Late in the summer of 2006 we got on a plane at London Heathrow, switched our mobile phones off, and dissappeared. Vanished.
We travelled to a small hotel in the Mugla region of Turkey just south of Fethiye called the “Yediburunlar Lighthouse”. While the guide books list it as a “boutique hotel”, we came to think of it more as a retreat from the western world.
Before arriving, I had absolutely no idea where I was going, or what it was going to be like. I had never visited Turkey, and had not been involved in choosing or booking the holiday - W did it in response to my work schedule that summer which had basically caused “summer” not to happen. The trip was life changing in some ways - it caused us to step away from the endless rush, to slow down, and to discover that there is another way. While I could write about the Yediburunlar Lighthouse, and the couple who run it, the real story is about the people. The Turkish people.
We’ll start with the maid where we stayed. Imagine a girl in her late teens who works all day and all evening for 6 days of the week. She never complains, she smiles - and means it - as she passes anybody, and she sings with the most amazing voice when she doesn’t think anybody can hear her. She is strikingly pretty, and when you leave at the end of your holiday she squeezes you so hard you cant help being completely and utterly won over by this person that you’ve never even had a conversation with. Next we’ll recall the man driving a tractor on the road out of Gey. From 200 yards he spotted me pointing the camera, and put on an almost child-like display. Despite his advanced years he was a small boy for a few moments - riding the tractor as one might a horse, and waving his cap as a flag. On approach he jumps from the tractor, shakes our hands with the biggest smile and introduces himself, proudly holding his hand to his chest. Although our attempted communication is completely misunderstood on both sides, this man of modest means cannot help but lift you, and make you feel better for having met him. He tries to invite us back to his house where his family will provide hospitality they cannot afford. We politely decline, and suspect we have hurt his feelings. We next recall walking through Gey - a small farming community - and I see a girl working at the rear of a house. She is standing behind a cow, hanging washing to dry. Bedecked in layers of flowing material, I am struck by her almost shocking beauty. Memories of the famous National Geographic cover of the Afghan girl come to mind. I want to take her photograph, and something stops me. She catches sight of me from the corner of her eye, and while innocently smiling back, timidly retreats further behind the cow. She is on my mind through the rest of that day - wondering if she will ever know more than that small village in the mountains, and if that is such a bad thing. Finally, I recall the old man we met on the high mountain road from Bel. Walking alone for several miles in searing temperatures, his wrinkled face cracks into an enormous toothless grin as we approach, and he apprehends all four of us. Our attempts at communication behond “hello” in Turkish are remarkably successful, with him learning where we are all from, and lifting us with his enthusiasm, friendliness, and genuine curiosity. He tries desperately to invite us back to his house, and appears dissappointed when we finally exctract ourselves.
What am I trying to say?
The people in the coastal mountains of Turkey’s “Turquoise Coast” are of modest means, and yet they can remind us all of human values and qualities that are being eroded in the west. On more than one occaision we - complete strangers - were invited to visit families who perhaps could not afford to provide the hospitality they offered. We were met in every direction by running, smiling children, and by effusively charming, open, giving, friendly people. We saw strikingly beautiful girls working in remote villages, and decided that it perhaps wasn’t such a terrible thing that they might not know of the world we do.
I think that has been Turkey’s gift to me - an affirmation that my sometimes “foolish” belief in the essential goodness of people is not wasted. I know I’m not the same person that left England all those years ago, and that is the message I wish to communicate on.