the Turkish Bath

An important part of every visit to Turkey is at least one trip to a public bath, or hamam. Hamams are everywhere in Turkey. There is at least one if not more in every city or small town, and you can usually spot them by their multi-domed bulbous exteriors. The tradition of the public bath was introduced here nearly two millenniums ago when the Roman Empire took control of the region. The Turks took such an affinity to the concept, that over time it has become an important and permanent fixture in their culture.

I chose to have my first hamam experience in the town of Selchuk after a long, dusty day exploring the ancient ruins of Ephesus. It was around 9pm on a Saturday night when I wandered in and made my way up the front desk.

The proprietor, a tall, salt and pepper haired man with a bulbous red nose helped my lock my valuables in a drawer and handed me a red checkered towel and a pair of sandals.

“Changing area.” he said to me, and pointed at a closet-sized room.

Closing the curtain I removed my clothes, wrapped the towel around my waist and slipped on the sandals. More than a little self-conscious, I exited the room and headed into the bathing area.

The domed interior of the room I entered was incredibly high and every surface was constructed of smooth marble that rippled around the place in great grey and white streaks. Directly underneath the dome was a smooth octagonal bench where people could sit or lay down to enjoy the great amounts of steam that filled the interior, and the walls were lined with a series of private wash stations.

It took me a moment to adjust to the heat and the humidity. There was only one other patron, an older man with grey hair and what would have been a long, proud mustache if it weren't dangling limply below his chin from over-exposure to great amounts of steam. He smiled kindly at me as I lumbered over to the bathing area and began to clean myself off.

After washing I sat on the marble slab beneath the dome and closed my eyes, breathing deeply and absorbing the steam. Before long I began to sweat profusely. The old man had vacated the room while I was washing, and since I had been left alone I tested the acoustics of the interior with a satisfyingly resonant hum.

It was around twenty minutes later that a tall, fat man lumbered slowly into the room, his eyes resting on me as he paused in the doorway. His large round belly hung out over the red and white checkered towel that was tied around his waist, and a shock of black hair grew straight up from his potato shaped head reaching a height that seemed to defy the laws of gravity.

A man of few words he pointed to a slab of marble to the right of the room's entrance and growled at me through a thick eastern accent, “Lay down.”

At this point in my story, I suppose I should lend some context to what was about to happen. Contrary to what you may be thinking this was not one of “those kinds” of bath houses. Shame on you for even thinking it. In Turkish baths after one has properly pressure cooked by steam, they receive what is called a soap massage from one of the attendants. During this process one lays down on a stone slab while a they are lathered up, massaged, and then scrubbed down with a kese, a cloth glove that looks vaguely like a kitchen mitt and feels roughly like a loofah sponge.

“Where you from?” asked the attended as he covered my skin with thick, foamy suds. Before I could reply he popped my spine three times with his great ham-like hands.

“...America.” I responded weakly.

He grunted at me and proceeded to massage my arms and legs with soap, finally rubbing the lather into my hair and scalp, effectively making me feel like a toddler getting a bath from my parents.

Once he had completed lathering me, he next put on his kese and began to scrub my body. Though the texture of the cloth is quite rough, it is not a painful or unpleasant experience. In fact, I found it to be quite relaxing.

“You are dirty. Very dirty,” the attendant grumbled.

I wondered momentarily if this was his idea of pillow talk until I saw the skin he was rubbing from me coming off in thick, grey clumps. I was indeed dirty. Very dirty.

After he had finished with me, the attendant pointed towards a shower at the corner of the room. “Cold shower,” he ordered me.

The ice cold water was for a moment like razors on my skin, but once I had adjusted to it the temperature felt quite pleasant, and when I was finished rinsing off my body radiated intensely against the heat of the room.

“You want oil massage?” the attendant asked, the tone he took made it seem less like an offer and more like a threat, and the idea of being further manhandled by his tree trunk arms was a bit more than I could bear.

“No, thank you.” I replied, and forced a weak smile.

Once outside the steam room, the proprietor of the hamam wrapped my head and body in soft green towels and sat me in front of a television with a cup of hot tea where I endured watching part of a surreal Turkish film about a farmer who had no arms.

