Friday, July 16, 2004
Part 2 - You're flying! That'll save time...
Returned to the pension to bid my farewells... The Belgian girls and my companion for the past two days, Sam, all came back at 4:30 to say goodbye. They all sat around in anticipation as Oya and Laura brought out the guestbook: "You must sign. You are a writer. It will be very good what you write."
Pressure.
I managed to scribble a few things down, then observed that my train would be leaving in 30 minutes, and I still had to hike down to the other side of town. Oya was cooking the evening meal, dashing back and forth from the kitchen to wish me goodbye again and again and again. "Oh Jesus - good bye. I pray for you good trip. Oh Jesus. You are my brother. I will lose my brother. Oh my Jesus."
A pot of cooking water still in Oya’s hand, she led the others as they followed me down the four flights of stairs, from the roof terrace to the street.
Again, more goodbyes. More sweet Jesus. And then I realized, the pot of water was for me. "I am so sad for you to go. Go, and I will pray for you and miss you and oh Jesus, etc, etc, etc." And then she reminded me of the Turkish custom, which I'd heard of but never seen, that throwing water behind someone departing on a trip will bring them good luck and a safe passage. (I think at some hotels this has become the equivalent of the lei in Hawaii, and it's now just part of the check-out ritual: pay bill, tip bell-boy, have water thrown at you) but I'd seen about 20 people come and go at the pension, and no-one had water hurled after them.
So, I turned and started to leave (the tossing must be at your back). Sam pragmatically suggested I walk very fast, so as not to be soaked. I heard the water splash down on the cobblestones behind me and turned to wave a last farewell.
It was such a warm send-off, I bounced down the hill towards town – and when I looked back as I turned the corner, they were all still standing there waving good-bye. 40 pounds of backpack weighing me down, but felt I could walk happily for miles.
And I did walk for about a kilometer, to get to the train station. Bending down to peer through the tiny little ticket window (for some reason set waist-high), I spotted my friendly conductor sitting exactly as he was 7 hours before. "Merhaba."
"Merhaba." he responded cheerfully.
"Five thirty train to Izmir airport? Bir tani bilet, lütven." (I'm getting quite brazen in my use of Turkish.) I didn't really expect the agent to get up and toss water after my train, but I certainly didn't expect him to say, "Sorry. Train late."
Fortunately, I'd factored in an extra hour for just such a snag. “Oh. How late?” I asked.
"Maybe come by 7:45."
My flight leaves at 8:30. Not good. Cleary the water-luck doesn't kick in immediately.
So, my pack feeling heavier by the minute, I hiked to the other side of town, to the otogar, to catch the bus - my predetermined "Plan B."
I had a Plan B because as much as I wanted to take the train, I'd heard they weren't so reliable. Why take the train in the first place? Because it actually goes to the airport.
The "airport bus" - depending on who you ask - drops you off anywhere from 1.5km to 5km from the airport.
I arrived breathless at the otogar, announced to the cluster of men standing around: "Izmir airport autobus, lutven." and they leapt into action. Before I could ask where it would drop me or if they really knew I meant the airport and not the city, they motioned for me to run after them, stopped a bus that was already backing into the parking lot, tossed my bag into the back, and pushed me onboard.
I relaxed a little when we turned in the direction of Izmir. The mini-bus was packed, and for once I really felt I was the only foreigner. To the last man (and woman), everyone else was unmistakably Turkish. The young conductor buzzed up and down the tiny aisle, writing-out tickets and inquiring about destinations. Everyone was headed somewhere different. But when I announced "Izmir AIRPORT" he nodded, smiled and charged me beş million lira. I felt more than a little reassured. He seemed to be well on top of things.
My fellow passengers (mostly men) were either going home - dropped off in little villages alongside the motorway (strange to think of a tiny town like Selcuk having suburbs, but I guess it does) or else they on their way to work - at factories and lumber yards just outside of town. But people nodded and smiled at me, watching out to make sure I was looked after. The conductor dutifully announced each impending stop to the appropriate passengers. It was a full-service dolmush, to be sure. (And since I'd expected to be on a train, I had no "bus expectations" to overcome.)
I felt even better when the airport control tower came into view. There were only a few people left on the bus at this point, and I still had two hours until my flight. Perfect.
