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Tuesday
7th July
Felt much better but, not wanting to walk
for too long, spent the
morning in Richard's café (rooftop with some matting) while
the others visited a local Crusaders' castle. Met up again with David,
an English student who had been at the café the previous
day. He had been bussing around eastern Turkey and had found the people
most unfriendly. He was continually being approached by homosexuals,
had been stoned several times and had even been subject to a knife
attack by someone after his money. A result of this attack was one of
his fingers was rather cut up. So that evening Richard took him along
to the local doctor, whose method of removing the large blood clot at
the end of his finger was to file it down with a nail file at the same
time requiring David to hold with his other hand a dish under his
finger to catch the blood!
The dinner at the café that
evening turned out to be rather
a jovial one. At lunchtime the local chief of police had had a bottle
of wine sent over to our table, and so that evening the Director of
Tourism did likewise, and not just one bottle. It turned out that
normally he did not give a damn about tourists, but when drunk (which
he certainly was that evening) he took his job more seriously, and felt
it his duty to ply tourists with as much wine as they could consume,
all the while watching them from the corner with a glassy and more than
alcoholic smile. He spoke no English except a sort of "yes" sound, with
which he greeted every remark – including my dissertation
(drunken) on his buck teeth and ancestry.
With the wine flowing freely the Mayor of
Anamur officially welcomed us
to the town, and hoped that our stay would be a pleasant one. He even
condescended to dance with Trottie, who was desperately trying to avoid
the Director of Tourism, a confirmed lecher if one went by his teeth. I
played them some English songs, and they sent out for some Turkish
musicians, who played Turkish dance music on a sort of balalaika. The
Director of Tourism ordered us another couple of bottles of wine and
invited us to lunch the following day at the café, and on
that note we left, had a quick Turkish coffee at a nearby coffee house
and collapsed into bed.
Wednesday
8th July
Into the restaurant fairly early for
breakfast (bowl of soup) and then
Richard took us round the ruins of Anamur, together with the German
couple we had met in Alanya and who had joined us here. The old town,
from Greek to Turkish periods, was not in very good nick. At least, the
houses were not individually. However, nearly all of them had part of
every wall still standing so collectively, covering a whole hillside,
the sight was quite impressive.
We were pleased to find on arriving back at
the restaurant that the
Director of Tourism had remembered his promise of the night before and
was prepared to foot the bill for lunch – which he did.
Thereafter we were in no condition to do anything else but go back to
the campsite we were frequenting (in pine woods, by a beach) and
collapse for an afternoon kip.
Still rather tired, and still feeling the
lunchtime wine, we staggered
back into town and had rather a large dinner. We were just about to
leave when Richard announced that the Director of Tourism (again!) had
arranged some music. We waited for an hour, at the end of which a
swarthy Turk made his entrance, sat himself at a table and began to
play mournful music on a guitar-like instrument. Then Pete, the German
boy, announced that a Turkish friend of his had given him some hashish,
so he and I nipped out of the café for a quick smoke. The
music definitely sounded better after that, and it wasn't until after
midnight that I fell over, onto and into bed.
Thursday
9th July
Overslept and didn't get up until 7:00 a.m.
As usual I was dragged to a
nearby picnic table by some Turks for an early morning cup of tea
– and a game of poker, which went surprisingly well
considering we played by different rules and had no common language at
all. Spent the morning servicing the VW, and took up the offer from a
passing friendly mechanic to replace one of the sparking plugs which
was refusing to bite – much to the delight of the circle of
watchers. This is one trouble with Turkey, or at least the south of it
– you can hardly do anything without collecting some
onlookers. In fact, as I write there are three Turks sitting at the
picnic table with me watching me write! Now they have gone, and another
one, very grizzled and rather smelly, has just joined us and is asking
Trottie (by mime) where she sleeps at night. However, she's not very
receptive, having eaten even more than me.
Which brings me to food.
Turkish food can be rather monotonous, but is very tasty. They have no
potatoes, instead the meat is served on a small dish, together with
bread and perhaps another small plate of salad and/or rice.
