Antalya, Turkey: silhouettes and beers at sunset

I can't get enough of the sunsets in Antalya. Early evening, an hour or so before the sun goes down, we wander down to the old harbour, a ten minute walk from the house we're renting. During the day Terry and I are so focused on work, that apart from our coffee and lunch breaks, our bend-and-stretch moments, and our breaks to play with the kittens (when we arrived four weeks ago we were asked to babysit a cat and her four newborn kittens; the offer was too good to refuse), we rarely speak and our eyes barely leave our laptop screens. Once upon a time when I worked a full-time job my staff used to call me a robot. Now I freelance I'm the same. Terry's no different. We could be working in separate offices, for separate companies. It's like this when we're in write-up mode. So we use our walks to catch up on the day's 'events'. We ignore the touts wanting to sell us carpets, postcards and tacky souvenirs. Especially the guy in the fez who is always posing for a picture with sunburnt German tourists. And we ignore the guys inviting us to sit down in their restaurants for dinner (at 6pm!), to have a beer, to take a boat tour. And we especially ignore the guys in silly velvet costumes yelling out "Hello! Ice-cream!". Today we look at each other and laugh. It sounds as if they're saying hello to their ice creams. Do these calls ever get people in? Is it not enough to display the ice-cream and for tourists to see it and think "Mmm... ice-cream... that looks good, I might have an ice cream..." Do we need to be shouted at? The touts in Turkey are bugging us more than ever before. They should know we're 'locals' by now, I think. Terry and I use our walks to brief each other on emails received, work opportunities and offers, commissions underway, progress made in trip planning, and new project ideas. We always seem to have new project ideas. This is part of our problem. We're never satisfied. We always want more. We take on too much. And we chat about the travel news and world news and emails from family and friends. And then we enjoy the sunset. With the locals. Who walk along the concrete breakwater and back again. Who canoodle on the rocks. Play with their kids. Read newspapers. Paint their boats. Fix their fishing nets. Buy hot nuts. Eat hot nuts. Play guitar. Drink beers. They always drink beers. They really seem to like their beer here, especially the local brand Efes. Once the sun is so low that the people are only silhouettes, we snap a few pics and go 'home'. Back to work. And then I'm reminded that no matter how much we're living like locals, we're not locals. If we were locals, we'd still be down at the harbour drinking beers.

Guides: getting in the way of a good travel experience

Guides, as I wondered in my last post, who uses them? My aversion to hiring guides is largely due to the distance they put between me and my travel experience. I mean, think back to the last time you had a truly memorable travel moment. The first time you saw the Giza Pyramids, Palmyra, Baalbek or Uluru for instance. A museum you visited that was overwhelming (the Louvre perhaps?) or a view that was breathtaking (Iguazu Falls?). Think back. I don't know about you, but I like to savour those special experiences on my own. In silence. Or share them with someone dear to me. I want to take it all in slowly and imprint it in my mind forever. I don't want some tour guide blathering in my ear. The first time I saw Petra was ruined by a guide. (A-ha! I hear you say.) It was a visit that wasn't planned. We'd been on a Royal Jordanian flight from Casablanca to Abu Dhabi with a connection in Amman, when along with some other passengers we were bumped off the flight. We had 24 hours to kill before the next one and because we didn't have visas our only options were to take an escorted tour for the day or spend the time getting to know the drab Soviet-style hotel they'd put us up in. We took the private tour to Petra with a lovely Irish couple, just the four of us in the car. Then there was the guide. The guide was one of the most irritating people on earth. He talked incessantly, asked trivial questions he wanted us to guess the answers to, and told silly riddles. He drove me insane. So insane that as we approached the siq - the narrow gorge you walk through for a kilometre or so until you arrive at the opening to the Treasury and the magnificence of Petra is revealed (an act which in itself only adds to the sense of anticipation, thereby intensifying the experience) - I knew I had to do something rather than have my experience spoiled. My options were to either tell him to shut up, which would inevitably result in an ugly scene, ruining it for everybody. Or to wander off, quicken my pace, and leave the group behind. I chose the latter. Rude perhaps, but definitely the least damaging for all involved. As I arrived at the entrance and began to contemplate the beauty of the sight, I could still hear his distance chatter in the background. It was then that I vowed to never use a guide again.

The image isn't Petra of course. It's Palmyra. And don't let anyone tell you it's possible to experience the place alone. While there might not be another traveller around, there'll be several touts on foot and motorbike hawking postcards and 'ancient coins', guys on camels trying to sell you a ride, cheeky little kids asking for baksheesh, and of course a guide or two. Don't give in to any. Say "(k)halas" ('enough' in Arabic) as sternly as you can, and walk the other way so you can enjoy what must be the world's most sublime archaeological site.

Up up and away: junior jetsetters and the formation of air travel fascination

"Up up and away, with TAA, the friendly, friendly waaaaaay". That was the jingle for long gone Australian airline TAA. My precocious little sister Felicia, aged three, upon seeing the airline logo on the side of the plane, once sang the song at the top of her lungs from the top of the stairs as we boarded a TAA flight in Sydney. We were flying alone and the name cards the air ‘hostess’ had pinned to our chests identified us as junior jetsetters. While the adult passengers and airline staff around us giggled at my cute sister's capricious song, I, taking my jetsetter status a little too seriously for an eleven year old, was terribly embarrassed at the time. Now that moment is one of my fondest childhood travelling memories. My love of air travel, airlines, airplanes and airports was also cemented on that trip.

Although I love everything and anything to do with flying, as I declared in yesterday's blog, I’m not a fan of take-off or landing. I agree with Alain de Botton in The Art of Travel that "few seconds in life are more releasing than those in which a plane ascends to the sky" and I appreciate the "psychological pleasure" of flying he writes so eloquently about, but I think I equally enjoy hanging out at airports and the sense of anticipation that builds as we wait for a flight. I like to read while I wait to board, and naturally I love reading anything to do with airports, airplanes and airlines. A few favorites: Airports: A Century of Architecture, Hugh Pearman's historical and pictorial celebration of the "most exciting places on earth"; Marc Auge’s wonderfully intelligent meditation on airports (and shopping malls, motorways, etc) in Non Places: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Supermodernity; and Alastair Gordon’s compelling Naked Airport: a Cultural History of the World’s Most Revolutionary Structure.

The sleek airport interior architecture pictured is Bangkok’s new Suvarnabhumi International Airport. I wonder what the young couple pictured are reading.