First thoughts on the Holy Land

I did not have a good start in Israel. I arrived from Istanbul with my nose running like a faucet, sneezing every 14 seconds, and generally miserable. The hostel I’d reserved online turned out to be one of the grimmest ones I’ve encountered thus far. I was shown to a bunk in an eight- bed room with cold bare concrete floors and grey sheets and the resident cat stealing food from a shopping bag on a neighbouring bed. It was not what I’d been led to expect from the website, which promised en-suite bathrooms and free breakfast and showed shining corridors and bright, pleasant rooms. Sitting on the side of the bed, nose running and head pounding, I came to a quick decision. “Do you have any private rooms?” I asked, and was quickly shifted across the hall to the hotel side of the operation. Here were the shining corridors and en-suite bathrooms! And though the price was 3 or 4 times that of the hostel, they were some of the happiest shekels I’ve spent. The room was the tiniest I’ve had so far – about 8’ square, and the bathroom was so small it could only be viewed with the aid of a scanning electron microscope. But it was mine.

The next morning when I woke up it was clear that the antihistamines I’d taken the night before had been completely ineffective. I was sick, but I was also determined not to waste the short amount of time I had in Jerusalem, so I loaded up on tissues and Vitamin C and trudged off for a walking tour of the Old City. It was a good tour – we saw part of the Armenian Quarter and then went up to the Temple Mount itself, home to the Dome of the Rock, and Al-Aqsa Mosque, though non-Muslims are not allowed to enter either. (And you can’t just walk up and say, “Uh, yeah… I’m Muslim… no really…. Allah rocks!” If there’s any doubt, they make you recite the first chapter of the Qur’an.)

The golden dome.

We also had a look at a small, hidden section of the Western Wall, and wandered through some of the Muslim souk, which reminded me a lot of the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, though shabbier and more cramped. We even stopped for lunch as a group, which was nice and sociable. After lunch we trooped along part of the Via Dolorosa past about five or six Stations of the Cross, including this one, number nine, “where Jesus fell a third time”.

This is the where really devout pilgrims who’ve dragged crosses through the maze of city streets drop them off before entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The church itself was odd, it had so many different levels and shrines and tombs and other holy cubby-holes in it that it was easy to get confused and overwhelmed. Not surprisingly, a lot of different groups have claims on the church, chief among them being the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Armenians. They argued about things for so long that eventually they came to a “status quo agreement”, confirmed in 1852, that means everything in common or still-contested areas must remain unchanged unless all parties agree on the changes to be made (and you can guess how often that happens). This means that there’s an old wooden ladder leaning on an exterior window ledge that’s been there for at least a century and a half. Every tour guide in Jerusalem in required to point this out or they will be immediately stripped of their guiding credentials and ridden out of town on a donkey. Similarly, every tourist in Jerusalem is required to take a photo of the ladder. I will spare you mine.

Instead you can see the diving bell in the square outside the church. Ok, actually, it’s a tank for containing suspected bombs. No kidding.

Anyways, I had a guide at the church and I was still befuddled. We did see the spot where Jesus is supposed to have been crucified, and the line of people waiting to crawl under the alter and touch the rock at Golgatha itself. And we saw the supposed tomb of Jesus, and the line of people waiting to see inside that. There were also several other hugely significant spots, but this was at the end of our tour and by then it was abundantly clear that it had not been a good idea for me to drag my sick and travel-weary body around for four hours. I was rather hoping there might be another empty tomb in the area so I could crawl away quietly and expire. (In fact there is - the 1st century tomb of Joseph of Aramithea - which was pleasing small and dim, though decidedly rustic.) I stumbled back to the hotel after gathering oranges and juice, and lapsed into a fevered sleep for the rest of the day, waking only to email, Skype and Twitter my misery to the world.

The next day I checked out the Mahane Yehuda Market in the New city, because I love a good market, and I was looking for something a little low-key after the previous day’s melt-down. The market is predominantly Jewish and I visited late on a Friday morning, so the place was heaving with people shopping for Shabbat. Of course I itched to take a thousand photos, but only took a few.

These looked good, but I stopped somewhere else, as you’re about to find out.

It was at the market where I had a scary moment. All along I’d been nervous about coming to Israel. It’s just in the news so much that I couldn’t help but think that of all the destinations on my itinerary, this would have to be the place where I was most likely to be blown up by passing bus. However, reassuring words from resident hashers assuaged my fears and in fact the reality seems quite different. But then I found myself in this café, sitting on a stool at the bar. A woman came in and set down a bag and coat on the stool next to me and said something like, “I’ll be back in few minutes” and asked me to watch her stuff. And off she went. I nodded and didn’t think about it until a few seconds later when I realized what I’d done, and then I was instantly terrified. Suddenly I imagined Peter Mansbridge gravely intoning, “Four confirmed dead, including one Canadian, in Jerusalem café bombing…”, while they showed some outdated picture of me behind him. Long long long minutes passed while I wondered if I should just run away. And then I thought I couldn’t do that because someone might steal the nice woman’s coat/bomb. And then I thought that would just be typically Canadian – too polite to make a fuss and too nice to leave the bomb to be stolen by some ne’er-do-well. About another three and a half months passed, and finally the woman came back with her latté and the world kept spinning. Rest assured, I won't make that mistake again.

