Turkish Delight!

What a fan-friggin-tabulous country. Any pre-conceived western ideas anyone out there has about Muslim countries can be dispelled immediately upon visiting one. I can't even count how many free drinks we have enjoyed from the hands of the sometimes too friendly Turkmen and women. Yesterday I was handed 10 Lira from a women and told to go have a nice Turkish dinner. This has been the normal hospitality for us.

Starting from the beginning. We entered Turkey from Bulgaria and rode 3 rather swelteringly hot days into Istanbul. We stayed with 2 separate hosts, Emine and Elif. They were both excellent hosts and we enjoyed a night of dancing or 2 and a scenic boat tour up the Bosphorous. (Upon other excursions) We never realized, but upon crossing the Bosphorous, it was good-bye Europe and hello Asia. After applying for our Iranian visas at the Persian embassy we headed towards Ankara.

We took a very smelly busy exhaust filled highway. The stink was all over us and deep into our poor lungs. We took about 70 kilometers of "stick to your ribs" disgusting exhaust before we saw a beacon of hope in the form of a ferry sign to the other side of the sea. Thank goodness.

Whilst on the ferry we met more amazing people. (Excuse me for mis-spelling your names, the keyboard and my mind are in English!) Savas and Doygu. They were totally amazing. They took us all over Bursa the fourth largest city in Turkey and we were treated to all the Turkish delicacies and fantastic hospitality. We miss you guys! We should all experience hospitality like this at least once in a lifetime. Thank you sooooo much guys!

I would like to tell you everything about what we've been up to but I am restricted to the un-fair confines of time. We would like to thanks our hosts in Ankara for a great visit. We now have Pakistani visas! Thanks to Berat, Kurai, Alper, Deniz and Honda! I'll write more about Ankara another time.

In closing this post I would like to share a contrast in ideas and views I have noticed upon visiting Turkey. When trying to get our visas for Pakistan we were asked for proof of identity from our Canadian embassy. Pakistan is known in the west for being a "terrorist" state. This is of course arguable. When we arrived at the Pakistani embassy we were greeted by a guard and we told him we were there to apply for a Visa and he smiled and pointed to the door. Upon entry to the Canadian embassy we were searched, made to go through a metal detector, questioned and we had our pockets emptied our walkmans confiscated and our integrity insulted. We were then spoke to through a fiberglass window with a hole in it from our Canadian representative where he fearmongered us about our chosen route. No wonder he wouldn't come out and talk to us face to face. He seems to be living in fear. Of what I am not sure. Our next visit was much of the same. A canadian representative told Steve to ,"Watch out!" and ,"I am scared for the both of you!" and "Can you ride faster than a bullet?" It was like CNN. What a distorted view of reality we live in. Our treatment at the Pakistani embassy was completely opposite
to our Canadian visit. When was the last time we experienced terror in Canada or when was the last time we heard 1 horror story about a Canadian being beaten or mugged in a foreign country. I stress the word 1. You'll be sure to hear about it on our sensational news. Our representatives and our treatment at the embassy reflect a sad state of affairs that is prevalent in Canadian society. Fear. Give me a break. I am not naive. I take precautions and care everywhere I go. Words like Iran or Pakistan have been severely distorted to conjure up images of god knows what people think having never visited or researched a place. The only place I have ever been mugged, threatened or beaten has been in Canada. This is life. There are crappy people everywhere.

On that note, our Muslim hosts are taking amazing care of us almost to a fault. It is a life changing experience for the both of us and shame on us for ever letting our media taint and distort our opinion and views of such a wonderful group of people and religion.

That is the view from here. We think about everyone often as we sweat away in the 35+ degree turkish heat. I'll have some new blues to bring back to Canada. Lots and lots of love to everyone in the land of baklava and Kebabs!