‘Sutlaj’ is a desert people eat in Turkey. But like any
country in the world, the best food item is highly localized and then its
versions are available elsewhere in the country. The best Sutlaj is from the
north east of the country from the mountains of Kackar. Here the air is clean
and the milk from which it is made, rich. I love this desert and sometimes even
eat it as a meal replacement when in the region. The region of the North East of Turkey, which is the star
attraction of my tour to Turkey and an addition we made just this year. I
always smile with content when people who after experiencing the North East
express their happiness in coming to this remote area of Turkey.
However I have never been so proud of it as I was today,
when my local Turkish guide proudly said to a restaurant owner in Istanbul who
asked her to taste his sutlaj “oh .. Do you know where I’ve been two days back,
Rize and Hamsikoy!” The owner knew what she meant, and exclaimed that she had
been to the Mecca of sutlaJ. He then asked her how the hell did she land up
there. All she did was to point at me. The owner then looked at me and smiled.
I smiled back .. I smiled with more content than I ever had before.
To follow is one thing and to discover is an entire
different madness. And when that discovery goes well with whom it is intended
for, it is sheer content. The Black sea, North East coast of Turkey and
travelling through it made me fall in love with the country all over again. I
now crave for more, to go further to the east and then the south following the
borders of Georgia, Armenia and Iran. Places that the people here in Istanbul
are inquisitive about and sometimes even scared to go to, because of the
Kurdish problem there. A region where if you ask a local where you can find a
hotel to stay, he would happily say, “why do you need a hotel? ,my house is
just 50 mtrs from here”.
A land of snow capped mountains and still lakes, where to
reach a top of a mountain there is no cable car like in the west, and so the
tourists are less and less is beautiful. Naturally this is all before I have
even been there. When I go there and ultimately start a tour, it will be what I
would finally get my kick from.
On this trip to Turkey, I feel I’ve grown. Well, not in
terms of the number of people in my group, coz I am still struggling to
convince the people back home to spend 10 days in turkey, but in terms of
knowing the country. And this I know has not just happened. The language and
learning to speak it, making a conversation which extends just a ‘good day’ and
‘how are you’ has been the key. In
2010 from having one frustrating hour of silent drinking with my driver who
couldn’t speak a word of English and me a word of Turkish to now where still
the silence exists but only when sipping the drink, I feel, I have come a long
way in Turkey and Turkish.
In April this year I remember telling my agent, “I hope I
don’t need to come to Turkey again”. Well what I actually meant, was that I
needed more time to concentrate on my other tours. But here I am again and it seems that what I said to my
agent did not make any sense and probably never will.
