No Other Place on Earth

The Park Out My Window

Twenty-two years ago we lived in a small secluded cabin in the mountains of Southern California overlooking a little blue lake surrounded by pines. To most, the little one bedroom cottage would have been suitable only for seasonal use...but to this day it remains as one of our fondest recollections and our all time favorite home. At Lake Cuyamaca each year the air would take on a distinct "quality" once fall arrived...and there would be a crispness and clarity to the air that signaled the onset of winter and our favorite season.
That same quality has come upon us quickly here in Istanbul these last few days. The nights have turned cold, the air is clear, folks are bundling up and the trees seem to be caught by surprise. I don't have a lake view out my window, but with Istanbul just a step away...there is no place on earth we would rather be.
Colors Poking Through

Switching Gears

Şeker Bayram is coming to a close within a few hours...which means that the American Holiday Season must be around the corner. I know it sounds crazy and I realize that Stateside many of you moan when the commercialzed side of Christmas rolls out early. But living here taught us last year that the kids needed a longer Holiday Season since the Christmas season is not something we see in Asia Minor.
That little bit of news got out yesterday and the neighbors came asking when we were going to decorate for Christmas...then before we could answer they asked if they could decorate with us and could we "please make it today" so they could help? It all boiled down to the fact that we will be decorating this year even earlier than we had planned.
We heard that some of them were heading to the stores to buy "birthday supplies", (we have no idea what that means)...but sometime within the next few hours we are going to have a houseful of Muslim Turks taking over to decorate our house for Christmas and going out of their way to make a family from the West feel at home on the Far Side of the World. Kinda cool huh?

Wheel of Fortune

My Buddy Levent's Place
Now that Ramazan has ended our caloric intake has skyrocketed. People are laying out spreads that are amazing and making up for this last month's fasting. During Şeker Bayram you are expected to host all your friends and neighbors who are younger than you and in turn you must visit friends and neighbors who are older. It is like a culinary "Wheel of Fortune".
This morning our neighbors and friends started visiting early and later we ducked out quickly and into our older neighbor's homes to greet them and eat desserts. In the space of 4 hours we had eaten 4 separate meals...this will go on for the next 3 days and then life will wallow back to normal. I had kinda hoped to lose a few pounds over Ramazan but things look pretty bleak right now. I hope someone appreciates the sacrifice I am forced to make for the sake of cultural acclimation.
Ann with the Grandmothers

The "Big Boss" Gulten with Husband Metin

Şeker Bayram and the Honeybees

In just about an hour Ramazan will come to an end and the 3 day holiday of Şeker Bayram (Sugar Holiday) will kick off. Traditionally the young visit the old, kiss their hands and touch their hand to their forehead and the older folks give the younger folks candy. All the stops are pulled out and desserts, tea, khave and special treats will be spread out in living rooms throughout Islamic Asia. It is a delightful few days of visiting and being visited.
Big Mama-Boss upstairs (Gulten)has been cooking until 3am the last few days and sampling her treats is first on my list. I was able to talk my way into Gulten's kitchen last night and take a few bites on a test drive before she shooed me away.

Rounding up the Strays

With so many sweet shops in Istanbul most Turkish women will buy their Baklava pre-made...Being the difficult guy I am, the holiday wouldn't be right without Ann's homemade Baklava. Today while she was cooking the honey for the topping we entertained hundreds of honeybees who must have been drawn to the scent of the honey. They flew in through the kitchen window at first, but when we closed it they found their way in thru the kid's bedroom windows...within minutes we had more than we could count buzzing thru the air down our hallway enroute to the kitchen. An hour's work later they had been rounded up with a spoonful of warm honey and sent on their way.
Bee Lasso

Rear Views and Reality

Our Rear View
Not to be cryptic...but we think it is important for you to realize that this journal is often written through rose colored glasses sparing you the whines of our daily lives...today we write from shades of gray.
The attacks of terrorists have continued to sweep through Turkey this week striking Istanbul, Izmir, and Sirnak. Scores are dead and many injured leaving our neighbors and our family weeping over the loss of Turkey's sons. From a grieving Istanbul, this is the "reality" of life today on the Far Side of the World.

