Turkish Tea Part Two: Gold, Tea, and Death?

1991, during my second tour of Sea Duty, I was in VS-28 and we deployed on the USS Forrestal to the Mediterranean Sea.   During that deployment I was the Flight Deck Coordinator for the squadron and I worked alongside two other Chief Petty Officers most everyday on the flight deck.  Gary “Hummer” Humrichhouser was the Line Chief, and Bob “Bombin’ Bob” Hubbard was the ordnance Chief.  Not only did we work side by side on the flight deck, we had many fun liberty calls.  Neither Hummer nor myself were the typical drunken sailor type.  Instead of finding the nearest bar, we would find a sidewalk café and get cappuccinos instead.   Here’s a story about our Antalya Turkey visit.

In my previous post I concluded by talking about Turkish hospitality.  It truly IS a thing in Turkey, and in this sea story it could have killed us.  We naively got caught in a situation that we knew could happen, but never thought it would happen to US.  It started with an innocent question; “Do you have Turkish tea?”

As I said previously, on the first day we had liberty, Hummer and I got off the ship at fleet landing and rode the bus into town.  The first place I remember seeing after getting off the bus was a food “souk” (basically a marketplace or Bazaar).  It was pretty cool walking through and smelling all the aromas.  We also found a sort of “gold souk” as well.  This sea story starts at a jewelry shop there in the gold souk, but first I have to explain why we did not know about Turkish Tea and why we were reluctant to try it.

Everything I Know about Turkey I Learned From Midnight Express

The movie “Midnight Express” left a lasting impression on everyone who had seen it.  It was THE sole source of the information that I knew about Turkey.  The Navy often did random drug tests, and if you “popped positive”, you were done for, kicked out, “see ‘ya later”.  Turkey also had a reputation for drug trafficking and usage, so naturally we were skeptical about trying anything we did not know.  During our visit, a ubiquitous sight was kids running all over the place with silver trays and clear glasses of liquid on the trays.  We had no idea what it was, but joked that it was liquid hashish or some kind of opium drink.

During this day’s liberty shopping, we decided to explore the gold souk and buy some quality gold for our wives at a discounted price.  As we were strolling in the souk, we were window shopping and stopped at a shop for a little longer than we had at others.  The owner (let’s call him Joe) came to the door and beckoned us in, so we entered.  The first thing Joe does is offer us something to drink.  This is a genuine offer, and apparently most serious customers get this treatment.  They will literally get you anything you want to drink for free.  Joe offered Coke, water, or whatever we wanted but strongly suggested we try Turkish tea.  Hummer and I looked at each other and I’m sure we thought the same thing, “hmmm Turkish tea sounds harmless”.  We agreed that we would like some Turkish tea.

OH! So THAT’S What That Is!

At this point, Joe looks out the door and hollers something in Turkish to a random kid and off the kid goes at high speed.  About 10 minutes later, he comes back with that ubiquitous silver tray and those “questionable” clear glass “shot glasses” with the until then unknown amber liquid.  AHHHH!  The clue bird landed upon us and NOW we knew what was going on.  We knew it was only tea!  As we were selecting our golden treasure, we drank our tea, and even asked Joe for seconds, which brought a smile to his face.  We left Joe’s place with some shiny bling and a new taste for Turkish tea!

The next liberty day, Hummer, Bombin’ Bob, and I went a little deeper into Antalya and got a little further than the souk area.  We tended to seek places that other “Squids” (our affectionate name for our shipmates) did not frequent.  In doing, we got thirsty and thought, hmmmm, what better to quench our thirst than our new favorite drink, Turkish tea!!!  We did not see any place obvious that had or served Turkish tea, so we stopped at a guy’s (hence forth known as Yassar) food cart (kind of like a hot dog cart you’d see in the U.S.) and asked him if he knew any place that had Turkish tea.  It took a little back and forth communication to get our request across; we were not expecting HIM to have tea, just to direct us to some place that did.

The Situation Deteriorates REAL Fast

Yassar nodded and said, “Yes, yes.  You come.  I show you”.  Then he proceeded to shut down his cart and close it up, foregoing any further sales until he helped us.  We tried to tell him he did not have to shut down on our behalf, but that “Turkish hospitality” evidently meant he was honor bound or something like that to fulfill our request.  Since he was going to all this trouble, how could we refuse him and not follow him?  He seemed to be a great guy like Joe was.  So we followed him, and followed him, and followed some more.  We went down ever narrowing roads that turned into alleys, that turned into paths that wound between buildings around corners and then eventually up a narrow staircase into an unknown building in the middle of who knows where.

Yassar directed us into a small room, and as soon as we tried to enter we hear a bunch of yelling in Turkish.  We look into the room and there are five or six Turks sitting on pillows in the room, and they were gesturing at our feet and speaking.  Yassar pointed down and said, “Shoes”.  We had to remove our shoes before entering.  That’s was our first clue that we were not in Kansas anymore.

Well It Could Be Worse…

Let me set the stage; we were in Turkey only months after the first Gulf War ended.  Here we are totally, hopelessly lost in a back alley in an unknown part of town (definitely not the touristy or shopping area).  We are in a small room, about 12×12 with no shoes on, and the only “furniture” is Persian Rugs and big pillows so we are sitting on the floor/pillows.  The room is on the second floor and has a long vertical, narrow rectangular window that is open to the elements (no glass at all, but I guess there could have been shutters on the outside that we couldn’t see). 

The three of us are on one wall with the door to our right, and the window to our left.  Directly across from us are five or six Turks who are eyeing us suspiciously.  It is dead quiet, and all of the sudden you can hear the “Call to Prayers” being chanted over loudspeakers somewhere in the distance outside the window.  It was SO surreal.  I KNOW we were all thinking the same thing; “What did we just get ourselves into?”

At this point, one of the Turks across from us tried to ask us something, in Turkish of course.  We responded that we only spoke English, and one Turk then became the “Translator” of the group because he could sort of, kind of speak broken English.  He pointed to himself and said, “New York” so we all nodded our heads and said, “Ahhh”, like we totally understood what he was telling us.  Then he dropped THE BOMBSHELL question on us.  “What you think Saddam Hussein?”  We froze.

It Just Got Worse…OMG We Gonna Die!

You could have heard a pin drop if not for the call to prayer that was still going on.  Various images from Midnight Express flashed through my mind in that moment, and we three looked at each other and mumbled quietly, “We’re gonna DIE!  Nobody knows where we are, WE don’t even know where we are!” We thought,” man this could be it for us if we answer wrong.”  And all this because we just wanted some Turkish tea!

Bombin’ Bob figured, if we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die PROUD so he says, “We kicked his A** across the desert and we’ll do it again if we have too!”  There was about a two second pause that really seemed to be about 2 hours long, then our Turk “translator” broke into a big grin and said, “Yes!!”  All of his buddies joined in and from then on we were all best friends.  Shortly the tea arrived and I honestly think those guys kind of appreciated the fact that not only were we enjoying their country’s preferred drink, we were doing it in THEIR atmosphere on THEIR grounds.  It all ended well, but for a moment there…….