Turkey: People and Culture

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Turkey is one of the best countries I have visited so far because of its rich history, natural wonders, and, last but not least, its people and their culture.

The points I am mentioning below are highly subjective. To give you some context, I spent most of my life in Paris, I also lived in Montreal for the last four years and I spent one year in Singapore during my studies.

People and Culture

• Istanbul is super busy. There are shops and restaurants everywhere in the central districts, there is a lot of activity all day long. Most of them are small shops. Finding a big supermarket is surprisingly challenging, actually I couldn’t.
• The country feels safe. For sure, you can get scammed or robbed, but violence seems rare.
• Turkish people do not speak English very well. However, they really try to help. Google Translate can be very helpful.
• They love animals and take good care of them. For instance, stray cats and dogs have plenty to eat. Animals are very friendly and cute in return.
• Most people (> 90 %) are Muslim and follow the Sunni Islam.
• In Istanbul and touristic area (e.g. Cappadocia), people are coming from everywhere country.
• They always pay public transport (bus, tram, metro). In Istanbul, we got on a bus through the middle doors, because it was too crowded in the front. Paying could only be done at the front. We saw some people give their transportation card to their neighbors. The card made it to the front of the bus and back thanks to a human chain. We gladly took part of this and without questioning they took our card. We were sharing the same transportation card, so we asked them to tap it twice with sign language, and it was surprisingly smooth. Another example is in Konya, in front of the Mevlana Cultural Center, the tramway doors only opened at the front, and we queued while a guy was checking that everybody was paying. I have never seen that in a modern tramway.
• People smoke a lot. We saw ashtrays in hotel room.
• The air quality is very bad because of cigarettes, intense car traffic with older vehicles. Usage of coal for cooking and heating in rural and poor households has probably a responsibility as well.
• They drink a lot of tea. Çai is (almost) served at the end of every meal at the restaurant, and there is always a small jar of sugar on the table if you want to adjust the taste.
• They are very good salesmen. They make you feel comfortable and offer drinks and generous samples. Prices are reasonable, even the first price is not a big scam. They have difficulties understanding why you refuse their gifts.
• They order drinks at the restaurant: water, ayran and soda during the meal and tea after the meal. We are used to free tap water in Canada and France. It’s better in Canada because they usually bring water the moment you sit. In Turkey, the drinks are more affordable compared to the price of the dishes. For instance, a soda would be ₺20-25 and a tea ₺10-15 when the main course is about ₺200. These prices are not going to be valid for long because inflation is rampant.
• Lately, the prices are updated constantly because of inflation. It’s hard for tourists to check the prices. Since the Turkish currency is not very stable, people are buying a lot of gold jewelry, and they negotiate the prices in US dollars or euros.
• Crossing the street is dangerous. People cross everywhere, at anytime. Cars drive very fast when they are not stuck in traffic.
• Some people are surprisingly good with languages. The tourist guides are very proficient in Asian languages. We met a jeweler who spoke French beautifully. At Kamelya Hostel, one guy of the staff could barely speak English, but he could have normal conversations with the Japanese.
• Turkey is ethnically very diverse. For instance, some people have fair skin, blue eyes, blond people, others have Mongol traits.
• Note to myself: Döner kebab is not served with fries.

Practical Information

• All the public transportation we have taken accepted Visa credit cards
• Local travel card (for example the Istanbulkart) can be purchased but, except for Istanbul, we did not stay long enough to take advantage of them.
• Public transportation is good and pretty affordable.
• For long distances, taxis were relatively expensive for our long term travel budget.