Except that was weren't getting over to the outside lane. We weren't taking the airport exit. But that's OK. I'd been warned. Might be a few kilometers, even.
But we were still going. And the flip-side of that all-Turk/very-authentic bus experience is that real Turks riding real Turkish buses tend to speak Turkish. And "Hello, may I have two diet-cokes please?" wasn't really a phrase that was up to the current challenge.
I pointed and asked "Airport, evet?" And the conductor nodded, then one nice man, with a baby in his arms and his wife in the next seat over, explained in broken English that I should get off, cross the highway and take a taxi. The man behind him nodded. Two other men waved their fingers and indicated this was clearly the wrong thing to do. They then began to debate aggressively in Turkish, pointing back and forth between me and the dwindling airport control tower.
The conductor asked what time my flight left. I lied and said 8:00 (really it was 8:30). Instantly, a consensus was reached. The tension and urgency was relieved; everyone relaxed and decided I should stay on the bus. Apparently I had allowed more travel time than the average Turk could ever imagine.
The airport was miles away now, and would be growing even more distant if we hadn't just hit the bumper-to-bumper traffic of Izmir. The bus emptied completely. I was left alone with the ever-smiling conductor and the focused driver. I figured, worst case scenario, I could get off in Izmir and get an airport shuttle from there. Assuming there was one.
But just as I'd abandoned hope, the bus spun around, started heading back to Selçuk and thus, to the airport.
In the end they dropped me off at the side of the motorway where the man and his baby had suggested I disembark in the first place, and the whole 20-minute detour was just to keep me from having to cross the road with my bag. But I had the time, so it was fine.
Except that the taxi driver dropped me at the International Terminal - Even though I told him I was going to Istanbul (that's about as far as our idle-chatter got). Not a problem in most airports, and certainly not a little regional one like Izmir. Except that the domestic terminal is clear across the tarmac - and you have to walk all the way around the end of the runway – 500 meters.
So I do, and still arrive before any self-respecting Turk would show his face in the terminal for an 8:30 flight. All is well.
----
Ismir airport is nothing like Denizli – much larger, much more infrastructure, like a regional airport in the U.S. We ride out to our planes in shuttle busses, and squeezed up beside me is a little old European lady, stylishly dressed, joking broadly with several Turkish business men. In fact, nearly everyone on this flight seems like a business man. Unlike my chaotic flight from Amsterdam, loaded with families visiting friends (probably in Germany) and people who clearly don’t fly much, this is obviously a businessman’s commuter flight. Domestic air travel is still a novelty in Turkey, as most people take the night-buses. Only the rich or indulgent would fly. Two adjectives often ascribed to yours truly.
The Little Old Lady has switched to a heavily accented English, as have the business men. They ask how her Turkish can be so good, and she explains that she was Spain’s ambassador to Turkey in the 70’s. Now she’s just touring the country that she hasn’t been back to for 20 years. This draws a crowd within a crowd (we’re already jam-packed into the standing-room-only shuttle bus) as everyone asks the same question: how do you find Turkey now? Has it changed?
“Yes,” she says without hesitation, “I find it has changed very much for the better. I can hardly recognize it, and it is a country that I love.”
The men all smile contently. “We work very hard to improve Turkey.” one adds. “It is good that you can see this.”
Again, this notion of change. A desperation to be part of the “first world” – a need to be seen as improving, as modernizing.
----
I sit beside two large businessmen in suits and ties. But they still order their Pepsi without hesitation. It’s a short flight (less than an hour) so the flight crew bustles along the aisle, trying to get the cheese sandwiches served before our descent begins.
But they’re being hampered by a woman tele-journalist - all blonde hair and a turquoise blue pants-suit – and her tag-along cameraman wielding a Sony DSR PD-150 with a massive boom microphone as big as the camera. The sterilizing sun-gun light fires up and they begin an in-flight interview a few rows behind me. At first I think it might be the convivial Spanish ambassador, praising even rural Turkey’s march of progress, but when I crane my neck up and look back, I can see it’s just another heavy-set business man. He doesn’t seem to be cooperating.
The camera crew heads back to first class, squeezing past the stewardess. It’s astonishing how quickly her accommodating smile morphs into icy derision the moment they pass. She complains in Turkish to man beside me.
