[NOTE: This post was written before the bombing at the Istanbul airport. The contents here still applies though. Such mass attacks have occurred in Belgium, Paris, London, and… Orlando. The world seems to be rapidly going crazy. Anytime you choose to leave your home, you at risk of an attack… or simply being hit by a car. We choose to continue to live and enjoy life, and not worry about things we cannot control.
That said, the death rate (from all causes) is much lower in Turkey (5.1 per 1000) than it is in the US (8 per 1000). We will be returning to this part of the world again in 2017.]
Now that we have completed 11 weeks in Turkey, I want to address one concern that came up repeatedly. Not with anyone in Turkey, but with friends and family back home. Whenever we said we were going to Turkey, we could count on the response being along the lines of “How can you go there? It is so dangerous!”
Well, not really…
There have been some attacks in the Southeast part of the country, with ISIS crossing the border from Syria, and some bombs set off in a few crowded tourist areas before we came. (The incidents are occurring randomly around the world whether in Brussels, Paris, etc. these days, and not just in the middle East.) Almost all casualties on the Turkey side on the border involve military personnel, and we were never closer than 600 km from the trouble. Never a threat to us.
I have often said how safe we feel in Cuenca, Ecuador. Istanbul felt far safer than Cuenca. In Ecuador, we have the constant worry about petty crime. Nothing big. Murder and assault are rare, but pick-pockets, or drive-by snatches (e.g., a motorcyclist grabbing a phone or purse) are quite common. Leave a phone on a table while going to the counter, and you will probably find it gone when you return.
Not so in Istanbul. Many people casually carry their phones in their hands while walking, yet I never saw or heard of any phone thefts. People leave items on a table while walking away frequently, and their stuff is always there when they return. Our photo tour leader told us many times not to worry about leaving our camera bags unattended, since people in the villages all knew everyone. People are required to leave their shoes outside when entering a mosque. With dozens of pairs of shoes outside every mosque, I never heard of anyone having a pair stolen. At the Turkish Cyprus airport, we were told to just leave our luggage outside while we went in for rental car paperwork. “Don’t worry. Nobody will steal it in Turkey or here” we were assured. Yep, no problem when we returned for it later.
In Ecuador, as in the US, when you enter a store carrying a bag, you are required to leave it with security at the entrance. Bags are often inspected upon leaving, to be sure you didn’t steal anything. Not so in Istanbul. Just walk in with the bag from another store. When you check out, nobody looks twice at the bag you didn’t put on the counter. It is just assumed that if you got something inside the store, you will pay for it on the way out.
Some small neighborhood stores will even let locals have an account, and goods purchased to be paid for later.
In Ecuador and the US, most larger stores have security cameras, where a guard is in a room scanning the crowd for shoplifters. Not in Istanbul. I never saw a camera security camera anywhere, and never had a store employee follow me to be sure nothing was stolen. Again, they just assume you are honest, plus the punishment for getting caught is quite extreme, up to 20 years in prison (one minor received a sentence of 7 years for stealing a pack of cigarettes).
We are often warned that crowds are a playground for pickpockets in Cuenca. We never felt the slightest bit threatened in Istanbul, even in the largest crowds. We lost the habit of checking our pockets after someone bumped into us — because in Istanbul it is simply the large number of people who bump into you, and not someone trying to get into your pocket.
All of this is with very few visible police. In Cuenca (at least in Centro, where we live), it is unusual to go more than a couple blocks before seeing one or more policemen. They are there to discourage crime, and they do a pretty good job of it. Once again, not in Istanbul though. Large parks with hundreds of people will usually have one police car parked somewhere in the vicinity, with two to four police inside. We averaged walking 6 miles per day in Istanbul, yet there were several days that we never saw a single police officer.
Istanbul does have obvious concerns about terrorism. That is visible in only two instances though, both of which are unique to Istanbul in our recent travels. Every group of turnstiles entering into the metro has one security guard with a “magic wand” that he passes over all backpacks and luggage, to detect explosives. Also, you must pass through an X-ray and metal detector going into any shopping mall, plus go through double security lines at the airports before going through passport control. Both are done very efficiently though, and have almost no impact on traffic flow (unlike TSA…). And, you cannot get a SIM card unless you are a resident, as cell phones have been used as remote triggers.
Overall, we have never felt any safer in all our travels than we have in Istanbul, and Turkey in general. Newspapers tend to distort and generalize, making problems seem much worse than they are. We could point to many examples of situations we have actually been involved in, where we saw that up close. It is true for the problems in Turkey too. In summary, we highly recommend people come and enjoy one of the most friendly countries we have visited.
How can you be afraid when broad smiles greet you at every turn?
The “Blue Hour” at Ortaköy Camii
