That time when Elvis and feminine hygiene products saved my life
Sometimes it’s best just to laugh
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I love traveling to new countries, especially ones with a different culture than I’m used to and where I don’t speak the language. There’s more to it than just witnessing something out of the ordinary for me. True, I like that part, too. It feeds my curiosity. Yet there’s something else I can’t quite put my finger on, but I’ll try.
When I am completely out of my element in a new place, it forces me to pay attention. It forces me to be fully present, or I might miss something important. And I’m not just talking about missing a train connection, though there’s that, too.
If I am not aware of my surroundings, if I don’t pay attention to the nuances of communication that we take for granted when we think we are speaking the same language as those around us (how often we are wrong in this assumption, even if we and the other are speaking English!), I won’t learn much about the place I’m visiting. Or I might get into a sticky situation.
I’ve learned to pay attention when traveling abroad. I’ve grown accustomed to softening the hard edges of expectation, allowing me to better go with the flow when the unexpected arises, as it so often does when traveling. I’ve found myself in a few situations that were quite sticky, like the time I landed in London on my very first flight overseas, and they kicked me out (long story short: This was the event that eventually landed me in Garmisch, Germany).
And then there was the time I went to Turkey. My ability to remain present, observant, and go with the flow saved me. At least, those things had a lot to do with it. But I had a little extra help. From Elvis. And tampons.
This all happened many years ago.
Many, many years ago — in the time long before cell phones were in the hands of the 97% of the U.S. population who now own one (sorry, this means no photos of my own, as all my pics from that time are sitting in a storage tub in Illinois) — I wanted to take a solo trip somewhere new. I lived in Garmisch at the time, and in the basement of the Munich airport, they had last-minute travel agencies. Walk up to the counter, flip through a binder of the day’s deals, and choose a trip.
I found a ticket to Antalya, Turkey for $100 round trip, with a departure date two days from the date I was there.
Sold!
I went home, packed a bag, picked up a travel book on Turkey, and headed back to the airport. On the plane, I read about this place along the coast called Olympos. It was a traveler’s destination. There were ancient ruins dating back to about 200 B.C. and chimera burning on the mountainsides nearby. There was a beach, and people stayed in treehouses. Oh, and the treehouses cost $10 a night, including breakfast and dinner.
Of course, I had to go!
Upon landing, I found a bus headed that way and hopped on board.
When I arrived, I found the lodgings I’d read about and reserved a bed. At this time, the treehouses were each a single open space with a bunch of mattresses on the floor (I’m guessing about 8 of them, give or take a couple…we are stretching back in my memory a ways). The restrooms were in a separate location. We all brought our own toilet paper and the talk often meandered around to how many squares everyone got away with using that day. It was like a competition to see who used the least amount. Toilet paper was a valuable resource.
Everyone ate communally at outdoor tables. Meals always consisted of fish, caught right from the nearby waters and brought in daily. Fish for breakfast. Fish for dinner.
And the fish still had their heads.
And eyes.
I covered the heads with a napkin every time I ate, or I wouldn’t have been able to stomach the meal.
There were no restaurants in town back then. No real hotels.
To get to the beach, you walked through the ancient ruins for about a mile. I’d been to Egypt before this trip, and there, all the ancient archaeological sites I visited were properly maintained, with nice little signs telling you all about them, tours if you wanted.
Not so in Olympos.
You could wander as you pleased through the ruins. In some places there were paths, others…not so much. There were a few placards here and there with dates and names of the type of structure, but you had to fill in a lot of gaps with your imagination. While I would have liked more information, I seriously loved the adventure and rawness of it all.
Most of the folks there spoke English, even if it wasn’t their native language. The kid who ran the hostel was 16. He had these awesome sideburns, which earned him the nickname of…yep…Elvis.
There was a small group of us that hung out together a lot, as we all arrived at about the same time: a British couple, a South African couple (celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary with the trip to Turkey), and me. None of us was staying in the same treehouse, but we ate nearly every meal together and often went down to the beach together, too.
A Turkish man arrived and struck up a conversation with us a breakfast one morning. He told us he knew of a great restaurant the next town over and did we want to go for dinner?
The South African couple declined, but the British couple said sure, as did I. When it was time to go, the Turkish man and I waited for the couple. When they didn’t show up, we walked to the beach and found them there. They’d changed their minds.
Crap.
My Midwestern politeness made it hard for me to say I wasn’t going to go either. And while I wasn’t entirely comfortable, my danger hackles didn’t rise. I went.
During dinner, this man proceeded to get really drunk on Raki, the national drink of Turkey. It’s a type of brandy, made from grapes, flavored with anise, and strong. This very drunk man then asked me to marry him. I politely declined, then had to be less than polite as he kept pressing the matter.
To make things worse, he left me with the bill…saying he’d pay me back later.
I told him I’d catch a ride back on my own. I was prepared to walk the short distance if I had to, but I did manage to get a lift with a couple who were headed in the direction of Olympos.
When I got back to my room, I discovered that everyone else who had been in the treehouse had checked out that morning. And no one else had checked in.
That creeped me out a bit, and it turns out, it should have.
Early the next morning, before the sun was completely up, there was a loud banging on the door.
BANG, BANG, BANG!
Groggy, half-asleep me: “Sorry, you have the wrong treehouse!”
Voice from the other side: “POLICE!”
Needless to say, I was no longer half asleep. Heart pounding out of my chest, I opened the door to find a uniformed military man with a machine gun in his hands, and at the foot of the ladder, forming a half circle around it, there were several others…all armed.
Glancing at the neighboring treehouse in the early morning light, I saw an armed man come out carrying a bag of weed.
My first thought was PHEW! It’s just a drug raid.
Who the hell brings weed into Turkey? Hasn’t everyone heard about or seen Midnight Express?
