Tales of Touring Turkey by Fred Moore:

INCIRLIK TODAY

© 2009 by Author

The village just off base has mostly grown up around the gate. It has tended to grow along the base fence line. It's called Incirlik Village, quaint name don't you think? HaHa! OK, so it's not as funny as I thought, it was just that the base's name is Incirlik and I was thinking "chicken & egg" which came first? Anyway, it has all the trappings of a tourist town. All prices are quoted in dollars and not the local currency (Turkish Lira). The conversion rate today is: 1.34 YTL to 1 dollar. Walking around out along the street is a kin to running a gauntlet, as in many tourist towns. Many of the shops have a person or two sitting out on the sidewalk trying desperately to push, pull or steer folks into their stores. They very much would like to separate you from your money. We find however if we use our meager Turkish on them, most will simply let us pass without a second urging. If you're polite and cordial with them they almost always reciprocate.

There are several restaurants along the street facing the base, only one truly fine classic Turkish however, both in their food and in their patronage. One "The Moonlight" is ALL American, we've been several times and we did not see a Turk eating there any of those visits. That tells us we need not eat there either, so we don't. (It's not a favorite of ours anyway). Nothing really wrong with the food, we just didn't come here to live an American lifestyle. The one place we do frequent is "Red Onion". It's literally out the gate and across the street. They have their menu like all the rest (quoted in dollars) but we find we can order things that are very Turkish and not on their menu. Dinner for the two of us is generally 7 or 8 dollars. Funny too, we both tend to eat vegetarian there. Nothing at all wrong with the meat dishes, it just happens that their veggie plates are awesome. They will make us almost whatever we ask. I sometimes ask for things that just don't come from this region. Memet (the gentleman) who we think is manager of the place tells us if we want something to simply ask and it can be done. He says it need not be on their menu. We do that quite often now and it's done. There are many differences between the food here and in Ankara where we were the other times we lived in Turkey. We find too, the way we ask for things makes a difference. The words are the very same but the meal can be quite different; same ingredients but made in a different style. Presentation is always good here as well.

Also out the front gate and close at hand are several other places to eat; The Royal, this place has a very nice 'pepper steak', The Great Wall, I think is the name, this is of course a Chinese place and it's quite tolerable but higher in price, Amigos is a Mexican knock-off with Italian; I know sounds very odd but their food is passable, their chips and salsa are fine! We tried all these places and simply prefer the ONE more often than any other.

Speaking of food let me try to describe some of what we eat on a pretty regular basis. There is a regional specialty here called the Adana kabob. Adana is the region/province we live in, as well as the city near by. This country is divided into many regions and each has its own unique specialties. The Adana kabob is ground (lamb) meat that is kneaded similar to meatloaf but is spicy like sausage. The amount of spice can vary from mild to quite hot. I like the medium hot, it seems to be a better favor than the not hot at all, and the very spicy one is a far too much spice for me.

The meat is molded around a skewer and grilled; the serving is probably 10 or 12 ounces. When it's served it's generally an inch or two wide, 8 to 10 inches long, and maybe half an inch thick not much more. Interestingly, no two places make it the same, it looks similar but the taste is always a little different. It's ordered by the portion: one, one and a half or whatever you feel you can eat, we usually order a portion, it's plenty enough. It has a hollow center of course where the skewer is removed. It is served on a plate with shredded raw onions (hot ones), carrots, romaine, and laid over pita bread that is generally cut into two-inch stripes. The pita bread tends to soak up the grease but it's still very eatable and there really isn't that much grease. It is served with pita bread as well, kind of a flat non-descript stuff, so lots of bread if you care to eat it. It can be and often is served with white rice as well; sometimes rice and fries at the same time. Another thing we have regularly is eggplant that has been somewhat pealed, chunked, seared and then put on a plate. It's then topped with a marinara type sauce. It comes stove hot, somewhat spicy and it's great. We also eat all types of bread; the greatest one so far on the stay here this time is flat, very crispy/toasty and covered with sesame seeds. It comes fresh from the oven, so hot at times you can't even hold it to tear it in pieces.

Bread too has regional roots, different kinds from different regions.
We order a salad of chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, little green (hot) peppers, those little things can be suffocatingly - take your breath away - hot! The salad is laden with lemon and olive oil. In a word: outstanding. I don't know how anyone can eat those little peppers I just mentioned; we tend to take tiny little bites off the end and at times we are overwhelmed with tears! We truly need to learn to ignore them on the plate BUT somehow I always have to try them. They are just not something we can eat! Another great dish is an entrée served on a plate in layers; pita bread chopped in small squares, lightly covered in a cream yogurt, sliced lamb meat, and then topped with tomato sauce and hot butter. This dish is just plain heaven; I could eat this every day, twice a day.

There are vastly more dishes I could spend hours describing but I'm making myself salivate! HaHa! Food will not be a problem for us, period! Could be a weight problem (I've gained 35 lbs. in two years) but we walk a great deal and I can rationalize it that way. There are simply very few foods here that we don't eat and few places where we won't eat it. We eat at fine dinning restaurants and at truck stops along the highway; we've never had a bad meal in this country.

