You can find details on all of these tours on our pages, simply click on the links, but to best understand Turkey, you may wish to read our brief introduction below:
Essential to understanding Turkey.
Many tourists fly into Turkey, spend a week in a beach resort and then fly out. There is nothing wrong with that, but Turkey is such a fascinating nation that a tailor made Turkey private tour is a fascinating option. We started our private Turkey adventure tours for our scuba divers. Scuba divers who visit Turkey are by nature inquisitive and interested people. They want to find out more about Turkey, and meet the real people of this diverse nation. We wrote the following introduction to help give a background to Turkey.
A potted modern history of Turkey
In order to properly understand Turkey, it’s helpful to look at its history and geography. The Turks have been an independent nation for the last 800 years. Originally a nomadic community of soldiers and farmers, the Turks started to settle midway through the Ottoman Era. They embraced the west with its technology and yet their culture stayed decidedly eastern. The Ottoman empire was phenomenally successful, reaching Vienna, Mombasa, Morocco, the Hejaz (Modern Day Yemen) and Basra. Using a pluralistic method of governance, which included the warriors and leaders of the people they had just conquered it flourished. But like all other empires, the Ottoman empire started to decline. Arguably it reached its nadir when it entered the First World War on side with the Germans. Mile by mile, the Turkish army fought a rear-guard action from Suez to Mecca, and from Basra to the Cudi Mountains. By the time the Ottoman state signed a ceasefire, Turkey was in a bad way. The allies placed an army of occupation in Istanbul. They stripped Turkey of most of her islands, the fertile Mesopotamian lands and her Red Sea ports. Anatolia’s edges were occupied by allied armies, and the Turkish state reduced to a tiny rump. The allied powers were fools if they thought the people who had resisted tooth and nail for 4 years would simply accept subjugation. It came as no surprise to the Turks when in 1919 a general called Mustafa Kemal stared to rally his fellow generals and soldiers. A Turkish State, led from the central Anatolian city of Ankara rose out of the ashes and started to resist. Clashes turned into battles against the British Army. The Turks were fighting like demons to regain control of their land but more importantly their destiny. A British General was charged with analyzing what was required to defeat and subjugate this “new” Turkish army. The answer was 52 divisions. With unrest brewing in the cities of Europe, there was absolutely no chance of mustering such a large army after the horrors of the first world war. The British and French, the Greeks and soon all other occupiers were engaged in a battle. The allied armies of occupation found themselves fighting and dying three years after the end of the war to end all wars. By 1922, they had all left Turkey ignominiously. In 1923, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk declared a new Republic, which interestingly embraced the Europe it had just repelled. The Arabic alphabet was replaced with the Roman. The law was re-written, gone was sharia, and in came a Swiss version. Architects were sent from Turkey all over Europe to find building styles to copy. Turkey has continued in this vein ever since, she joined NATO in 1950, fought admirably in the Korean War, and then in 1986 applied to join the European Economic Community.
Sadly, for all parties involved the advance was rebuffed. Soon after, the Soviet Union collapsed and the now named European Union was more interested in integrating Eastern Europe. The situation worsened. When citing first economic, then cultural and finally political differences Europe downgraded its relationship further with Turkey. Perhaps there was no thought or care that the Turks would not wait on the sidelines for ever. History repeated itself, and a resurgent Turkey turned east and south looking for new trading partners and alliances – which is where we find ourselves now.
The Geography of Turkey – an inescapable Truth
Sitting on the Bosphorus and the bridge between Europe and Asia, Turkey is strategically important. Numerous peaks are higher than 10,000ft with Turkey’s highest peak, Mt Ararat, at 5137m altitude. The Anatolian Plateau is set at an altitude of over 1000m and is crisscrossed by mountain ranges. To put it in perspective: Turkey’s longest domestic flight is from Istanbul to Hakkari, a distance of 1400km and takes 2hrs and 10 minutes to complete. Just north of Hakkari is Lake Van, nominally Turkey’s largest lake but effectively an inland sea covering 3755 square kilometres.
The plains of Anatolia are fertile and supports many farms. Where the land is less hospitable, the nomadic shepherds spend months alongside their animals over the long summers. Lush green forests cover the base of the Toros and Kackar mountains.
Most important of all for divers, (you can see the author’s bent for the underwater world here) Turkey has a coastline that stretches for 8333km and four seas: the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean. The rather tempestuous Black Sea to the north is generally unexplored. Istanbul is home to the Bosphorus or Turkish Straits: a busy sea lane, and borders the sea of Marmara which Turkish scuba divers have been exploring since the 1950’s. The Dardanelles lead into Aegean Sea. Here there are a number of WW1 battleships, sunk by the Turkish Navy and Artillery in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. The Aegean has a plethora of dive sites, but my favourite has to be Bodrum, where the confluence of the Aegean and the Mediterranean create a series of currents that attract schools of fish, and lure ships onto rocks. To the south, long sandy beaches blend into rocky outcrops on the long Mediterranean coast that stretches east to Antioch. (Antakya).
Turkish Culture
Turkey has a population that is so mixed and so diverse, that you could write a book about the different customs and cultures of her people.