Though the entire experience was a little disconcerting at the time, for the next two days I must admit to feeling unbelievably fresh. My skin was clean in a way that no amount of simple showering and washing could ever hope to achieve, and I began to understand why the hamam is such a popular phenomenon within Turkish culture. I might not recommend the experience to everyone, but it is certainly not one I will soon forget.

Archeology - Behind the Scenes in Istanbul

“Istanbul is one giant archaeological site,” Jonesy explained to us, “Every time they try to start a construction project somewhere they discover some palace or other something that's thousands of years old. They can't complete the project until the whole thing has been excavated. That's what happened here. They're trying to build a subway system, and they found the remains of an ancient shipyard.”

Michael Jones, Jonesy to his friends, is an archaeologist with an unfortunate last name for someone in his chosen field. He is a student of Texas A&M University, and a childhood friend of my girlfriend Amanda. He is tall and lanky, with long brown hair, thick glasses, and an even thicker beard. At first glance he looks more likely to be a cult leader than a p.h.D. student, but when talking to him it quickly becomes obvious that he is an expert in his field. Michael Jones has that rare blend of intelligence, enthusiasm, and patience that make for a dedicated researcher.

For the last three years Jonesy has been living in Turkey while working on his degree, and helping his Professor excavate Byzantine era ships. Every time he starts thinking about going home, they seem to dig up something new and exciting and he ends up staying longer. When we initially discussed coming to Turkey to visit him, he was talking about leaving at the end of summer. By the time we got here, he'd pushed it off until Christmas.

It was a cloudy and overcast day in early summer when Jonesy took us for a behind the scenes look at the world of archeology. The excavation site he works on is huge, loud and dirty. Full of construction equipment, and workers wearing rain boots, helmets, and orange safety vests. The subway construction still proceeds on as much of the site as possible, but at this point the real bulk of the area still seems dedicated to the shipyard research project. So far they've discovered thirty-one ancient ships on the site, making it one of the largest discoveries of it's kind.

Archeology is not sexy work, no matter what George Lucas and Steven Spielberg would have you think. To avoid further decay, the wooden wrecks of these ancient vessels must be kept wet while researchers document the exact state they were found in. Weeks are spent slogging through damp earth, photographing and drawing wet wood. Since the site is below sea level, the area fills up with water at night and the workers have to spend each morning removing the excess liquid; a process Jonesy crassly refers to as “pumping out your mudhole.”

To better understand and learn from the ships they dig up, the archaeologists here need to become versed in ancient construction methods and nautical engineering. They have to understand what typifies the building methods of certain eras, and what makes those methods different when compared to the ships they find here. This knowledge allows them to pick out advances within eras and enables them add context to the broader historical timeline of building technology.

In addition to the ships found here, they have also dug up huge numbers of smaller, but still significant artifacts. Many of the most interesting pieces are already on display at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, but they are constantly discovering more. In a temporary on-site office, Jonesy rummaged through a bucket pulling out zip-lock baggies filled with water where they store these artifacts. Wooden buttons, game pieces made of bone, hair brushes. Ordinary objects that serve as clues about every day life centuries ago.

“People back then used the harbor as a trash dump.” he said, “So we find all kinds of stuff that people threw away. sometimes we'll find multiples of items together that we think fell from shipping boats when they were being unloaded. We found a whole stack of plates the other day. That was pretty good.”

Less sensitive objects like the bits of pottery they unearth almost daily, are stored in short plastic bins that are stacked all over the site. There are so many of these kinds of objects that the majority of them will not be kept once they have been cataloged. Instead they will be reburied in tidy landfills of ancient rubbish.

Real archeology, just like any other kind of research, is a long and laborious process. Lots of work goes into small results that build upon previous findings. The ancient world is like a jigsaw puzzle, waiting for us to dig up it's pieces to construct a clearer picture. More thoughtful than the grave robbing and tomb raiding that goes on on the silver screen, the work that Micheal Jones does here in Istanbul is noble and pure in it's pursuit of knowledge. Archeology may not be sexy work, but that doesn't make it any less interesting, or worthwhile.

