After meeting the crazy inhabitants of Bodrum town and reading through to the last poignant moments in Turkey Street by Jack Scott, it was really hard to come to the end of this tale and return to normal life. Scott’s portrayal of his life with partner Liam had me longing to sit in the garden…
This pocket size guide to the essential customs and culture of Turkey is a must read whether you’re coming to Turkey for the first time or plan to live here for a while. Unlike the usual guide book or personal travel narrative, Culture Smart Turkey contains a carefully thought out wealth of information about the…
Extract about Ramadan in Kayseri “… I was living in Kayseri in central Turkey for my next Turkish Ramadan. It was 2002, and winter once again. The cold made me permanently hungry so food was of paramount importance. Knowing most of my colleagues and students would fast, I took a sandwich with me to work…
Whether you support it or not, circumcision in Turkey (sünnet in Turkish), is a touchy subject that can’t be avoided if you stay in the country for any period of time. On my first trip here in 1990 I listened with baited breath as a fellow traveller, an Englishman called Adrian who was bicycling to…
“Being Australian and living in Istanbul, one of the hardest things to cope with at first was the difficulty of finding a pool to go swimming in Istanbul regularly. Prior to 1980 life in Istanbul was much like life in Sydney. People spent their summer days swimming at beaches along the Sea of Marmara and…
Tucked away on the slopes up behind the port of Harem on the Asian side of Istanbul, almost hidden by heavy containers and giant cranes, is the little visited Haydarpasa Cemetery. Dating back to 1855 when the Turkish Government gave the site to the British Government, it contains about six thousand graves of victims of…
My family wasn’t religious, so when I was a little girl in primary school I was always slightly jealous of the other children at Easter. I’d see them emerge from scripture classes clutching Easter bonnets festooned with strips of paper, straw baskets filled with fluffy yellow cotton wool chickens and colourful pictures of the saints….
Living in Turkey for more than fifteen years, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to watch and adopt Turkish cultural practices. I’m fascinated by what I see and always want to learn more. I read everything I can get my hands on and pepper my Turkish friends with numerous questions so often they say I’m…
In a recent interview with world famous Turkish photographer Ara Guler in Today’s Zaman (Nov 14, 2014) he said, “The Istanbul that I lived in wasn’t Istanbul. Actually, I didn’t see Istanbul either. Istanbul was already over. And Pera is over, too. When the Russian invasion happened in 1917, the White Russians came here, that…
“A few months ago, Lisa Morrow, an experienced travel writer living in Istanbul, contacted me. She had just released a book, Exploring Turkish Landscapes, about Turkish culture and asked if she could send a copy, for a published review. I said yes and a week later, received a 162-page book via cargo. Since I am…