The funny thing is that I was talking to some Tel Aviv hashers the next day about how the country still made me a bit nervous. They were Americans living in Tel Aviv and both said that they felt perfectly safe there, and it was certainly better than other overseas locations where they’d worked. This conversation happened in a bar called Mike’s, right next door to the American Embassy on the Tel Aviv waterfront. Mike’s was the target of a suicide bombing in 2003 that killed three and wounded fifty. And there I was having cheesy fries and listening to how safe Israel is. But when I told my hashing friends Tina and Susan about my little café episode they both instantly said, “Oh, well I would never do that.” So it’s a country where it’s not unheard of to get blown up in your local, and normal to see 18-year old army recruits wandering the streets with machine guns over their shoulders while simultaneously text messaging, but you can’t trust the person next to you in the coffee shop. Thanks, but no thanks.

Back to Jerusalem tourist scene. After my briefly terrifying visit to the market on Friday, I wandered back to the old city for the rest of the afternoon. Thanks to the LP I managed to see some of the weekly procession of Franciscan Friars along the Via Dolorosa. They stopped at each of the stations of the cross, trailing a parade of faithful behind them. They also have a wireless mic and speaker system, and I saw at least two friars walk by with receiver/speakers slung over their shoulders.

And then because it was nearing sunset, I made my way back to the Western Wall. I wasn’t sure if it would be deserted or crammed. Since it was the start of Shabbat, I thought maybe everyone would be heading home for dinner. Of course I was wrong. People were streaming into the square to gather and pray at perhaps the most sacred spot in Judaism. There was a celebratory feel in the air. On the men’s side there was a rough circle of young men with linked arms, singing and dancing. As I watched more and more joined the circle and they all seemed so happy. I suspect that for many of the Jews there had traveled from all over the world to be there to pray and celebrate at the Western Wall at the start of Shabbat. Outside of the enclosed area right in front of the wall there were more and bigger circles of young people – some of men and some of women, but they were all dancing and singing and it was clear it was a joyous and significant thing for all of them. I hung around for a while, just enjoying the feeling of happiness.

No photography is allowed at the Wall during Shabbat, so the only pictures I have were taken from outside the square.

As night fell, I wandered out of the old city and took the long way around the walls and back to my hotel. I stopped to pick up a falafel pita from a street vendor, and a beer from the market around the corner and decamped to the tiny hotel room to commune with my beer, my nasal spray and a mountain of damp tissues. It was an early night.

Thoughts on making it half way

I've reached the half way mark. I left home on June 15, 2009 and the plan is to be back in Winnipeg by about June 1st, 2010. That makes a total of 50 weeks, meaning that 175 days is the halfway mark. I still have things to say about Turkey, and I’ve been in Israel for days now without posting about that, but let’s pause and take stock for a minute. I’ve been trying for a while to gather some thoughts about this whole crazy business, and as usual it’s a long, random collection of unconnected musings. At least you’re used to that by now.

Thoughts on interesting numbers:

175 days traveling

13 countries visited

11 languages attempted

9 metro systems conquered

6 currencies squandered

47 city maps cursed at

5 overnight trains, 3 overnight buses and 1 overnight ferry endured

71 different beds collapsed into

16 hashes met and welcomed by

12 guide books consulted, abbreviated, mangled and discarded

5922 photos taken (and counting)

1 extravagantly ferocious hangover

Metro System #1, Day #1, London

Thoughts on money: Those of you who know me won’t be surprised to find out that I’m keeping pretty careful track of what this is all costing. (Oh yes, there are spreadsheets.) So I can say with reasonable confidence that I’m spending about $165.00 (CDN) every day. Portugal was cheapest at $52.00/day, mostly thanks to Freddie’s spare room and extensive wine cellar. Russia was the most expensive at $277.00/day, but that includes the cost of the tour I was on and the flight from Dublin to Moscow. Denmark was next at $244.00/day, not even including the computer disaster.

As for the rest of the trip, my best estimate is that I’ll be over budget by about $5,000. The odd thing is that it’s not day-to-day expenses that are the problem. I’m pretty good at setting a daily budget for each city or country and sticking to it reasonably well. The trouble is with the extras, I think. These included sending and receiving packages, buying new computers, getting visas, generously donating money to random people walking by the spot where I left my wallet in Barcelona… I have no plan yet on what I’ll decide to do if I’m somewhere in Malaysia and the numbers on the spreadsheet start to turn red.

Thoughts on photos: Photos are a problem. I want to take more and better photos, especially of people (I really do, Rob!) but don't want to be intrusive. There seem to be three options. The best would be to introduce myself, make friends and then take photos of my new friends. I think of this as the Rick Steves Method. The worst would be to snap away like the local people are exhibits in a zoo. I think of this as the Ugly American Method. The unhappy medium I’ve found is to take occasional snaps on the sly. That's why you don't get to see the old women sweeping up twigs on the streets of Göreme, or the old men sitting at the bar playing a strange domino-like game. Rick Steves would dive in and be playing with the old guys in 5 minutes flat. I guess I'm not made of that stuff. This trip pushes me out of my natural introversion a lot already, but I just can't see myself making the leap to that Steves-ian level of gregariousness.

Then again, these orthodox Jewish guys rockin’ out at the Mehade Yehuda market in Jerusalem were practically begging to be photographed.

Thoughts on the downside of long term travel: I have no regrets about the decision I made to ditch my whole life and travel, but I’m also pretty sure now that it’s not the best way to see the world. On a trip with fewer destinations and a shorter timetable there would be a lot more opportunity for preparation and anticipation. That’s part of the fun of travel - falling asleep at night with the LP open, dreaming about what to do and where to go. As it is, I often don't even buy a guide book more than a day or two before arriving, and crack it open for the first time on the flight. I kind of miss that, but I also know that level of preparation is impossible for a trip like this, and I do kind of like being as flexible as I am. Still, it would be nice to be able to read up on a country, the culture and the people a bit before arriving, and maybe even learn some of the language before touching down. Certainly there are economies of scale to be realized on longer trips, but if I had the means, I think I’d rather travel in chunks of a month or so.

Thoughts on maps: God. Don’t get me started. Ok, too late. Here’s some advice for anyone who publishes maps of any kind:

1. Please, for the love of GOD, stop putting streets on your maps without noting the name of the street. If you don’t put the name of the street are you really creating a map? Or is it simply an abstract collection of intersecting lines? (Lovely Plant you know I love you, but you are a serious offender in this area. Pull up your socks.)
2. If you’re not going to indicate street names, then at least put ALL the streets on the map so your hapless victims can count the number of intersections to pass through before turning or stopping or hailing a cab in desperation.
3. Also please indicate the SCALE of the map. It’s exceedingly helpful, especially given the on-again off-again nature of numbers 1 and 2 above, to be able to judge the rough distance between points before giving up and turning back. At least the time spent navigating can be filled devising special forms of torture for sub-standard map makers.

(And as a side note… Dear City Planners of the World: Please make the effort to affix or erect some indication of street name at each intersection, or at least at major ones. I’m begging you. And Turkey, I’m talking to you here, a sign that’s 4” square and placed 12’ up on the side of a building behind an awning does NOT count.)

Thoughts on sight-seeing fatigue: I've mentioned it before, but the big problem with this full-time tourist gig is that you really start to get numb to what you're seeing. I've seen so many amazing sights - galleries, cathedrals, blah blah blah. I joke about it, but l'm not kidding when I say I never need to see another Madonna and Child. It bothers me, but I've also come to recognize that I can only take in so much during a day. Sometimes this means I skip one if the LP's "must see" sights in favour of a nap. What I'd really like to be able to do is be a full-time tourist from Monday to Friday and go home on the weekends. Instead, I'm making my own long weekends where I need them, like the 12 day stop in Athens.

The church of St. I-don’t-care-anymore (Big bonus points if you can actually identify this location, which has appeared on the blog…)

Thoughts on general fatigue: There’s no getting around it, long term travel is a grind. It’s got a lot of payoffs – seeing great stuff, meeting great people and eating great food to name the obvious ones – but it’s also hard on the body. Sleeping in a new bed every 2.46 nights, eating poorly (either too much or too little, with vegetable thrown in about every 3 weeks…) staying up late, getting up early and exercising infrequently are physically tough, but the mental stuff may be harder. Deciding where to go, figuring out how to get there, finding somewhere to sleep, and deciphering every new language take a lot of time and energy. Add to that the fun but frustrating task of winnowing down the list of worthy sites, galleries, museums, parks, markets, churches, ruins and monuments to a manageable size and it all becomes a bit much after a while. Then again, it’s better than sitting at a desk all day. As I write this paragraph, for instance, my office is a picnic table in a small, shady park in Jaffa, Israel. I can see the Mediterranean over my shoulder, just past the almost-empty passion fruit slushy.

Yes you’re right, I do need a haircut.

Thoughts on food: There’s too much of it. Lots of days I feel like when I’m not eating I’m just killing time before I can eat again. Sometimes it’s because there are so many new and interesting things I’d like to try, and sometimes it’s because I just want to sit and have a break, and the easiest place to do that is often in a café or restaurant. Sometimes though, food becomes a reward or a comfort when I’m tired or lonely or fed up, which seems to happen quite often.

Thoughts on the stretchy nature of time: Often I find myself remembering some sight or activity or event as if it was in the dim reaches of the past and then am shocked to realize that hazy memory happened only a week ago. So much can happen in one day that experiences just pile up on top of each other until it all becomes a blur. In "normal life" things are mostly routine and go by without notice. I used to get up in the morning, have the same breakfast I had the day before, go to the same job, and run along the same streets. While the minutiae might have differed from day to day, it was all pretty familiar.

Now there is no real routine - every day is full of completely new experiences. Even boring things like doing laundry or buying groceries come with a whole layer of exotic or complicating factors that make them events by themselves. Every laundromat is different, and the instructions might be in 6 languages. Buying bananas in a grocery store requires finding a grocery store in the first place, and then deciphering whether the bananas are sold by the piece or by the kilo, and then figuring out if you weigh and tag the bananas yourself or if the cashier does it at the till or if there's a whole other person who does that. It can be either an adventure or a pain in the ass, depending on your mood and how much you just want a bloody banana and not a meaningful cross-cultural experience.

It’s easier if you can just smile at the scary man and point.

On an average day I get up, have an odd local breakfast at a hostel, find a place to buy some fruit or a snack, see one big sight, have an odd local lunch, and then walk around a market or interesting neighbourhood for the afternoon, so by 4 or 5 o'clock I'm pretty much wiped out. Add a run in there, or drinks with hashers or single-serving friends and then do that day after day after day. Then toss in a generous measure of packing, unpacking, navigating, getting lost, and sitting on trains, buses, boats and waiting room benches, and you can see why a day might feel like a week and a week like a month. Then again, it also seems like it’s going by very quickly. I can’t believe it’s half over.

