Turkey, our impressions

We had spent more than a month in Turkey, which was for sure not enough and we will have to come back as there is much more to see. Here our impressions of travelling with a camper through Turkey – some pictures from the road and some experiences.

You see the Turkish flag a lot, we even saw cars covered in huge flags driving on the street. I think the Turkish are very proud of their country. We often heard that things had improved a lot, but we never heard anybody praising Erdogan, instead many complained openly about his politics.

People are extremely friendly, nice and helpful. We always felt welcomed. On the road, we were very often greeted enthusiastically by other drivers or pedestrians.

There are big hotels at the coast between Antalya and Alanya which offer all-inclusive holidays – for sure nothing for us, but there must be people who like that. In other places we saw little villages with family run pensions or camping grounds, which are more our taste.

Wedding in Side

These 2 ladies are wearing headscarves, but in cities I would say the majority doesn’t. Very often you see a group of women, some wearing headscarves, others not. There is a big difference between modern women in towns and traditional ones from the villages, I always wondered how that works, that so different lifestyles exist so close to each other.

Village house

Modern flats

Typical appearance of houses

There are sufficient rubbish bins, but not everybody seems to know what they are for, as rubbish is everywhere. Sometimes we even saw recycling bins, let’s hope that they get used.

There are also dogs everywhere, especially these big white ones. Most of the time they don’t look famished, but they live on the street. We never saw anybody treat them badly but quite the contrary. Even in the city, shop owners feed them and treat them well.

There are a lot of these fake police cars, some even with a solar panel to operate the lights on top of the car! There were also a lot of real police controls, but we were always waved through. We had heard from another traveller that he was woken numerous times in the middle of the night by the police to check his passport – something which did not happen to us, not even once.

Very specific speed limit 😉

Nice and helpful people everywhere

Izmir – a very modern city

Shopping mall

Colourful street lights

Mosques are of course everywhere, and I like the cupolas and minarets. But every mosque has speakers fixed to them to call the faithful to prayer 5 times a day. You quickly learn to park as far away from them as possible.

Beside all the modern cars, you still see a lot of these old ones. Here, cars are driven until they are past possible repair.

The roads in Turkey are in very good condition, the main connections normally 4 lanes wide and free. There is a toll fee on highways, but on our whole tour there would have been only a short bit of highway around Izmir, all the other roads are similar to a highway but free. So we didn’t bother to register for the complicated sounding toll system.

Of course, we also found some interesting routes

The Turks are happy if they can light a fire. Maybe like here to burn what isn’t needed any more but even more to roast some meat for a picnic! We saw signs forbidding to make fire very often, which didn’t stop anybody. They arrived with a car on a nice spot, immediately started a little fire, drinking their beer and chatting with their friends. P.S. if you expect that in a country where the religion forbids the consumption of alcohol, you would get 0% beer for example, you are mistaken. Nobody understands why you would want that.

Riding lady style is very common

We wondered what happens with the wild boar in an Islamic country?

Fake police again 🙂

Everybody has chickens and they run around everywhere

At this time of the year, most of the beautiful boats are being repaired.

Load securing is executed differently in Turkey

Tire shops for second hand tires are everywhere

You can just hope that all the cables are high enough

Picnic time! A favourite leisure activity for the Turks.

Of course goats & sheep are everywhere

This little fellow was hard to leave behind, but we think he will have a good life in the harbour where we met him. We noticed that dogs get an earmark probably after they have been sterilised.