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By Yes Mom I'm Alive

Nemrut Dağı

CAPPADOCIA

Pammukale

I am standing barefoot on what looks like a cloud, except that it is solid, jagged and cutting my feet. This white hard cloud covers the hillside, sloping down and stopping abruptly just before reaching the small town below.

I am standing on Pamukkale (meaning "cotton castle"), a massive plateau of white calcium deposit and terraces of pools cascading over the edge of the ancient Roman city of Hierapolis in Turkey's Inner Aegean region. There's a scientific explanation for this otherworldly landscape, of course. Something about hot springs, and calcium mixing with hydrogen carbonate to make calcium carbonate, or travertine. Something about the minerals turning the clear spring water it collects cyan blue.

There's another explanation, too - and that is that I am dreaming.

A dream that is abruptly ended by the sudden surge of tourists, arriving on large coach buses from all corners of Turkey. From atop the cloud hill, I see them coming up the hill, in droves. I am outnumbered. Soon, the tranquil warm pool where I dipped my feet is full of overweight middle aged German women in bathing suits having a soak, Turkish boys roughhousing and splashing each other for the amusement of their girlfriends, and Japanese tourists huddled together giggling on the edge. A queue forms on the side of the hill with the best view of the terraces for women to pose befuddlingly seductively in front of this natural geological site. The guard blows his whistle every three minutes as tourists risk the rules for the sake of a better picture, stepping over the ropes protecting this millennia-old natural wonder from their feet. And with that, my time in the pool was over.

I retreat up the hill to find a quiet shady cafe to sit and read. Pamukkale made Hierapolis a town known for leisure, attracting imperial rulers for thousands of years before it fell into obscurity, a status it clearly no longer holds. And after six days crossing from eastern to western Turkey at breakneck speed, I am more than happy to do as the emperors did and relax. I read, I walk the gardens, I go in search of the ruins of the theater. I eat antep fistigi ice cream in a lawn chair and tune out the clamorous children running by just long enough to take a nap.

At dusk, the tourists retire to their coach buses, deserting the pools once again. I am alone as the water settles and turns purple and gold in the setting sun.

Istanbul

I just can't stay mad at Istanbul.

My first day, oh I was furious with it. The crowds were pushy. Aya Sofia was under renovation. Everywhere I went hassle, hassle, hassle. The food was too dull to be so expensive. It rained. A lot. My first night, I went to bed angry at Istanbul. I woke up the next morning, still holding a grudge. I walked around the Sultanahmet with my arms crossed.

But as I came upon the Hippodrome, too early in the morning for touts or tourists, my posture softened. The rose dawn light glazed the highest dome of The Blue Mosque, illuminating all the more this remarkable feat of un-modern engineering. I wondered into streets of industry and trespassed into every day life. I watched children run gleefully through a kit of pigeons in a plaza by Yeni Camii. I strolled through the Gulhane Gardens with its flowers in all their great spring splendor. I played backgammon with new friends at a nagile (hookah) salon until it was late afternoon.

As much as I enjoyed the day, my reconciliation with Istanbul remained tenuous at best: I was harassed and followed by a young man trying to lure me into his carpet shop; ignoring all my very polite requests to fuck off, I caused a scene and took cover in a crowd of German tourists. The jeton (token) machine ate my last three Turkish lira, causing me to miss the last bus heading to Beşiktaş. Every time the T1 passed by, 25 times a day, its brakes would screech, like nails on a chalkboard, sending shivers shooting up my spine. And, perhaps most devastating of all, despite very clear directives, my lamb döner kebab came with onions.

But as I ended my day on the Galata Bridge, crossing over the mighty Bosphorus, so wide and rough you'd think it was the ocean, and the rain clouds broke just long enough to reveal a setting westerly sun, I was won over again.

I just can't stay mad at Istanbul.

Sailing the Bosphorus

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