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Category Archives: Turkey

Comfortable with (a little) Chaos

10 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by lexklein in Argentina, Australia, Greece, Nepal, Spain, Travel - General, Turkey

≈ 49 Comments

Tags

adrenaline, chaos, solo travel, Weekly Photo Challenge

Chaos sometimes happens when I travel and in retrospect, it has created many of my most powerful trip memories. Life at home is rarely chaotic; it follows a fairly predictable rhythm and most days I’m a slightly boring creature of habit. Drop me into a foreign locale, though, and I’m usually (strangely) OK with all hell breaking loose after a few days of acclimation.

Kathmandu has to be the all-time winner for daily bedlam. On first arrival, the sensory assault here was overwhelming in an almost frightening way. As I left the airport late at night, alone, I wondered if my days of solo female travel needed to finally come to an end. A good sleep later, I was feeling intrigued by the cows in the street; a few days into it, I was charmed by the jumble of vendors jammed into alleys; and two weeks later, I was truly, madly in love with this colorfully outrageous and unruly city, even when an electrical box exploded a few feet away, sending me and dozens of Nepalis running for cover.

nepal-abu-dhabi-2012-611

Athens – in full summer, blazing in 100-degree heat, and polluted by thousands of belching vehicles jam-packed into an overpopulated metropolis – ranks a close second. The chaos here was mostly car-based: the sharp and constant cacophony of horns, the shouting of drivers at one another, the parking on the sidewalks, and once, the abrupt and spontaneous gathering of four men to pick up and move, in a fit of pique, one of said cars parked on the sidewalk.

A skinny street in Istanbul, approaching Taksim Square, seemed placid enough – until we rounded a corner and came face to face with the beginnings of a protest. Waving signs and chanting mobs thickened in minutes, and the sudden crackle of firecrackers set my heart pounding, my head panicking, and my feet beating a retreat.

turkey-jan-2013-200

Egg-throwing mobs similarly interrupted a pleasant morning stroll in Buenos Aires, and hurtling rickshaws threatened to cut us down as we tried in vain to cross a main street in Lhasa. Sweaty clumps of young men pressed (a little more than necessarily) close to my college girlfriends and me on a morning ride to class on Madrid’s metro years ago, trapping us and blocking our ability to get off at our station. Perhaps most frightening of all, a dense crowd at Sydney’s Y2K New Year’s celebration caused us to lose our 12-year-old for almost an hour as we were sucked into its vortex at the end of the fireworks show.

argentina-uruguay-dec-2012-501

We could play it safe. We could skip the crowds and the bigger cities. We could leave the kids at home. I could travel with others to some of the exotic but underdeveloped places I like to experience. Some of the chaos has been simply unpleasant, some horribly frustrating. A few situations have been potentially dangerous, and one or two downright scary. But when push comes to shove (literally!), the deepest imprints of my trips have often been the unexpectedly crazy moments that started the adrenaline pumping and the opening of the veins that take in the lifeblood of a place.

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nepal-abu-dhabi-2012-610

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Turkish Delight

12 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by lexklein in Travel - General, Turkey

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Blue Mosque, Cappadocia, Goreme, Grand Bazaar, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Nevsehir, Spice Market, Sultanahmet, Taksim, Turkey, Urgup

One cold January, my sister and I decided to escape our dreary northern U.S. surroundings and jet off to someplace interesting. Warmth would have been great, but what we really wanted was a cheap escape, so we went online and looked for the lowest fare to the most interesting place we could find. It turned out to be $500 round-trip and the destination was Istanbul, Turkey!

We had about a week to play with, so we decided to fly to Kayseri, a small airport serving the Cappadocia region of Turkey, as soon as our international flight landed in Istanbul. We were tired and at the airport anyway, so this worked out beautifully. Cappadocia is an otherworldly landscape of ancient rock formations in central Turkey. The area is riddled with caves and features bizarre rock towers called fairy chimneys – mushroom-capped pillars formed by wind and water erosion of ancient volcanic material. Just as fascinating as the geologic oddities are the man-made caves, tunnels, and even whole underground cities carved out thousands of years ago, often as religious refuges.