Hanging Around

Hanging Around in Greece

It doesn't happen often, but occasionally we wonder what it would be like stay in one place and culture for awhile. This last week away was cause to reflect. To avoid playing the pity card we have decided to leave most of the details of our "Greece Do-Over" to the publishers. The gist is that the place was filthy and crawling with earwigs (pincher bugs).
They first made their presence known as I was pulling on my shorts and they began dropping down my legs. Ann had hung the wash out to dry and found her pants moving on their own in the morning. I don't know if they have a patent on the world's biggest earwigs...but they should have.
Our little cottage was infested with them and we ended up moving outdoors...even to the point of rigging up an outdoor shower to keep them from dropping on us at a vulnerable moment.
We try to be low-key folks...but finding them crawling around inside our clothes gave us the heebejeebies. Later we saw them on the bed, pillows, dishes and furniture...it was like living in a terrarium. Even today the phantom crawlies are still causing us to squirm.
For now we will be hanging around Istanbul...scratching.

My Dad & Green Bananas

Our View on the Road to Sirnak

We returned home a few hours ago broke, tired and buggy after a few days down south -- to find that some recent haunts of ours had been the target of terror attacks. Over the past 5 days terrorists have struck in Sirnak (we did a "walk thru" of a dilapidated hotel there 3 weeks ago) and in Izmir which we passed through last week and again today. Thirteen or more are dead and many more are wounded. Seems grenades, strafing, and scooter bombs were the weapons of the day.
We will bring you up to speed soon on our work trip to the island...for today we will leave you with these famous words from my dad, "Don't buy green bananas...you may not be around to eat them". From a somber Istanbul, that's all I got.

Ring for the Tea Babe

An Early Start South

If the old adage regarding absence & fondness is true then we are heading for true love... cuz we are heading out and away from E-access again and will be off the radar for another week.
We hit the road early tomorrow, 9 hours south by truck and 1 hour west by boat to finish up a week of work in Greece. With little hope of any E-Life on the island it looks like late next week will be the soonest we can expect to be back in the loop.
While this trip isn't ringing our bells...the high point will be the Çay Chick who doubles as the navigator boss lady.
Watch the Global Nomads Live window for our sat location...copy, click on Google Maps and enter the coordinates for our general whereabouts. Anyone for Çay?
Çay Chick

Pensive Peregrination

Looking Towards Turkey

Somewhere in the next 3 days we will be off on a somewhat pensive peregrination...and an unwelcome one at that. We have a return visit scheduled to a little Greek Island off the coast of Turkey. This is the same island we reviewed earlier this year which prompted the unfortunate tasks of submitting an unfavorable report regarding its tourism "savvy" and a fresh bolus of Hepatitis and Tetanus vaccines for our crew...follow the link to "Quaint it Taint" to get the gist of that jaunt.
We have been urged by our Greek host to revisit and reconsider our original musings. Being the considerate folks we are we have agreed to a "do-over" and will tear ourselves away from Istanbul and a delightful Ramazan season to head south and west to see if the Petri Dish has yet seen bleach.
As you know, our E access will be limited while we are away, and updates will be delayed due to the lack of Internet access (another reason the island didn't get stellar marks).
On that note our Global Cell will be inactive for a week or two as well as your ability to leave us voice mail...it appears that money is important to keeping it working...Go figure.

