There was, as there always is on great journeys, a moment. This journey’s moment was in Konya, a city in south-central Turkey little known outside this remarkable country.
Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, a 13th Century thinker whose philosophies on individual freedom would inspire the spinning dancers now called Whirling Dervishes, rests here in a mausoleum whose interior is splendid beyond words.
His own words: “Ours is not the portal of despair and misery. Come.”
Followers do come here, to reflect and pray. There is a feeling of peace, a softness made all the more comforting by the warm, recorded sound of a flute.
And on this day, penetrating the prayers and the softness and the flute, was the sound of roaring F-4 Phantom jet fighters taking off and landing from the nearby NATO base.
Is Turkey safe for tourists?
That’s one of those questions that defies a definitive answer. Will there be another earthquake next week in San Francisco?
Let’s be honest here. Turkey is not going great. Factories are closing, victims of cheap competition and other things. Some banks are failing. Farmers, already dealing with a three-year drought, are grousing about lost subsidies, and inflation has dropped the value of the Turkish lira more than 50 percent since February.
Price of a kofte burger at an Istanbul McDonald’s: 950,000 lire.
There’s more.
“And there is no solution,” said one innkeeper.
So should tourists come to Turkey?
“Of course,” said the same innkeeper. “It is a nice country. And it’s safe.”
European tourists, of course, have known it’s a nice country for decades, if not for millennia. Today they are drawn especially to the exotic splendors of Istanbul, the ancient ruins of empires in Ephesus (and, really, ancient ruins all over the place), the healing waters of Pamukkale, the wonders of Cappadocia, the challenging treks of the northeast and the pleasures of the country’s coastal resorts.
Americans came late to this particular party. In terms of serious numbers, it might have been backpackers 30 years ago looking for high adventure (in all meanings) who found it first. Later, cruise ships heading to or from the Greek Islands added Istanbul extensions to itineraries.
Boomers who had worn out the standard European destinations (“Paris? London? Amsterdam? Florence? Again?) suddenly found Turkey appealing in the 1990s, especially when Gulf War-related stories and graphics revealed to many of them 1) It was a longtime key military ally of the United States, 2) It was Muslim but sort of Muslim Lite, and 3) Where it was.
The deadly 1999 earthquake east of Istanbul spared that city, but horrible pictures of rubble in and around Izmit jolted tourism. Tourism eventually recovered from that.
Then came September 11.
“Where are you from?” the tout outside Istanbul’s Rumeli Cafe asked a few days into October, “Britain or Spain?”
I told him. His eyes widened.
“America?” he repeated. A half-smile of disbelief came onto his face and stayed there. I asked him why the look.
“Because,” he said, “after what happened, Americans go home.”
Well, I said, I’m here.
“Braveheart,” he said.
June Shafer, a Camarillo, Calif., woman still aglow an hour after her first experience in an Istanbul hamam (Turkish bath), said she originally was to have been one of a group of 18. Seventeen canceled, she said.
“I’m just so glad I came,” she said.
Jim McGowan of San Francisco, in Istanbul as part of a cruise package, almost stayed home altogether. “I was really scared,” he said as he walked the grounds of Topkapi Palace. “I was concerned. Now, I’m not.”
John Hanak of San Diego was in the south of Turkey when news of the New York attack came. Nearly a month later, he was still in Turkey.
“This is a real safe country,” he said. “They bend over backwards for you. What am I going to do, fly back to New York?”
Many simply never left the States. The owner of an Istanbul-based tour company understood.
“Tourists aren’t sure where this will go,” he said, two days before the first bombs dropped on Kabul provided a clue. “And they see this is a Muslim country and fear we’ll go with the terrorists–but we are the second-most powerful country in NATO.”
Obviously, it’s impossible to spend 12 days in October bouncing around a country as large as Turkey and come up with a credible statement regarding the mindset of Turks toward Americans in the aftermath of a terrorist attack and in the beginning of a military response.
A ceramics dealer in Avanos isn’t real likely to say, “Oh, you’re from America! Welcome to my country. It’s about time somebody flattened the World Trade Center. Want to buy a vase?”