So, aside from food places, there are the usual gold and silver shops. There are gun, rug, tailor, leather, watch, copper/brass, and iron fabrication shops. There are a number of furniture manufactures and automobile repair shops, fix your engine, upholstery or do body work. I'm told should you want a gun (shotgun that is) the prices are good and the quality is great. I'm not however at all interested in owning one, that could change before I leave but today I don't really think so. There are also several bars and discos that can go far into the night entertaining the GI with their loud music and usual GI treats (I'll leave the last to your imagination). The output at these places is getting attention from the base leadership right now too; a part of base housing is just across the fence and some folks are not sleeping well. I can certainly imagine, we're not close to the fence and we can hear the noise! In fact we're quite a distance across base from most of these places. I can often hear them from inside the house and as I've mentioned our home is solid concrete except for doors and windows. We have walked the entire fence line street from one end to the other. If we're not slowed too much by hawkers it takes about an hour to get from one end of the street to the other and back again; that of course includes a stop here and there.

Several of these village shops have web pages! One of them even has a branch shop in the US at Scott AFB in Illinois. They sell gold, silver, machine made rugs/carpets, towels, bathrobes and sports clothing (jogging suits and the like)! Again all the prices quoted are quoted in dollars at these shops; the prices in Illinois would be interesting to see.

So, as you can see the Village has anything you can possibly think of to shop for. The shops are open every day except Sunday; and even a few are open on Sunday. The hours are mostly ten to ten 'I think'; they vary depending on business, I would venture. I know for example that our rug man says he sometimes stays past midnight if there are people looking at carpets.

The other day we walked through the less American and smaller commercial part of Incirlik Village. We were walking an area of the central village several blocks from the base. Most of the base folks don't choose to get over there. It was a fascinating walk though because the afternoon we decided to do it there was a commotion with several cars parading down the central street blowing there horns. All matter of humanity was hanging out of car and truck windows waving at anyone walking and waving colorful scarves. A gentleman on a moped noticed us and pulled to the curb. He stopped beside us as we stood watching the parade. He explained to us the celebration was to honor several village boys who were being circumcised that day. As he put it, they were attaining manhood. This is a common practice here; the boys get all dressed up in royal capes usually of satin in brightly colored red, white or blue. They wear a hat that looks like a majorette hat with chrome and sometimes feathers along the side. They will sometimes wear a sash and carry a scepter as well. They look a little like toy soldiers. The boys are usually young (5 to 8 or even 10) and manhood certainly isn't what I'm thinking. We've not been to one of these celebrations but we've known of them for 20 years. I don't anticipate in this visit we will be going to one either. It's ONE cultural thing I would just as soon sidestep. However, I can tell you it's a very big deal here and holds an equal status with a marriage celebration.

After the excitement passed and went its way, we stopped by a local general store in the village. We bought fresh loaf bread (something like French) it's made fresh daily, several different types of local packaged cookies, Melba toast and local jam; I think it was peach. It's very likely we will go back to this store in the future for other things. There is just nothing on the economy that isn't as good or better than what we can get on base, and most all of it, FRESH! A lot of what comes to the base from the US is shipped here frozen; and that just tends to kill the flavor of some things. Produce is even imported for the grocery store on base, what a true tragedy that is, much of it from Germany. This is one of the finest places on the planet for (organic) produce and our government imports for the on base store. But there are many families here who would die if they had to eat off the economy I'm afraid. Makes no sense to us, it really unfortunate.

While walking through the village last night after dinner, we saw a brand new Porsche SUV, the model was written on the back but I can't tell you what it said at the moment. It was shiny and black and it was beautiful. Was shaped like the Nissan Murono (that is spelled wrong I imagine). I don't even want to think what it must have cost. Some Turks tend to flaunt their riches. It was here from Izmir, Turkey. Izmir is a pretty affluent little community (3.5 million) on the Aegean coast, quite a distance from here. And that was easy to tell because all license plates in Turkey are numbered by province, here we all begin with 01 and in Ankara our old city, they begin 06, and it's all done alphabetically.

Another thing we see a lot of are pushcart vendors selling all matter of things. One sells nuts, another baklava (Turkish sweets), someone else ice cream, another vendor will sell sandwiches and other food. These little carts are interesting because some are on three wheeled bicycles that can actually be peddled to where the person is going; some are four wheel flatbed carts that have to be pushed everywhere but they're still on bicycle type wheels. Some have glassed in tops and others are simply open to the elements. The hazel nut is the seller's choice right now; they are apparently in season. Most every thing here is sold by its season. There is a watermelon seller too. The vendor that sells the baklava we're told does a very good business as he walks from shop to shop pushing his cart. We've not purchased from any of these vendors since coming here this time but we still have plenty of time. Along the coast these type vendors are far more plentiful and I would guess make a very good living during tourist seasons.