navigate:
Saturday 2004-05-15 - Antakya, Turkey
A thunderous welcome
Today we cross the border to Turkey, where the city of Antakya is our first stop. Crossing the border (where we get our Turkish visa) is no problem but just after we are in, I see dark clouds on the horizon. Indeed, more rain is awaiting us, and soon we’re driving through a big thunderstorm. This one isn’t over quickly however, and when we arrive at our hotel it’s still pouring. We want to go out for lunch and then go to an Internet cafe but think we’ll wait a bit until the rain gets a bit lighter; one look out of the window a few minutes later tells us otherwise: not only is it still pouring, but the street has turned into a river! People pulling up their trousers to wade across the street, a cat making big jumps trying to get home without getting wet (unsuccessfully), bottles, crates and even a chair floating by.
When we finally go out we find a little restaurant for lunch and an Internet cafe on the way there where I am sitting now typing this — struggling with the layout of a Turkish keyboard where the ‘ı’ (i without a dot) is in the place where on our keyboards the i is, with the i somewhere else entirely — listening to the hum of people (this is a large room and it’s busy) and the clatter outside of the rain which has started again.
Eating out in the middle of nowhere
Our driver, Ali, and two guys (one is called Mehmet but I didn’t catch the other’s name) from the hotel are invited by our tour companion for dinner. Ali knows a restaurant somewhere outside the city of Antakya. Thom, Carla and I are coming, too. With the bus we drive out of town, to a little village that doesn’t look like there would be a restaurant — but there is, and it’s packed. The owner welcomes us, obviously pleased they’re bringing tourists. The meal is excellent, the company even better. This afternoon I bought a little dictionary and I barely lay hands on it: Mehmet and Ali use it all the time to communicate better with us since they don’t speak English. Joking and chatting, eating shish and köfte, three kinds of salad, bread, three kinds of humus; drinking Yeni Rakı, a kind of beet wine, and water: a great evening in a place where tourists never come — I wouldn’t be able to find it back either!
