Hotel Paradise

Paradise? Perhaps it's a prostitution-based enterprise. Perhaps it's a mom-and-pop establishment? I don't know, since I've never stayed at...Hotel Paradise! From a side street of Beyoglu, close to Tunel square, in Istanbul.

Pixel Camels

Kitschy mosaics preserve the memory of a time when camel caravans from inland Anatolia were more common than automobiles. From an apartment building/shopping arcade in Smyrna, or İzmir.

Shit Toilet

What a piece of shit! Serious-looking mafia men relieve themselves at a toilet so bizzarely built that for a moment you wonder if it isn't a set piece from Star Wars. From underneath a bridge in Besiktas, on the European side of the Bosphorus.

Ghost Factory

Two views from a majestic, abandoned olive oil factory in Ayvalik. This establishment was set up by the Greeks of Asia Minor, who were forced to abandon it to the Turks after 1923. It operated for a few more decades under Turkish ownership, and finally closed down in the early 1970s.

A Ro Ro Ship

Apartment-sized living quarters on a massive cargo ship on the Bosphorus. I wonder what is in all those cargo containers?

Rockistanbul, 2004

I took these pictures during a local camp-in music festival in 2004. Here, you can see my hairy legs in the stuffy tent I was staying. As a spoilt brat used to eight hours of sleep every night on a plush bed, I found the conditions appalling. I couldn't get any sleep!

At least, I wasn't alone. Here, you can see the spectacular failure of my friend Neco's plans for sleeping in a parked automobile.

Athenian Street Art

Here is a selection of urban art from the dusty streets of Athens. No more explanations now, just look and enjoy!

Mob the Mascot

Dozens of kids mob a mascot during the "Solar Day", where Sabanci University organizes a plethora of games, lectures, concerts and movie screenings for civic involvement projects.

Tubular Buildings

A multicolored eyesore of a grain silo, from the outskirts of Smyrna...

...and a silo-shaped apartment building, from Acıbadem, Istanbul. This building is now being used as a supply depot for medical equipment.

Paradise

The stunning view of Bitez/Ortakent bay in Bodrum. This is one of the last bays in the area that has managed to resist the advance of cheap, ugly masses of white concrete houses.

Remembering Deniz Gezmis

Indie couples drink under the stencil portraits of Deniz Gezmis; a young leftist that, had history progressed otherwise, be forgotten as another boring anarchist, or stinking rich as a media baron. Instead, he was hanged in 1972 and subsequently became a martyr for legions of young romantics equally or more clueless than he was. From the street behind the Galatasaray High School in Taksim.

A Rhino Beetle

Another visitor, a rhino beetle. I'd tentatively identify him as an Oryctes nasicornis, but with scarabine beetles having thousands of species as they do, I might easily be mistaken.

One thing I'm almost sure is that he's a he, because most female rhino beetles don't have the characteristic horns.

Concrete Doom

Urban chaos at Kavala, Greece. Turkey, Greece, almost all Balkan countries have suffered the attrition of horribly tasteless architecture in the past.

Too Drunk to Funk

Drunken spectators, as well as innumerable empty bottles and cigarette butts, litter the floor after a recent performance at Park Orman, one of the City's best open-air venues.

D.I.Y. Lomo Emulator

Instead of blowing your hard-earned cash for a "trendy" Lomo camera, you can achieve the same results with any regular camera and a pair of smudgy old binoculars. Here is the Golden Horn through my improvised Lomo emulator. If you still want a Lomo, at least in Istanbul, you can visit this site.

At Ayvalık

A view from Ayvalık, one of the last towns in Turkey where you can hear Greek spoken as fluently as Turkish in the streets. Originally an entirely-Greek town, Aivaly was settled by Hellenephone Turkish immigrants from Crete in the compulsory population exchange, the "catastrophe" between Greece and Turkey in 1923.

Medicine Overload

So shiny! Thousands of imported drugs, vitamins and liver-cancer-inducing weight gainers line the fronts of shops at the American arcade in İzmir.

