Experiencing the local culture

nainaztengra (79)in #travel • 3 days ago

During my Turkey trip, this was a day when our final destination was visiting on top of a mountain and on the way we had things to do and see. This whole region that we were driving through I noticed that it was very sparsely populated compared to the other regions of Istanbul. Probably it is because of the climate. Going up the weather was getting rough, but it was a nice drive because we were doing many things on the way. One of it was we visited one of their local Jam shops. When you take a tour all of these become part of it, whether you like it or not. They take you to some of their designated places and then lure you to buy things. The tour guide gets commission from whatever his tourist will buy. I do not mind visiting these places and having a look because it does give a glimpse about the local culture. Not necessary one has to buy things.

There was a whole variety of Jams available here, I did not buy anything, because no one in my home consumes Jams or sweets like these. Though they say it's preservative free and all, but then it's impossible to store for a long duration without a preservative and in my home we avoid almost all foods with preservatives and which has long shelf life.

This was all set for tasting purpose, though it looks all colorful but it did not lure me. It did interest me to know more about how they were making it, which the lady explained to me. From her explanation it seems that they are prepared in a better way then what we will get from the market.

The views on the way are amazing.

We took a lunch break at one of the local restaurants. At the day we visited Ramadan was still going on, while in the city we did not have any issues, but on these hilly regions almost everything was closed, so there were not many options.

They just had one dish to serve us, which was grilled chicken and meat along with rice and salad. Besides this absolutely nothing was available. It was delicious, but the quantity was not enough for 1 person. After being out the whole morning sight-seeing, all of us were very hungry, and though in the picture it looks decent, but the meat pieces were very small and the quantity of the rice also little. So we had to order 2 dishes for each one of us and after that it felt good :-)