Fairy chimneys in Cappadocia

Fairy chimneys in Cappadocia

Most hotels are cave dwellings; some, like ours, utilize fairy chimneys for the “upstairs” rooms. The rooms are cool and stony, as one might expect, but warmed with Turkish rugs and throws and nice amenities. They were a unique place to stay, although I was quite happy to not be in one of the true underground rooms; I’m way too claustrophobic for that! Area towns such as Goreme, Urgup, and Nevsehir all offer shopping and dining, but none was particularly lively in the dead of winter. We did find a great Turkish bath which was a warm and heavenly diversion in the cold January weather. And luckily, even though it was the off-season, we were still able to fly high above the moonscape and pinnacles in a hot air balloon one early morning. The dawn ride was absolutely freezing, but the views were well worth the frozen toes.

Entrance to our cave hotel room

Entrance to our cave hotel room

Our hot air balloon pilot, Cappadocia

Our hot air balloon pilot, Cappadocia

Ready for take-off, Cappadocia

Ready for take-off, Cappadocia

Back in Istanbul, we hit a minor heat wave (not my usual weather luck, as any co-travelers with me will attest) and enjoyed four days of sightseeing at a balmy 60-degrees. We loved the east-meets-west ambience of this city with Byzantine roots, a lengthy Ottoman history, and moderate Muslim culture today. With my Greek roots, I felt a connection with the city’s early history (and often argued good-naturedly with our wonderful city guide about the origins of things like baklava and the evil eye!). Both the Ottoman period and the subsequent transition from Sultanate rule to a modern, fairly secular democracy today were fascinating parts of a history that is seen in the architecture, government, and culture today.

On the Galata Bridge, Istanbul

On the Galata Bridge, Istanbul

The Golden Horn, Istanbul

The Golden Horn, Istanbul

We did all the main tourist things – the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi Palace – but we also did some good aimless rambling along the Bosphorus waterfront, through Beyoglu to Taksim Square, around the ancient Sultanahmet neighborhood (where we stayed), and of course, in the amazing markets – the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market.

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul

Topkapi Palace, Istanbul

Nuts or scarves, dates and copper cups, tapestries or jewelry? The choices were wildly varied, enticing and, really, just overwhelming with 60-some blocks of streets filled with thousands of shops under one roof at the Grand Bazaar – one of the largest enclosed marketplaces in the world. Here is where we felt the balance shift firmly toward Asia in this continent-straddling country. Visions of the Silk Road, trading merchants, exotic spices, and magical rugs danced in our heads as we threaded our way through the labyrinthine streets and stalls of the Bazaar and the Spice Market. We seemed to be quite popular with the vendors, but quickly figured out that this had nothing to do with our looks or exotic blonde hair; indeed, anyone with a less-than-local look was pounced upon hungrily by the aggressive shopkeepers. We left Turkey with many delights, both edible and not, and proclaimed our January bargain trip a huge success.

Spice Market shop, Istanbul

Spice Market shop, Istanbul

Grand Bazaar wares, Istanbul

Grand Bazaar wares, Istanbul

Nuts, fruits, and - yep - spices at the Spice Market, Istanbul

Nuts, fruits, and – yep – spices at the Spice Market, Istanbul

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Friday Photos: Doors

08 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by lexklein in Argentina, Chile, China, Himalayas, Mexico, Photos, Just Photos from All Over, South Africa, Tibet, Travel - General, Turkey

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Tags

Argentina, Beijing, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Cappadocia, Chile, China, Forbidden City, Goreme, La Boca, Lhasa, Norbulingka, Paine Circuit, Palermo Soho, Robben Island, South Africa, Tibet, Turkey

Going with a door theme today …

Forbidden City, Beijing, China

Forbidden City, Beijing, China

La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Cell door, Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa

Cell door, Robben Island, Cape Town, South Africa

Norbulingka Palace, Lhasa, Tibet

Norbulingka Palace, Lhasa, Tibet

Hiking the Paine Circuit, Chile

Hiking the Paine Circuit, Chile

Cave hotel, Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey

Cave hotel, Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey

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Travel in Times of Terror

27 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by lexklein in Israel, Norway, Tibet, Travel - General, Turkey

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fear, Israel, Norway, terror

In the last week, I’ve had reason to question the wisdom of traveling to certain places in this troubled world today. I’d always felt that travel was no more dangerous than driving to my local supermarket; I figured I was just as likely to get T-boned by a distracted suburban mom on her phone as I was to be caught in cross-fire overseas.

