Some people will fly across the U.S. to get great barbecue. Others will fly to Asia to pick up the latest and greatest electronic toy. I flew to Turkey to get the ultimate haircut.
OK, maybe that wasn’t my original reason to go to Ankara, but now that I found haircut nirvana, revisionist history will record it was my intent from the beginning.
Early this year, I decided my United mileage balance was way too high with their pending “demise”, and I went on a spending binge. Part of the bender was a First Class Star Alliance reward to Turkey, on Lufthansa. A number of people had said great things about their service, and I wanted one of their nightshirts. I booked a trip for early April, which coordinated with a friend’s schedule who lived in Ankara. As the trip approached, the American President decided he needed higher approval rating, and a war broke out in the area. While this in itself was not in my mind a good reason to cancel the trip, my boss and wife thought otherwise, so I rescheduled for late September.
My buddy in Ankara it turned out came to California around Labor Day, and while visiting informed me my proposed re-visit date to Ankara had to be changed. He it turned out was going to be in Alberta, so we agreed to push it back a week. Of course a month before leaving getting first class seats became a challenge, as awards to Munich were at a premium due to Oktoberfest (MUC is the hub for most of LH’s flights to Turkey’s part of the globe). Finally I was able to book LAX-ORD-MUC-ESB but had to settle for ESB-MUC-LHR-LAX (across the pond on Air New Zealand) for the return.
Los Angeles – Ankara
Upon check-in at the 1K kiosk in Terminal 6, the agent printed me a boarding pass for the MUC-ESB segment showing a seat different then that which I had gotten LH to assign me to. Probably five calls in the past week had gone to LH, as that segment originally had only one assignable seat, the terrible 6E (it was suppose to be an A-320). I had gotten a LH supervisor to give me an aisle in row five the day before heading out of Los Angeles, but UA’s boarding pass said 3F. When I got to the Red Carpet Room I called LH, who after a ten minute hold, said the best a supervisor could do is unblock 3A, a window on the two seat side. Not awful, but what happened to my aisle? Per LH the seat changes were due to a United schedule change. Weird answer (later in MUC I was able to get an agent to ultimately give me 1D, what more likely had happened was the metal ended up being an A-319, messing up the seat maps).
LH’s first class service from Chicago to Munich, was not a disappointment. There were only five people in first on the A-340 (eight seats total), with most of the time two people serving us. I was seated in 1A, and the rest of the passengers settled in row two. I avoided turning around all flight, to enable the delusion that first class was my private jet
).
I started dinner with two appetizers, Lobster Medallions with Potato Salad, and Pancake rolled with Duck served with Cantaloupe Relish. Entrée choices were:
-Beef Tenderloin with Black Pepper accented by Merlot Demi-Glace, sauteed Carrots and Green Beans and Potato with Onion
-Panzarotti Pasta with Shiitake Mushrooms and Chervil Broth (Star Chef offering – Hans Stefan Steinheuer from “Zur Alten Post” in Bad Neuenahr Heppingen; it was
spectacular tasting)
-Grilled breast of Chicken complemented by Red Bell Pepper Sauce, Asparagus and Mascarpone Polenta (oddly, this I believe was the entrée served MUC-ESB and it was quite tasty)
-Seared Fillet of Grouper featuring Tomato Salsa and Baby Bok Choy
Dessert, in addition to the cheese cart was a yummy Dulce de Leche Ice Cream with Fruit Coulis
My spirits choices were:
-“D” de Devaux Brut, Champagne Veuve Devaux, Frankreich/France (good, not world class)
-Campari and OJ (my drink of choice when I’m trying to be eurotrash
)
-1999 Pommard, Bouchard Pere et Fils, Burgand, Frankreich (excellent Pinot Noir, I would spend my own money for it)
-2002 Westhofenor Bergkloster Siegerrebe Beerenauslese, Weingut Neef-Emmich (dessert wine, pretty bland)
While this may be heresy to some, but for me the incremental cost in miles (and certainly spent dollars) may not be worth flying in First on LH, unless the flight is extraordinary long. This flight was only seven and a half hours. Dinner and breakfast used up about a third of the flight, and at the early hour the flight left Chicago (wheels up about 17:10), sleeping was not a major interest I recognized. I watched the entire Lord of The Rings 2, and actually caught about three hours of snooze. However I prefer sleeping on my stomach, and I couldn’t get enormously comfortable. Many international business class seats are reasonably comfortable for three hours of sleep. United’s “C” seat for example is quite good, although on my LH flight FRA-PHX “C” flight last October I would not have been happy if my goal was to get quality sleep. Being a daytime flight on that trip, I was actually not trying to sleep to allow me to get back in time-zone shape when I returned to Los Angeles.
Upon arrival in MUC, I visited the Senator/Business Lounge facility and took a shower. The shower facility is decent, although the bathroom I had was uncomfortably warm. Afterwards I went into the business lounge to surf. Dumb me forgot there were two lounges, so I did not visit the Senator side.