Mustafah Kemal Attaturk

It is difficult to understand the modern Turkish state without first discussing it's progenitor: Mustafah Kemal Attaturk. Attaturk (who's surname literally means Father Turk) is the George Washington of Turkey. During World War I he rose to power in the military by winning a seemingly impossible campaign against Allied forces at Gallipoli. He defied orders from superiors and turned his insurrections into victory after victory for an army that otherwise seemed to fall flat on it's face.

He was infamous for his direct participation in battles, seen high on his horse in the middle of the fray, shouting out orders and somehow managing to not be killed in the crossfire. His methods were shrewd and effective, but often cruel and calculating. On more than one occasion he sent thousands of troops to their deaths to buy more time for significant reinforcements to arrive. By the end of WWI Attaturk was a controversial figure of near mythic proportions.

After the war Attaturk took advantage of the power vacuum in the capitol and seized control of the country. He set about erecting a new, modern Turkish nation from the now smoldering ashes of the Ottoman Empire. Using clever strategies, both military and diplomatic, he was able to eventually expel occupying forces from Britain, France, Italy, and after many fierce and ugly battles, Greece.

The textbook example of the benevolent dictator, Attaturk created with one hand the blueprint for a democratic nation, while using the other hand the strangle any opposition to it. He put into effect sweeping reforms that included universal suffrage, changing of the alphabet from Arabic to Roman, and adoption of the western calendar. Wishing to avoid the kind of theocratic government that often holds sway in the Middle East, Attaturk drafted laws establishing separation of mosque and state. These moves were aimed directly at creating a new national identity, that aligned Turkey with Europeans in the west whom Attaturk saw as the nation's future, rather than Arabs in the east, whom he saw as the nation's past.

Unfortunately this new national identity was ethnic rather than regional and there was little room in the new Republic for the minorities who had lived alongside Turks for so many generations. For the sake avoiding instability Attaturk made choices that stain the nation to this day.

After WWI an arrangement was made between Greece and Turkey that Greece would receive all of Turkey's Christians while Turkey would receive all of Greece's Muslims. No thought was given to the diverse communities that had flourished side by side so long, and thus a religious exchange across the Mediterranean began. This exodus has left Turkey with a culture that is still heavily influenced by it's former Orthodox Christian citizens while being sadly devoid of their presence.

Everywhere one travels in this country they will find statues, photographs, and monuments of Mustafah Kemal Attaturk. He image graces the presence of not just one, but every denomination of currency. It is a veritable cult of personality. Though there is still some debate about many of the methods Attaturk used, there is no doubting the results. Today Turkey is a thriving, modern nation, that has become more firmly linked to Europe with each passing decade. And good or bad, these people largely have their Father Turk to thank for this, or to blame.

Impressions of Turkey

Turkey's geographical location speaks volumes about it's history. For thousands of years this plot of land has held great strategic importance as a bridge between east and west. It's shores have seen more than it's fair share of battles and it's people have watched empires come and go. It is the home of Troy, the site of the battle of Gallipoli, and the final resting place of Noah's Ark. It is rich with importance to historians, archaeologists, and Biblical scholars alike. And after a long, tumultuous history it is, for the time being, stable.

In it's current incarnation Turkey is a nation of 70.4 million people that covers nearly 800,000 square miles. It is a nation that seems to simultaneously exist within the past and the present. Old men in tweed outfits and button up shirts play backgammon matches against young hipsters with spiky hair. Old women in head scarfs and long, plain skirts trudge down the street past cosmopolitan girls giggling into cell phones. A young punk in a Linkin Park t-shirt sports a guitar case containing the sas, a traditional Turkish folk instrument, and huge Mercedes buses speed down the road past horse drawn carriages stacked high with hay. It's as if the timeline here has gone completely haywire, accidentally integrating the beginnings of the last two centuries.

