Yet I feel far safer in greater Istanbul or in the coastal villages near Izmir or Antalya I have visited than I do anywhere in America these days. And there are cultural norms that I don’t understand. I do admit to holding a bit of a grudge – I want the country to own up to the Armenian genocide. Is it not true that mass murderers lie in wait in such hinterlands? These same folk would simply wish me a lovely good time were I to tell them I was heading for Walmart or the movies or, say, Houston or Orlando. Yet multiple dangers like armed druggies, hungry coyotes, angry raccoons lurk in the city’s parks and construction sites. The same people, should I bid farewell and head to the subway or embark on a cross-park sojourn, would smile and wave without a moment’s dismay. It’s never clear to me of what they feel the need to warn me. “Well, then,” they’ll say in husky tones of genuine concern, “You be safe now. Brows wrinkle, cheeks migrate upward, eyes show their pain by squinting. I get a real kick out of watching people’s faces when I say I’m off to Turkey. Especially if I can learn more of the language.ĭoes it matter that I doubt I will ever feel entirely at home? Since my daughter and her family live in Turkey much of the year, and because I am absolutely addicted to the pleasure of my grandson’s company, I shall continue to return often. But they lie in the omnipresent, foreboding shadow of Musa Dagh. Gorgeous landscapes abound, punctuated by spectacular sunrises and sunsets. Islam is the primary religion of the country, but stores, especially pharmacies, are closed on Sundays, and the liquor is as destructive to weekend calm as it is anywhere else. The food is delicious, but the spices can be shockingly voracious. Or they are aggressive, willing to shove your car off the road in order to gain a few seconds of driving time or to avoid braking. I find myself excited to go there and aching to leave the minute I arrive. Is a confusing assortment of dichotomies and paradoxes. Conversely, I find Taiwan too orderly, too polluted, too rules-driven finding food there is a challenge, as it is expensive as well as often inedible. Hong Kong is – and I speak here as a New Yorker! – far too crowded, too overrun with teeming flesh and filthy refuse. And the cities are antithetical to my desire to walk in that they have obstructed or nonexistent sidewalks and street vendors that impede all movement. Poisonous snakes and soi dogs are never far from my consciousness. But the climate is far too hot far too much of the time for my taste. The people of Thailand are the gentlest, most personable people I’ve ever met, and the scenery in most of the places I’ve been is breathtaking. But each has mesmerized me in one way or another. None of these were places I’d have sought.
In the intervening years since then, I have visited her three times in Thailand, once in Hong Kong, twice in Taiwan, and most recently twice in Turkey. First to Bangkok, a side trip to Bali, and then to Samui, the Edenic island where she lived and worked. But it’s where she was, and I was keen to see what it was that held her there. At the time she was living in Thailand, a place I had never even considered for my bucket list. In 2012, I reached the age my generation had targeted for retirement, and my child invited me to visit her world. Places like Utrecht, The Netherlands, Somerset, UK, Scotland.īut when my daughter relocated abroad, she coopted my travel plans. I’d envision myself venturing out to places I knew from my mother’s childhood stories – her birthplace in Austria and home in Croatia, her parents’ hometowns in Ukraine – and those I’d imagined my father’s people left behind in the 1600s. For the first seven years, I did all my roaming in the city of New York, guiding bus tours around the city I loved.
Predictably, it took a while for me to achieve mobility. In 2003, I left my home, my marriage, my comfortable suburban life and set out to work hard, to experience setbacks, and to carve out a modicum of comfort that included the freedom to roam the world.
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