An unusually short trip for us, we are heading out to Turkey embeded with Wonky Sheep, the official FAW travel partner.
We normally prefer to organise our own trips and go for a week, but Turkey has never been high on our list of places we want to visit and with two flights being involved, this seemed to be the ideal trip to let Wonky take the strain.
Wonky Sheep, for those who are not aware, is the Football Association of Wales’ ‘Official Travel Partner’. They formed in 2013 but I first became aware of them when we went out to France for the Euros in 2016.
I’ve not travelled with them often, well, twice to be specific, because their trips tend to be shorter than we like to go out for, but in fairness they seem to be pretty organised and although you have to pay a little bit more, you generally don’t have to worry about the hassle of doing all the booking and sorting out hotel transfers. They have had a few hiccups in the last year or so, but that has been down to the charter airline rather than Wonky. We are confident that they will deliver for this trip.
There will certainly be no problems with charter flights this time, cos we ain’t on a charter flight, and we have to make our own way to Heathrow.
We left early cos we had some faffing about to do and had to go past Heathrow into London for some family shizzle, then back out. But we cut the faffing about to a minimum because of rumours on social media about huge queues to drop bags off. It turns out though that we were so early we couldn’t drop bags off for an hour so had to hang around drinking coffee.
Despite claims that the bag drop and security would take ages, we flew through (excuse the pun) and were soon in the bar. But with two hours to go before take off, and five hours in the air, this was going to be a masterclass in bladder control. Hopefully.
Even the boarding process on to our Turkish Airlines plane was chilled and pain free. It was a big plane. I really should try to remember the make and model if these blogs are going to be informative, but I don’t know. It was big. It had three rows of seats, three in the middle and three on each side. By coincidence, I was sat next to the Wonky crachach, Wonky Dave and his wife Wonky Laura. Or was it Sarah? My apologies, I can’t remember. I’m sure I’ll work it out when I wake up (I’m typing this as I try to acclimatise to being three time zones away).
There’s in-flight entertainment in the form of movies shown on the back of the headrest of the person in front of you. I try for the new ‘Mad Max’ because I haven’t seen it but quickly turn it off. What’s the point of making a Mad Max movie without Mad Max? I think go for Dune Part Two, which I’ve already seen, so it won’t matter if I fall asleep. I don’t, I stay awake right throughout.
It’s uncanny: Dune is set on a desert planet, where religion takes a big role in society, there are people living in caves, people travelling by hot air balloons and the country has been a battle ground for many centuries with different empires running the place. A bit like Cappadocia. (If that makes no sense now, pop back to read next Sunday’s Capadocia Blog.). There’s a moment when one of the characters (I can remember this guy’s name, but I can’t spell it, so I’ll say it is because I don’t want to spoil the film), is riding on a giant worm (just watch the film, that’s not as crazy as it sounds. OK, it is a bit mental actually) and we hit turbulence. For five minutes I’m riding that giant worm with him.
There’s free food and beer and plenty of leg room. I think this may be the best plane I’ve travelled on.
Dune Part Two ends two minutes before we land. Perfect timing. We disembark in Istanbul. You can’t get a direct flight to Kayseri from the UK. It’s an enormous airport. It took us twenty minutes to taxi from the runway to the bus stop. It’s the second largest airport in Europe, after Heathrow. It takes ages to walk between terminals and when we finally get there, our flight is ready to go.
It’s a smaller plane this time, but still comfortable, with movies and free food (although nothing vegetarian). It’s a much shorter flight and I only have time to watch one episode of Game of Thrones.
By the time we arrive in Kayseri, it is three of the AMs Turkey time. It’s only midnight back home, so there’s no excuse for feeling tired, but to be honest, it feels like it’s three in the morning.
The Wonkers have got transport to the hotel all sorted and we have an early check in arranged. I think of midday as an early check in, this feels more like a later check in the day before, but apparently we are effectively getting an extra night for free.
The hotel is plush and well appointed. Our room overlooks the biggest mosque in the city and I wonder about sleep being disturbed by the call to prayer in the morning. I needn’t worry, I could sleep on a chicken’s lip (what the fuck does that even mean?) and sleep through till they stop serving breakfast. I did dream about a ridiculously loud call to prayer, louder than Motorhead turned up to eleven, but it couldn’t have been real.
I’ve been in many hotels where the double bed is two singles pushed together but this is like two double beds pushed together.
Megan is still sleeping as I type but sooner or later I’m going to have to get a taxi to her side of the bed to wake her up. We might be knackered but we haven’t got long to explore what one YouTube blogger described as ‘the most boring city in Turkey.’
EDIT: Megan is awake now. Apparently the call to prayer really WAS that loud. In fact it’s just kicking off again. Now that’s how you ‘do the ayatolah’.
FINAL THOUGHT.
When travelling away, I like to dedicate my radio show to the country we are visiting. Normally I struggle to find more than a handful of really good tunes, but I have been pleasantly surprised how good the Turkish music scene is. I had no idea. If you’re interested, you can listen to me Turkish Delight show below.
PEPPERMINT IGUANA RADIO SHOW # 328
PLAY LIST
- Dedikodu – NEKROPSI (Turkey)
- Bademler – DANSLI PARTI (Turkey)
- Low Rider – THE DYNAMICS (France)
- Victory Dub – DUBMATIX (Canada)
- Smoking – THE WOODENTOPS (England) * See note at bottom of page
- Samasik – THE RINGO JETS (Turkey)
- Blackwood Bop – JAMES OLIVER (Wales)
- Gone Viral – THE DEAR BOYS (England/USA)
- She Moves Through The Fayre – THE RAINSHINE RIVER BAND (Wales)
- We Are Not Numbers (We Are Palestine) – UNDERCOVER HIPPY (England)
- Falastin Hurra – GEEZER & CHOCI (Palestine)
- Killing an Arab – CLUSTERFUCK (Wales)
- Full Kit – GOLDIE LOOKING CHAIN (Wales)
- You’re Not All There – CLOWN JEWELS (England/Wales)
- Mesafeler – ERKIN KORAY (Turkey)
- Sömestr – AYYUKA (Turkey)
- Barbarians At The Gate – MC5 (USA)
- Fancy Pants – JON SPENCER (USA)
- Courage – KEENO (England)
- Zombie Night – KID MARK (Spain)
- Rolling a Boulder – THEIVES ON THE OVERPASS (Turkey)
- Kittens and Coke – ROBOT DEATH MONKEY (Scotland)
- Crosstown Shelter – FUNKANOMICS
- Praise You – HANNAH GRACE
Show first broadcast on 12th November 2024 on Folk Friday Radio (not just folk, not just Fridays!)
- Jamming Fanzine Podcast can be found here The Fanzine Podcast – Hosted by Tony Fletcher
- Confessions of an Ex Zine Editor can be found here Merch | The Ex Zine Editor
- Negative Capability Zine can be found here Negative Capability
*EDIT TO CORRECT – in the show I get excited about the Woodentops having a new album out. They haven’t. Well they have, but it’s not Granular Tales, which is from 2013, but it has only just appeared on Bandcamp, which is what got me excited. It looked familiar though, so i checked. I even bloody bought it ten years ago so I don’t know why I didn’t pick that up. Hey ho, it is still good.