Greetings from  Fethiye Turkey,

As often mentioned in previous postcards, I always buy two seats on the long distance buses. A 20 hour trip from Urfa to Fethiye definitely qualifies as long distance. In the past I've just asked for two adult tickets and paid the full fair. This time I asked if there might be a reduction for a child's ticket. There is, but we had a hard time deciding how old a kid my bag should be considered. In the end the ticket agent just gave me a discount off the full adult fare; I paid 85TL plus 60TL for the unused seat to hold my bag. Now why didn't I think of that earlier?

Leaving Urfa at 14:00 most of the trip proceeded in the dark through the night and I dozed between bouts of kids screaming in the seat in front of me. A young mother tried to comfort a tiny infant and her eighteen month old daughter without much success. Across the isle sat a young couple, both of whom loved to play with fidgeting tots much to the relief of the harassed mother. During one of the operations to pass the baby around among the three adult care takers, the young man sitting in the isle seat in the row ahead just off to my right turned and commented in English on his assumed role as surrogate father... presuming I likely spoke English. "If these kids ever fall asleep, I'd like to talk to you." he added.

Alan turned out to be a Syrian refugee and spoke excellent English as well as Kurdish, some Turkish and Arabic. On the run to avoid military conscription by a government few in the Kurdish community love, he freely shared his views about the civil unrest in his birth country which has never recognized his Kurdish identity and continues to marginalize that community. Intelligent and articulate, he worries about being called up for the draft when he turns 24 next year. His half sister travels under his protection as required by Islamic law. His parents remained behind in their home located in the north-eastern Kurdish part of the country despite imminent danger from military attacks, but encouraged him to leave the country out of harm's way. Well dressed and well educated, he carried an expensive high end laptop from which I deduced his family might be fairly well off. After all the news stories about the flood of Syrian refugees invading surrounding countries and the pathetic television images of so many struggling people, I found it refreshing to meet at least two refugees who had the sense and the means to leave before the problems became impossible.

Through the night between his baby sitting duties we had several thoughtful conversations. I asked about his knowledge of the civil strife in Syria and the likely outcome and he grilled me for my views on world religions, he himself being a non-practicing Muslim with atheistic leanings. Alan thinks the situation is hopeless and that Assad is unlikely to be ousted anytime soon, the many oppositions groups having as much disagreement with one another as with the dictatorship in power. The bus left SanliUrfa at 14:00 and arrived the next day in Fethiye at 09:00, long before Alan and I had resolved any of the issues discussed. We parted that Saturday morning promising to stay in touch... and I to record our encounter in one of my postcards (this one).

This is my second visit to the ocean side town of Fethiye with its huge yacht harbor and year around holiday atmosphere so much like my old home town, Santa Barbara. The surrounding mountains this time of year have snow covered peaks adding to the unique character of this vacation destination. Many Britains have immigrated to the city in order to take advantage of inexpensive real-estate opportunities, something which became obvious while eavesdropping on grocery store conversations.

The earlier trip back in 2001 allowed me to write about experiences which on re-reading prompted this return visit. But, now I better understand the old saying: "You can never go back." The sleepy little village of my memory is no more. So many of us wrote such nice things about this tiny hide away it has not remained the secret treasure of a privileged few. No longer do turtle doves compete with roosters to be our un-amplified alarm clocks as the muezzins call the faithful to prayer using lung power alone. Amplified calls from the few original minarets now reach even the power sailboats anchored far out in the harbor. Thankfully, there still are so few muezzins competing with one another their individual calls can be distinguished... unlike the cacophony of yelling that sounds like a cheering ball game crowd heard in Urfa as dozens of muezzins raised their amplified voices to the castle heights.

A highlight of that 2001 visit became a motive for this return. Many warm memories of my times in and around the Hotel Mara exaggerated my expectations. So naturally, on arrival in the city I dashed over to the Mara Hotel. Unfortunately, nostalgia had colored my memory and today the hotel is mere shadow of what I remember twelve years ago. Still, I checked in and prepaid for two nights in order to allow time for a more leisurely re-familiarization of the older, colorful area around it. There has been frantic development of the tourist infrastructure during the past decade and now many excellent value hotels line the harbor area a short distance from the old Mara.