She asks me what I’d like to drink, and while I order in Turkish, I ask for water, clearly giving up the ruse of my local allegiance.
Again the camera crew presses their way back. Again the stewardess smiles and then shoots daggers. She tosses the last of the cheese sandwiches to the row behind as the captain announces our imminent arrival in Istanbul.
Beneath us, the pitch black of the Sea of Marmara.
----
When we land, there’s no clapping, no celebration. No sense of novelty or relief. Just the work-a-day sighs of business men returned home. The only shocking behavior I witness just as the jammed stream of passengers finally begins to move towards the cabin door – several men pick up their airline-provided blankets, press them to their faces, and deposit as much mucus as humanly possible in as noisy a manner as I’ve ever seen.
And I’ve been told in Turkey it’s considered rude to blow one’s nose in public.
Some weary traveler is going to snuggle up to that blanket tomorrow. I only hope they’re laundered after each flight.
----
As I step off the plane, a mass of reporters clog the jetway – holding up mock chauffer signs greeting the apparently infamous passenger. I spot the camera-crew from the plane strut by, the Blonde-and-Turquoise reporter’s head held smugly aloft – clearly she’s got the scoop on everyone else. Whatever it is.
While waiting amongst the suits for my backpack (not hard to spot amongst the garment backs and roll-aways), there’s a commotion behind me and the phalanx of paparazzi crashes through the crowds like a swarm of fire-flies – buzzing about in the strobes of camera flashes and sunguns.
At the center, the fat man from the plane, his hands together before him, a white towel thrown over what can only be handcuffs beneath.
So I’m left to wonder, what infamous ne’er-do-well was seated behind me. Presumably the Turkish Kenneth Lay. Some white-collar criminal coming to Istanbul for a hearing?
----
The next morning at K’s conference breakfast, it seems several people notices a strange story on the local tv news, involving a man with a white towel over his hands being hustled from the airport.
Sadly, none of these people spoke Turkish, so we have no idea who he was.
I don’t ask why they were watching an incomprehensible news program to begin with. I’m just glad to bask in the semi-celebrity this coincidence brings me. “Hey,” they say, “K’s husband was on that flight with the criminal from TV!!!”
Finally, some recognition.
|
Pressure.
I managed to scribble a few things down, then observed that my train would be leaving in 30 minutes, and I still had to hike down to the other side of town. Oya was cooking the evening meal, dashing back and forth from the kitchen to wish me goodbye again and again and again. "Oh Jesus - good bye. I pray for you good trip. Oh Jesus. You are my brother. I will lose my brother. Oh my Jesus."
A pot of cooking water still in Oya’s hand, she led the others as they followed me down the four flights of stairs, from the roof terrace to the street.
Again, more goodbyes. More sweet Jesus. And then I realized, the pot of water was for me. "I am so sad for you to go. Go, and I will pray for you and miss you and oh Jesus, etc, etc, etc." And then she reminded me of the Turkish custom, which I'd heard of but never seen, that throwing water behind someone departing on a trip will bring them good luck and a safe passage. (I think at some hotels this has become the equivalent of the lei in Hawaii, and it's now just part of the check-out ritual: pay bill, tip bell-boy, have water thrown at you) but I'd seen about 20 people come and go at the pension, and no-one had water hurled after them.
So, I turned and started to leave (the tossing must be at your back). Sam pragmatically suggested I walk very fast, so as not to be soaked. I heard the water splash down on the cobblestones behind me and turned to wave a last farewell.
It was such a warm send-off, I bounced down the hill towards town – and when I looked back as I turned the corner, they were all still standing there waving good-bye. 40 pounds of backpack weighing me down, but felt I could walk happily for miles.
And I did walk for about a kilometer, to get to the train station. Bending down to peer through the tiny little ticket window (for some reason set waist-high), I spotted my friendly conductor sitting exactly as he was 7 hours before. "Merhaba."
"Merhaba." he responded cheerfully.
"Five thirty train to Izmir airport? Bir tani bilet, lütven." (I'm getting quite brazen in my use of Turkish.) I didn't really expect the agent to get up and toss water after my train, but I certainly didn't expect him to say, "Sorry. Train late."
