Another chai stand

 There's an Anatolian woman in that corner gathering twigs and putting them in a bundle wrapped in a sheet. Then she carries the whole thing on her back and walked away. It reminded us of the Berber women in Morocco who are always carrying packs that are twice their size. They are always bent over with huge packs on their backs. I should have asked if we could take her picture, offered some money and come away with a better picture. I like China better, I could take any one's picture, they don't mind, they smile, they like it. But it is a taboo to have one's picture taken in Turkey, they usually don't allow it. We have lots of young kids come up to us in Turkey wanting us to take their pictures and we do.

 Bernd is ordering tea for us.

 What could be more idyllic, the shade of a walnut tree, a hammock, some tea, a book and visitors from all over the world....

Here we are, watching the lady carry her stuff away on her back, us drinking tea at a long table under a walnut tree. There were fresh walnuts, just fallen off the tree and the owner was cracking them open for us to eat. There was a magazine featuring this chai stand and the church next to it that we just visited, there was another couple from Germany, the Turkish-German girl and Bernd were in deep conversation, she was with a guy but he was completely ignored. The Turkish girls we met along the way all loved Bernd. We crossed paths with another Turkish girl who was a guide for another party, her eyes just followed Bernd wherever he went. I watched in astonishment at this shamelessness, 'aren't they Muslim women?' This was an eye opening trip for me, all the things we read about Islam and Muslim people seemed to go by the wayside in Turkey. We may be world travelers but when it comes to social and sexual mores, we are very conservative, we are Christians and live by every word in the Bible.