Day 15 – September 15 2024 – Kaş – Dalyan

Honey semolina cake, extreme left. Omelet to come. Note the strip of tablecloth, exactly as used over the knees by the sultan being fed breakfast, Topkapı Palace.

Behind J, another of the ‘rooms’ at  Oda 3, as it had that morning been vacated, she would go off and explore with the more outgoing of our Maltese friends.

… sad to say hoşç kal to oda 3 Kaş, but breakfast with our friends from Malta, the marketing person and the yoga instructor, both with low voices, unpickable accents, the former bon vivant, the latter underfed (swapping facts:

• 500,000 inhabitants;
• 100,000 of whom Tibetan (!), Indian, &tc,
• threat to unique culture of Malta;
• money rules but cashlessness too;
• no trees grow and the few that do are ‘cut off’ then, orange trees grow, olives and potatoes;
• 47C in the summer and humid, making the hot hotter and cool penetratingly cold);

the lovely trio of ladies from ‘Stambul, among them the one constantly interceding on our behalf; and our charming host, Erinçe and mother having already departed; and into Clio, eschewing the ‘best shopping in Turkey’ at Kaş, and onto the D400 …

a road along the clay-chalk hillside, the med a cerulean blue.

Greece, the far island. Meis. A short ferry trip away.

Onto the coast road, the cars parked up here for a ‘beach,’

Like but smaller than this one,

Then turquoise where the sinkhole was at and the plajı.

We hunted down Patara, Pinara, Xanthos, but got no nearer to any than we did to the first, wilting at the barrier, before the money was asked. And all looked like the similar odd sarcophagus, amphitheatre, fallen columns of the acropolis and stray capitals … the one that got away was Tlos.

Then, merely to have driven below the rockface it sat upon, halfway up a mountain, was already impressive. And it was home to Bellorophon and Pegasus.

And on reflection, what was advertised at each of these places (not on Tlos, which was looked up on Wikipedia) was Antik, that is, BCE antiquity, wiping out everything, by omission, from Justinian to the 15th century. Byzantium. In other words, expunging the Greek history of Turkey, of the Republic of Türkiye, and lumping Byzantium in with it. A Greek lump which Atatürk cleared from the country’s throat in 1923. All of Byzantine history–spat out, denied. Greek.

The political cult of Atatürk is a religio-ethnic demarcation line. What is Greek (and Byzantine culture is, its language is) is not Turkish. (And what is Christian, as the Byzantines were, is not Muslim, therefore not Turkish either.)

This again points to a similar expurgation from the history books in the West of the Eastern Roman Empire, without which European history does not make sense. So, European history, Byzantine history having been cancelled, does not make sense. It also leads to odd connections: We rolled in to Dalyan marvelling a the quietness, the provincial quietness of the place, and its verdure … found our Karaca Apart Hotel, nextdoor to Honeybee. Entered our Ottoman-style room to find it a suite, with 2 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, lounge and balcony. The proprietor said, You are very lucky, Jo. To find, that is, our Ottoman-style rooms decorated with tiles, an orange rug, purple sofas with dark scateboard-like wooden armrests on short chrome supports, the throws on them lime green, waffle-weave, done with floral motifs in a peasant style. Add in a pendant light-fitting with Triffid-shaped glass shades, in the bedroom an extraordinary confection in a glass cylinder involving a coloured glass animal and woven glass basket to catch the light … but, rather than that, catching, through poor design, the cylinder open at the top, simply, dirt.

And a pool.

noted: the prohibition on pough play; goes with a traditional society that frowns upon the effeminacy in men which might lead to it.

All of the big houses, villas and so on, in the area boast a pool. We swam. Sunned. Walked the 4 mins into town, passing all of the big houses, villas and so on, and remarked on the familiarity of their style, sort of grotesquely provincial Dalmatian, monumental and pretentious. Well: isn’t that exactly Ottoman style? and weren’t the Ottomans in the Balkans disseminating their particular style?

The river,

as boats returned to port the skipper played nationalistic music for a sing-along, and, although they might know the words, having made use of the onboard bar, the tourists were happy to oblige. Or, demonstrate.

Things got worse after these revelations of historical importance. On top of the Ottomans and the diminution to the point of disappearance of the part of 1500 years of Byzantine history the pomes occupy the centre of Dalyan:

Arsenal is playing Spurs on big TVs in every bar, on every soundsystem and large red men and women with blue- and pink-dyed hair are drinking beer. Quietly in general; but, it’s early in the day. Maybe after the game there’ll be a riot.

At the supermarket (checking out where we might eat along the river we met Dave. Dave blustered and burbled on repetitiously about what was good, and where. 18 years ago he came here. Why come back? I asked. The food is generally good, and the people, apart from driving like maniacs, are friendly. Iztuzu beach we made the mistake of asking about. Dave chewed up his face as if the synapses connecting the speech centres with it were spaghetti. He managed to inform us that the beach is not only accessible by boat. You know where the giant turtle fountain is? You can catch a dolmuş from there. It costs only ₺200. Or you can take your car. When you get to the beach you pay about ₺200. You can follow a dolmuş in your car. One end of the beach recliners are available for hire. And at the other end of the beach recliners are available for hire. In the middle there is just nothing. If you are lucky you will see turtles in the estuary. Iztuzu is called turtle beach because the turtles go there. You can get the boat around to the beach. It costs ₺250 each. You can take the car. If you are worried about getting lost you can follow a dolmuş in your car. Where you arrive in your car there is nothing. You can take the boat; but you can drive out there to Iztuzu. You can also take a dolmuş. You can also take your car. The boat costs ₺250 each. You can hire recliners at the beach. I once, believe it or not, walked from one end of the beach to the other. It’s 7 kilometres. It took me almost an hour. Meeting Dave encouraged us to buy some food at the supermarket and prepare dinner at the Apart Hotel.) there are two items available at the checkout counter. Bepanthen and condoms.

Ottoman style: