Another kibble, please.

(14th Female Post)  Let´s see, where were we? I think in Kos, which was my favorite of all. Clean, prosperous, pretty, and full of German tourists on long visits, hundreds of bicycles on well-marked bike paths, warm people.

We´ve now left Greece for Turkey, starting in Antalya on the southern coast and working up to Istanbul. We can hardly reach the endpoint soon enough, as we´re both sick of this ship and want to get off! The awful coffee, the plethora of bland and repetitive food, the lack of wifi, the pressure to be upbeat with other people, the inane tour guides hustling us about, the superficial lectures... it would have been okay for six nights, but twelve is just too much. Not to mention that I dislike boats and open water in the first place... Paul keeps seeking out new passengers to chat up, but I prefer hiding out and reading, or walking the ports on my own. I blame the Blogmeister.

Turkish Coast

But the landscapes are generally gorgeous, the ocean a deep blue, and Turkish culture interesting (given our superficial contact with it). The land tours have generally been padded and fluffy, so we´ve "cut" a lot of them. The lectures continue to be up and down, rather "cruise light." The staff, again, are more fun than the passengers, though we've enjoyed the Brits.

Hungry Turks

We´ve invented a new form of tourism, or maybe reinvented it. You buy bags of cat food and simply roam down streets looking for hungry cats. Gets you into largely tourist-free neighborhoods and makes lots of superior-quality friends. 

Holding up Rubble

It is hard to view one set of ruins (Paul calls them "rubble") after another and maintain enthusiasm. The history is interesting, the remnants less so. I was unaware of the supremely bad idea of 1923/24 to "repatriate" all Greeks who lived in modern-day Turkey to Greece and vice versa, with the result not only of communal suffering but of cementing an implacable hatred between the two populations. A Greek cabbie assured us last week that "No one likes the Turks," which is a milder version of what I heard from Greeks in the 1960s. Today we toured a formerly thriving Greek village in the hills above Fetihye, Turkey, now a sad ghost town... the result of that post-WWII carving up of countries. Fethiye itself is charming, the best of the ports we´ve visited so far:

Fetihye Wall Tombs

We hear recorded mezzuins calling from minarets for the hours of prayer, but I don´t see anyone paying attention in these resort towns. In the back streets and countryside women often cover their hair with scarves, but it´s not a heavy-duty Muslim look. However, I haven´t seen Turks drinking booze yet. It´s either tea, coffee, or pomegranate juice. Can´t yet figure the difference between Greece and Turkey (other than the obvious), but both of us have preferred the Greeks. To be continued when we´ve had more time here.

[Blogmeister: To be continued when we have more band-width.  Grr!]