Thoughts on the Toiletries Event Horizon: Somewhere in Italy (Sienna, I think) I reached what I have termed the Toiletries Event Horizon. This is the point at which none of the consumable toiletries product one started one’s trip with are left. I now have the much-commented-on toenail polish from London, Vaseline from Amsterdam, deodorant from France, hair gel from Lisbon, sunscreen from somewhere I can’t recall (though it looks sort of Spanish…), toothpaste from Siena, nasal spray from Greece, body butter (mango-mandarin) from Turkey, and Vitamin C from Israel. Who needs souvenirs?

Thoughts on Souvenirs: Speaking of souvenirs – I don’t really have any, other than the aforementioned 6,000 photos. Karen asked me the other day if I’ve bought anything for myself and I really haven’t, other than things I need to keep functioning. My stance thus far has been that I don’t have the room or the budget for collecting something from everywhere I go. But I have got a few new bits of clothing, and I bought a key-chain matrushka doll in Russia, but I think that’s it. I did send home some swag from the marathon, but perhaps I’ll consider picking up some other things if the mood strikes me. I came very close to buying a small olivewood backgammon set in the Arab quarter of old Jerusalem (the price started at 480 shekels and went down as low as 100 by the time is was disappearing down the street) but the logistics of carrying things around until I get a chance to mail them, and then packaging them, and then finding a post office and figuring out how it works… it’s like the banana-buying thing. Sometimes it’s just more than I feel like dealing with. Oh, wait. I am saving currency – I’m keeping one example of the smallest denomination note of each new currency I encounter. So far I’ve got English, Scottish and Northern Irish pounds, euros, rubles, kroner, Turkish lira and shekels. The shekels are easily the prettiest, though I can’t get over the idea that shekels are a real currency. No offense Israel, but I keep expecting to get my change in camels or sacks of grain.

Shekels!

Thoughts on declining standards of hygiene: He mentions it in "A Map for Saturday", and it's true. The longer you travel, the lower your standards of hygiene get. It’s not like there’s fuzz growing on my teeth or dirt of three continents in the bottom of my bag, but when I started out I was dutifully washing socks and underwear in the sink every couple of days. Now I employ the Sniff Test regularly.

Thoughts on clothing: My clothing is in a bit of a state. I mentioned the disastrous laundry experience in Athens, right? That left my short-sleeved shirt, beige pants and white socks a distinctly melancholy colour and gave the much-maligned Patagonia long-sleeved shirt weird perma-wrinkles that make me look like I wore it to bed. (I'd like to try ironing it at a low temp, but in my current life an iron and ironing board is about as rare as a two-headed unicorn, or a reliable map.) This is all to say that I'm looking and feeling a bit rough around the edges these days.

Thoughts on body image: Added to the scruffy clothing is the fact that I really have gained weight, I’m guessing 10-15 pounds. So you might understand why I feel like a pudgy slob a lot of the time. My pants are uncomfortably tight around the thighs and I really don’t need that belt that was so important a few months ago. I'm not saying I'm unrecognizable or anything, but I notice it and it bugs me. I sort of knew this would happen – food is a big part of traveling, and it’s really hard not to try every delectable local pastry or deep-fired whatever. Really though I think the biggest culprit is beer… the circumference of my thighs has risen in direct proportion with my consumption of beer.

Thoughts on Hostel living: It’s not so bad. There are good hostels and bad ones, and a few that stand out at either end of the spectrum. And while I like a private room every once in a while, hostels are great for meeting friendly English-speakers who can totally sympathize with the transient lifestyle. I need a few things to find a hostel tolerable, in descending order of importance they are:

1. Wifi, preferably free. It’s the 21st century people. No excuses. (Africa may be the exception to this…)
2. A bottom bunk. I’m not sure why, but I find top bunks logistically challenging and highly depressing. While I can get quite cozy in a bottom bunk, I always feel sort of precariously perched in a top bunk, and there’s never anywhere to put anything. I have been known to lay in wait when a roommate is vacating a bottom bunk so I can annex it before the door slams behind them. The only real downside is that most bunks are rickety metal things and when the person up top makes the slightest twitch it's magnified through the whole structure as they're performing excerpts from Riverdance.
   
3. A central location. I really don’t want to have to walk for an hour or catch an endless series of impenetrably labeled local buses to find a place. And I don’t want to have to conquer the public transit system to see the sights either.
4. A decent number of bathrooms and showers, not too far from the room. It’s also preferable if the showers include an area where you can dry off and change that’s private but not in the splash-zone, but that’s often a pipe dream. Increasingly I’m running into bathrooms where the whole room is the shower. There’s no shower door or curtain, and the whole place is a swamp when you’re done. Forget going in there in sock feet for about 6 hours.
5. Free breakfast. Even coffee, tea and toast can make a difference if you don’t feel like going out to forage in the big, bad world.
6. A kitchen. Restaurants are nice. Eating out is nice. But sometimes you just want some mashed potatoes.

Bed #71, 48 Hayarkon Hostel, Tel Aviv. Typical.

Thoughts on the kindness of strangers: When I was trying to decide what to call the blog, one of the names I considered was “The Kindness of Strangers”. And though I love (LOVE) Go See Run Eat Drink, in some ways TKoS might have been more appropriate. Everyone in my life right now is a stranger (with the exception of Freddie in Portugal), or at least they start out that way. Hashers, hostel roommates, bus drivers, tour guides, hotel staff, waiters, passers-by… I don’t know anyone. In some ways this is a bit liberating, but mostly it gets to be tiresome. Luckily, I’ve found that people are basically nice, and they’ll almost always help if they can. This has become increasingly important since I left the English-speaking world behind. (And again I have to say thank you to every non-native English speaker in the world for taking the time to learn my language so that I can stumble around almost anywhere and manage to acquire food, shelter and beer from day to day.)

