December 24, 2025
Turkish People
"If she go alone, she will pay tourist price, sixty Euro. Tell her I will call hamam."
On the night shift at Rebertika Butik Hotel in Selcuk is Yasur (pronounced "Yass-her"). He's a wiry, slight man in his seventies with a clipped mustache, a short beard, and an earring. He speaks good English and likes to shoot the breeze, cigarette in hand, cup of chai at his elbow. I have just told him that Nadya would like to celebrate Christmas by taking a Turkish bath.
He makes the call. Fifteen hundred Turkish lira is the right price for a hamam (about 30 Euros or CAN$48). Nadya should mention his name when she goes. "They know me there," Yasur assures me.
I had wondered if the Turks at the tourist
sites (Selcuk is the jumping off point for Ephesus) might be fed up with seeing visitors from other countries who expect them to speak English and cater to their every need. But this does not seem to be the case. It is true that we are not here in the holiday season, but Yasur was simply being kind (he was not expecting a commission).
Learning a bit of the local language always helps relations, I have found, however bad your pronunciation. In Dalyan, I said, "Nasilsin" to a cleaner at our pension, Turkish for 'How are you?' The "s" in Turkish is a "sher" sound. Two of those in a word, and it sounded like I was speaking to her with a potato in my mouth. After listening to me repeat the inquiry four times, she generously corrected my pronunciation before proceeding with her duties. On the morning of our departure, she brought us two cups of chai on a tray and the words, "I love you" translated by Google on her phone.
Perhaps being kind to strangers is the Islamic way, just as it is for Buddhists, but, when I ask Yasur if he is a practising Muslim, he shakes his head. How devout are Turks? I have noticed few slippers outside the many mosques we have passed on our journey, megaphones praising Allah. Only 10 percent of Turks go to the mosque, he tells me (and the 90 percent who don't are resented by those who do). We are soon to cross the Aegean Sea for Greece. We will remember Turks as friendly and kind. Any race that treats stray cats so charitably must be alright.
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Tony
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