Dispatches from the Void. V. V

Poe Issues Stage 7 Alert: Suitcase Breach Detected, Demands All Chicken Imports Be Declared.

CATastrophic Betrayal Confirmed: Akela Declares Radiator a Sovereign State After Turkey Abandonment.

Mowgli Refuses to Engage: Claims “Wardrobe is the New World” and He the Founding Philosopher.

This Week in Underland:

• Cuddles, Catcalls, and Catastrophes: A boat trip turned uncomfortable thanks to an over-familiar crew member. Apparently, unsolicited whisperings are considered “hospitality” by some. A sharp reminder that consent isn’t part of the tourist package.
• Mediterranean Mirage: Sun, sea, and… sausage roll shops? Paradise turns strange simulation of Britain clinging to the cliffs of Marmaris. Old Town offered glimpses of something more authentic.
• Longing, Love, and Litterboxes: Grateful for sunshine, cat withdrawal. Befriended local strays. Not the same. Dreams of Thailand, where life will hopefully be a little less neon plastic flamingo and a little more real, linger.

Turkey is beautiful. It’s odd having never traveled before and then finding myself in three countries in less than a year with my wife. I’m extremely grateful for it, and being in this relative paradise has been eye opening in more ways than one. 

I’m finding it more complicated than just being on holiday though. We both miss the cats and our quiet life at home. The thing with places like this is they’re gorgeous, the staff are wonderful, but it’s also fake. UK tourists come to get wasted and bake in the sun. It’s not anything like the “real” Turkey. Though we did take a walk through Old Town that felt more authentic than the resort area. 

It feels off to walk next to the Mediterranean and hear the shopkeepers yell about English breakfast and Sunday dinner. To think about the culture that was here and was then destroyed to make white people feel more comfortable. They’re only doing what seems to sell, but that is at the expense of people who wanted to see something a little messier. The tourism industry is modern day colonialism. It changes the shape of a culture to fit more comfortably in white peoples hands. 

I don’t want to sound ungrateful this place is gorgeous, the people are kind (for the most part more on that later), the vegetables are fresh and the sun is bright. Both of us realized pretty quickly that this is not our type of holiday though. We want to get lost on the streets, have a conversation with someone who doesn’t speak English, and learn something about a countries history. This is not the place for that. 

We went on a boat trip on Monday. It was gorgeous, very quickly we had a man who worked for the boat decide it was appropriate to cuddle Celia without permission. To ask me if I was coming home with him that night. To whisper in my ear about bedroom pictures. He didn’t want to bring me home, his highly inappropriate behavior was to try to get a tip. We were not the right audience, and I frankly can’t wrap my head around the fact that it does work. It must though, because just like Sunday dinner it wouldn’t be here if it didn’t. 

It’s also been tough to not be as affectionate as we would normally be with each other. LGBTQ rights here are not strong and we really don’t want to risk being harassed or worse. Though Jimmy at the bar has been a real mensch about it. We still feel like we need to be careful, that would be true of any country where marriage is not legalized.

We had to leave the UK due to visas and such, there was nothing we could do. We’re looking forward to Thailand where we will be living somewhere very Thai. 

We did make a lot of cat friends which is a super bonus.  

Overall we’re still waking up to that Mountain View over the Mediterranean. We’re enjoying sun and decent food and people watching. Both of us are too introverted, too interested in people to be at a place like this. So we will take away the beauty and we will  never do a holiday like this again.  

Two things can be true at once. You can be very grateful for an adventure with the love of your life and you both can desperately want to be at home with your cats again. 

R x

It’s been a strange time here, really. We were both looking forward to the tranquility of Turkey — the promise of a cultural experience. Something new. Something different.

Marmaris is truly beautiful, especially the old town: quaint cobbled streets and whitewashed houses built into the rocks. The ocean view is stunning. Magical, even.

But it’s been spoiled — in places — by Brits in search of sun, sea, sand… and cheap booze.

I’m grateful to be here, of course. But there’s an underlying sadness I can’t quite shake.

Summarised, I think, by this:

At breakfast, I watched a man take out his HP brown sauce and drown his pseudo-British breakfast in it.

I wrote more about thoughts on Turkey here, if you’re interested. Fictionalised—but sometimes truth is easier to grapple through the eyes of another.

C x

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Dispatches from the Void: Volume I →

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Poetry Collection, ‘Is this all we get?’

Prose Collection, ‘ Fifth Avenue Pizza’