But in recent days, I have sat at home helping to re-route my son twice as he finished up a summer of work and vacation in Europe. After spending the month of July teaching in northern Israel – safely out of the reach of Hamas rockets – it was time to return to Tel Aviv to fly out. As (bad) luck would have it, a lone rocket landing close to the airport set off an international panic and almost all flights into and out of Tel Aviv were canceled at the exact time he was scheduled to leave. Quick thinking and a willingness to part with many extra dollars allowed us to re-book him on El Al only a day late; many others remain stuck in Israel for up to a week after the airport re-opened a few days ago.

Feeling relieved after a few tense days, I attended a dinner with friends where we chatted about the relaxing vacation our son was now on – a few days in Rome and Dubrovnik, then a stop in Norway and Sweden before heading home. “Norway?” a friend asked. “There’s a big terror alert there right now!” I laughed – haha – good one! But I checked it out and was stunned to see there was a real, credible threat there from Syrian terrorists, and that the likely date for the strike was July 28, the end of Ramadan, the very date my son was scheduled to fly into Oslo.

Should we change the flights? Do we panic and let the terrorists “win”? Will there be anything even open in Oslo? We’ve heard about museums and palaces closing their doors, nuclear plants being shut down, the airspace over Bergen blocked. Ultimately, we decided to make the change, mainly to avoid getting stuck in Dubrovnik and unable to make the international flight home if the Norwegian flights were canceled.

I’ve been thinking about many things as I confront these two scenarios. One is that it is much scarier to be the person who is outside the situation. Our son did not feel threatened in Israel at any time; there was tension to be sure, but being with Israelis for whom a daily instability is routine made him much calmer than those of us reading overly-dramatic U.S. news reporting every day. Years ago, when I was studying abroad in Spain, the Basque separatist ETA group was busy bombing Madrid on a regular basis, and one bad blast actually hit a busy restaurant across the street from my apartment. Somehow this did not faze me in the least; my parents reading about it in the paper were freaked out, but life went on as usual for me. Likewise, being in Istanbul during the Taksim Square demonstrations, in Athens during street protests, and in Lhasa after China had closed it off to foreigners were not even remotely as disturbing as the world press made these situations seem from the outside.

For those of us who feel we are citizens of the world, the recent unrest in so many places is depressing more than anything else. Yes, it messes up our vacations, costs us money and time, and adds angst to our travels, but the saddest part is that we have seen the kindness in the world, the common ground among people, the cooperation, the kinship, and the potential for peace. It shatters us to see the divisions, the hate, and the violence. I joked with my family in an email update a few days ago that all this worrying and rearranging might dampen my enthusiasm for traveling, but I couldn’t help adding parentheses with the word (Maybe!). But there’s really no maybe about it; I will never be afraid to venture out into our wide, wonderful world; I’ll just cross my fingers extra hard that I pick the right place at the right time!

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What’s in a Name?

25 Sunday May 2014

Posted by lexklein in China, Ghana, Tibet, Travel - General, Turkey

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

China, foreign language errors, fun store names, Ghana, Tibet, Turkey

As a linguist, former ESL teacher, and current English instructor at a bilingual college, I am more aware than most of the vicissitudes of language. I adore grammar and semantics and can sometimes be a little judgmental when it comes to native-speaker errors, but I take great pleasure in a “bad” translation or just a more creative use of English when I am traveling. Here are just a few of my favorites:

In the old hutong sections of Beijing, China, we saw some curious restaurant names, such as Easy Fun, Heavenly Festival, and Home Pizza, but these were far outdone by the packet of “Aviation Food” – emblazoned with the baffling slogans “Childhood Memory” and “Leisure Share” – that we ate on a flight out of Chengdu. While that elicited a chuckle, the fact that this tasty treat “does not lose hand” (see photos) generated a laugh that almost caused us to spray the crisps right out of our noses. (Perhaps airline food is a linguistic as well as culinary joke around the world. On Aerolineas Argentinas, we were repeatedly offered “ham-flavored mini-crackers,” a combination I do not need to ever taste again.)

Tibet & China June 2011 242Tibet & China June 2011 243In Lhasa, Tibet, we chortled as we strolled by shops called Antique Thing, Jewel Ripehouse, Homely Treasures, Merit of Jewel, and Many Love Lake. We also loved the sign at the Norbulingka Summer Palace, which exhorted us to “please consciously accept the security.” And in Turkey, we enjoyed an errant apostrophe and grammar error in some remarkably apt graffiti – “Idiot’s was here!”

