Alex Smith
Every month Alex Smith shares his perspective on the expats of Kaş. You can also take a look at some other expats of Turkey...
Alex says…
Observations this month come off the back of a six week stay in the north of England which, I think I have mentioned previously, was for family health reasons and prompted some of last month’s comments in praise of the National Health Service.
My return to Kaş only the other day comes just in time for Christmas and appears to have coincided with a period of unsettled weather. First of all though I have to mention how nice it was to get away from the Christmas overkill which was grinding on mercilessly throughout my stay in Cheshire and Manchester. We were constantly being told that traders were struggling and that for economic reasons people were cutting back on their spending this year. As far as I could see that didn’t stop the shops in all the town centres I visited thrusting Christmas at me as far back as early November. It’s great to get back to Kaş for two reasons: 1) It’s great to be able to spend time in our own home again 2) I don’t have to listen to Noddy Holder singing “Merry Christmas Everybody” every day. Depressingly Tesco had presumably paid Shane and had “Fairy-tale of New York” (the best Christmas record ever in my opinion) playing as background music for their TV adverts.
Anyway back to Kaş. I flew, as I have done on the last five or six occasions, in and out of Antalya to Manchester courtesy of Thomas Cook. They can rarely be beaten on price though worryingly the company does seem to be teetering on a knife edge at the moment (fingers crossed by us expats on that one). The journey between Antalya and Kaş is a little longer taking around three hours from airport to our house without a stop; hugging the coast a little more and taking you past all the mainly Russian populated resorts just west of Antalya, Kumluca, Finike, Demre and then on to Kaş. For me though it’s a much more interesting drive than the run from Dalaman.
The other factor which is worth consideration is that Antalya is a big city with a population of over a million people and growing rapidly. It has modern shopping centres, an international airport, a charming old town and bustling streets, in other words it makes one hell of a change from Kaş and can make a refreshing change every now and then. It’s actually in a beautiful setting with a mountain backdrop, long coastline and the same climate as Kaş. Like many cities it could be worth lingering in if you have a couple of days to spare although I would advise giving high summer a body swerve as far as exploration is concerned.
So I’ve escaped the overt commercialism of Christmas in the high streets of the north of England and we drive to a supermarket in Antalya to stock up on some provisions before driving down to Kaş and I am immediately confronted by a huge blow up Father Christmas (not far from home as it happens seeing as how he was born in Patara). In fact one whole aisle in the supermarket was given over to the accoutrements of Christmas decorations, baubles, you name it. This is apparently a relatively new trend here in Turkey and is associated with celebrating the New Year as evidenced by the large signs exclaiming Mutlu Yillar (Happy New Year’s). New it may be but it certainly seems to be growing fast if the amount of merchandise on sale is anything to go by. Back here in Kaş there is much less in evidence in the shops, in fact hardly anything and I have to confess I prefer it that way.
For us Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day will be celebrated with friends when we will assuredly eat, drink and probably be merry. In short we’ll have fun and then probably walk it all off down at Patara beach on Boxing Day but then it’ll be over and done with, the way it should be in my opinion. We’ll celebrate New Year’s Eve too (this year at a meal with friends in a local restaurant). I seem to remember fireworks going off in the harbour on previous occasions and there’s normally a good bit going on.
Back to Father Christmas and his Turkish origins for a moment. Patara was not only the birthplace of Apollo, but Saint Nicholas was born there too in 217 AD and he’s the guy whose name morphed down the years to Santa Claus. St Nicholas went on to become the Bishop of Myra (modern day Demre) and gained fame for his miracle working and practice of secret gift giving. His third century church can also be visited at Demre only a forty minute or so drive from Kaş. If he could check out the high streets of England from November onwards and watch a few TV adverts at the same time I’m not sure what he’d make of it all but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t what he intended or expected.
A six week or so absence from Kaş has seen a dramatic difference in the feel and atmosphere of the town especially at night when the transformation is most in evidence but more of that next month as we move into the quietest, coolest and most sleepy months of all; January and February.