As usual, I spent the first few days hotel shopping and made a wonderful discovery: the 120TL four star Alesta Yacht Hotel not far from tourist infrastructure comparable to Santa Barbara a couple decades ago. There are so many charming cafes it would take the rest of the Winter to try them all! While I don't expect to be here that long, I will hunker down for an extended stay in this ideal hotel with excellent WiFi and hard wired terminal Internet and try to catch up on some neglected work.

The Alesta Yacht Hotel, managed by 39 year old Ms. Cigdem sits a few yards from where endless rows of extravagant yachts lay tied up to a walled harbor, providing a pleasant view from anywhere at the front of the hotel. As the breakfast fare at the Mara failed to make me happy, the first thing I wanted to see at the Alesta would be the dining area. So, up the elevator the bellman took me to the top floor where a bright room surrounded by big windows awaited... briefly interrupting a private Sunday Brunch party in progress! After that quick look down I went to enter the rate negotiations. The charming and congenial receptionist, 24 year old Hatice listened to my explanation of extended travel requiring careful budget planning and my expectation of many days in her hotel. "Take a look at the room first," she encouraged "and then we can discuss the room rate."

I think all receptionists must read the same negotiation manual as that ploy is so common. The room clearly had been designed by professionals and the building recently constructed, modern and decorated in good taste. Back down at the reception desk I proposed she check with her manager to see if 100TL and a minimum stay of at least three nights might be acceptable. She pointed out the hotel is still new having been built only two years earlier and that the 120TL rate she had offered was already well below the posted 170TL rack rate, but excused herself and stepped into the adjacent office returning shortly with the verdict: 100TL (equivalent to $56) would be fine her manager decided. The normal single walk-in rate of $67 during the Winter season is already an excellent value, especially considering the unbelievably rich selection of foods in the included breakfast buffet... and the unusually attentive and thoughtful service of the staff. On two occasions while working at the Internet terminal in the lobby someone brought me an unsolicited cup of coffee! ... and a smile. (Note: Spring and Summer rates all over Fethiye jump 50% to 100% in most hotels.)

Yesterday morning while enjoying my fourth cup of breakfast coffee in the fifth floor dining room surrounded by a wall of glass, a violent wind storm revealed what must have been an intentional design feature of the building: wind pipes. I say designed because the musical sounds being made by the wind blowing over open pipes somewhere reverberated throughout the dining room and by design or accident were tuned to produce varying harmonies in a single key... just like the wind chimes hanging over my patio back home. The brief storm of gusting air produced melodious sounds punctuated by the crashing accents of balcony furniture falling over like snare drums and a huge tarp being ripped from a covered structure that sounded like kettle drums, all adding a dramatic element to the wind ensemble performance, a truly unforgettable impromptu concert orchestrated by Mother Nature! Most visits to the roof level dining room are more peaceful with soothing Western background music interspersed with soothing silence... and the vast panorama of nautical vistas singing for attention.

With a large screen computer connected to the Internet available in the lobby, I spent a lot of time working there between using my tiny netbook in the room. The large screen made organizing photos more convenient. Fortunately, with so few guests in the hotel right now hardly anyone uses the lobby computer so I had it pretty much to myself. The hotel's technology manager, Saban got the QWERTY keyboard translator working for me eliminating the need to use brain contortions every time a word contained the letter "i" needed to by typed.

The Alesta Hotel sits less than a city block from the old Telmessos Amphitheater discovered by archeologists shortly before my previous visit to the city in 2001. Since then it has been the site of a new park development with continual archeological excavation work along side the new infrastructure work. Now surrounded by a two meter high construction fence, access to the ruins themselves is restricted to archeologists and their students. One group of college age people dressed for the campus and carrying clipboards and tape measures hovered around one of the partially exposed stone block walls recording measurements. Hundreds of large stone blocks lay in ordered rows out in front of the excavation area, all marked with identifying labels for eventual reassembly into the restored amphitheater. While restoration is a huge undertaking, I marveled at the effort which must have been expended to create the original structure without the aid of power equipment.

Naturally I had to revisit the old Lycian Rock Tombs I'd seen during my earlier visit to the city. High on the cliff above the southern edge of the city surrounded by neighborhoods of old stone dwellings hangs the iconic tomb chamber looking for all the world like the face of a temple. The image of this particular tomb became the symbol for the modern city of Fethiye. It is amazing how much steeper is the trail up to the area of the tombs today compared to my experience twelve years ago at the young age of 66. There must have been an earth upheaval during the intervening years. Surely there could not have been so much deterioration in my personal stamina in a mere twelve years! On the way back down the many flights of stone stairs I briefly became dizzy. With increasingly brittle bones I know falling is no minor matter and cautiously maneuvered the rest of the way down, resolving to reassess plans for future adventurous escapades... possibly aided by one of those fancy carved canes?

Two of my favorite things to do in a new city are riding city buses and people watching from the elevated dining rooms found in most Mac Donald's and Burger King restaurants: cheap and satisfying. Both these activities have the added virtue of providing an opportunity to rest between my still lengthy hikes of exploration... although now taken at an increasingly slower pace... more like strolling with frequent pauses to soak up the ambiance. Lately I've noticed a good many local wrinkled ones doing the same thing. ... must be a characteristic of acquiring wisdom, you think?

Somewhere between Iraq and here my little netbook became infected with a deadly virus. The first symptoms were a slowing of performance and unusual index searching activity. Checking the firewall I discovered the "do not allow exceptions" block unchecked and promptly fixed that. Performance improved, but off and on slowed again.

Then a week later while in the Mara Hotel in Fethiye I suffered a bout of stupidity: a couple email messages, apparently from a good friend with no text and only provocative website links peaked my curiosity and I clicked on one of them. It took me to an innocuous looking site promoting health foods, perfectly consistent with my friend's natural life style. The next time I started the computer it hardly crawled toward the expected display and I decided to restore the system to an earlier time when everything had been working properly. BUT, all of the old restore points before two days earlier in the Mara Hotel were gone! Befuddled and suspicious I selected the earliest restore point available and waited.

When the machine automatically shut down and started to reboot, the blue screen of death popped up and nothing I had been trained to do would allow me to recover a working system. The <F8> screen permitted an analysis of the failure: UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME! The hard drive had been corrupted beyond ordinary repair. Saban, the competent hotel technology manager and I tried several recovery tactics including the use of Hiren's BootCD, a mini-WindowsXP utility with a reputation for rescuing files on corrupted drives, but nothing worked. Resigned to loosing a few un-backed up folders containing photos, I executed the factory restore feature built into the Acer AspireOne netbook. That worked flawlessly and a few hours later, thanks to backup copies of important files stored on a thumb drive, almost everything returned to normal. Amazing, this technology.

Back in 2001 I remember commenting on sleeping dogs seen around the city. There still are lots of dogs and still frequently sleeping! However, I've heard not a single one of them barking or making any kind of sound around the waterfront. During my walks out into the rural areas I did hear dogs barking, but none in the city. Curious, I started asking locals why that might be. The answers included: "We love our pets and treat them lovingly." or "I guess there is nothing to bark at here in peaceful Fethiye." or just "I hadn't noticed."

With none of the answers satisfying my wonderment I went to the Internet to see if others had noticed the phenomenon. According to a story in the local paper, last century barking dogs became an issue in the city and ordinances eventually were passed requiring pet owners to keep their animals quiet so as not to disturb their neighbors. About the same time a group of animal lovers organized a pet rescue program with the financial support of European donors. Over the years the program originally started by Perihan Agnelli evolved into the formal Neuter & Return Program where stray animals were picked up and neutered before being returned to where they had been found.

Neutering for male dogs involved castration which naturally reduced the animal's aggressive nature... and barking! Now, twenty years into the program there are a lot of very quiet canines in Fethiye. The local N&RP program gained national notoriety and is now considered a pilot project for possible national adoption. Not all dogs have been neutered, of course. In fact, during the early morning walk around 8AM over to the otogar (bus station) on my last day in the city I heard many of the pooches reestablishing their territories and greeting one another. By 9AM all became quiet again, though.