Turkey's main religion is Islam, but walking the streets in most major cities, you might not guess that right away. As opposed to many of their neighbors, most religious Turks practice a soft form of Islam that is neither militant nor fundamentalist in nature. Though some still choose to, most Turkish women do not wear head scarfs, and alcohol, especially the local favorite raki, is served in nearly every restaurant.

This is not to say however that Turkish people are not pious Muslims. Every city has an abundance of big and beautiful mosques, and the call to prayer rings throughout the streets of Istanbul as loudly as it does in Kabul or Tehran. It's just that the majority of Turkish Muslims practice their faith in a way reminiscent of American Catholics; more often than not keeping the faith, while picking and choosing the traditions that fit their modern lifestyle.

The average annual income in Turkey is around US$6,000, however this figure increases dramatically in metropolitan centers and along the western coast. The two big industries that keep Turkey's economy running are tourism and agriculture. In fact, Turkey is one of the only countries in the world to be entirely agriculturally independent. Much of the land outside the big cities is dedicated to farming, with tomatoes, apricots, wheat, and corn being chief among it's multitude of crops. Farming methods range depending on the capability of the owners, and everything from shiny new tractors to plow driven mules can be seen being used here.

Which of course, brings us to food. I was recently talking to a waiter at a restaurant who remarked that he wanted to visit his brother, who currently lives in Tokyo. He was eager to go, but was worried because he thought the food in Japan wasn't healthy, like the food in Turkey. This is of course absurd, as Japanese cuisine is among some of the healthiest in the world, and Turkish food is extremely high in calories and fat. In fact, this country has one of fastest rising obesity rates in the world.

Bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, and olives make up the ordinary breakfast, rivaled only by lentil soup served alongside heaps of crusty, white bread. Grilled meatballs known as kofte, are a popular for lunch served with tomatoes and rice, and again more bread. But the reigning king of Turkish cuisine is the all-mighty doner. Doner itself means “spinning” in Turkish, and you'll find the huge slabs of chicken and beef that comprise the bulk of these sandwiches rotating in the windows of endless store fronts. Similar to the Greek gyro, the doner consists of thinly sliced meat, tomatoes, onions, ketchup and garlic sauce dressed on thick French-style bread. They are cheap, fast, and probably the single reason that the presence of McDonald's doesn't loom as largely here as it does in other parts of the Europe. Did I mention they're also delicious?

Anyone who has ever watched Midnight Express knows that drugs are highly illegal in Turkey. But there are three vices that almost everyone here is guilty of: tobacco, tea, and backgammon. These addictions are on display on nearly every street corner, quite often all at once. In my time here I have thoroughly succumb to two of these three demons. Fortunately neither one I've chosen is likely to cause me cancer, though I am in danger of both losing sleep and wasting time.
Straddling Europe, and the Middle East, Turkey is an ancient land that is charging full throttle into the new millennium. Though it may not be as successful as some of the other countries that border the Mediterranean, Turkey is no longer the sick man of Europe. In fact, from what I've seen so far, it appears to be doing quite well.

A Quick Announcement

For those who are not already aware of it, the schedule for our journey has been drastically adjusted. One of the great joys of traveling the way we have been for the last five months is the freedom it allows. When we left in February we had purchased only one way tickets to Bangkok and had sketched out just a rough itinerary. Little more than a list of countries and the months we thought we'd be there.
The world is not a static place though and many things combined to change that list: the plummeting dollar, the events in Tibet, China, and Myanmar, and admittedly general burnout from spending so much time within a single region. So it was we decided that we would abandon our plans to travel to Vietnam, China, Tibet, Indonesia, and New Zealand. Instead we grabbed our bags and hopped on a plane to Istanbul, our sites set firmly on the more stable parts of the Middle East.
So there you have it. The next few segments of the Yakcast will be relaying messages from the Cradle of Civilization as Amanda and I trek through Turkey, Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. After these countries I will be continuing on to Nepal and India alone as Amanda heads home to Boston to spend some time with her family.
I should be back in the US in time to vote, and back in Seattle around mid-November. Unless of course something else changes. Stay tuned, I'll keep you posted.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