Thoughts on gear: Rob - In answer to your question about the State of the Pack, it turns out that my estimate of the weight of my bag on the sweaty trek from hostel to station in Naples was a bit inflated. It weighed in at 15 kg when I checked in for the flight from Athens to Istanbul. So I exaggerated a bit, but it's still too heavy for carry-on and certainly uncomfortable to jog with. As for an update on gear, I’ve added a few boring things you haven’t heard about like some sweatpants, my Athens marathon t-shirt, and a new button-up short sleeved shirt (I’m sure it will appear in pictures soon). Also, I just bought myself a little halfway-done present, so welcome to the team cheap Swiss Army knife! (Also, fond farewells to Copenhagen exacto knife and Barcelona corkscrew….)

Thoughts on standout gear: The other thing Rob asked about was whether any particular bit of gear has distinguished itself either for it’s indispensability or it’s utter uselessness. Without bothering to comment on every item in the pack, here are a few things I’m glad I brought. (If you ask me next week, this will probably all be different…)

• Travel towel: Though I still miss the pleasing scrubby nubbliness of proper terrycloth towels and use them whenever they’re offered, the MSR travel towel has been solid. I use it for drying myself and for wringing out sink-washed laundry. And even when it’s wet from a morning shower it’s often dry enough to pack by the time I’m ready to leave.
• Retractasafe cable lock: Lots of hostels don’t have lockers in the rooms, so in these cases I just lock the zipper tabs of the Aeronaut together and then lock all that to an immovable object with the cable lock. It’s not a perfect solution, but I think it’s reasonable.
• Palm Centro: It’s my cell phone and text message device, notepad, alarm clock, watch, calendar, address book, currency converter, e-book reader,flashlight, packing list and back-up camera. I am never without it. Never.
• Silk Sleep Sheets: Whenever I fetch up at a bed that just looks too… experienced for me to be comfortable, out comes the silk sleep sack. It gets between me and the creepies, and it’s all silky and smooth!
• Folding scissors: Not glamorous, but really useful, and I’ve even taken them in my carry on bags with no hassle.
• Shower Caddy: Again, not sexy, but it’s much nicer to be able hang something on the shower head than have to lay it all on the floor of some grimy hostel bathroom.

On packing: Not surprisingly, packing is down to a science. I know that if I’m leaving a hostel I need to get up 1-1/2 hours before I want to walk out the door. 1/2 an hour to shower and clean up, 1/2 an hour for breakfast, and 1/2 an hour to pack. In reality, all these things are usually quicker than that, but I’d rather not be rushed. And though I’ve done it about 70 times already, I still check my list every time I pack. It’s just too easy to leave things behind so I am rigorous about the list. (Ah… lists. Is there nothing you can’t do?)

On Hashing: I think I will owe a favour to every hasher on the planet by the time this is all over. There have been personal pub crawls in London and Lisbon, borrowed camping gear in Scotland, last minute laundry in Dublin, impromptu night-time sightseeing and taxi services in Moscow, package deliveries in Amsterdam, and guided tours in Rome, all thanks to hashers. They’ve been there for me almost every step of the way. Every hash I’ve visited has welcomed me without question, given me beer, treated me with the respect a hasher deserves (none) and made me feel right at home. They are simply good people, and I hope that wherever I end up when this is all over I can repay the favour to any visiting hasher that crosses my path.

Me and Hash #5 – the Dublin House Harriers, in the bog! (And I'm so glad I finally found a reason to post this photo!)

*****

So now it’s just three days before I leave for Africa! I’m still sick, and I’m tired, and I need a haircut, but an old friend awaits me in Kampala, and I’m really looking forward to seeing him and relaxing for a bit before diving into Africa in earnest. Stay tuned, the weirdest is yet to come.

Hamam

Remember the banya? Well the Russians (and Finns) aren’t the only ones into hot, steamy, naked experiences (Ok, is there any culture not into that? Perhaps the Swiss…). Having had such a good time at the banya, I really wanted to try the Turkish equivalent – the hamam, but was nervous about going by myself. Luckily the Istanbul hashers came through again - one of them had a friend in town for a holiday who also wanted to visit a hamam, so the three of us decided to splash out on one of the most famous and historic hamams in Istanbul. We chose Cağaloğlu Hamam, constructed in 1741, the last to be built during the Ottoman Empire! (And I guarantee you that Cağaloğlu is not pronounced how you think it is. My Turkish friend and native guide Sibel says it sort of like jaw-wah-lah-loo. Okaaaaayyy…)

Here’s how it all went down. We arrived, and posed for photographs with the man dressed up at the entrance. (Once again, I'd love to have a photo here. Sibel: please send photos!!)

Then we headed inside and chose from the menu of services available. We picked what was essentially the “full meal deal”. It was a pricey 100 TL (not including tip) but came with a kese, towels, slippers and soap; a private, locked change room; unlimited time in the historic marble steam room; an exfoliating scrub with a coarse mitt (that’s the kese) administered by an attendant; a total-body “pummeling” oil massage; and a soapy soft washing massage, with shampoo. Money paid, we were off to the camekan, the inner courtyard surrounded by cubicles for changing.

