It was not the last time I would hear this question.
When I informed the guy who takes care of our swimming pool for
us that we were going to Turkey, his immediate reaction was,
“Why?”
I got it.
At this juncture in history, there is a life-threatening
illness emanating from West Africa – nowhere close to Turkey but considerably
closer to Turkey than it is to Santa Monica.
(My darling comedy writer daughter’s inevitable first question upon our
return: “Welcome home Dad. Do you have Ebola?”)
Underscoring this prevailing and not entirely unreasonable
query, towards the end of the trip when I bought an “Istanbul” t-shirt – for which I totally discombobulated the vendor
by bargaining him “up.” But more on that
later – the purchased t-shirt was slipped into a plastic bag decorated with
colorful graphics featuring some of the most famous tourist attractions of the
world – the Eiffel Tower, The Statue of Liberty, The Leaning Tower of Pisa, “Big
Ben.”
None of them, you will notice, are of tourist attractions in
Turkey.
So once again brings up the question,
“Why?”
Okay, so here’s how it started.
A few months ago, we get a call from a couple we really like
– Joan and David – who live in Berkeley, California. (We had met them a few years earlier at the
fitness place we go to in Mexico. These
are the only new friends I have made in thirty-five years, which makes them inexpressibly
special.)
They tell us they are getting a group of people together
(which turns out ultimately to be seven, including Joan an David) to rent a seventy-foot-long
motorized sailboat, in which, in the company of a professional tour guide, we
would explore the southwest coastline of Turkey, following a couple of days
visiting points of interest in Istanbul.
(Important Note: We
would not have to pilot the boat ourselves.
There would be a captain and a four-person crew handling the nautical
duties, as well as providing three meals
a day, plus an afternoon snack.)
Upon hearing this invitation, we immediately replied,
“Yes!”
Returning us again to the as yet unresponded to question,
“Why?”
A question it turned out that was not only of interest to
caring acquaintances concerned with our wellbeing and safety but also to Joan
who had invited us in the first place and who apparently harbored a nagging
curiosity as to why we had said, “Yes!” (Memo
from the “Self-Doubt Department.” Did
she secretly want us to say “No”?)
My response was simple and direct.
“We said ‘Yes’ because it’s you. And because it seemed like it might be
interesting.”
(Though we have enjoyed many trips in the interim, our last
actual “adventure vacation” was a photographic safari to Kenya in 1981. So another answer to “Why?” might be that we
wondered if still had an adventure of this magnitude in us. People of advancing
years sometimes like to test themselves, to determine what they’ve still got left
in the tank. File that under
“Parenthetical Conjecture.”)
As it turns out, Turkey of late has become a highly popular
tourist destination, as confirmed by our monumentally knowledgeable tour guide,
Serhan (pronounced, as we were
immediately educated, Sarhan (“I am
not the guy who killed Bobby Kennedy.”)
Serhan reported that in the past quarter of a century,
Turkey had jumped on the list of “Most Popular Tourist Destinations” from
“Number Forty” to “Number Six” – behind only France, the U.S., China, Italy and
Spain.
Turkey had apparently become the “gluten free” of travel
destinations. Everybody was suddenly –
and inexplicably – into it. I personally
knew of four couples who had recently been there. And I
hardly know anyone.
We read out loud to each other numerous books on Turkish
history and venues of interest. (I cannot
say this for a certainty but I believe that, having forgotten we had already
read it, we inadvertently read one of those history books twice! Ah, declining mental
capacities!)
I also read a Turkish novel called The Time Regulation Institute by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, which I enthusiastically
recommend. And I barely ever read novels. (This means either that this is an
exceptional example of the form or that, due to the infrequency of my novel
reading, I have no idea what I’m talking about.)
Prepared and more than amply provisioned, we were totally ready
to depart.
About a month before we actually left.
And when it was finally time,
We were really
ready to go.
I will not go into it again, but – the fast version –
because of our insistence on upgrading via our air miles to “Business Class” to
avoid being crippled by the time we landed by a journey of close to seven
thousand miles, combined with the airlines’ insistence on controlling when we were permitted to receive that upgrade, our ten-day
itinerary ballooned into an eighteen-day excursion, including a return-flight arrangement
that would take us three days to get home, which, I will remind you, is two days
longer than it took Lindbergh to fly to Paris.
Suddenly – if you can call a day and a half’s travel
“suddenly” – I found myself wandering half-dazed through Ataturk Airport in Istanbul.
I spotted Dr. M rounding the baggage carousel wheeling her obscenely
over-packed suitcase behind her. (Her bloated
bag bore the contours of the gluttonous “Fat Diner” just before he burst to
pieces in the Monty Python movie.) (And we hadn't bought anything yet!)
There is a palpable sense of relief traveling long distances
and discovering that your luggage has completed the journey with you. Unfortunately, I did not experience that that
emotion, as my suitcase had been left
behind during a recent stopover in London.
It took everything I had not to identify this as a
signifying omen. Although I was unable
to expunge the fear of wearing the same pair of underwear for the next eighteen
days.
Fortunately, my abandoned suitcase was delivered to our
hotel the following morning. You could
tell it had been traumatically shaken.
(MY SUITCASE, TEARFULLY, TO DR. M’S MATCHING COUNTERPART)
“You left me!”
In short order, however, I forgot about my bag’s (possibly
long-term) psychological difficulties and I turned my attention to Turkey.
SEMI-SPOILER ALERT:
It was really something.
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