(Interruption – the Turk on my right is bellowing at a friend
at another picnic table, who has an empty 2-litre wine bottle and a
rifle in front of him. Not the best of combinations!). One thing I do
miss in their meals is desserts. Sweet dishes can only be bought in
shops as sweets, and we spent quite a long time last night discussing
the merits of treacle pudding (and looking at the Turk on my left I've
just thought of another use for a treacle pudding).
Had planned to go to a Turkish cinema in the
evening, but thinking it
over we thought it would be a waste of money, needing to get back to
the campsite where we had left George looking after Pam. This is really
why we have spent so long at Anamur (although it is a really good
place) as Pam has been ill for several days, and is the first one to
clock in with the runs.
Friday
10th July
Set off early for Adana, not in very high
spirits, for although it was
very nice to be on the move again, we were all sad at leaving Anamur,
and Mike and Pam were both feeling off, Pam to the point of having to
stop the van to vomit.
At Adana we were hoping to stay at the BP
parking place marked on the
map, but we found that our map was a year early and the parking site
was still under construction. For the sake of the ill members (Trottie
was now running a temperature of 103) we paid out for a Mobil Camp.
Saturday
11th July
I woke up to find over 100 mosquito bites on
one arm, which rather took
the charm out of the camp. We also found out that whereas the camp was
only 4/4d a head as opposed to the Mocamp which was 5/4d, we had to pay
1/- for a shower, 1/- to use the gas rings, 1/- to use the
clothes-washing basin and 3/4d for a swim, all of which should have
been free.
Continued servicing the VW, and noticed an
oil leak at one wheel, and
so we drove it down to the nearest VW garage (really a Ford one with a
few VW spares) where we were able to borrow their tools and take the
wheel down. The oil seal we suspected looked ok, so we put it all back
together and are now hoping!
About lunchtime Mike decided to get a doctor
for Trottie. She
didn’t fancy a Turkish doctor, so we drove over to the
American airbase a few Ks down the road, to see if we could get hold of
one of their doctors. Not surprisingly they didn’t really
want us on the base, but they were able to tell us the name of a good
English-speaking doctor who quickly came out and had a look at Trottie
and diagnosed gastro-enteritis, which would go in a couple of days.
His fee was about £3-10-0, which we could afford but is a lot
when you think there is no NHS here and as far as we can gather the
fees are not altered much to suit the patient. This means that the
majority of peasants have no hope at all of affording a doctor, and so
they either get well or die. This is only one of several rather
horrifying aspects of Turkey (and I imagine all the way East) that we
have discovered, and is made more so by the fact that they have an
incredibly large army, which must be where all the high tax on
automobiles goes, for here they are about three times the price that
they are in England, due to colossal import duty.
What is more, we would have to pay this tax
if our van was stolen, for
it is then said to have entered the country. Even if you have an
accident and your car is a total write-off you have to get it out of
the country, and not in bits either. It has to be driven out under its
own steam! Accidents certainly seem costly here for another reason as
well. If you are involved in an accident you are at least 20% to blame,
and it rises from there. Even if your car is parked and someone runs
into it, if your car hadn’t been there there would have been
no accident, so you are at least 20% to blame.
Being in jail is no joke either, for there
is no food – it
has to be brought in by relatives. An American air-force officer we
were talking to was telling us of a couple of Marines at present in a
Turkish jail, and apparently a detachment has to be sent every day to
feed them.
It also appears, as I suppose is to be
expected, that the official
system is corrupt from top to bottom, and bribery really works, and,
for instance, seems to be the only way to get off a traffic charge,
though this sounds a little far-fetched. However, it does seem very
easy to pick up a traffic charge. For instance, if a traffic light you
are approaching turns red, but the traffic keeps on going but you stop,
you can be charged with holding up the traffic. Carry on through,
however, and you might be had up for crossing a red light. It seems the
only thing to do, if you see a policeman at traffic lights, is to go
slowly and he will usually either wave you on or stop you.
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