http://www.goneforawhile.ch

"Come along, stay in my house, I live just here around the corner”, says Hasan, a Turk in his forties in a Caj-House in Amasya. These are almost the first words we hear from him, we haven't even yet met!

By coincidence we had decided to start our planned two nights stay in this cute little town with a cup of tea and happened to sit down next to this man. He must have noticed that we are foreigners – not so difficult after all – and mentions (and these are the first words we hear) that he speaks some German, since he had lived there for 23 years. So we take the chance and ask him whether he would know a cheap hotel or pension around here. His answer is not the expected, but a seriously meant invitation to his house for as many nights as we like! Firstly, we turn the invitation down as the culture here dictates, but he guarantees that it would be pleasure and no trouble at all to host us. We agree happily and are, soon after, just as warmly welcomed by his wife which served more tea. Both Hasan and his wife are fluent in German which makes our stay even more easy, enjoyable and interesting. And naturally, getting a free place to stay is not all we get either: fantastic dinner is cooked, more tea served, the washing machine filled with our stinking clothes, a joyride to the major sights with the whole family, we are being treated like queen and king, without any preconditions whatsoever. Saying goodbye 36 hours later feels a lot like saying goodbye to good friends. Inshallah, we will meet again and get a chance to return this friendliness and trust.

Invitations are numerous as a foreigner in Turkey, traveling here is pure joy. Be it the melon man with his stand somewhere on a road, cutting up all the different kinds of melons for us to sample, stubbornly refusing any money or the gas station guy, screaming wildly after us to turn around and drink some tea before riding on. Be it the farmers we ask if we could put our tent up on their land for the night that feeds us with all kinds of goodies and offers us their bed to sleep in (they would sleep on the sofa or the floor), the village community fighting over who will get to host the tourists for the night they are in town or the Internet Cafe owner who leaves us his whole business (to surf and sleep in) for as long as we want: we are surprised, delighted, overwhelmed almost every day! Most interesting is the always same answer when we ask why everyone is so friendly, so generous: You are a tourist! You ought not to pay for anything and you ought to see the best side of Turkey!

We don't know whether it is the best side of Turkey we get to know, but we know for sure, it is a fantastic one!