Before I first came to Turkey, some 15 years ago, I will be honest, it wasn’t a place that had massively appealed to me. On my travels, I used to buy what I call the ‘trash mags’ to read as I travelled (these are perfect travel magazines!!) and in nearly everyone would be a story of a woman who had been taken advantage of by a Turkish waiter whilst on holiday.
I went to Turkey to attend a retreat and travelled on my own. I spent a night in Istanbul and during the evening went and found a local cafe to get some food. Sure enough, there was I, sat on my own whilst the waiter gave me way more attention than was warranted, which only reaffirmed my thoughts that Turkey was full of people who were a bit dodgy and only out to get what they could from unsuspecting tourists.
Fast forward to today and we have spent 6 months of the last 12 months in Turkey, and it is now our favourite place of all the places we have travelled so far as a family.
Yes of course there are the tourist hot spots and you can spot the signs a mile away of a young Turkish man who has his eye on someone, but at its core, Turkey has blown me away, that far from a dodgy undercurrent there is actual an incredible foundation of trust!
I have never been in a country where I have felt so safe. I don’t mean down a dark alley in the city, late at night, I mean in general.
Here, traders leave all their wares outside and just throw a cover over them. Now in Uganda, a similar thing happens but nearby will be a security guard with an AK47 who has been paid to guard the stalls.
Here I am talking about no security, just trust and faith that no one will steal their goods.
Go out in the very early morning and watch the delivery drivers dropping off all the goods at the stores.
You’ll see groceries being dropped off at the shops, boxes of clothes being left outside an expensive clothes shop, hell we’ve even seen pharmacies with boxes of meds dropped outside a closed shop at 6 am!
It’s just unbelievable!
Caravans are a pretty big business here in Turkey, they have this tiny caravan that is unique to here that you can tow just on a car licence and it’s really popular.
You can find these little caravans just parked up anywhere, literally on the side of a road, or in a field. Somewhere completely exposed and public and no one will touch it!
Now when we wild camp, with Suzy we are conditioned to always have Vinny attached because of course, you would be crazy to unhitch your caravan and leave it in a public place and go off for the day.
On a campsite, sure, but in a wild camping spot, I don’t think so!
And yet here in Turkey, you see it all the time and it’s just so refreshing.
Growing up in the UK, you are very much of the attitude of making sure your car is locked, your doors are locked.
Imagine leaving crates of beer outside a closed pub! Well, they’d be gone in a nano second!
Drugs left outside a pharmacy?? Recipe for disaster!
Now I know that there are some idyllic places in the UK where people pride themselves on the fact that they can leave their cars unlocked and that very fact is worn like a village badge of honour, but where I come from that’s just not the done thing.
In travelling so much the last couple of years, and moving to different countries and cultures, it’s been very much a similar way of living. Make sure everything is locked, don’t leave things out on show, etc….
But in Turkey, it’s just so different! I mean, I am not holding a giant sign saying, come check out the electronics in the van or hey, our caravan is open and ready for you!
What I am saying is that it’s so refreshing to be in a country where ‘if’ we forgot to lock the car, I would not be freaking out about whether it would still be there in the morning or whether someone had nicked the stereo.
As we wrap up our second block of 90 days here, it just makes me smile.
What a wonderful thing it is to be in a place where trust still exists and where kindness and friendship have shown itself to us in bucketloads.
Turkey, don’t ever lose this!