Turkish people like their tea sweet and apparently highly diluted because most people take perhaps a quarter glass of the actual brewed tea and then top off the glass with hot water before adding two, three or more lumps of sugar. The just filled glass is always too hot to hold so people sip while gingerly holding the cooler rim of the glass briefly before sitting it down between sips. When asked why the odd shape of the glass I got a variety of answers: "It is just custom.", "It is shaped like the figure of a woman making it more interesting to hold.", "I haven't the slightest idea! That's a good question." Whatever the actual reason, that tulip shaped glass is used everywhere in Turkey I've traveled.

Getting a haircut remains a problem for men wearing their hair anyway but short. However, many Fethiye youth have embraced a modern outlook on fashion and more than a few male heads sport abundant bushes. So, I started looking for a hair dresser shop that might be willing to take care of men with shaggy manes. Sheepishly I loitered around several shops to see if any had male clients, without success. Then, at the last one checked and about to walk on, one of the women inside motioned for me to come in. Gingerly I stepped inside the ten chair shop and waited while a minor commotion broke out among the hair dressers and clients. At last, a male barber appeared, alerted by calls from the ladies and motioned for me to sit down in his chair. With gestures we established my desire for "just a little" off the sides and back. His technique varied somewhat from what I've seen in America, but he got the job done adequately and I paid my 15TL plus 1TL tip and left a happy, less shaggy man.

Local walking groups use the sidewalk around the harbor just as we did in Santa Barbara. It really does feel like home in a way. Being next to that big Mediterranean heat sink, Fethiye is supposed to be warmer than further inland. In reality it is still darned cold here. What clothes I carry have been enough to prevent a premature death from exposure, but not enough to interfere with the enjoyment of being inside a warm cozy cavity somewhere.

I've given up on trying to make any sense out of the Shutterfly slide show service, so you will have to visit my website for the pictures taken during this episode. As for the Merry Christmas thing, it passed pretty much unnoticed in this part of the world; I heard not a single carol on the long bus ride out of Iraq on Christmas day!  I'll soon be heading further north, possibly to Izmir or Bursa. Until I again pause near an Internet access point,

 

Peace,

Fred L Bellomy

PS: 18 January 2013
In September 1955 after three years of intentionally enriched and extended study at two different junior colleges I headed north to UCB for a professional university education. My noteworthy accumulation of worldly goods consisted of a snazzy 1950 Nash Rambler with it's fold down seat converting into a bed, a cracked Gibson guitar and what money I'd managed to save while working as a draftsman during the summer. On the way a piston in the car's engine came loose and only by driving at exactly 44 mph could I keep the engine from shaking itself into oblivion. As the highway passed through a central California town notorious for its speed traps one of the town's cops stopped me for exceeding the posted 30mph limit and issued an expensive citation.

With careful adjustments I managed to resume the journey north by either creeping or holding to the precise vibration free speed. Late that evening the engine finally  burped loudly and jerked to a stop on the freeway just outside the Berkeley city limits. A CHP cop pushed my dead car off the freeway and into a dark gas station parking area where I lingered licking my wounds, finally folding the passenger seat down into a bed and falling asleep.

On awakening the next morning I hitchhiked over to the UCB campus to confirm my semester reservations for room and board at the International House on campus. All of the official offices remained closed this Sunday morning and the weekend reception people could find nothing in their records indicating I had a room reserved! The day before the semester registration begins is no time to be looking for a room to rent near a major university campus so I wandered the area pondering my dismal options.

Across the street opposite the I-House an old man shuffled along the sidewalk aided by crutches, every step seeming to require enormous determination. The sight of the old guy making such an effort to defy decrepitude made me realize just how small my own "big" problems actually were. In a couple minutes we were side by side and I decided to cheer myself up by saying something kind to the old fellow. It turned out he lived in a house a short distance down the block and daily tried to get some exercise by walking a little, "On doctor's orders!" he nonchalantly shrugged.

A half a block later he paused his slow shuffle and nodded at a huge mansion to our left and added: "This is where I get off." grinning mischievously.  My good Boy Scout deed for the day completed I smiled and said "goodbye," but before I could take a step he noted we had not finished our conversation. Clearly the old guy wanted to talk more. So I lingered and answered his questions about my academic plans while he interjected tidbits about his situation.

