Now on TheAmericanEffect.blogspot.com
I took a 12 hour bus to Antalya on the south coast, starting at 11:00 pm. I forgot my neck inflatable pillow in my checked bag and got stuck in an aisle seat with no comfortable place to put my head. It was not a good night. At least on Turkish buses they give you all the free plastic pudding cup sized waters that you want and an occasional snack (chocolate cake). I stayed in a hostel that was more café/travel agency than hostel. I didn’t really care for Antalya either. There were a bunch of pay beaches and nice looking water and lots of sun. That is about it.
I should mention here the popularity of ex-president, Mustafa Ataturk in Turkey. There are tributes to him all over and he is on all the money. You get the feeling he is genuinely loved when you see all the books about him, the trinkets with his likeness, and so on. I looked into his history and then I understood. He was a visionary with the drive and nerve to do things that others thought were crazy. For instance, he abolished all religious laws and established a secular government, he gave equal rights to women, he had the Turkish alphabet changed from difficult Arabic script to Latin letters (allowing people to easily learn to read in a few months), changed the Turkish language from being 80 percent Arabic words to newly invented Turkish words. And the most amazing thing is the time frame in which he did these things. Changing the alphabet happened in only five months. He is a man that deserves respect.
A visit to Istanbul would not be complete without going to a hammam, a traditional Turkish bath. I went to a 300-year-old hammam that is featured in the book One Thousand Places to See Before You Die. All sorts of famous people from Tony Curtis to Omar Sharif have been to this one. I changed into a waist cloth and awkward wooden sandals and was led to a large magnificent marble room with a huge heated marble platform in the middle. The columns, arches, and dome with its star shaped holes for light exuded history. I was alone, laying on the slab, sweating and listening to the quiet hiss of steam and the dripping of water. It was serene and otherworldly. For ten minutes... then came the burly, unshaved, half naked Turkish guy that tried with all his weight to smash me into the marble slab. He twisted and popped things that I had no idea could pop. He was merciless. The unforgiving stone allowed for a deep tissue massage that reached the tissue on my opposite side. I have never been so happy to have a massage end. He took me over to one of the marble basins on the side and proceeded to aggressively scrub my skin off. Literally, he was removing copious amounts of skin that balled up and stuck to my body hair. Then came the body shampoo. He was not shy and only barely avoided my more personal parts. He washed off the thick coat of foam by dipping a bowl in the basin and repeatedly dumping it over my head. He left me to relax on the slab again and peace returned. Sure I felt like roadkill, but a very relaxed roadkill. After a recovery period, I visited the "hot" room. I made the mistake of stepping out of my sandals briefly and almost scorched my feet on the floor. It took me a few minutes to be able to sit on the blisteringly hot bench. The hot room was aptly named. I stayed for a few minutes and returned to the serenity of the slab. When I finally left, it was reluctantly on several counts; it was a wonderful relaxing place to be and my body did not want to exert the energy required to walk.
The hidden cistern in Istanbul is a perfect place to go when you are the at your most hot and sweaty. An inconspicuous little building off a busy intersection leads down to a giant underground cistern (water storage cavern) with an elevated walkway through the 336 columns that hold up the street and buildings above. It covers about 100,000 sq ft (9,000sq m) and is a delightfully peaceful, cool, and dark place that is a heavenly respite from the hustle, bustle, and heat above. In the back there are a couple giant Medusa heads taken from somewhere and intentionally installed one upside down and one on its side. They do not know why. The water is riddled with goldfish, some are enormous and obese.
Apparently, there were some scenes from a James Bond movie filmed here, but I do not remember which one.