Structures Without Purpose

I have no idea why someone might build such a featureless, white trailer home, let alone park it in the middle of an olive field no one visits.

More purposeless structures! These two ticket booths (not one, but two!) were standing on a bleak, deserted field with no human habitation in sight. Just to make sure I checked, they weren't toilets. Both the trailer and the crazy booths are from Bodrum. Perhaps there's a contemporary installation artist on the loose in these hills?

Old Greek Houses

Old Greek houses from the outskirts of Smyrna, decaying in neglect.

More old Greek (or Armenian) houses along the bay of Kadikoy, on the Asian side of Istanbul.

The same houses, viewed from the back. Their new owners have added cancerous extensions and unsightly signs, advertising the houses' new function as kebab and kokorec restaurants.

Generation Gap

Middle-aged women and young schoolgirls at a shopping mall.

At Camlitepe

This is Çamlıtepe, lonely hill in the middle of the Anatolian plain with a citadel of majestic Anatolian cedars on top. Here are some more pictures of the place, as well as its residents.

These photos were taken on a road trip to Ankara with my friend Ömer, in 2004. When we saw Çamlıtepe, we spontaneously parked the car in the middle of the road and climbed to the top. Here is the view from the hill itself.

Here is our first resident of Çamlıtepe, a little Ablepharus kitaibelii skink. These little lizards are remarkable because unlike most other skinks, they lack moveable eyelids. They also make great pets.

Here is another, a juvennile viper of the Vipera genus. Determining the exact species needs a close-up examination of these venomous snakes. As you can see from this shaky picture, I was in no position to do so.

Ouch, he's a feisty little one! Luckily, no one was bitten. If you ever see such snakes in real life, don't be as stupid as I was and get the hell away from them.

A Morning in Rhodes

The skyline of the old town of Rhodes. I love those gigantic palms.

The Gates of Etz Ahayim

The gate of the Etz Ahayim Synagogue in Ortaköy, on the European shores of Istanbul. Dating from Byzantine years, this synagogue survives only as a shadow of its former glory, after a fire destroyed large parts of it in 1941. Like most other synagogues in Istanbul, its gates are heavily guarded after the bomb attacks in 2005.

Extreme Dimorphism

My first reaction upon seeing these mating cockroaches was "Oh, everyone except me is busy getting laid..." Then, I was really surprised as the the couple seemed to consist of different species of cockroaches!

Obviously, there was something wrong with that conclusion. I mean, what were the chances? A brief research soon showed me what was really going on; this was a perfectly valid match, there was simply a remarkable sexual dimorphism in these oriental cockroaches. (Blatta orientalis) The one with the wings is the male, and strangely enough, he is as airworthy as his wingless girlfriend. Perhaps the wings just help him to impress girls.

Faded Glories

An old mansion, one of the last of its kind, peers out from the surrounding tree cover like a fading ghost. From Kozyatagi, on the Asian side of Istanbul.

At the Hagia Triada

The interior...

...and exterior views of the Greek Orthodox Hagia Triada, a landmark church of Taksim Square. The Bambi snack bars right in front of the church remain open until the morning, serving greasy munchies and snacks to drunken people on the way home from the myriad bars and clubs of Taksim.

A Snail

I found this snail on a rainy night in my garden. Professional malacologist Aydin Örstan has identified him as an Eobania vermiculata. For more on snails and relatives, visit Mr. Örstan's excellent blog at http://snailstales.blogspot.com/

Salonica, Old and New

When you are in Thessaloniki, the most popular meeting spot is "by the Kamara..." This structure is part of the massive palace complex of the Roman Emperor Galerius that also includes the famous Rotunda and numerous ruins around Egnatia Avenue. It was erected near the year 300 to mark the Emperor's victory against the Persians, and the capture of Ctesiphon in what is now Iraq.

In the more modern part of the city, nice-looking buildings conceal awful and overpriced hotels.