But here, after spending time and (literally) billions of lire (they’re about 1,600,000 to the dollar) in Istanbul, Ephesus, Pamukkule and half a dozen stops in Cappadocia–and after talking to anyone with a voice who understood English–is a sense of what it’s like in Turkey for American tourists:
– We are treated as guests in Turkey, not just as people with money to spend. Though that too.
– Turkey, overwhelmingly Muslim, is emphatically and proudly a secular nation. At the same time, travelers who have experienced the traditional hospitality found in other Muslim nations (as I have in Morocco, Egypt and Jordan) will be delighted to find it here as well.
– No Americans (and, for that matter, no non-U.S. tourists) I spoke with reported even the slightest unfriendliness. I heard nothing about hassles (beyond the occasional overaggressive salesman) or of hearing negative comments. Nor were there reports of scams, pickpockets, taxi cheats or wrong change. None.
Many Americans who did come admitted having misgivings before making the decision but came anyway, some because they had prepaid for their trips and couldn’t get refunds. No one I spoke with in Turkey regretted the decision.
– Turkey sees itself as a victim of terrorism, particularly from now-quiet Kurdish separatists in the country’s southeast. When they say they’re sorry about New York, which I heard a lot during my visit, they know first-hand what they’re sorry about. That the U.S. was among the few countries that supported the Turkish government’s no-tolerance position regarding Kurdish violence has not been forgotten.
– At the same time, many Turks are uncomfortable with the bombing campaign in Afghanistan. Twice, once in Istanbul and another time in the village of Karahayit, I was drawn into conversations over tea with locals confused about the logic of the American response, but I was a willing participant, and both conversations ended cordially.
– Turks take great pride in being a NATO ally of the United States, a special friend to Israel and, especially, uniquely Turkish. This sense of nationhood is particularly strong as it relates to nearby Muslim states (including Iraq, Iran and Syria). The reasons get into historic, ethnic, linguistic and cultural issues too complex for discussion here, but the feeling is strong.
– Greek-Americans especially should know the Greek-Turkish blood feud has, at least for the time being, cooled. Greek rescue teams were the first to come to Turkey’s aid after the 1999 earthquake, to the surprise and ultimately the delight of most Turks; Turkey reciprocated a year later when a quake hit Athens.
– Security at Turkish airports, big and small, tightened noticeably from the time of my arrival to the time I left. On leaving, my suitcase was opened, unpacked and repacked as I watched; my Turkish Airlines flight to O’Hare was held up in Istanbul for more than an hour while they ran security checks on a couple of passengers. Thank you.
– Hotels, restaurants and attractions are not deserted. Business is certainly down, but there are plenty of tourists here. The Four Seasons Hotel in Istanbul, for example, reported cancellations had cut into its occupancy rate, but it had dropped only to 70 percent from what, before the attack, had been expected to be 92 percent.Europeansare here by the busload. Missing primarily are the Japanese groups, which have been officially discouraged from coming here by their own government because of what’s going on; and most Americans.
– The relatively strong dollar may be a hardship to Turks, but for Americans it means bargains, especially in food and lira-based lodging. Dinner at the mid-range Kervan Restaurant in Urgup (stuffed grape leaves appetizer, salad, a lamb casserole and a cold bottle of local Efes beer, all excellent): $3.41. (For those of you understandably guilt-ridden about this–that’s $3.41 they wouldn’t have had if my trip had been canceled.) Hotels, always a good value in Turkey, are negotiating rate-cuts on the fly.
Back to the question: Should tourists come to Turkey?
The innkeeper’s response–“of course”–is too simple an answer right now. For some, just getting back onto a plane, even to Vegas, will take a little more time.
But there is nothing in Turkey itself, not today, to discourage visiting here. Antony and Cleopatra may have gotten an icy reception when they arrived at Ephesus, and early Christians may have been forced into Cappadocia’s caves and underground cities to escape Roman armies, and Hittites and Persians and Byzantines and Bulgars and a hundred other tribes might have had their ups and downs in this land, but for today’s tourists?
It is a nice country, with nice people and nice prices, and astounding things to see and experience–including Istanbul. It feels as safe as anyplace feels right now. And right now, Americans are especially welcome.
As welcome as, but only in afterthought, the sound of those Turkish F-4 Phantoms . . .
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E-mail Alan Solomon: alsolly@aol.com.