Now long retired from teaching, Professor Charles Albert Noble, not related to Alfred Nobel of TNT fame, lived comfortably on a University pension plus investment income in a house now much too large for someone living alone... even with the full time help of a live-in housekeeper-cook and a gardener-chauffeur. To keep the big empty house from going to waste he regularly let a few students have the unused bedrooms for a semester. He concluded by noting how much he enjoyed talking with young people and asked if I would like to come back that afternoon for a drink. The ambiguity of the situation intrigued me and I promised to join him at his suggested time after spending the morning earnestly looking for someplace to call home for the coming school year.

When I returned to the big mansion that afternoon the housekeeper, a severe lady almost as old as the professor, stiffly led me into his dimly lit book lined study where I met a rough looking German graduate student, Hans currently occupying one of the student bedrooms. A few minutes later the professor joined us repeating his offer of whiskey.

Sipping the spirits, the old man told us of his long career teaching undergraduates various mathematics disciplines, about the gay times he had entertaining colleagues during Prohibition with bathtub gin in the cavernous mansion, about his regrets for never fathering children; nostalgia flavoring every word spoken slowly, deliberately.

All the furniture in the house while obviously quite old and faded continued to be lovingly cared for and still spoke of quality and good taste. When Hans finished his drink he excused himself and left, leaving the professor and me to continue our stories. Realizing the afternoon would soon become night and I had still not made any arrangements for a place to stay for the semester or even for that night other than in my disabled car, I alerted the professor to my urgent needs and suggested we continue our talks another day. That is the point where he revealed one of his other resident students had vacated a room in his three "student" bedroom wing and wondered if I might like to join his little academic rooming-house... "just the bedroom and shared bathroom; no meals... but no cost to you."

His offer stunned me, despite the fact I had guessed something of the sort might be on his mind from things he had been saying during our short walk that morning. A day that had started with one catastrophe after another looked like it might end at the extreme opposite end of the disappointment spectrum. I naturally accepted his offer immediately, noting he had probably saved me from sleeping in the park that night. With all my meager belongings still in the disabled car some distance away, he summoned his liveried chauffeur, Ansel and instructed him to assist me in any way he could.

Ansel frowned at me as we walked around the back of the house where the professor's dark blue Packard limousine sat as shiny and new looking as the day it had rolled off the assembly line twenty years earlier. As we walked Ansel sternly warned me not to take advantage of the professor's kindness as so many earlier students had. We then launched into a discussion of what to do about my distant dead car, finally concluding the powerful Packard could pull it to the house and we could temporarily park it under a tree in the backyard until I could make more permanent arrangements.

The following day, a Monday after my first night in the professor's house I dashed across the street to the now open International House business offices and inquired about my room reservation, planning now to cancel it.  The clerk searched through several tub files, finally announcing she could find no record of a room reservation, but there would be no problem with taking my meals in the I-House cafeteria.

In between registering for classes I interviewed for a part time job as a student lab assistant with a Professor Kaufman in the School of Public Health doing ground water flow studies using radio isotopes and recently available gamma ray spectrometry equipment. After a half hour interrogation he hired me on the spot. I couldn't believe how events had perfectly meshed this first 48 hours of my new career as an upper division university physics student.

So, that first year I slept in the old professor's mansion and took my meals in the International House across the street. Over the weeks the same bunch of people tended to share the same dining room tables. I suppose this might have been my first introduction to foreign cultures and a resulting life long interest in understanding them. At some point I began bringing my copy of a collection of optimistic aphorisms entitled, The Brighter Side and reading one of the inspirational quips to anyone who would listen. The jacket carried the cheery thought: "Every cloud has a silver lining." Jackie, a graduate student several years my senior and much wiser, delighted in announcing anytime she saw me with that book: "Remember, every silver lining has a cloud."

So, now we come to the purpose of this shaggy dog story. Last Friday night in the Alesta Yacht Hotel, drowsy and ready for sleep around 9PM a noisy party erupted in the dining room on the floor directly above my bed. Loud drums guaranteed I'd get no sleep until the revelry ended. So, I pulled on some trousers and shoes and disheveled rode the elevator up one flight. The elevator doors opened not more that ten feet from a lavish banquet table where all the elegantly dressed non-dancing guests glowered at me standing there arms akimbo as I glowered back before hitting the down button again to reach the lobby floor and reception desk. Fortunately, the guy on duty spoke some English and responded to my question: "How long is that noise going to last? I don't think I can sleep with it; it is really loud in my room."