Regardless of their religion or ethnicity, the people of Turkey are proud and equally welcoming. Turkey is approximately 97.5% Muslim, 2% Jewish and 0.5 percent Christian. The Turkish population includes Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Laz, Assyrian and other ethnic groups. In addition, Turkey is home to 4-5 million Syrian Arabs, who seek refuge on a temporary basis. The big cities and coastal towns attract a sizeable multiethnic expatriate community from all over the globe. This ethnic diversity is the reason for the rich cultural traditions that the traveler will come across in every part of Turkey.
In the southeast of Turkey you will hear Arabic and Kurdish spoken in the bazaar, to the north on the Black Sea you’ll hear Lazca and other dialects. In Mardin you are in Turkish Mesopotamia, where the men wear the loose white headdress so familiar over the border. In Edirne, the city is heavily influenced by the cross border trade with Bulgaria. In Karakoy in Istanbul you will see the Orthodox priest walking from his church to his flat, and around Galata on a Saturday morning Jewish worshipers stream out of the synagogues.
What is common in all of the people who inhabit Anatolia, is that the culture of hospitality, kindness and honesty generally pervade. It is this wonderful mix of people within the borders of the Turkish Republic that make Turkey one of the most attractive reasons to travel to the nation.
Turkish Food – A mélange of east and middle east
Turkish cuisine is rich and varied and is often regarded, with French and Chinese, as being one of the three global classical cuisines. It also has a number of regional specialties that, as mentioned before, can often be localised to a tiny area. For some travelers, the greatest culture shock can be a trip to a large supermarket. There, you will find a score of imported cheeses but next to these will be displayed close to a hundred domestic cheeses, “imported” from the four corners of Turkey.
For the traveller, street food or cafés can be a huge attraction. It helps to like meat though! Every town will have a kebabci or Kebab restaurant. Then there will be the pide restaurant where thick nan like bread becomes a form of meat or cheese pizza. Coastal towns will all have fish restaurants where mezzes, Arab starters are served with raki, (a local aniseed spirit) before grilled fish and salad. In central Anatolia people often prefer to grab a lahmacun, a thin meat only “pizza” which is rolled up with massive sprigs of parsley and onion. Every café in turkey will have a pot of fed pepper leaves called pul biber. Beware, the further east you go, the hotter this becomes. In Urfa, I made the mistake of covering my food with it, only to wince as I last had in India. The Turks love soup, and many drink it for breakfast. There are three main types, mercimek (lentil soup); ezogelin (a spicy lentil) and tarhana, a mixture of yogurt and fermented milk. You will find soup at every bus station, every buffet and small restaurant. Other local specialties are gozleme (an egg or cheese wrap), manti (ravioli in yogurt) and the full array of eggplant baked dishes such as karni yarik and imam bayildi.
The section on Turkish sweets could be a book in itself. Sutlac, kazandibi, kakaolu pudding are in order: Rice pudding, crispy pudding, chocolate pudding. If you want something more refined with your coffee you can opt for baklava or any other of the syrup based baked pastries. Make no mistake, these are effectively pure sugar, rolled into some flour and drenched in yet more sugar. To put it bluntly, even the most active traveller will struggle to lose weight in Turkey if they enjoy their food.
A NOTE ON CARPETS AND HOW TO AVOID BEING FLEECED
If you book a holiday in Turkey through a tour organisation, you will at some stage be taken to a carpet shop for a show. This happens everywhere. You do not need to buy a carpet at the show, but if you do, note that 30-60% of what you pay will go to the guide, the driver of your bus, and the company where you bought your tour from. I have always believed that the “guide is on your side”, and that he or she will get you the best discounts, find the best deals, the greatest value and show you what you really want to see. He or she will protect you from touts and thieves and be your constant companion for the duration of your tour. You would then show your appreciation by tipping your guide heavily, for “being on your side”. Sadly this is not the case in Turkey. No matter how nice your guide is, he or she will profit from anything you buy, every toilet stop you make, every coffee at every roadhouse and certainly every carpet. This process is in my opinion disgusting. It also flies in the face of every Turkish principle of hospitality, and due to the internet, the figures are changing slightly.
This is the reason I have not sold Turkish tours for years. I now do so, only with close friends and hoteliers. To this day, I have not found one guide who I would trust not to take carpet commission, they believe it is their birthright. Of course every hotel and tour operator works on commission, in that the tour operator advertises and spends money to gain the client and then sends them to the holiday destination of their choice. This is based upon the client never paying more than if they booked direct. Indeed; most agencies get discounts which they pass on, and the tourist pays less. Not so in Turkey. I struggle to find anyone who will work in this manner, the client/tourist is there to be milked – and yes that is you.
So this was one of the main reasons I wrote this tiny guide. If you want to have a cheap Turkish tour, and an authentic one, orgainse it yourself. Turkey is not difficult. Hire a car and see the nation. Or travel by bus and train and negotiate at every port of call.
Sadly this is a hassle, and it is easier to pay slightly more to take the strain out of your travelling. And this is why good tour operators do exist. But when you want to buy something, you need to go alone, without a guide and ignore any questions about how you got to the town when the carpet shop owner asks you. You can then argue like hell over the price, knowing that 30-50% of your money is not going to your guide/tour operator.
Better still, if you know a carpet shop, contact them by email and make an appointment, this simple email cuts out all commission and fees, even if you walk in with a guide on tour. You can check the internet for your favorite carpet shop. I unashamedly recommend Ruth Lockwood, the New Zealander who owns Tribal Collections (see the section on Cappadoccia).https://www.tribalcollectionscarpets.com/ Ruth has never paid me commission and never will.