Chow Down and Giddy Up

With Ramazan just 8 days old we are fasting then feasting to excess. While this time of year is about denying the flesh and focusing on Allah, it seems that the celebratory spirit of the holiday leads to extreme epicurean indulgence.
Most evenings the doors in our apartment block are open just before Iftar (the main meal of the day signaling the breaking of the day's fasting) and housewives and neighbors are visiting and bringing samples of their evening meal to share. The smells, laughter and greetings that waft thru the air are contagious and ring with holiday cheer and exuberance.
This week we have hosted or have been hosted at a full house for the last 4 evenings...and we are now off to another home for this evening's Iftar. I had hoped that my "heft" would benefit from this year's Ramazan but that hope faded on day one.
Consider the prospect having a full Thanksgiving dinner every night with all the festivity, special dishes and visiting coupled with the merriment, desserts, special songs and dances...for 30 days in a row and you will get the picture.
Being bi-cultural does have its perks for our own American holiday season will arrive just weeks after Ramazan ends...Giddy Up.

Waiting for Iftar

At a Friend's Iftar Spread

At Home with Our Istanbullu Family

Bare Feet and a Headless Goat

A year or so ago I wrote a column about being shoeless in Asia. I was never a barefoot kid...even though I spent most of my teenage years at La Jolla Shores, away from the beach I was a shoes and socks kinda guy.
Asia has changed all that, I haven't had socks or shoes on now since March, in fact in the last 17 months I have only worn shoes for 6 of them...the order of the day is now bare feet and Birkenstocks. Which, while bringing me new freedom and comfort has also brought me fully into the cultural understanding of frequent ablutions and the sense in stopping at the Mosque fountains to freshen up. Last week we stopped for a break on the border road between Iraq and Turkey...crossing a deep river on an old bridge we found a small clear running stream that dropped 20' to the river.
Crossing Over

My Friend and his Headless Goat

Our day had been long, hot and dusty and I longed to wash the dust and dirt off my feet. I stopped by the stream, rolled my pant legs up and began to wash when a man from a local tribe appeared out of nowhere with a headless goat wrapped around his shoulder.
We had a nice chat and I learned that he had dispatched his evening meal just a few minutes earlier...confirmed by the still dripping neck, and that he was on his way to a pre-Ramazan family feast deeper in the mountains. We made plans to hook up next year and then he wandered off and down the path...and another once in a lifetime cross-cultural connection was forged.
So who'd a thunk going barefoot would be the key to meeting a mountain tribe and a headless goat? Want adventure?...leave your socks in the drawer this week and see what happens.

Places & Faces

It appears my recent ruminations have cantered in the vicinity of the emotionally expressive...implying traits that might inaccurately cast me in a softer or gentler light. Since many of our readers are from Minnesota or are of Scandinavian extraction and have difficulties processing things sentimental... an exercise in prudence is in order. So we limit the scope of today’s musings to these few lines and another ocular buffet for your probing propensities.
We attribute these distressingly demonstrative humors to the passing fatigues of the foray...

Persian Pondering

Asia Minor's Drought

Ann's Friends

Amasra Peppers

Sheriff and His Crocodile

Slicing Thru Life

I wonder if some of us are just born to wander...not shiftless, pointless roaming...but wandering with purpose. I realize that there are more than a few of you who look at us as modern day gypsies...bouncing from one place to another as the wind blows, but our crisscrossing of Asia has much more to do with relationships than whimsy.
My all time favorite read and movie is The Razor's Edge...the story of Larry Darrell, a WWI vet who walks away from life in Chicago to wander across Europe and Asia. Maugham's tale of Darrell's break from convention and searching for the meaning of life moved me deeply in my late teens. I remember the first time I read the book and then saw the movie...Ann and I sat in the parking lot of the library until after midnight trying to get around the quote used in the epilogue..."The edge of a razor is difficult to pass over, thus the wise say the path to salvation is hard".
It doesn't surprise me that those same passions we felt as we sat in that library parking lot considering "breaking away" from cultural conventions...is the same passion that propels us forward a quarter of a century later. We simply were designed to live an unorthodox life.
Bottom line for us is that it is all about the people we meet on these forays, the culture in which we are immersed and to a far lesser extent the romance of travel and epicurean experiences.
If you decide to check out the flick...make sure it is the Tyrone Power original.
Here are a few of our moments from the edge...

