Farewell Turkey

Güle güle, good bye to Turkiye. It's been  fantastic. We started in Istanbul with merino sweaters and down puffer jackets,  and we leave from the Turquoise Coast in shorts and T-shirts. 

Annually Turkiye hosts millions of tourists and you can see why it's so popular. In 2022 there were 46million foreign tourist visitors!

 

 It has it all, Eastern and Western influences, amazing archeological sites, stunning Mediterranean coastal towns and villages, any kind of adrenaline sport, incredible mountains and national parks, beautiful art and culture, the famous mosques and archeological museums in Istanbul, fantastic cuisine, beautiful welcoming people...it really does have it all.

It  may feel a little behind the tourist sophistication stakes in some places but that is part of its charm. We've loved it. The people have been kind, friendly, helpful and generous. Where language appeared to be a barrier, sign language and smiles broke the ice and google translate was helpful too. 

In both cities and villages they care for the street cats and dogs and  treat them as part of their community. Volunteers leave water and food out across feeding stations and in Istanbul we saw shop keepers that had put little shelters for the streets animals under the shelter of their shops. 

We've seen terrible treatment of dogs in Spain so it's heartening to see the food and water spots for the street animals in Turkiye. It speaks volumes how a community, across the board, cares for its stray animals. 

They have a breed of dog, a Kangol, that traditionally was a mountain dog that guarded sheep and goat herds from wolves. It's the biggest dog I've ever seen.  They have the strongest bite of all dogs, allegedly they are the only dogs that can see off wolves. I think the odd Kangol has been breeding with terriers as we've seen so many funny little/big dogs laying around. These odd doggos have large Kangol bodies and short terrier legs ....a new breed is born. All the Kangol's we've seen in villages have just wagged their tails and gone back to sleeping in the sun.

 

As we have  wandered about we've seen turtles, snakes, lizards and butterflies. We were warned about scorpions and leaving our packs zips fully closed and not lifting up rocks but we didn't see any thank goodness. We've felt incredibly safe here, safer than in New Zealand. We've seen car windows and doors left open all day...there appears to be a sense of community trust here that I feel we have lost in New Zealand . We've gotten to grips with bidets and the 'don't flush the toilet paper' approach, well sort of 🤫.

Still processing the role of  women in society, they sure do appear to do a lot of the work with little acknowledgement. Thank you to all the 'mumma's' out the back in restaurants that fed us so well while the blokes sat out front smoking. Thank you to all the ladies who  did the lion's share of the cleaning and organising....I saw very old ladies high in the mountains miles from anywhere herding flocks, almost bent double....where were all the younger men? 

Ramadan ends next week so we won't be able to be a part of the Eid el-Fitr festival's that run for the following week which is a bit if a shame.  We've had a marvellous time in Turkiye and take away some treasured memories, we're travelling light........ so no carpets!