Independent travel,  Photography,  Travel Blog

Sometimes It’s The Little Things…..

November 16, 2022 /

Travel may bring once-in-a-lifetime experiences, give us memories we will treasure for ever, but if you keep a journal, or, indeed, a blog, you also build up a collection of those funny little moments…..

He appears out of nowhere as we walk across the sand dunes. 

“Guten tag. Wie geht es dir?”, he asks

“Wir sind Englisch, nicht Deutsch”.

“Oh you are from England. Where from? London, Manchester? Let me tell you one thing, this place is so much better with guide. A guide who knows.”

“We don’t need a guide. Thank you. We are OK”, says Michaela.

“OK. You need to know way to beach? I can show you”.

“We know where the beach is. Thank you”

“OK, one last question. Will you marry me?”

Laughter. “No!!”

“Why not? I am nice Turkish man”.

Haircuts in foreign lands. Great fun. Nerve racking for Michaela (style), not so for Phil (not a lot of hair).

Different places, different methods, always fun, but often the fascination is the “extras”. Eyebrows, ear hair, nasal hair, maybe even a little head massage. 

And then there’s Ortaca and the ear hair method. This guy takes a cotton wool bud and dips it in something flammable, lights it with his cigarette lighter, and shoves it into my ear. Yep, he literally sets fire to my ear hair. The end justifies the means. 

As a couple, we haven’t ever totally bought into the technological age. We don’t do much social media away from this blog, we aren’t so hooked to our devices that we constantly need to know who is in contact or what is happening, and so it’s not uncommon for us, when travelling, to leave home without our phones.

We sit down at the seafront bar table, which has a QR code in its centre, labelled “menu”.

“Do you have draught beer?”, is all I ask her.

She points to the QR code.

Michaela and I simultaneously go palms up, to indicate that we don’t have any devices with us.

The look of utter disbelief on her face, the incredulity that two people could be let loose in 2020 without a “device” between them, is priceless. 

“I have good news for you”, he says, from his stool outside the shop, “today we are not charging for you to come and look in my shop”.

We laugh but decline the invitation.

“All T shirts, only priced at 10 each, every T shirt. But just for you, I sell at 5 but only today”.

“No thank you”.

“Why not? I sell to you for half price. It’s just 5”.

“No thank you”.

“OK you win, you can have them for 6”.

“What is this”, we say, pointing to the small animal splayed open and ready to barbecue.

She hesitates, just for one giveaway moment. “Baby pig” she blurts.

Michaela raises her camera and by eye contact asks if it’s OK.

“No photo no photo”, says the apron clad lady with some urgency.

Before arriving in Laos we’d heard talk of the “rat on a stick” phenomenon, that certain markets will barbecue the vermin which is then happily eaten by the locals. Thus, we know what we’re looking at here, and it sure as hell is not a baby pig.

We like cooking with ras-el-hanout, it’s one of those ingredients which really make home cooking feel and taste like authentic reproductions of meals on our travels. I guess we also felt a little bit smug sourcing and using such an exotic creation.

Until Skoura market, where the spice farmer, seizing on our obvious interest in cookery, led us from his modest market stall to his more substantially stocked shop around the corner. Amid the myriad different spices, jars and bags of mostly unidentifiable plants and produce, I spy a familiar label.

“Ah” I say, in my most authoritative voice of wisdom, “we use ras-el-hanout in England, it is not easy to find”.

He looks at me wistfully.

“Ras-el-hanout”, he says slowly, “this is for the ladies who don’t know how to cook”.

“…………..”

He sat back in his chair and sipped his chai as he reminisced, as lots of Turks seem to, about his national service.

“I served on ship”, he says.

“Ah so in the navy?”

“No I was in the army but served my time at sea”.

“Did you enjoy the experience? Was it good?”

“It was terrible. 400 men on board and no women. It was two years of 31”, he says, with a gravelly laugh.

“31?”, I ask, but he dismisses me with another laugh.

We Google. 31, it seems, is a Turkish euphemism for….erm….a certain self indulgent exercise. It means 3 fingers and 1…..well, you get the picture.

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