The women’s camekan.

Stripped down and wearing nothing but a peştemal (traditional light cotton towel/wrap thingy), and completely non-functional wooden clogs, we headed for the steam room. (Here’s a nice, interactive 360 degree view of the steam room.)

Ridiculous and impossible clogs (I couldn't help but notice that the staff of the hamam were wearing croc-style sandals which were much more functional.)

It was fantastic, especially the domed roof, pierced with star-shaped holes through which I could see the fading sunlight. The room wasn’t nearly as hot as the banya, just a pleasantly warm, steamy, relaxing temperature. The attendant pulled off our peştemals and sat us down on the marble floor around the edge, instructing us to douse ourselves with water from one of the many beautiful marble basins on the outer walls. So we sat around naked, and steamed, and dripped and chatted and waited.

A pic of the room, not taken by me. I had no pockets to carry my camera. In fact, this is the men's steam room, but the womens' one looked just like it.

After a time three older Turkish ladies trooped in, doused themselves, and put on their work clothes – one-piece bathing suits. Then each one of us was led over to the raised marble slab in the middle of the room (göbek taşi) and they got to work. First there was the scrub, and it was vigorous – front, back, legs, feet, arms, hands, neck, face, all over. The kese wasn’t super rough, but definitely had an exfoliating effect, and it’s a nice souvenir. It felt good, though it took a while to get over the weird feeling of being naked and man-handled (so to speak) so closely. It was easily the most intimate contact I’ve ever had with a total stranger, ever. I just closed my eyes and let her do her thing.

After the scrub I was doused again to get all the creepy grey dead skin gunk off, and then it was time for the oil massage. Again, odd but very very nice - back, shoulders, neck, legs, arms, hands, feet... ahhhhh. And after that there was more dousing and a soapy light scrub/massage with a thing that looked halfway between a mop and a bad wig, and then a shampoo to finish up. I think the whole thing took about an hour, though it really felt like much longer. Once we were finished we spent a bit of time dousing ourselves with cool water, and eventually we made our way out of the hot room and got wrapped up in towels. We sat for a while in the camekan, and had water and tea, and marveled at how amazingly CLEAN we all felt. Even my ears squeaked. I think that’s the cleanest I’ve been since birth. It felt great.

Eventually we drifted back into our little cubicles and got clothes back on, and tipped our attendants. Finally we wandered over to a nice restaurant that was extremely close to my hostel.

Hilde and Sibel, after our hamam. Super clean! (Yes, this is out of focus. Sibel has better photos. Sibel, I'm begging you, please send me the photos!)

And then (hallelujah) there was beer, and the day was complete.

The people in my neighbourhood, Istanbul Edition

(Alternate title: It’s Canada Day, up in Istanbul way!). Rob, you’re gonna love this one. People, people, people!

After I got back from Sulçik on the overnight bus I was, understandably, I think, a bit out of sorts. I arrived at the hostel too early to check into my room, so I was effectively homeless for the day. To kill time I decided to do a bit of shopping to replace at least one of the shirts that was trashed by the Washing Machine of Doom in Athens. (Did I ever tell you about the Washing Machine of Doom? Perhaps not. When I did laundry the day after the marathon everything came out of the wash looking like it had been soaking in hot water with a very large, new black towel. My short-sleeved shirt – already getting uncomfortably tight across the middle – now also looks like it’s been dipped in a big vat of sad. Time for a change.) I walked all the way across the Galata Bridge to the Outdoor and Travel Supplies District, but all the shops were closed for the Bayram holiday, so I was really flummoxed. It was one of those moments when I need a plan but lacked any motivation to conceive one.

Dejected, I walked back across the bridge and decided to have a wander along the lower level, a strip that’s lined with restaurants. Like all restaurants in Istanbul, each establishment on the bridge employs a sort of tout whose sole purpose is to engage with every person who walks by to try and get them at a table. As I was walking by one of these places, I passed a couple of guys being worked over. One of the opening gambits the restaurant touts always use is “Where are you from?”, and when I heard the reply “Canada” I turned around… and that’s how I met Murray and Tim! They were a couple of guys in Turkey for work, and were having a day off in Istanbul. We chatted for a bit and I ended up walking with them for a ways. (It even turned out that Murray was a hasher!) We were having a nice time talking, so they invited me to have lunch with them, and we sat and had a mountain of fish and a few beers, and a lot of nice conversation.

They didn’t have much of a plan for the day, other than a desire to hit the Grand Bazaar. I had a guidebook and a map and knew the way, so after lunch we struck off through the madness. It was fun just pushing through the streets with them and talking and seeing the city. So much so that when we arrived at one of the gates to the Bazaar to find it locked up tight for Bayram it was just a minor wrinkle in the total-lack-of-plan.

Eventually we stopped for coffee in a little side street and sat and talked some more. I think all three of us were just happy to have some friendly conversation, and someone new to talk to. For my part, I was surprised at how nice it was to speak Canadian with complete abandon. I don’t think of myself as having much of an accent, but when I got going with Murray and Tim, well jeez, eh, I was just givin' 'er! I had no idea how much my ear craved hearing those sounds, or how much my tongue itched to form them. And both of them were surprisingly well-traveled. One minute we’d be talking about Tim Horton’s and then one of them would come out with something like, “Well, in Nigeria…” or “This is a lot like Abu Dabi….” or something equally improbable. We traded email addresses – they insisted I take theirs in case they and their extensive international connections might be able to help if I got into trouble somewhere. I gave them the blog address, so I hope they drop in and check it out. (Hi guys, thanks again for lunch!)

