The world without us and Turk Santa Clause

I woke up to the sounds of goat bells and sure enough there were goats grazing on the cliffs nearby ( picture). The owners leave them on the government land and goats  know how to get back home.

Goats grazing on cliffs

After a healthy and delicious breakfast, we drove to the resort town of Fethiye. The town is full of upscale resorts and nice homes occupied by English and other retirees from Europe. We drove up the winding road ( sort of like San Francisco) to the ghost town of Karakoy. It was sad and eerie to see the beautiful hill town of 5000 to 8000 people turned into ruins and overgrown bushes. It felt like real life example of the book, “ The world without us” .




World Without Us

Deserted Town 

World Without Us 2

 A brief history and cultural education:  In the 1920’s during the independence wars, part of the peace treaty was an agreement to exchange the Greek and Turkish citizens.  Thousands of Greeks were told to move from villages in Turkey to Greece ( here they were never accepted and were called “Turks”). Hundreds of these villages were abandoned by over a million Turks of Greek heritage.  At this point you may wonder, “Why is such prime real estate left in ruins?”  The answer (our learned guide gave) is that, “Turks (Muslims) do not take something that has bad karma” and forcing people to leave their homes is bad karma.

Guide

A climb up to St. Nicholas monastery was rewarded with views of the Aegean sea below. St. Nicholas is said to be the real life  Santa Clause (he used to leave food for poor girls) and the legend of Santa Clause was started from here.



St. Nicholas

 

Back on the boat, lunch was waiting and so was the blue sea. We dipped in the water and had ( again) fresh moussaka, salad and wonderful Turkish pastry.  Lunch time was also a discussion about schools, colleges and the education system in general.  It is interesting to know that the education in Turkey is FREE, school as well as college.  This is probably a very different concept for the capitalist way of thinking for us Americans.



Dinner

After the tea, we had discussions on the recent events in Turkish history.  This included the issues related to Armenia, Cypress and Europe’s reluctance to include Turkey in to EU.  I find it ironic that  truly secular Turkey is labeled as “Muslim”  (like a bad thing) whereas many politicians in USA will be happy to call America a Christian nation. (The same is true for India, which is a secular democracy but most people think of it as a Hindu country).  I think there is a difference between culture and religion and most people wrongly mix them.

This is our last night on the gullet. The crew has been very attentive and the ocean is just amazingly inviting. It is full moon tonight and its reflection is making interesting patterns in the dark blue sea.  I have to say good night till tomorrow….