Topic awaiting preservation: tears for istanbul (Page 1 of 1)

anyone read zeldman today? this REALLY made me sad too....i started thinking about how the situation is at the moment, but I think Zeldman is right with his last 2 sentences. any other opinions?
in case you see this topic and the story isn't on the frontpage anymore, here is the report i am referring to:

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Here is one of the stories I always meant to tell.

After spending a morning in the famous Bazaar, we wandered into a courtyard where street vendors sold spices, jewelry, fabrics, and livestock. The courtyard led to a narrow alley populated with shoppers and vendors. That alley wound into another that was even more densely crowded.

Suddenly the police arrived and began shutting down the booths of unlicensed vendors. The crowd surged forward into a maze of back alleys. By the time we escaped the throng, we found ourselves in an alley within an alley within an alley. The police had blocked the way back. We would have to find our own way out.

The alley in which we found ourselves teemed with turbaned men toting heavy Turkish carpets on their backs. On the city?s main streets, almost everyone we encountered spoke English. But the rug-hauling laborers we encountered at the heart of the maze spoke only Turkish, and we knew not one word of the language.

A hearty man in his 70s noticed our predicament and approached.

I said, ?Sultanahmet,? the name of a section of the city with which we were familiar.

Gesturing for us to follow him, the hearty man swiveled on his heel and began walking briskly away. We dashed after. Although he appeared to be nearly twice our age, we had a tough time keeping up with him as he led us around corners, down alleys, and up steep hills.

The journey took twenty minutes or more and covered several miles of cobblestoned streets built by the Romans. Our guide never spoke; he simply led.

Suddenly, at the crest of a hill, we saw before us the world-famous mosques of Sultanahmet.

The old gentleman turned to us, smiled, bowed, and strolled away before we could thank him.

He had hiked several miles out of his way to help two American strangers, simply because he saw that we were lost.

That, in a nutshell, is Istanbul to me. I never met kinder or more gracious people anywhere.

During my two weeks in that city, I never heard a harsh word said about Americans or any other national group. No one ever uttered an ethnic or religious slur. They did not seem to have negative words for people who are different ? they merely acknowledged the difference.

Pulp Fiction was popular in Istanbul. One wonders how they managed to write subtitles for that movie.

If the gentleman shows up in Indochina, I want a fellow to spring out of a bowl of rice and teach him some manners.

Now people are dying in Istanbul and President Bush says Turkey is a ?front? in the war against terrorism. I don?t know what that means. I only know that I am sad. :::

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Its all very sad - I have been to Istanbul plenty of times (as well as travelling all over Turkey) and everyone has been more than friendly. I know quite a few people out there and my uncle lives around the corner from the HSBC bank - his windowds were blown out by one of the earlier synagogue blasts (a woman we know had her windows blown in by the consulate blast).

All very sad

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Emps

The Emperor dot org

Countries are run by governments, not people. Most People are generally friendly toward each other, while governments are constantly scheming to undermine other governments, if it is within their power.

And I would someday very much like to visit Turkey. My wife and I are contemplating a future trip to Northern Africa, the Middle East, and Asia Minor, but we'll have to see how things go.


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Suho: www.liminality.org

yeah i have also been to turkey already...it was so beautiful
emps: his windows really got blown out? damn, the situation down there really seems to be bad

mas:

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his windows really got blown out? damn, the situation down there really seems to be bad

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Well it depends on how you view things and assess risk, etc. You are safer wandering the streets of Istanbul than you would be going into the middle of Liverpool so how do you rate the safety there? To be honest the most dangerous thing in Turkey is the driving and mad taxi drivers are far more likely to kill you (or a drunken British tourist in some of the big resorts). Get out of the big cities and you are very little risk.

I was down in the SE of the country not far from Iraq the day they invaded Kuwait and was perfectly safe. The next year in the same place we went to the PKK kidnapped 2 British cyclists but they were treated well and released unharmed

The British government have warned against travelling to Turkey but I wouldn't think twice - you are probably at a similar risk of being caught in a terrorist strike in London (it has to be coming) and as 911 proved terrorists can reach out and kill you no matter where you are so what do you do? Stay at home?

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Emps

The Emperor dot org