By Ursula; An extract from Orchids for Aphrodite, An Aegean Odyessy (www.aegeanodyssey.co.uk) 

In 1988 we crossed the Aegean in a small yacht to arrive in Bodrum when it was still relatively untouched by mass tourism. The following extracts from my book Orchids for Aphrodite describe my impressions on arriving in Turkey for the first time.

Ahead lay the Levant – what we trusted was the sprawl of Ancient Halicarnassus. On spotting the squat towers of its landmark castle, I let out a shout of triumph. (No one had warned me how hard it is to see through wavering binoculars.) Whistling down wind, we made for the islet of Kara Ada before angling for Bodrum’s concealed harbour entrance. Since a new breakwater was under construction, the convention described in the Pilot of lining up on the mosque no longer held good.  Dropping the mainsail, we steered instead for a red crane. Beyond it, a banner bade us: “WELCOME TO TURKEY”.

Allocated a berth and handed a lazy line from the central mooring chain in the marina, we were informed that we must purchase a Turkish courtesy flag, (we had been warned not to buy one in Greece where they were not made in accordance with the exacting Turkish standards), and that a stay of one month would entitle us to a reduction of 30 per cent on a marina contract.

Our path to the Health Department (whose request was for a De-Ratting Certificate) lay through the Farmers’ Market, a munificent Garden of Eden heaped with those fruits described by a traveller of 1760 as “not easily eaten with moderation”. The stalls were a stupendous sight. While oranges and lemons were cascaded into one shopping bag and boot-black shiny aubergines, celeriac and fat leeks were poured into the other, hands were placed on our shoulders. There, inviting us aboard his yacht Daly Express, was none other than Bill Daly (a Greek-Canadian with whom we had become friendly in the Greek island of Poros) extolling the value and virtues of everything Turkish from paraffin to haircuts. We already felt at home in Turkey.

That night I glowed. It might only be 215 nautical miles (a nautical mile is slightly longer than a statute mile) but, like all true journeys, for me it had been peppered with a little hardship and salted with a mite of fright. Moreover it had not been undertaken in that insulated travel pod, the aeroplane. The muezzin called and all the reward I needed was the romantic sight of the Castle of the Knights rising in floodlight against a black Levantine sky.

In Bodrum the Farmers’ Market transformed the Town Quay, bordered on one side by boats and on the other by castle and mosque, into a polychromatic boulevard where porphyry and white aubergines, cabbages, beetroots, tomatoes, oranges, apples and quinces lay piled in colour blocks. Stacked alongside them were neat bundles of wild greens – chickweed, mallow, nettle and dandelion, all with culinary use. Responding to the cry of “Five hundred! Five hundred!” I clutched a bunch of 500TL notes (each worth about 20p). Market families slept in their vans. Small boys learned their trade from their fathers. Eyes averted from bundles of ducks and hens with their legs tied, I was served with aplomb by a four-year-old, who bowed before casting surreptitious glances at his father for help in reaching the scales.

     “Thank you very much!”

    “Go smiling! Go smiling!”

     “And God stay with you!”    

At the rear of the market, together with live sheep, pirated cassettes, cheeses and pickles, bring-your-own-jar honey was sold for a few pence a kilo. I bought spices, dried morello cherries, pine nuts, curry powder and saffron, reminded that 2,000 years ago Cleopatra had sat to admire these hillsides mauve-misted with the saffron crocus so sought after by Anthony’s men.

At midday we perched on the harbour wall to watch the world go by, each holding a pidé half a loaf sliced lengthwise and flattened with a hot iron before being doused with olive oil and lashed with lettuce, chopped onion and broad-leaf parsley. Layered with sizzling mincemeat and cheese, these were finished off with black pepper, coarse salt and my favourite seasoning, crimson powdered sumac.

It was difficult not to end up saddled with too much provender, especially on a Friday when the stallholders were packing up. When I asked for a kilo of tangerines, a trugload was tipped into one of my shopping bags. Then, after I had paid, the farmer’s wife ran after me to fill the other bag with another trugload. The market was not only a source of income, but the glue of social unity. The womenfolk, like ships in sail in their multi-coloured layers, floral shalvar, check jackets and headkerchiefs folded individual ways, made any excuse to attend. Panniers of dandelions were strapped to the backs of self-aware gipsy girls, remarkable for the sequinned brilliance of their tiered skirts. Chanting market cries they chinked gold bangles and coined headbands. (When the bandit hero of Yashar Kemal’s novel “Mehmet My Hawk” asked for essential supplies to set up camp in a cave, they included a mirror for his girl-wife.) A mother from the East showed off her two small sons dressed to the nines in shalvar banded below the knee, hand-knitted leg-warmers in bird-of-paradise colours with tasselled hats to match, and low-slung cummerbunds into which, from their swagger, I knew they longed to thrust yataghans (curved daggers). A granny, who put in a regular appearance, sat cross-legged on a blanket with her treasure-of-the-week laid out before her. Once it was a few sprigs of pennyroyal she freshened with water, and once a dead pole cat.

I developed a passion for flowers. Traders pushed hand-carts of anemones. Soon bluebells followed and the tiny butter-coloured narcissus tazetta whose scent dominated the market for an all-too-short spell. As spring wore on, villagers grubbed up the violet-red orchis laxiflora from the boggy hillsides, boiling their pestelled tubers for salep. (Tasting like boiled vanilla custard, thebeverage was sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon and served hot at bus stations.) The flowers provided table displays. Later came country bunches in which bee orchids nestled among the ubiquitous ox-eye daisy of the Turkish postage stamp. I was soon handing over 500 TL to have my arms filled with flowers. While clutching a sheaf of purple stock, I met Yener-the-Sails, who rebuked me for not gathering my own flowers on the aspodel slopes of the acropolis where George, the skipper of a vintage Dunkirk Little Ship (with a plaque to prove it), rose at dawn to pick mushrooms. In the shady dells, starred with wild lupin and the bruise-blue signal flags of dwarf iris, the lilies-of-the-field were not yet faded.

By Ursula; An extract from Orchids for Aphrodite, An Aegean Odyessy (www.aegeanodyssey.co.uk)