In 2009, Jack Scott and his civil partner, Liam, sold off the family silver and jumped the good ship Blighty for Muslim Turkey. They parachuted into paradise with eyes firmly shut and hoped for the best. When the blindfolds were removed what they saw wasn’t pretty. They found themselves peering over the rim of a Byzantine bear pit. Bitching and pretension ruled the emigrey roost. The white-washed ghettoes were populated by neo-colonial bar-room bores who hated the country they’d come from and hated the country they’d come to and were obsessed with property prices, pork products and street dogs. Expat life was village life where your business was everyone’s business. For Liam, it was the barren badlands of the lost and lonely. For Jack it was the last stand of the charmless Raj – ‘Tenko’ without the guards, the guns and the barbed wire. It took them a while to find their feet and separate the wheat from the chavs but, determined to stay the course, eventually they found diamonds in the rough and roses among the weeds.
Jae De Wylde, Author
This spring, Roving Jay is publishing her first guidebook just in time for the summer scrum. It’s Jay’s unique take on the Bodrum Peninsula. Unlike so many guidebooks these days, it’s a first-hand account on the small corner of Turkey that Jay intends to call home one day, stuffed with must-sees and must-dos. For more information and the chance to get your free copy when it’s released, click here. |
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