There was a calm reverence about the place. A quiet mood that sealed the surrounding area within a cone of silence. Even the birds seemed to understand it was not not a place to sing too loud, or too bright. I laid a two dollar contribution on a silver tray as a pair of small brown hands lit four sticks of incense and handed two each to Amanda and me. We respectfully removed our shoes and walked up a small flight of stairs, smoke drifting behind us in small, sweet curls.
The building we approached was a chedi, two stories high, with four tall white walls supporting a stack of three Asian-style peaked roofs painted green and orange. The interior was exposed on all four sides, and I squinted my eyes due to the bright glare that reflected off a glass case that ran up the height of the building. As we got closer the glare dimmed and I could clearly see the case's contents of more then 8,000 human skulls.

Spend any amount of time in Cambodia and you're guaranteed to see the long term effects of war. Cultural landmarks riddled with bullet holes. A landmine victim selling books from a converted bicycle he has to pedal with his arms because he has no legs. A beggar whose face has been burned into one giant scar.
American involvement in Cambodia's civil war is often treated as a footnote in our Southeast Asian military campaign- an asterisk. Though people often discuss Vietnam, never much thought or reflection is given to the so called "secret wars" we conducted in Cambodia and Laos. However, during the early 1970's the American military dropped approximately 2,750,000 tons of bombs on Vietnamese soldiers that had crossed the border into Cambodia. Though President Rıchard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger denied the bombings, it is now widely acknowledged that countless thousands of civilian casualties took place during this 14 month American campaign.
Because it suited or own best interests, we disregarded the political desires of the Cambodian people and helped to install the American friendly puppet Lon Nol as their Prime Minister. We turned a blind eye to Nol's corrupt abuses of power so long as he continued to rubber stamp our requests to drop more bombs. These campaigns helped intensify unrest and over time served to increase support for the rise of the Khmer Rouge revolutionaries which eventually resulted in civil war.
Meddling in a situation we didn't fully understand, we fanned the flames of an already volatile situation. We brought in bigger weapons that found their way into the hands of both sides. Then, when things got to hot, we walked away. Leaving the small nation's army alone to fight a gang of butchers against whom we knew they couldn't win.
It only took four years for Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge to completely devastate Cambodia. It's hard to rationalize the thinking behind what they did. It was genocidal madness masked as ideology. They intended it to be an agrarian-communist revolution. Those who lived in the cities and did not produce food were thought to be exploiting the farmers. Decadent and useless these people were the enemies of the revolution. Almost immediately after the Khmer Rouge came to power the capitol city of Phnom Penh was evacuated. It's residents were marched into the countryside to be enslaved, imprisoned or killed.
Anyone who was a member of the previous government was killed. Anyone who had ties to the American military was killed. Anyone who had a college education was killed. Anyone who wore glasses was assumed to be educated, and was therefore killed. Those that weren't executed outright were forced to work on farms under excruciating conditions, and to live in villages that were little more than internment camps.

The tall, white building I stood in front of with it's bone white display of human carnage is a memorial to the people who died during this unforgettable period of Cambodian history. The area surrounding the memorial is known as the Killing Fields, for obvious reasons. Walking around the site one sees mounds of dirt at spots that served as mass graves. Bits of clothing and fragments of bone still poke out of the ground in places. Signs reveal the horrible truth about the numbers of human remains excavated from around the area.
It's hard to be here and not begin losing hope. To wonder how an evil as terrible as this could exist within human beings. But the horrors inflicted on Cambodia don't end with the eventual defeat of the Khmer Rouge by the Vietnamese in 1980. Since then they've had to deal with a massive infestation of landmines (many of which are left over from American, French, and German armies) that until only recently caused crippling and death on a scale unheard of anywhere else in the world.
Equally destructive, but more subtle were the social impacts of the genocide. How would people recover from the trauma caused by the things they saw and experienced? With most of the former government officials killed who would lead the country? How could Cambodia fix it's infrastructure without the experts necessary to perform large scale public projects? And without teachers who would educate the next generation of doctors, engineers and business owners?
These long term problems do not have quick or easy solutions. In fact, it will more than likely take several generations for Cambodia to recover from the events of the 1970's. But they are trying. They are survivors, and even after all they've been through they are not a bitter people. Cambodia may be a poor country, but there is one thing they seem to have an abundance of, and that is hope.