"Not much longer." he replied. I wondered aloud about the actual time and instead of answering my question he offered to let me use one of the empty rooms on a lower level "just to sleep for the night... no need to move all your stuff." he added.

I repeated my question: "Eleven or twelve?"

"Eleven." he replied after a brief pause to consider.

"O.K. That will be no problem. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. Even twelve wouldn't be too unreasonable." With that I returned to my room and noticed the highly amplified music with deep throbbing drum beats noticeably subsided for five or ten minutes and then resumed until exactly eleven PM when it stopped... for about five minutes and then resumed again full blast until stopping completely at exactly midnight.

What I didn't know... the owner of this gorgeous new hotel was hosting a pajama party and entertainment for more than a dozen guests including this late Friday night blast... and also that Sunday brunch into which I had stumbled a week earlier while checking out the hotel. My guess is that he was taking advantage of the low occupancy during this doldrums period of the Winter off season.

I learned later the hotel only had three paying guests at that point. The other two would be leaving the following Sunday in two days as it turned out. I had previously threatened to stay another week, but developments in the wake of the loud party prompted me to change my plans. No doubt the owner felt irritated by my aggressive party intrusions and noise complaints, figuring his staff should be able to handle such nuisances... and they did.

Saturday morning breakfast in a dining room still torn up from the party the night before became a plate of cheeses (which I avoid), baloney slices, cucumbers, tomatoes, halava, bread and coffee; sort of after party left overs. The lavish buffet of the previous week replaced by make-do nourishment, a separate plate for each of their three paying guests.

An all business waiter replaced attentive Baris from the previous mornings. On returning to the room I discovered the toilet failed to flush consistently. Reporting the problem at the reception desk I learned nothing could be done about plumbing until the following Monday when the maintenance staff returned, but they could move me over to another room on the same floor if I would like. As the toilet did occasionally flush I decided to just live with it. On return that evening after being out most of the day the toilet failed completely, but I managed to use the bidet feature to perform a slow flush of sorts.

The next morning, Sunday while trying to decide what to do, repeated all the problems of Saturday, but now included weird behavior by sweet, previously compassionate Hatice, the 24 year old receptionist who had so favorably impressed me during check-in. Naturally empathetic, this situation must have put her in a very uncomfortable and awkward position. As her job depended on doing as her boss wished, concern for the guest's well being had to be subordinated, an unnatural thing for a young, tender soul like Hatice. As she switched to her very formal professional hotel voice she made it clear only undesirable choices were left for me and I decided on the spot to end everyone's agony and let the owner have unfettered range with his expensive hotel toy .

None of this changes my general assessment of the hotel, physical plant, location, services and well trained staff. But, watch out for the owner if he happens to be in residence and playing host to a group of friends. That will no doubt take precedence over any inconveniences which might be caused ordinary paying guests. After all, it is his house! Were our roles reversed, I might have reacted as he did though in retrospect would have alerted guests to the pending loud Friday night noise and offered them a room change before it became an unexpected irritation.

Everyday is a surprise; some pleasant, some less so, but each an opportunity to learn and grow. FB

 

 

Fethiye - Excavation continues at the ancient Telmessos Amphitheater located at the southern end of the current city and close to the harbor.
 

Fethiye - Excavation continues at the ancient Telmessos Amphitheater located at the southern end of the current city and close to the harbor.
 

Fethiye - Fisherman mending his nets along the harbor wall. He has a lot of work as I saw at least six or seven piles of holy nets to be mended.
 

Fethiye - Poster at the base of the trail leading up to and explaining the ancient rock tombs.
 

Fethiye - The street below my room from the balcony in my room at the Alesta Yacht Hotel where I stayed.
 

Fethiye - Closer to the base of the main tomb most features are clearly visible.
 

Fethiye - Ropes and rings hold the harbor together with both visiting and resident boats.