Upon arrival in Ankara late afternoon, my friend greeted me and on the trip to his apartment, mentioned he would probably have to go to Athens the following evening for a couple of nights, on business. He inquired if I wanted to go, and I indicated probably yes, assuming the flight costs were not outrageous. Athens would add a new airport to my list, and give me country number fifty. Ultimately he was able to get a strange business class joint fare for us, which was only marginally larger then a single ticket.
The next morning my buddy and I escaped out of his apartment early before his wife got up and went south of the city to the Or-an Forest for a run. This is a privately owned (by Middle East Technical University) and maintained forest of three to four square miles. It overlooks two attractive lakes (Eymir and Mogan). Later in the morning we went downtown to visit a jeweler to order a custom pendant for my wife and went to my buddy’s office to check e-mail.
I’ve become spoiled by bandwidth. One expects high speed connectivity in an office environment, but in a country such as Turkey tons of cheap wide bandwidth is not guaranteed. My friend runs a regional sales office for a multi-national corporation, and when I visited there were seven people on-line. The best connection they can obtain without causing shareholder value to plummet is 256K, and it is clunky with that number of users. Lotus Notes is their mail client, and the replication demands are great.
After a while we took a drive and ended up at my friend’s barber, as he needed a haircut before heading to Athens on business. I’ve been in Turkish barber shops before, as an observer, but this time I decided to imbibe.
I sat down in the chair and was prepped. However nothing would proceed before all participants (me, the barber, and his apprentice) had a mandatory glass of strong Turkish çay. The locals also needed to inhale (and unfortunately, exhale) a few unfiltered Turkish smokes. Having consumed the tea and the cancer stick, the barber spent a couple of disturbingly long minutes contemplating my head.
During this time I learned the other barber doing my friend’s hair, who is the shop owner, also moonlights as the local “Muhtar”, which is an elected politician akin to an Alderman. His Ward consists of 6,800 constituents scattered over 2,200 apartments in 280 buildings. Responsibilities include registering citizens as they move in or out of the Ward, certifications of good standing, and dealing with local “pot hole” issues. His phone rings off the hook, and people stop in to ask a question or two.
Once the barber recognized his job was to do little more then give me a haircut, he slowly cut with scissors and an electric trimmer the lower half of my hair. Over the next twenty or so minutes he cut slowly, sometimes clipping four or five individual hairs before re-contemplating. He then stopped and repeated the tea and cigarette absolutions, before returning to deliberation on what to do next. After a pause he started combing and brushing my hair, which gave me the impression he was done cutting, ignoring the thick mass on top of my head that had not been clipped. Instead he decided to light my ears on fire.
The barber took a massive Q-Tip and dipped it into some sort of rocket fuel, then lit it, creating some sort of incendiary device. The sucker was burning a bright blue and he ran it close to my ears, singeing any hairs it came in contact with. What was the point of this, apparently to singe any hairs it came in contact with!
After he cleaned up the burned flesh, he then grabbed a straight razor and shaved the back of my neck, so that it was baby behind smooth. Finally he wrapped a towel around my neck and pushed me into the sink, whether for decapitation or a shampoo. I’m happy to report my head is still intact (although my wife would attest to the fact it’s contents are quite loose).
After a partial drying, another tea and smoke, the barber went to work with the scissors on the bush on top of my noggin. The cutting and contemplating his sculpture took another long time, but finally he was satisfied and began blow drying it. Next he extracted an electric massage device and gave me a full back, shoulders and arm massage. Not great by massage standards, but heck, I’m in a barber shop.
After the therapy, the barber threw some mousse on my hair, brushed it again and stopped. Another tea and cigarette break took place and he stated in Turkish, “Sihhatler olsun!” which roughly translates as “May it last for a while or may it be healthy” (which apparently is a carry-over from ancient times when the barber was a blood-letting physician).
My friend settled up with the Alderman/Barber for the total damages which came to a total 14,000,000 TL excluding tips of another 2,500,000TL (exactly $12 grand total for the two of us, and my buddy also got a facial shave with a circa 19th century straight razor).
Turkey and Greece are not the friendliest of neighbors and flying from one capitol to the other is not seemless. There are no non-stops and the 575 miles is a five hour affair (from arriving at Esenboga in Ankara until exiting immigration in Athens). No hassles mind you, just time consuming.
At Esenboga Turkish Airlines-THY has an entirely separate business class building, entitled “CIP” (commercially important persons). Check in is fast and the lounge is large and well furnished. I was a bit surprised how low key the security was, my recollection of four previous flights on THY was one of ultra high security. Was this relaxed attitude only for “CIP’s”?
The last time I was in Istanbul was mid-1999, and the international terminal was under construction. The new terminal is a joy (especially compared to the old dump) with a beautiful CIP lounge and impressive duty free hall. My friend had recently been in Dubai, which has the reputation of duty free paradise, and he thinks IST is just nearly as good, and the prices are lower in Turkey.
We breezed through customs in Athens, and within ten minutes from stepping off the plane, were in a Taxi heading to the city.
To be continued……..
[This message has been edited by Craig6z (edited 10-08-2003).]