Murray, me and Tim, with our Turkish coffee. Tragically, the cafe where we stopped did not have double-doubles or sour cream glazed donuts.

It really was a nice afternoon – Murray and Tim completely rescued my day, and I bounced back to the hostel feeling cheery and content. I would have been happy to just cozy up in the hostel after such a great afternoon, but the day’s riches did not end there.

It had been too long since I’d hashed (Lisbon! God, that was a hundred years ago!). Luckily, the Istanbul hashers are a friendly and active bunch, and it was easy to get in touch with them. Not only was I able to run with them, they also organized a beer night during my first sojourn in Istanbul, and there was a second beer night on the Saturday I arrived back from Selçuk, following my great afternoon with Murray and Tim. After that particular beer night, perhaps unwisely, I joined a few of the hardier souls and plunged into the Beyoğlu bar-scene. Of course anyone who knows me knows that’s totally my thing – sweaty, packed clubs, ear-splitting music, dancing… just try and stop me. (Errr… not. In my defense, let me just say the company was good and the music was fun, especially the medley of songs from “Grease”… ) Somehow it ended up being 3am and I was getting a cab back to Sultanhament.

There should be a photo here but Sibel has not sent it to me yet, so you just get to use your imagination, which is probably more fun anyways.

The hash the next day took place quite a ways from the tourist track, in a wooded area in Bahçeköy.

Getting ready for the run, and yes, that’s an aqueduct in the background

It was a short trail but pleasingly muddy, and since it was the first time I’d run since leaving Greece it was probably as long as I needed. Circle was appropriately raucous, and included the theft of a running shoe by a wild dog which necessitated a brief interruption to the proceedings and a merry chase around the area.

After circle we all decamped to a kebab restaurant where the Turkish locals put up with us (though we had to drink our beers outside…)

At the restaurant

And then there was another trip into the bar district and a few more beers consumed, though this time I wisely did not stay out until three in the morning. Thank God they did not play “Grease”, that’s all I have to say.

More rocks 'n' ruins

You’d think after three days of crazy rocks in Cappadocia that I’d head for some place where the main tourist activity was something other than looking at crazy rocks. Well you’d be wrong! Pamukkale (pam–oo-kuh–lay) is know for one thing:

Travertines

They’re shapely deposits of minerals (mostly calcium I think) that have formed into lovely terraced pools over the last few thousand years. They cover the snow-white hillside just outside the town, and have done since before Roman times. It’s a real tourist attraction, and quite cool to see.

I got an overnight bus (again...) and arrived at about 6:30am in Denizli, then had to take a servis to Pamukkale. The bus system in Turkey is really quite advanced, though slightly opaque for the uninitiated. (I’ve come to the conclusion that you just have to put yourself in the hands of whatever friendly Turkish person you can find, and trust that they’ll point you in the right direction. So far, this has worked.) The buses go just about anywhere, but you have to be prepared to do things in a few steps. For instance when I was leaving Göreme I had to catch a small bus from the centre of town to get to the large otogar (bus station) in Nevshehir. Then I got on the big overnight bus to Denizli. I got off that bus at Denizli and looked around for a servis – another of the small buses. I can’t tell whether these servis are run by the bus companies, our by tour companies, or hotels, or what, but they’re always there. The one I ended up in seemed to be run by an enterprising guy with a tour company, because he tried to sell me an all-day tour of Pamukkale after he dropped me at my hotel. (He also sang Korean folk songs during the drive. At one point during the serenade I turned to my Australian seatmate and said, “At times like this do you ever wonder how, exactly, you came to be sitting in a minibus in Pamukkale at 6:30 in the morning, with a Turkish driver singing in Korean?”)

I rebuffed the offer of a tour (“Normally 50 lira, but for you I make special price only 40 lira, includes lunch. You come.”). I’d just spent the previous two days on all-day tours around Göreme, so I was ready for a day of solitary, self-guided, unhurried sightseeing. More pressingly, I was ready for a two or three hour nap before venturing forth. A 9:30 am tour was simply not an option.

So I had my nap, and a nice Turkish breakfast at the hotel, and headed off at the crack of noon. You approach the site of the travertines on foot from the town, and walk up a long slope to the ticket office where you pay 20 TL and are instructed to take your shoes off once you get to the travertines. It’s a bit of a rough go for tender, shoe-coddled Western feet, and there’s water everywhere. Luckily the water is quite warm and it’s not a long walk. In summer the place is apparently heaving with tourists, who actually bathe in the pools. The LP has a charmingly snarky comment on this subject:

“You’ll also notice an influx of day-trippers – mainly Russians – who regard it as appropriate to wander around the travertines… in skimpy bathing attire. Personally, we’d like to see Pamukkale’s whistle blowing security police also adopt a wider brief as fashion police.”

(Having experienced the Ample-Russian-Man-in-Skimpy-Bathing-Suit phenomenon in August, I say Amen to that, brother!)

