my long-sleeved shirt on. Get to the Atlantic Avenue exit of the north-bound Conduit and see two police cars blocking entry to the JFK-bound Conduit from Atlantic Avenue, shuttling long lines of cars down crowded side streets: I'm sure many people will miss their planes. [Later Monday Ken calls to say there were seven inches of rain that flooded that part of the Conduit, so I'm lucky I got through.] Get two packs of mail and a bunch from the box, putting all in cart and getting to apartment at 12:40AM. Cart back 12:47. Weigh bags, take simvastatin to 1:06, put sheets on bed, take 3 g melatonin, and get to bed at 1:22AM Turkish time, 6:22PM NYC time. Up to make apple juice to 6:27PM. From 4:30-1:30 = 21 hours awake!
TURKEY EAST SUMMARY PAGE
TUE,7/26: From 9PM sit waiting for damaged Turkish Airlines plane to board.
WED,7/27: 1:20AM Italiano wrap. 3AM bus to Howard Beach and subway home by 4:20AM. Sleep 4:40-9:40AM. OAT talks 9:45-10:08AM. Subway 10:55-11:35AM. 2:05PM mozzarella and prosciutto, 3:10PM brownie and fruit bowl. Fly from JFK at 5:05PM. Watch Battle: Los Angeles. Dinner at 6:06PM. Watch Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Fly over clouded Paris.
THU,7/28: Breakfast 7:24AM. Land in Istanbul 9:14AM: 9:11 flight. Meet Adnan 10:29AM. To Hagia Sophia, ferry to Asia for Ciya lunch, Bosporus hilltop park, Richmond Istanbul Hotel, Palmier Restaurant dinner on Istiklal. Bed at 9:51.
FRI,7/29: Fly Istanbul-Van 7:28-9:10AM. Urartian Museum, Sutci Firozi lunch, Kurdish demonstration on way to hotel. Darius's Palace, Tamara Hotel dinner.
SAT,7/30: Cavashtepe cuneiform 800BC, Hoshab Fortress 1620s, Grand Deriz Turizm lunch, boat across Lake Van to Akdamar Island for 1500s church frescos. Hotel dinner and orchid-seed ice cream. Bed 9:45PM.
SUN,7/31: Van cats, Murtdys Falls, Tenderick Pass, Dolbyazid Palace for lunch and tour. SEE Ararat, into Tuzluca salt mines, Kars to Sim-Er Hotel dinner.
MON,8/1: Cipro series; don't see Ani and home-hosted lunch. Cheese and Honey Shop, Cafeteria dinner, Tea Shoppe on river, walk back to hotel in dark.
TUE,8/2: Obsidian cliff, Cobandeal Bridge, cafe lunch, Erzurum Double-Minaret Madrassa and Three Kumbets, dine in Dedeman Palandoken Hotel's Gondol Cafe.
WED,8/3: Scrabble with Adnan. Black Sea pass lunch. Trabzon's Aya Sofya Museum. Zorlu Grand Hotel dinner, walk length of park, bed just after 10PM.
THU,8/4: Sumela Monastery in fog, kuymak fondue, Duzkoy village up valley for lunch. Fish Restaurant for dinner in Trabzon. Bed at 8:56PM.
FRI,8/5: Fly Trabzon-Ankara 7:01-8:14AM. Ataturk Mausoleum, walk old town, Anatolian Civilizations Museum, Iskander kebab lunch, Lykia Lodge dinner.
SAT,8/6: Walk "Valley of the Phalli," Apple, Snake, and Tokali Churches. Lunch and Kaymakla Underground City. Kapadokya Lykia Lodge dinner.
SUN,8/7: Kapadokya Balloons office 4:55AM, balloon 6:03-7:05AM, great. Hotel breakfast, visit troglodyte family, weaving exhibit, Firnak lunch of pizza and hot lemon drink. Don Giovanni from Aix en Provence. Last dinner; bed 10:35PM.
MON,8/8: Pasha Valley fairy chimneys; pottery exhibit; Gumusler Monastery; roadside lunch: Fruko; new highway to Antakya; Savon Hotel happy hour and dinner.
TUE,8/9: Titus's Tunnel and necropolis; high road to Vakifli Armenian village and church; Hatay Mosaic Museum, market walk, Vitamin lunch of pizza. Tile-rummy game, TV in hotel, Daphne Harbiye for drinks and waterfalls, Kule Restaurant special-chicken dinner with white flamingos, dinner at 10:22PM.
WED,8/10: St. Peter's Church, bus to Gaziantep. Mall lunch and dondurma/Softee and Zeugma Mosaics Museum, buying books; walk hot town to Anadolu Evleri "boutique" hotel for beer and "colorful" room. Dinner at hotel and hooked on "Real" TV.
THU,8/11: Early breakfast, 6:46 bus to Adiyaman, Besni, Kahta, and up Nemrut to picnic lunch at noon. Ride mule to top, incredible, and mule down, more incredible. Gaziantep at 7:03, snack dinner, three liqueurs, bed at 9:48PM.
FRI,8/12: Shower, corn-flake breakfast, baklava-making demonstration, City Museum, Kilim Cooperative lunch, Hittite Fortress from 8th C. BC, Kastabala Roman excavations, bus to Adana at 6:11 to Hotel Bosnali, watch TV, have no dinner, finish Imodium and Lomotil and get to bed at 9:32PM.
SAT,8/13: Good hotel breakfast, bus to Tarsus, Roman streets, lunch of kebab and Coke, more TV, start second Cipro cycle, visit largest mosque in Turkey, then Restaurant Aslaanta (Capa Restaurant on card) for Farewell Dinner with full moon, raki at Malcolm's, and bed at 8:50PM.
SUN,8/14: Wake 4:38AM. Fly Adana-Istanbul 6:53-8:03AM, breakfast at 7:03AM. Fly from Istanbul 11:56AM. Lunch 1:44PM. Watch Sunshine, with Chris Evans. Watch How to Steal a Million. Dinner at 7:58PM. Land JFK 10:08PM, 10:14 flight. Into taxi 11:45PM in cold rain, home at 12:40AM and bed 6:22PM NYC time.
PHOTO NUMBERS
CARD 1
3 town near Nis, old Jugoslavia
4 Nis at 8:16
6 cliffs south of Nis
8 misty valley north of Sofia, Bulgaria
9 elaborate road bridges
10 terraced mountain, Kounese (?) at 8:20
11 Edirne at 8:45
106 Darius's palace at 6:02PM
255 hills of IRAQ
337 ARMENIAN hills at 4:40
1139 dirty glacier atop Mt. Amanos, though it was only the tree line
1140 mountains that are undoubtedly in Syria
1141 blurred photo of a boat in the Mediterranean at 3:30PM
CARD 2
948 distant view of Bucharest?
958 Goose Bay at 7:39PM