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Life in a Turkish
Tourist Town
By Priscilla Windsor Brown
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..March
2006
| I wake up
every day knowing that I live in one of the loveliest places in the world.
That, in spite of the invasion of thousands of people who have arrived
these past few years to buy into our quality of life. Fortunately,
I arrived in Bodrum, Turkey in the late eighties. Little did I realize
then that I would still be here 20 years later. I am not the first foreigner
to have been lulled into the Lotus Eating syndrome in Bodrum, Turkey. Hundreds
of foreigners arrived before I.
It was 1983 when I first arrived
in Bodrum for a sailing holiday. I had been working in London for
a non-profit with teenagers from the inner city. We flew into to Izmir,
a military airport, where we were thoroughly searched before climbing aboard
a rickety bus and traveling south for an endless five hours without air-conditioning
in high summer. It used to be work to get here. Foreigners
who came to Turkey then were highly motivated travelers, in search of eastern
culture, atmosphere, food, and music.
Three years later, I heard there
was a summer job as a holiday representative available. I jumped at it.
Everything then was exotic and charming - even if the power did get cut
off on a regular basis.
And there was the attention factor.
As a blonde, I stood out. I returned to London when my summer job ended,
but I was back the following year. I fell in love and married a Turk.
It didn’t take long to learn that
values about marital commitment are different here. Don’t get me wrong.
Turkish men have charm by the gallon. However, women outnumber men
seven to one, not including foreign females like me who have moved here
to live on the edge of the Aegean Sea. When my Turkish marriage ended,
my ex-husband tried to convince me that I should leave the country.
I was hell bent on staying and did.
Twenty years later, there have been
major changes in Bodrum. A local airport opened nine years ago, and that
more than anything opened the floodgates for a foreign invasion of holiday
makers. Like me, many of those tourists decided to purchase homes
here. Today there are 700 more real estate agents in Bodrum than there
were fifteen years ago.
Bodrum residents used to be
fond of saying that they would never become another South of Spain – overbuilt,
and a charm less package tourist destination. Today the white box houses
creep ever higher up the hillsides like so many Lego blocks, replacing
olive groves, wild oleander bushes, and wild oregano.
Red tape and bureaucracy loom large
in our lives -Turks seem to take it for granted that time is consumed by
endless paperwork for everything, including applying for residency.
There are of course, positive aspects
that come with growth and change. For instance, it is far more convenient
today to find the things we need and want to buy. The days of loading up
baggage in London with booty to bring back to Turkey are long gone.
Bathroom shops line our streets alongside home improvement outlets...
two Marks and Spencers make there home here now. Even the British supermarket
chain, Tesco has claimed a place in this Turkish resort town.
You can’t argue with excellent health
care. Two private hospitals compete to offer the utmost in European style
health care.
And so, in spite of the throngs of
tourists that flock to our seaside town each summer, the sun and the Aegean
Sea continue to mesmerize. My neighbours, landlady, and her family
are simple and honest, and genuinely concerned for my welfare. And
so I think I’ll stay.
This morning: Lush almond blossoms
weigh down the boughs outside my bedroom window, evidence that spring is
around the corner. Summer will follow with its hot breezes, the classic
Turkish gullets sailing majestically in and out of our harbor. And the
tourists will arrive.
No matter. Because I have a garden,
my haven, where I go to count my blessings. |
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