Like most of the East-European people our family decided to have the big and fabulous annual holiday in Turkey. After a short inquiry on the Turkish map we decided to pick Akcay, a very cozy and small resort at the Aegean Sea, which seemed to promise lots of pleasant surprises.
As we are – let’s say – the adventurous type, we decided to reach our destination by car. Driving from Bucharest to Akcay implies crossing Bulgaria (our friendly country, whose population has an odd hobby of collecting other people’s cars), then crossing Dardanelles Straits by ferry and after that driving through the western Turkish coast to our final destination. Don’t think about the movie, fortunately, it was not that final!
Like in the old movies, when Laurel and Hardy were saying “good-bye” a hundred times before leaving, we managed to finally leave the house (after a heart-breaking, temporarily separation of our tomcat Cristofor), and off we went!
After the very good and full of traffic indicators roads of Romania, we entered Bulgaria. Ever been to Bulgaria? Nice country, green and beautiful, but most of all: mysterious. So mysterious that you should have the Ariadne’s thread to cross it. Traffic indicators? Well, yes, but in Bulgarian. Map from the gas station? Yes, but three years old! Main road crossing Bulgaria? Yes, lost about four times.
But finally our “Bulgarian language forever fan” family got to Eceabat (Turkey), took the ferry, and happy and exhausted reached Canakkale, on the Asian shore. We thought it was the end of the glorious day, but we were wrong. After the check-in at the hotel, we decided that we gain the right of drinking an honest beer on the sea side. So, we picked a nice terrace, we saw a free table and sat down. The beer came, the dark memories of the day were remembered, the thanks to God for still having a car after crossing Bulgaria were said, everything seemed to be nice an peaceful.
Suddenly we heard some cracks behind us. They seemed like fireworks and we turned to see what was going on. It was the perfect end for our perfect day: one guy was shooting another one with a gun. He was a determined person, definitely focused on finishing the job, as he didn’t stop shooting, not even when the victim fell under the table. First we thought it was a joke or something, but when all the people from the terrace started to run like rabbits, we had to face it: our first night in Turkey was starting with a murder.
Apart from the shock, when we were at a safe distance, we couldn’t help noticing the immediate intervention of the police and the ambulance. The people were still running when the police showed up, followed at a short distance by the ambulance. They were probably very used to this, otherwise we couldn’t explain this promptitude.
We later found out, at the hotel, that not even for a moment was our life in danger. It was a common think in Turkey that persons solve their issues with a gun, a pistol, a knife, or whatever equipment they have in endowment. But it had never involved the tourists.
Of course, thinking about the bomb that exploded and hurt about 15 tourists in Antalya last week, I would clearly doubt the previous statement, but, after all, who am I to misjudge the Turkish tourism promotion?