For anyone interested in learning more about American involvement in Cambodia, or the Khmer Rouge period of Cambodian history I recommend the following three books:
Sideshow: Kissinger, Kissinger, and the Destruction of Cambodia by William Shawcross
First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung
The Killing Fields by Christopher Hudson

Beng Mealea Temple, Cambodia

Today, Cambodia may be a small seemingly powerless country, but a millennium ago the ancestors of these soft-spoken people were the masters of South-East Asia. For seven hundred years their Empire stretched through the region encompassing modern day Cambodia, and Laos, as well as parts of Thailand and central Vietnam. In the years between 900-1200 AD the great Khmer (Cambodian) Empire constructed some of the most impressive temples in the region, many of which are concentrated in the area surrounding Siem Reap, Cambodia.

The temple of Beng Mealea was constructed in the early 12^th century during the height of the Khmer Empire. It is situated approximately 40km east of Angkor Wat, along a rough, and rusty dirt road. Until recently it was virtually unknown to tourists due to it's isolation, but today can be reached by car with relative ease.

The majority of this temple's once grand super-structure now lies in ruins. It's mighty walls are choked by a spider's web of trees and branches. Large sandstone blocks that used to form the ceilings have fallen into tall, mossy heaps on the jungle floor. Once the dominion of man this stone structure was abandoned long ago to be swallowed up by the jungle. Worn away by elemental forces more powerful and permanent than then the men who created it.

It's an unbelievably hot day. Through the thick canopy of the jungle I can feel the sun beat down against my neck. All around me the forest hums with the sounds of birds and insects. As I stop to wipe the sweat from my forehead and glasses, a small lizard scurries across my path. He pauses for a moment, incredibly still besides his bulbous throat which pulses like a tiny hyperactive heart. Springing to life again he bolts across the road, and disappears into the surrounding brush.

In some ways it's sad to see a huge, historical artifact like this in such a state of disrepair. In other ways it's quite liberating. The sense of mystery that surround citadels like this can often be dampened by reconstruction. Cleaned and cataloged by archaeological experts their secrets become fact and not fancy. The gaps in their stones filled by information, rather than imagination.

But here, besides the plank wooden platform that winds it's way throughout the site, this temple has been left mostly as it was rediscovered. Exploring it's grounds therefore elicits from the traveler, a unique sense of discovery. One can almost begin to imagine how French archaeologists must have felt when they stumbled across the remains of Angkor Wat in the 1800's.

Looking down to my left I notice a faded rock panel on the ground, carved to depict a mythical tug of war between men and demons. The “rope” in this battle is actually a seven headed snake, or naga as the Khmer call it, it's middle wrapped around a mountain which is surrounded by a Sea of Milk. According to the legend, man and demon pulled the naga back and forth for a thousand years, churning the Sea of Milk in an effort to create an elixir which would grant them everlasting life. This story is seen represented time and time again on the walls of many Angkorian temples. A Hindu myth, it is Indian in origin, brought over by explorers from the great sub-continent as they traveled eastward in pursuit of wealth and knowledge.

Though many of the carved panels here have faded, their meanings now indistinct, there is another larger story that is told by the building itself. The story of a once great people, who faltered, and fell. In 1431 the Kingdom of Angkor was sacked by Siamese (Thai) forces. Many of it's greatest treasures were stolen and carried away to the rival capitol of Ayutthaya. Spoils of war for the next great empire. Over the following hundred years these temples were abandoned, and eventually lost. The Khmer empire shrank and it's power and influence quickly disappeared.
Buildings like this are a harsh reminder of the transience of all powerful nations. Nations a combination of fate and circumstance can conspire to bolster or destroy. And though they stand in humble ruins, all it takes is a simple stroll within their walls to see that an element of their once great majesty still remains. Just as the strength and spirit of the people who built them still remains within the hearts and minds of the Cambodian people.