Fortunately, I'd factored in an extra hour for just such a snag. “Oh. How late?” I asked.
"Maybe come by 7:45."
My flight leaves at 8:30. Not good. Cleary the water-luck doesn't kick in immediately.
So, my pack feeling heavier by the minute, I hiked to the other side of town, to the otogar, to catch the bus - my predetermined "Plan B."
I had a Plan B because as much as I wanted to take the train, I'd heard they weren't so reliable. Why take the train in the first place? Because it actually goes to the airport.
The "airport bus" - depending on who you ask - drops you off anywhere from 1.5km to 5km from the airport.
I arrived breathless at the otogar, announced to the cluster of men standing around: "Izmir airport autobus, lutven." and they leapt into action. Before I could ask where it would drop me or if they really knew I meant the airport and not the city, they motioned for me to run after them, stopped a bus that was already backing into the parking lot, tossed my bag into the back, and pushed me onboard.
I relaxed a little when we turned in the direction of Izmir. The mini-bus was packed, and for once I really felt I was the only foreigner. To the last man (and woman), everyone else was unmistakably Turkish. The young conductor buzzed up and down the tiny aisle, writing-out tickets and inquiring about destinations. Everyone was headed somewhere different. But when I announced "Izmir AIRPORT" he nodded, smiled and charged me beş million lira. I felt more than a little reassured. He seemed to be well on top of things.
My fellow passengers (mostly men) were either going home - dropped off in little villages alongside the motorway (strange to think of a tiny town like Selcuk having suburbs, but I guess it does) or else they on their way to work - at factories and lumber yards just outside of town. But people nodded and smiled at me, watching out to make sure I was looked after. The conductor dutifully announced each impending stop to the appropriate passengers. It was a full-service dolmush, to be sure. (And since I'd expected to be on a train, I had no "bus expectations" to overcome.)
I felt even better when the airport control tower came into view. There were only a few people left on the bus at this point, and I still had two hours until my flight. Perfect.
Except that was weren't getting over to the outside lane. We weren't taking the airport exit. But that's OK. I'd been warned. Might be a few kilometers, even.
But we were still going. And the flip-side of that all-Turk/very-authentic bus experience is that real Turks riding real Turkish buses tend to speak Turkish. And "Hello, may I have two diet-cokes please?" wasn't really a phrase that was up to the current challenge.
I pointed and asked "Airport, evet?" And the conductor nodded, then one nice man, with a baby in his arms and his wife in the next seat over, explained in broken English that I should get off, cross the highway and take a taxi. The man behind him nodded. Two other men waved their fingers and indicated this was clearly the wrong thing to do. They then began to debate aggressively in Turkish, pointing back and forth between me and the dwindling airport control tower.
The conductor asked what time my flight left. I lied and said 8:00 (really it was 8:30). Instantly, a consensus was reached. The tension and urgency was relieved; everyone relaxed and decided I should stay on the bus. Apparently I had allowed more travel time than the average Turk could ever imagine.
The airport was miles away now, and would be growing even more distant if we hadn't just hit the bumper-to-bumper traffic of Izmir. The bus emptied completely. I was left alone with the ever-smiling conductor and the focused driver. I figured, worst case scenario, I could get off in Izmir and get an airport shuttle from there. Assuming there was one.
But just as I'd abandoned hope, the bus spun around, started heading back to Selçuk and thus, to the airport.
In the end they dropped me off at the side of the motorway where the man and his baby had suggested I disembark in the first place, and the whole 20-minute detour was just to keep me from having to cross the road with my bag. But I had the time, so it was fine.
Except that the taxi driver dropped me at the International Terminal - Even though I told him I was going to Istanbul (that's about as far as our idle-chatter got). Not a problem in most airports, and certainly not a little regional one like Izmir. Except that the domestic terminal is clear across the tarmac - and you have to walk all the way around the end of the runway – 500 meters.
So I do, and still arrive before any self-respecting Turk would show his face in the terminal for an 8:30 flight. All is well.