That's for sure!

That’s for sure!

But perhaps the greatest collection of fun names ever was found in Accra, Ghana. Ghana is a very Christian country and they believe in keeping God and Jesus front and center, even in commerce. Here is a much-abbreviated list of our favorite Ghanaian store names:

Ghana 2008 045Jesus My Redeemer Buckets and Bowls
Come to Jesus Taxi
Through the Gates of Heaven Bank
The Lord is my Shepherd Fashions
Jesus is my Last Hope Saloon
Victory in Jesus Taxi
Only Jesus Can Do Business Center
Ask God Glass Venture
God’s Way Metal Company
God First Electricals
Wonderful Jesus Coca Cola
Passion of God Hair
In God We Trust Motorcycle Shop

Religious views aside, the juxtaposition of God, buckets, and motorcycles just has to bring a smile, doesn’t it?!

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Friday Photos: From Boats to Balloons

09 Friday May 2014

Posted by lexklein in Croatia, Photos, Just Photos from All Over, Travel - General, Turkey

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Cappadocia, Croatia, hot air balloons, Split, Turkey

Split harbor at sunset, Split, Croatia

Split harbor at sunset, Split, Croatia

Balloons over Cappodocia, Turkey

Balloons over Cappadocia, Turkey

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I’m a restless, world-wandering, language-loving, book-devouring traveler trying to straddle the threshold between a traditional, stable family life and a free-spirited, irresistible urge to roam. I’m sure I won’t have a travel story every time I add to this blog, but I’ve got a lot! I’m a pretty happy camper (literally), but there is some angst as well as excitement in always having one foot out the door. Come along for the trip as I take the second step …

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Southeast Asia – March 2023

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Today we’re off to Marsaxlokk, a small, traditional fishing village in Malta. These brightly painted Maltese boats are called “luzzus,” and I couldn’t get enough of them!
Day 1 in Malta is all water and walls.
FINALLY made it out of the U.S. for the first time in 2 years. 😀🌴☀️
Road trip final stop: Grand Teton National Park. We may have saved the best for last. The Tetons startled us every single time we rounded a bend and saw them jutting up from the sagebrush. The park gave us these amazing peaks, wildflowers, horses, huge skies filled with every kind of cloud, and our own cozy little national park cabin. We’ll be back here for sure! #grandtetonnationalpark #tetons #wyoming #roadtrip #hiking #horses #cabins
Road trip stop 8: Yellowstone National Park. The north and northeast sections blew me away - full of wildlife and lemon-lime fields under dreamy skies. The western parts had their moments; the geothermal features were better than expected, but the traffic even worse than anticipated. All of the crowds were for Old Faithful, probably my last-place pick for things to see in the park. #yellowstonenationalpark #montana #wyoming #roadtrip #wideopenspaces #nationalparks #oldfaithful
Road trip stop 7: Beartooth Highway - deserving of a post all of its own. We drove east out of Bozeman, over two hours out of our way, to catch the start of the Beartooth Highway in Red Lodge, MT, and drive its full length back west to arrive at Yellowstone’s NE entrance. This exhilarating, eye-popping road covers 68 miles of US Route 212 from Red Lodge to Cooke City/Silver Gate and crosses Beartooth Pass at almost 11,000 feet. Worth the wide detour and the zillions of photo stops along the way … at least I thought so! #beartoothhighway #beartoothpass #montana #yellowstonenationalpark #roadtrip #detour

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Follow me on Instagram too!

Today we’re off to Marsaxlokk, a small, traditional fishing village in Malta. These brightly painted Maltese boats are called “luzzus,” and I couldn’t get enough of them!
Day 1 in Malta is all water and walls.
FINALLY made it out of the U.S. for the first time in 2 years. 😀🌴☀️
Road trip final stop: Grand Teton National Park. We may have saved the best for last. The Tetons startled us every single time we rounded a bend and saw them jutting up from the sagebrush. The park gave us these amazing peaks, wildflowers, horses, huge skies filled with every kind of cloud, and our own cozy little national park cabin. We’ll be back here for sure! #grandtetonnationalpark #tetons #wyoming #roadtrip #hiking #horses #cabins

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