Travelling the world: Turkey (i)
- Aayati
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
I've often been scolded, reprimanded, or gently told off for not making up my mind and choosing one path to travel or one mode to express myself in.
So many people chisel away on their one chosen path, leaving behind something significant. I, on the other hand, often find myself comparing myself to vagabonds: moving through life as if driven by the experience of movement and travel themselves.
I'm convinced (enough to use the word convinced) that every iteration of me is as meaningful and relevant as any other. I count in these iterations the fumbling part of me that moves as if in a dark meaningless universe. It's a negotiation between that part of me-- the one that cannot make meaning and flails in rage and despair at everything that it has been born into-- and the one that moves through the world as if it knows exactly what everything is here for, including itself, that resulted in me travelling to Turkey in 2023.
It was right after the massive earthquake while the aftershocks were still ongoing (the timing was inopportune and scary). But having spent so much money on the trip, saving for it for so long, and knowing full well the trouble of applying again with a weak Indian passport, I decided to soldier on. I cannot emphasise enough how in my gut I knew that I had to go and death was not waiting for me in that shaken land. I travelled for 24-25 days around Turkey and was lucky to meet only good strangers, have good experiences, and find that even when challenges appeared, some provenance watched over me and got me out of all mess. Names of some of the people I met have slipped into some crevice of my mind but the general feeling of those meetings, the lessons, the beauty have all stayed on.
So as part of a travelogue series where I try to preserve an impression of the places I've been to, here are a few of the photographs from Turkey. An inner recount and keepsake - part 1.
Ps - All photos were taken by my Moto phone camera.
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