----
Ismir airport is nothing like Denizli – much larger, much more infrastructure, like a regional airport in the U.S. We ride out to our planes in shuttle busses, and squeezed up beside me is a little old European lady, stylishly dressed, joking broadly with several Turkish business men. In fact, nearly everyone on this flight seems like a business man. Unlike my chaotic flight from Amsterdam, loaded with families visiting friends (probably in Germany) and people who clearly don’t fly much, this is obviously a businessman’s commuter flight. Domestic air travel is still a novelty in Turkey, as most people take the night-buses. Only the rich or indulgent would fly. Two adjectives often ascribed to yours truly.
The Little Old Lady has switched to a heavily accented English, as have the business men. They ask how her Turkish can be so good, and she explains that she was Spain’s ambassador to Turkey in the 70’s. Now she’s just touring the country that she hasn’t been back to for 20 years. This draws a crowd within a crowd (we’re already jam-packed into the standing-room-only shuttle bus) as everyone asks the same question: how do you find Turkey now? Has it changed?
“Yes,” she says without hesitation, “I find it has changed very much for the better. I can hardly recognize it, and it is a country that I love.”
The men all smile contently. “We work very hard to improve Turkey.” one adds. “It is good that you can see this.”
Again, this notion of change. A desperation to be part of the “first world” – a need to be seen as improving, as modernizing.
----
I sit beside two large businessmen in suits and ties. But they still order their Pepsi without hesitation. It’s a short flight (less than an hour) so the flight crew bustles along the aisle, trying to get the cheese sandwiches served before our descent begins.
But they’re being hampered by a woman tele-journalist - all blonde hair and a turquoise blue pants-suit – and her tag-along cameraman wielding a Sony DSR PD-150 with a massive boom microphone as big as the camera. The sterilizing sun-gun light fires up and they begin an in-flight interview a few rows behind me. At first I think it might be the convivial Spanish ambassador, praising even rural Turkey’s march of progress, but when I crane my neck up and look back, I can see it’s just another heavy-set business man. He doesn’t seem to be cooperating.
The camera crew heads back to first class, squeezing past the stewardess. It’s astonishing how quickly her accommodating smile morphs into icy derision the moment they pass. She complains in Turkish to man beside me.
She asks me what I’d like to drink, and while I order in Turkish, I ask for water, clearly giving up the ruse of my local allegiance.
Again the camera crew presses their way back. Again the stewardess smiles and then shoots daggers. She tosses the last of the cheese sandwiches to the row behind as the captain announces our imminent arrival in Istanbul.
Beneath us, the pitch black of the Sea of Marmara.
----
When we land, there’s no clapping, no celebration. No sense of novelty or relief. Just the work-a-day sighs of business men returned home. The only shocking behavior I witness just as the jammed stream of passengers finally begins to move towards the cabin door – several men pick up their airline-provided blankets, press them to their faces, and deposit as much mucus as humanly possible in as noisy a manner as I’ve ever seen.
And I’ve been told in Turkey it’s considered rude to blow one’s nose in public.
Some weary traveler is going to snuggle up to that blanket tomorrow. I only hope they’re laundered after each flight.
----
As I step off the plane, a mass of reporters clog the jetway – holding up mock chauffer signs greeting the apparently infamous passenger. I spot the camera-crew from the plane strut by, the Blonde-and-Turquoise reporter’s head held smugly aloft – clearly she’s got the scoop on everyone else. Whatever it is.
While waiting amongst the suits for my backpack (not hard to spot amongst the garment backs and roll-aways), there’s a commotion behind me and the phalanx of paparazzi crashes through the crowds like a swarm of fire-flies – buzzing about in the strobes of camera flashes and sunguns.
At the center, the fat man from the plane, his hands together before him, a white towel thrown over what can only be handcuffs beneath.
So I’m left to wonder, what infamous ne’er-do-well was seated behind me. Presumably the Turkish Kenneth Lay. Some white-collar criminal coming to Istanbul for a hearing?
----
The next morning at K’s conference breakfast, it seems several people notices a strange story on the local tv news, involving a man with a white towel over his hands being hustled from the airport.
Sadly, none of these people spoke Turkish, so we have no idea who he was.
I don’t ask why they were watching an incomprehensible news program to begin with. I’m just glad to bask in the semi-celebrity this coincidence brings me. “Hey,” they say, “K’s husband was on that flight with the criminal from TV!!!”
Finally, some recognition.
|
