Swindled and, in the End, Happy

Yesterday, for the first time in Turkey, I was ripped off by three elementary school age kids. I'm not even mad. It was pretty clever, in hindsight.

I took a bus to Kale, the Van Castle. Van Castle overlooks the city; it sits on a brief outcropping of rock, and you can easily see the walls that have been reconstructed, which are white, compared to the old, original castle. Still impossible to scale, though, as I found out.

My bus dropped me on the wrong side of the castle walls - the side where attackers would die gruesomely because they couldn't find a way up. I was walking along an access road, trying to find the main gate (my guide book said there was a small cluster of gift shop/tea house/museum type buildings somewhere) when I was approached by three cute little kids. They knew a little English, and offered to take me into the castle. Thinking it would be a short trip, I agreed.

Show me a chain link fence in Turkey, and I'll show you a hole in it. Probably directly in front of us. If I've only learned one thing here, it's that, but I've learned two things - children can be as sinister as adults, or robots, even. As these kids took me up a path only they knew, criss-crossing the steep slope up to the foot of the walls, I realized I would have to tip them a little. Maybe a lira, for getting me to the castle entrance. I was already regretting my decision to go with them, because the foot wide path we walked was often pushed to the edge of something that could be classified as "a long way down." I realized that my fear of heights had kicked in when I saw the ten year old girl in front of my offering to help me up a boulder.

It happened when we reached the pinnacle. I looked back at the path we had came up, and couldn't see it - I had no idea how to go back down. It was the same in front of me - I didn't know how to proceed. The kids knew this. And at this point, they asked for money.

It was the oldest one. He was maybe twelve. He asked for five lira, and I said one. We flipped flopped until we reached three, and I paid. This all happened in Turkish, and I would have been stoked about the language exchange if I hadn't been thinking about how I needed to change my underwear when I got down. The oldest boy took the money and then ran past me, climbed a straight up rock face, and disappeared. Oh no.

Right before he Ocean's Eleven'd me.

There were still two kids left, making gestures of want. I panicked. Do you ever sit in a quiet place, like a funeral or a Broadway show, and have an irrational fear that you're about to scream? You get worried that, like turrets, you're about to let loose some terrifying loud noise and ruin the moment for everyone? I do, all the time. And on the top of this rock, fifteen feet from any edge, I had this fear that at any moment, against my will, some insane portion of my brain was about to make a run and jump for it, to try to fly. I pointed at both kids; "Besh ve besh, if you can get me down from this death trap." They said yes.

Not Pictured: Courage. Or dignity.

As we walked along the ramparts of the castle, it became apparent that I wasn't supposed to be here. This area was obviously not open to the public, because it was still under construction. Concrete mixers, sandbags, and even wet walkway - I left a shoe imprint at one of the nooks where archers used to stand to shoot arrows at bad guys.

Eventually, after I taught the kids the phrase, "Don't look down," we made it to the bottom. I paid them both five lira and gave them a hug, saying, "I never want to see this place again." We parted, and I started walking in field at the foot of the castle, where a few ruins were spread out. After about an hour, I came to the actual Van Castle, where a two lira ticket would get you passage up a wide gravel road to the top. I figured, what the heck, and went up there to see if it was any different. It wasn't, and it was full of tourists. I laughed to myself, because they were not getting the real experience. The real experience included a real fear of death.

On my way back down I saw a Japanese family with the little girl who had shown me around. She called me by name, and I gave her a high five. The Japanese man said if I needed it, she could show me around - that she knew the castle well. "No worries, Nintendo," I said. "Shorty and I are cool."