Six Things You Need to Know Before You Spend Two Months in Turkey
By: Munira Munshi
3. Brush up on your charades skills
If you need to find something at the bazaar, don’t bother asking someone because you probably don’t know the correct Turkish equivalent and even if you did you probably couldn’t pronounce correctly. Save time by performing your best interpretive dance or mime. The locals are guaranteed to get a kick out of it and will be more receptive to helping you out.
4. Get comfortable hitchhiking rides with complete strangers
As shady as this sounds the chances that you have to hitch a ride during your trip is very likely, especially if you’re not acquainted with the public transportation system. For instance, what do you do when you’re 40 miles away from your hotel with no cell service or wifi? Simply walk to the nearest gas station, ask the owner to call you a taxi, and after 15 minutes of speaking to one another in two completely different languages, follow him to his car. Repeat otogar (bus station) over and over again until you arrive at your destination.
1. Wifi (pronounced: whee-fee)
Imagine you’re eating at this cute café, the waiter brings your food and it’s so beautiful you just have to Instagram it. Don’t ask the waiter for the wifi password because they’ll have no idea what you’re talking about. Instead, point to your phone and say WHEE-FEE repeatedly. Works every time.
2. Gozleme & Doner = life saver
If you’re OK with consuming red meat and eggplant at every meal, then you don’t need this tip. But for the majority, doners and gozleme are lifesavers. Aside from being relatively cheap (doners are $1-2 and gozlemes are $6-10), they save you the hassle of trying to match the pictures with the words on the menus.
5. You can haggle for anything and everything
As a gujju, it would be a crime for me not to share this tip: nothing is actually worth its original retail value. Point in case: when my friends and I decided to buy bus tickets from Konya to Istanbul, we went to the bus station and asked each bus company for estimates. Once a company gave us a lower price, we started a bidding war to see who would drop their prices the most. We ended up buying each ticket for 50 liras, 25 liras cheaper than the initial offer!
6. Perfect your squat
As one friend put it, “Oh my god, I don’t even squat when I go to the gaum (village) in India!!” You’ve been warned: western toilets are few and rare in Turkey. If you plan on traveling to the smaller towns and cities, be fully prepared to squat. To prep for this situation, I suggest you check out this site on how to perfect your squat
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