Saying good-bye to Ali, owner of our hostel

It was harder than we hoped to say goodbye to Istanbul. Our host Ali gave us another solid breakfast and a broad smile. We hit the road by 10 am and fought our way through suburban Istanbul congestion. Once we were out, the road was clear and the ride smooth.

Instead of following the fastest route via the inland highway, we felt like taking the direct (i.e. coastal) route one more time. It turned out that the GPS idea of getting there from the highway was a bit out-dated, so we meandered through the western Turkish countryside via the worst roads in Turkey before hitting the smooth and scenic coastal road.

The road got smaller and smaller the further we got away from Istanbul

Today’s ride was pretty long already with its 340 km to go. This meant that we reached the Gallipoli peninsular (known as Çanakkale in Turkey after the provincial capital on the other side of the Dardanelles to confuse things further) well into the afternoon.

Thing took a deep dark plunge from here. We thought to follow the Lonely Planet’s suggestion and visit the 2012 Gallipoli Simulation Centre before paying a visit to ANZAC cove for its importance in New Zealand’s history. As I am writing this five days later, I am still filled with wretched anger on this disgraceful display of revisionist propaganda disguised as a museum. Sad as it is, the only lesson I learned from this is a glimpse of understanding of how a kind, intelligent and hospitable people like the Turks can at the same time display such unreflected rar-rar nationalism. A visit here, most likely with tons of supporting misinformation, is part of every Turkish schoolkids’s education.

*sniff*

Why am I so outraged? It is hard to describe. I like to believe that as someone raised in Germany, we got a rare gift of a particular view of history, especially of armed conflicts. As much as we love our new home New Zealand and its people, their sometimes unreflected celebration of their Great War participation rubbed us a bit. How can something be celebrated that, in a way, was pretty much an imperialistic and also quite racist attack against a country which’s main crime it was to sit on resources that the British Empire would rather have for its own? But there were nuances – and also a way to engage Kiwis in deep reflections on different cultures of remembrance.

This “thing” on the other hand can probably only be described as a Turkish nationalist Call of Duty theme park ride. It clearly had a message: Our war was just, through superiority on culture and religion we fought off the arrogant invaders and it is a pity that today’s Turks cannot die the same martyr death for glory of god and country. Ten multi-media presentations, with props and everything retelling fairy-tale versions of instances of the Ottoman defence. Glorification of Atatürk. Martyrdom revered as a beautiful thing to archive. Everything was clean, good, glorious.

What was missing was any kind of reflection. Any idea of the horrors of war. What does it mean to die a martyr’s death? Not a single drop of blood was shed – people fall with an expression of glorious defiance on their faces and go to sleep – straight to paradise, I suppose. Only, they did not. Trench warfare is horrendous. People die slowly, humans get ripped apart all the time. It stinks, rats start feeding on the wounded as they are still alive slowly dying in no-man’s-land.

The whole thing took an hour. After the second display we were already disgusted, but somehow we stayed to the end. We came out pretty shell-shocked but also angry at the Lonely Planet. Seriously, how can this be in any way recommended? Without any warning or perspective.

Our last night in Turkey

We were all fed up now and only wanted to leave. We. Skipped. ANZAC cove and headed straight out again, rather getting some more distance done tonight. We camped at a nice little spot 70km further towards our final destination, at the north-eastern end of the peninsular.

What a disappointment to end the traveling part of our journey.

Nina’s comment: All of the above. What shocked me most was that this is a *new* centre. It was only opened in 2012. How can war be so glorified in the 21^st century? Haven’t we all learnt our lesson? Instead, you find yourself on the ship (which is rocking… it’s a simulation centre after all) shooting at the enemy, celebrating each hit. You find yourself in the trenches (actual props of trenches… how sick is that?) waiting to shoot at the enemy. It’s disgusting. Yes, if there ever is a “right side” of a war, the Turks were on it. They were invaded, they defended themselves. But there was slaughter all around. The centre disappointed me deeply. The last room, then, just was the last straw, ending in “And this is why Turkey is so great” blatant propaganda.