My trip to Turkey

I'm writing this post from Turkey, where I have had a fun day swimming in the sea. I tagged along with Kyle on a trip to see the wedding of two of his friends from college. I am staying in the town of Dalyan, which is located on the Mediterranean Sea in the southwestern part of Turkey. Can you find Turkey on a map? Can you find Dalyan? Dalyan is quite possibly the most difficult place I have asked you to find on a map; you'll have to get a very detailed map in order to find it.


The beach here is very beautiful. You have to take a boat down a river in order to get to the beach. Here is a picture of me enjoying the sand and sun.

Here I am on the beach in Dalyan, Turkey.

There are no buildings along the beach because there are so many turtles who nest on the beach. The turtles are highly endangered, so the Turks go to great lengths to protect them. Each year, turtles return to this beach from way out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and then lay their eggs on the beach. Rangers find the nests and mark them with metal cages so that humans will not disturb the eggs. When the baby turtles hatch, they run down the beach to the sea and begin to swim. They hatch at night to avoid predators, and the way that they find the sea is by observing the moonlight reflecting off it. Turtles in other places – for example, in Florida – are often confused by the lights of nearby buildings, so they run away from the water by mistake and get stranded. To avoid this problem, there are no lights allowed anywhere near the beach, and people aren't allowed on it at night. Fortunately, during the day sometimes you can see turtles if you are on a boat. I got to see some, including this one, which I photographed for you.

This sea turtle is coming up for a look around.

The boat ride that I took from Dalyan to the beach was very scenic. Along the way, I got to see some ancient tombs, which were carved into the hillside. In ancient times, this part of Turkey was heavily colonized by the Greeks, who called it Lycia. Some of the people in Lycia cut tombs into the rock on the sides of cliffs way above the river. Most of these tombs are from around the year 400 BC. These tombs are still there today.

Here I am on the front of my boat with the Lycian tombs in the background.

I also saw a lot of boats, many of which were flying the Turkish flag. Remember when I showed you the Pakistani flag and asked you why it has a crescent and a star? The Turkish flag also has a crescent and star. The reason is that these symbols represent Islam, which is the religion of the majority of the people in both Pakistan and Turkey. You may remember that I got to see a really big mosque in Islamabad. In this picture, you can see the minaret of a very small mosque in Dalyan sticking up behind the boats.

Turkish boats flying Turkish flags with a mosque in the background.

Of course, not all of my trip to Turkey was about riding on boats and going to the beach. I also got to go to a Turkish wedding. Turkish people have some interesting customs that are different from what we usually do in the United States. One custom is that the bride wears a red ribbon and the groom wears a white ribbon, then they go greet all of their wedding guests. The guests then pin gifts to their ribbons – sometimes they pin gold coins, but other times they just pin actual Turkish lira notes to the ribbons. The wedding also had a lot of Turkish dancing, which was fun for everybody. It is fun to think about how marriage customs differ in different countries. Someday, I hope to go to a wedding in another interesting country so that I can compare the customs and report back to you.

—Benny