October 2001
It used to be the Austro-Hungarians we had to thank for keeping the Ottomans out of Europe but for now it’s the EU, while they consider Turkey’s application to join. For such a big shift — from Christian society to Muslim, from Europe to Asia — the flight from Dublin to Istanbul seemed amazingly short.
Our intention was to sit tight in the old city and take it easy.
The place has obviously improved since Bill Bryson and his mate Katz were first there in the seventies. Katz hated the place. Bill just didn’t like it very much. According to Bill the food consisted of mysterious little glops of stuff on a plate. Katz asked a waiter whether they got the cows to shit straight on the plate, or they had to scrape the stuff off the field first.
By and large the little glops we had were pretty tasty, although I don’t want to see a “sish” again for a while.
Our intention was to vegetate, and so we did, although the old Timberland boots still took a thrashing.
We stayed at a little place in the old city with the Blue Mosque behind us, Topkapi to our left and the Bosporus in front — and beyond that, Europe. Our room was up the stairs — on the top floor of four — and it was a real struggle getting those suitcases full of sample albums up there. But what a place.
Breakfast out on the terrace was lovely — fresh bread (served with every meal, everywhere), cheese, olives, butter, honey, cherry jam and water melon. All served with Nescafe (there you go, Dianne – another country you can’t visit) and an absolutely spectacular view of the Bosphorus opening southwards into the Sea of Marmara and swarming with ships and boats. All this plus bees, also swarming. As soon as you opened the honey or jam you were inundated, and had to be careful to avoid ingesting them with your food. The good news — no flies!
We spent a couple of days bargaining in the bazaars, bought a beautiful handmade gold pendant for Heather, took a ferry up the Bosphorus, admired the Aye Sofia and the Blue Mosque, and then spent a day at the Topkapi Palace. High-lights: an 86 carat diamond found in a rubbish tip – swapped for three spoons by the beggar who found it — emeralds the size of baked bean cans, marvellous craftsmanship. Some beautiful architecture befitting the blokes who ruled the known world. The Robe of the Prophet — plus his swords.
But as always my admiration was tempered by the thought — is it any wonder people didn’t have cars and colour TVs in those days? Everybody was working hard to build the Topkapi, and to stock it with jewellery and wives for the Sultan.
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Our only side trip was to Gallipoli.
We stayed overnight in a backpacker’s hostel in Canakkale on the opposite side of the Dardanelles — and watched Gallipoli again. My first thought was that the movie couldn’t have been made in New Zealand. And until we can tell similarly simple stories about people we acknowledge as heroes, how much hope is there for us?
Visiting the battlefield was deeply moving and taught us a few lessons along the way, the first of which was that less than 10% of the dead were ANZACs.
Second, it was a hell of a long way from the beach to the heights of Chunuk Bair, and I felt proud that it was New Zealanders who got there — twice.
The only sour note was struck while we were eating lunch in the Anzac Cove graveyard. One in a group of young Aussies said it was a strange place to be eating. His girl-friend said “No, it’s OK — provided you’re Australian.” There were enough Kiwis, Brits and Indians lying beneath her feet for us to tell her where to shove it without my help. None of us did. I was too busy trying to open Heather’s can of soft drink after she’d broken the ring thing on it.
After lunch there was a strangely compelling little ceremony. Our Guide played Eric Bogle’s And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda on his boom box and asked us to stand for the Last Post, a minute’s silence and then Reveille.
Two little fishing boats were working their nets just off the beach — blue sky and sparkling sea, and I had to spoil it by thinking — there were no Aussies at Suvla Bay, Eric, pay attention. It kinda damaged the song for me, much like being told by another pain in the arse that no way could Roland have been a Headless THOMPSON Gunner. Funny how it’s easier to believe in his missing head than the anachronistic gun.
So we progressed up the hill.
The most shocking location was The Neck (where the Aussie boys in the movie went over the top 150 at a time and got slaughtered). It’s a flattish ridge of open ground 30m wide and 70 from end to end. it seemed smaller than that in fact, smaller than our home section. We stood in the old Australian trenches and wondered. There can have been barely enough room for them to stand shoulder to shoulder. The Turks couldn’t miss.
Given that we’re bombing Muslims now, I was struck by my readiness to allow that the Turks were heroes too. When the Anzacs came ashore there were only 150 Turks to oppose them. Kemal told the first reinforcements, “I don’t ask you to attack, I order you to die. In the time it takes us to die, other men and other commanders will come to take our place.”
Imagine this recited by our Turkish tour guide, TJ, who lives several months of the year near Albury-Wodonga. “I order you to doi. To DOI.”
And so they did. They pushed “our boys” back from the highest ground and never let them have it back. TJ asked if it was OK to stop by their Cemetery on the way up to Chunuk Bair.
On Chunuk Bair itself New Zealand shares the best real estate with a Turkish memorial, which seemed only fair. My Aussie teacher mate pointed at the sign on the NZ memorial, “From the ends of the earth”, and we wondered if it was significant that geographically Australia and New Zealand are closer to Turkey than to England.
Adrienne didn’t want us to go to Turkey, for obvious reasons. But we’ve been to lots of places and we’ve never felt any sense of danger, nor any absence of common humanity between us and the locals. Turkey was the same — no sense of unease whatsoever, apart from the constant invasion of our personal space by carpet salesmen.
Why? I suspect because the great man who made his reputation at Gallipoli, Kemal Ataturk, went on to restore his country’s pride — and to westernise it. Why would he do that? Because the west was successful and he had the clarity and openness of mind to acknowledge that. He even gave the vote to women.
Apart from the Kurds, who are another story, there is little traction for terrorism in Turkey because people feel successful, or see the possibility of success, even if only by migrating to Germany. There are just not enough victims to start a committee. Oh well…
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As you can see this was an emotionally turbulent trip, all told.
If there’s any nationality mentioned here and offended thereby, do let me know. Personally I think the Turks have nothing to complain about, the Irish got off lightly, the Aussies give as good as they get, and the Brits claim to be proud of their eccentricities — so I expect no complaints from those quarters.