Unexpected Morning In Maçka...Stopped to Buy a Tea Pot and Got Adopted by the Family

The Vanishing Nomadic Tribes on the Eastern Highlands

Dung for Fuel in an Iraqi Village

The Wrap Up

Elle in Sinope...The Home of Diogenes

After a chance to pull ourselves together yesterday, it now seems like we were gone more than a couple weeks! We are home, pretty road weary and still rinsing the sand and dirt out of our gear and hair. Our biggest equipment casualties were blown-sand damage to a pair of Rx sunglasses and our truck windows...(Now I have an excuse for walking around in a haze).
As far as the physical, other than a sand and dust facial exfoliation and big time fatigue...we pulled thru pretty well.
Ramazan begins in a few hours and we are ramping up quick to join in these holy days. Right now...we are in recovery.
Over the next month or two we will drop in some of our favorite flashbacks from the road trip...Here are our first picks!
Safranbolu Mosque

Roadside Çay

Waiting for Çay is a Big Deal

Far Out on the Steppe

The Zone

We have had a blast traveling the Turk/Iraqi border this last week. In the last two days we have been thru 48 checkpoints, been detained 9 times and have made some great new friends in the communities along the way.
Hanging with the Troops

Setting Out Along the Border...Iraq on the Left, Turkey on the Right
The Turk Military has gone out of their way to accommodate our travel plans and have extended us the greatest hospitality and kindness. While we have been made to wait many times at checkpoints while our approval to travel further south and west was validated...it has been cool to hang with this great group of guys and visit the many villages scattered in this high security territory.
Our first day on the border we were stopped a mile away from where the Turk Troops had discovered a roadside bomb a half an hour before we would have passed by it. The country and mountains are spectacular and the people sincere and amazingly kind.
This has been the best foray we have had to date! We are still shaking the dust from ourselves and are on the way to wrapping up this season's SRE. Next Stop...Istanbul

Entering the Zone

Tailgaters

Iraq

Internet Jet Lag

Cruising thru the Eastern Highlands this last week has allowed us to catch up on some friendships from last year and explore villages that are ancient...but new to us.
As always here in this corner of Asia we were treated with amazing hospitality and kindness.
Note...some of these postings were written a few days ago and will be uploaded as E access is available which might confuse you as to our actual location...think of it as a really cool form of Internet jet lag.
Back to Familiar Haunts

Iraqi Border Village
Last Sunflowers of the Season

Popular Cheeks

It is always hard for us to leave Istanbul...but once we check in at our eastern flat we find that our heart has checked in also. We arrived to find that our kitchen door had blown open sometime this winter and several months of dirt, snow and rain had drifted in coating the floors in a layer of grime.

Stanley's Popular Cheeks

Our neighbor brought us dinner and by 4am we had the flat cleaned and we were ready for bed. We were awakened at 8am by a wedding down the street, hundreds of friends and family had gathered and for the next 24 hours the dancing, music, gunshots, and food were in full swing.
We spent the day checking in with friends and neighbors and walking thru town. Sorry for the long delays in postings...we are still mobile and without a regular E link.
Our first impressions...

The Eastern Highlands

Ann & Azize

Azize's Diyarbakir Chow

Tea Time Closes the Street

Soup Delivery Service

Outpost

With 2000 miles and scores of villages behind us we have finally settled in at our eastern flat…or “Outpost” as the kids like to call it. We cruised along the Black Sea from Istanbul to the Republic of Georgia with many side trips south and into the Kara Deniz Daglari.
Driving from the coast up into the Anatolian Plateau opened new territory for our crew of four. We stopped for a day at Macka and made some new friends on the way to the abandoned "cliffhanger" Sumela Monastery.
Sumela Monastery


Zeytincik Village

We have been in Dogubeyazit for a few days and will be basing out of here for our explorations into the mountains. With such a late start to this year’s foray we have had to condense our plans and focus on the priorities.
With our internet connection points at a minimum…don’t think we have forgotten you. It just gets a little breezy hanging off the pole trying to type.
Tomorrow south and east to the Hakkari Range.
Our Street at the "Outpost"

Fashion Circle Mall