My second thought was Oh SHIT!
I was gone all day. We’d seen the military cops raiding other lodgings the day before. What if someone stashed their stash in my empty room, knowing they could raid our hostel any time?
The gun-toting police made me come down to the base of the ladder, but when he tried to pat me down…I said no way. You need to get a female to do that.
Shockingly, he complied. Perhaps just as shocking was the fact that he understood what I was saying in the first place. He didn’t speak a lick of English (other than “Police” apparently). You can convey a surprising amount of information miming. I also imagine I wasn’t the first girl to demand this.
After a pat-down from a woman and away from the ogling eyes of the male military men, the head guy came up to my room, accompanied by Elvis.
Elvis was our translator.
The military man asked questions through Elvis as he tore apart my room, lifting up every mattress and pulling off the bedding. Next, he moved on to my backpack, unceremoniously yanking everything out, shaking out each article of clothing before tossing it aside.
He got to my toiletries.
And found my tampons.
He inspected them, obviously having no idea what they were. He looked suspicious, like he’d caught me at…something…though he was clueless as to what it would be.
He turned to Elvis, holding one up, questioning, eyes narrowed.
Pooooor Elvis. He turned five shades of red as he sputtered the words out in Turkish.
The police looked astonished for a few heartbeats — at the rate my heart was going, it was probably more than a few — then he turned to me and…started laughing! Whole-hearted, belly laughs. Eye-watering laughs.
I was shocked. But I was so completely present, so aware of every vibe this man was putting off, that my gut told me to join him in his laughter.
And so I did. I laughed out of relief, nervousness, and because, yeah, it was damned funny! I laughed because I sensed that it would be the response he would welcome. And scary military man turns to say something to Elvis to translate for me.
And what he said was — “You have smiling eyes.”
With that, not-so-scary-anymore military man, still chuckling, gets up off the floor, says goodbye, and leaves, Elvis following him out the door after an apologetic look in my direction.
I pick up the mess he left behind, shakily. Utterly relieved but wanting to puke.
I’d seen Midnight Express. I knew what happened to tourists who went to a Turkish prison.
In talking to Elvis, I found out that the Turkish guy whose hand I’d refused had something to do with what happened. Elvis spoke English but not fluently. What I got from his explanation was that the drunk man was part of the military operation.
No way was I going to stick around, I told my friends at breakfast. I was planning to leave right after I finished eating. I didn’t care that I’d paid for two more nights already.
The South African couple convinced me to stay. Turns out, he was the head of Interpol. He told me if anything happened, he could get me out. Immediately.
So, I stayed. That night, a boat with Turkish merchants docked and stayed at the hostel. There was a bonfire. There was music. There was dancing. And so much laughter.
The next morning, after questioning Elvis a little bit more, I learned that drunk man was not part of the military. Instead, he was arrested because they’d found drugs in his room. And this man scorned decided he’d get back at me by saying that he got the weed from me!
The way things work in Turkey (at least back then) was that if someone accused you of selling or having drugs, the police could cart you off to prison, right then and there. No questions asked. No proof needed.
Fortunately, they did talk to Elvis ahead of time. Elvis vouched for me, saying I’d been there nearly a week, and there was no way I was using or selling drugs. Also fortunate was the fact that I was an American tourist. Americans brought money into Turkey (forget the fact that I really didn’t have any). They’d give me the benefit of a search and questioning, but if they didn’t like what they heard from me or were suspicious of anything I did or said—into the slammer I’d go.
So, if gun-toting military man had remained suspicious about the tampons, or if I’d chosen that moment to be offended (he already hadn’t been happy with my demand to have a female pat me down), I might have long ago wasted away in a Turkish prison.
Instead, I had the presence of mind to laugh, to join him in the joke. To allow myself to see the humor in it.
To trust my gut.
I also decided to trust others around me who told me they had my back, mostly the South African couple and Elvis. I let go of the fear. And because I did, I shared in the best night of the entire trip.
In thinking about that encounter now, I see that by remaining present, not jumping ahead, not reacting from a place of fear — no matter how terrified I was — I could more easily sense what was needed in the moment.
If being present allows us to more clearly see the next steps during a crisis or emergency or just plain scary situation, won’t it do the same in our day-to-day lives? Of course, we have to plan. And I believe in setting goals to help move us in the direction of our dreams and visions of the person we want to be and the life we want to live. I also think setting intentions helps us move through our days in the ways we desire.
But I think being present as much as possible opens our eyes and hearts to seeing and knowing, sensing, feeling what comes next.
I don’t always remember this. Often, my mind races 50 bazillion steps ahead, fretting about whether I’ll get where I want to go. It’s a little hard to see the signs, doors, opportunities right in front of you if you aren’t present in the moment. So, checking in with myself and pulling my mind into the now is something I work on daily.
Do you try to remain present during your day? Is there any situation in your life where being entirely present opened doors or potentially changed an outcome? I’d love to hear about it!
Peace and love,
Desserae
P.S.: Olympos is no longer what it was back then. If you want to see what it’s about, including pics, check out Trip Advisor’s site on the location.
Shifting Space by Desserae Shepston is a community-supported newsletter. I am so grateful to you for stopping by and taking the time to read. If you’d like to receive new posts and support my work, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
April is my birthday month! Not to mention the heart of spring and the month we (officially) celebrate Earth Day. To celebrate, I’ve set up a 20% subscription discount, available for the whole month. The discounted annual rate is $40. Once you sign up at this rate, you’ll maintain it as long as you subscribe. I’m also donating 20% of all new subscriptions to the Nature Conservancy.
Also, please consider downloading the Substack app to join the conversation and participate in the community. If this post resonates, feel free to share!
This is such a funny, amazing story.