I made it to the top without incident, and got a friendly German tourist to take my picture, as per Rob H’s instructions:

Seeing the travertines and photographing them is lovely, but only takes about half an hour. Luckily, I lied when I said Pamukkale is known for one thing. It’s actually known for two things: the travertines, and the ruins of a Roman spa town of Hieroplois that grew up around them. The top of the calcium-coated cliff is covered with extensive ruins, some well-preserved and reconstructed, some mere piles of rubble (more rocks!). I thought the best thing about the whole site was that you could go anywhere. Unlike similar sites where barriers and fences and gates prevent you from getting up close and personal with the rocks, Hieropolis was like a big park. There were beaten paths running all through the ruins, and only one or two places that were blocked off, presumably for safety reasons.

Here I am on Frontius Street (Rob: two people pictures in one post!)

I’m not sure this is the best way to preserve the site, but it made for a fun afternoon of rock-hopping. Also, if I’d been in a more larcenous frame of mind and possessing of a larger, sturdier backpack, I think I could have walked off with any number of bits of worked stone. (Note to Karen: Please expect a large, heavy package to arrive in the next 10-14 days. If anyone official asks what’s in it, it’s 37kg of Turkish Delight.) Anyways, it was great.

Fantastic theatre where I stopped for a snack and a bit of cryptic crossword puzzling

Ok, I lied again. Actually, Pamukkale is known for three things: the travertines, the Roman ruins, and the still-active hot springs that you can bathe in. It’s a trifecta: crazy rocks, Roman ruins and swimming! The cost to swim in the antique pool was a steep 23 TL, but I went for it anyways. The water was pleasantly warm, though not hot, and the pool was dotted with submerged bits of broken fluted columns and such, which made for an interesting swim. It’s not often you get to float in a natural mineral spring with your butt parked on a thousand-year old chunk of Roman rock.

Here’s the pool. No picture of me in it, sadly, though I did appear in the vacation photos of scores of other people who were too craven to come in themselves.

And that was Pamukkale – one very pleasant, relaxing day. The next morning I got on another small bus for the relatively short (4-hour) hop to Selçuk, home base for exploring yet more Roman ruins – the great city of Ephesus, or as it’s known in Turkish: Efes.

The bus ride was a bit cramped, mostly because it was the day before the start of the biggest holiday of the year here and lots of Turks were traveling to be with family for the four-day holiday. Open your hymnals to page 664:

“The most important religious and secular holiday of the year, Kurban Bayrami (Festival of the Sacrifice) is as important to Muslims and Christmas is to Christians. The festival commemorates Ibrahim’s near-sacrifice of Ishmael…

Every year around four million cows and sheep are sacrificed for Kurban Bayrami. Traditionally, every head of household who can afford to buys a beast to sacrifice. Immediately after early-morning prayers on the first day of the holiday the animal’s throat is slit. It’s then flayed and butchered, and family and friends prepare a feast. Part of the meat is given to the needy; the skin is donated to charity, which sells it to a leather products company. These days you won’t see the sacrifices in the cities, but out in the countryside it’s a different story.”

And different it was. I didn’t see any sacrifices, but it was only Kurban Bayrami Eve. However, on the bus to Selçuk I saw lots of pickup trucks go by with sheep in the back. And I saw people leading sheep on ropes down the streets. I even saw one stuffed into a hatchback. In a couple of places we passed through there were big corrals of sheep in the centre of town, and families picking them out to take home. It occurred to me that these were roughly analogous to the neighbourhood Christmas tree lot. It was a bit surreal, and lots of the Turks I’ve met subsequently say they’re not fond of the practice at all. It seems to me that there must be a way of making a somewhat more symbolic sacrifice that doesn’t necessitate hosing down the backyard patio when it’s over, but perhaps that’s my western-centric-ness showing.

Regardless, I fetched up in Selçuk in the early afternoon, and made my way to the very friendly Homeros Pension. There I met my new Turkish friend Osman, who I’d almost run into on my walk from the bus station. He was driving down a street that I’d blindly plunged into (Roman-style) and stopped short of running me down. A few minutes later, there I was in the pension, and it turned out that he spends a lot of time there too, helping out the family that runs the place. I played some friendly backgammon with him that afternoon, and he beat me 3 games to 1. Later that evening I got my revenge when I beat him in 5-2 (including one double game).

It turns out Osman runs a carpet shop, though he was not even close to being the stereotypical annoying, aggressive carpet-seller type that are thick on the ground in Istanbul. I did NOT buy a lovely striped kilim from him, but would recommend that if you’re in Selçuk and in the market for a nice Turkish carpet or kilim you could do a lot worse than visiting my friend Osman at Sultan Carpet and Kilim.

Osman, in his shop (Three! Count 'em THREE people pictures!)

I was ostensibly in Selçuk to see the ruins of Efes, but I have to admit to feeling a serious case of ruin-fatigue by now. In fact, I’d say that Roman ruins have now joined the list of things I am DONE with. (Also on that list: most churches, all Madonna and Childs, and pretty much any archeological museum). Still, it was a sunny day, and the site is impressive.

The most famous bit at Efes – the Library of Celsus

It turns out that Efes was a mere side-note to my trip to Selçuk. The best part was hanging around in the pension where I had an excellent, generous, mama-cooked supper both nights I was there (with home-made baklava!). It was such a comfortable, friendly place that both nights I ended up chatting with the other guests during dinner, which was really nice. And of course it was lovely meeting Osman, and playing backgammon with him, and letting him open up half the carpets in his shop in an attempt to divine my tastes, though we both pretty much knew I wasn’t going to buy anything. All in all, Selçuk and Pamukkale were both great stops, and I was sad to get on that last overnight bus for the long road back to Istanbul. But off I went, so get ready for some more posts on Turkey because I'm not done yet.