We spend the early evening with these guys fishing (and balloon target shooting) along a promenade in Istanbul.

 

 

 

This is a good catch as a small shoal of fish passes by.

 

This guy is deep frying and serving them up in a busy street in Istanbul. Delicious!

 

City girls ….

 

… texting away on cellphones.

 

 

Country girls …

 

 

 

A bread lady in a small rural village.

 

We are not sure why this dog wears a barbed wire collar …. could it be to assist herding.

 

From our balcony in Konya (see our bikes).

 

We enjoy and often STOP at truck stops.

 

Ai! This is Hadja. She has a restaurant in a very desolate area. Food keeps streaming out of her kitchen onto our table and she doesn’t want to let us go. Her I wear her shawl.

 

 

A hug ‘good bye’ with Hadja and her daughter.

 

We meet and chat with many groups of Iranians travelling through Turkey back home to Iran.

 

We see many incomplete buildings that are thoroughly lived in (see pink balcony). Apparently taxes only become due on complete buildings.

 

This dapper gentlemen collects flowers to dish out later.

 

Harry needs a trim ….

 

…. and gets his first and last ever wax!

 

Oh No! We are caught speedng – two tickets at R750 each!

 

And the traffic officers insist this photo is taken. We are smiling … would you pay if you were leaving Turkey the next day?

 

We leave Turkey via the Black Sea.

 

 

It’s onto Georgia and Turkish lessons make way for Russian lessons!

 

 

The flip sides of the Turkish coin – Whirling Dervishes ….

Rumi (1207 – 1273), first inspires Dervishes to Whirl in Turkey. The dervish spins, around and around, with the earth, and the universe, itself. On this mystical journey, he deserts his ego, finds the truth & returns to serve his community. See; his head-dress is his ego’s tombstone and his white skirt is his ego’s shroud; his right hand receives God’s spiritual gift from the sky and his left hand conveys it to earth. They follow seven simple principles …

–         In generosity and helping others be like a River.

–         In compassion and grace be like the Sun.

–         In concealing others’ faults be like the Night.

–         In anger and fury be like Dead.

–         In modesty and humility be like Earth.

–         In tolerance be like a Sea.

–         Either exist as you are or be as you Look.

 

…. and Attaturk.

Ataturk (1881 – 1938), emerges as a national hero after Turkey’s War of Independence. His image is, even today, everywhere in Turkey. He undertakes the task of completely remaking a society. He introduces reforms (!! in 1924 !!) and they separate Turkey from other Islamic nations. He abolishes polygamy; institutes new legal codes; compels civil (not religious) marriage; removes Islam as state religion; replaces a complicated alphabet with a simpler, modified latin one; grants women the right to vote and serve in parliament, introduces the use of surnames and ensures Turkey’s neutrality in WW II.

Ataturk sees the dervishes as an obstacle to the advancement of Turkish People and has dervish orders prohibited. Some survive as ‘cultural associations’.