Amazon Honor System





Travel * Support iranian.com * FAQ * Write for Iranian.com
* Editorial policy
Kato finds a home
In Turkey: I spotted a very young kitten during breakfast

By Siamack Salari
July 24, 2002
The Iranian

At least two times a week Varinder has to walk past our travel agent on her way to the bank/shops/post office. The more vulnerable she feels the more likely she is to walk in and chat to, Sally, one of the staff, and fantasise about holiday locations we cannot possibly afford.

Sally is extremely good at her job. She turns fantasies into realities - even for couples like us who have no savings to speak of and rather large credit card debts.

Varinder arrived home from a trip to the bank a few weeks ago and declared: "We are going to Turkey in 3 weeks for a 2 week holiday!"

"Whose paying?"

"Visa International!"

Fast forward to three weeks later and we are en-route to the airport.

"Now remember, Sia, we can't afford to waste one penny. We have no reason to spend any money since everything is paid for and I'm not going to let you buy anything in duty free."

"Fine by me."

Two hours later and we were on the plane and Varinder was trying on her brand new pair of designer sunglasses bought from the duty free shop (she forgot to pack her own). I too was examining my new swimming shorts trying to work out if they would fit. (We did manage to stop ourselves from buying a couple of Swatches to go swimming in - but it was a close call.)

Turkey is absolutely beautiful, the people are not yet tourist hardened (not in our village anyway) and the food is delicious and healthy. My only complaint was that they don't seem to have mastered the art of frying potatoes. Instead they seem to boil the potatoes in oil and serve them whilst still crunchy inside. However, this is a minor complaint.

I took notes of things that happened on our holiday. So here is a roughly chronological sketch of events which I hope you will find interesting:

I spotted a very young kitten during breakfast on day one. It could not have been more than 3-4 weeks old. It looked sad and underfed. Some of the English residents explained they had rescued it from being stoned to death by a group of kids. Enjoy the pictures.

They had brought it to the lodge we were staying in and started feeding it back to health. The residents were leaving that day and wanted me to assure them that I would continue to feed it.

I called my new pet Kato and he (we discovered its gender ten days later) would sleep on the balcony while we were in the sea or the village. His favourite sleeping place was on our flippers and snorkelling gear.

Kato was a very naughty kitten too. If truth be told I was to blame for making him naughty. I taught him to bite, scratch and attack/eat grasshoppers.

His favourite stalking posture was to arch his back, unsheathe his claws and bounce sideways on his tiny rigid legs (sometimes losing his balance and falling over) by which time I would be onto him, tickling his tummy till his only escape was to bite me and run for cover under a chair.

Kato and I became inseparable and even V who is not a cat or dog person found our playtimes amusing.

One lunchtime an English guest approached me to say that she thought, Kato was limping. We found Kato and followed him to see how he walked. He was indeed limping.

"I think one of the Turkish waiters kicked him...," She said.

"How could anyone lay a finger on such a tiny creature?" I protested.

I approached the head waiter with, 'Anne' walking behind me and, Kato in my arms.

"Mehmet..."

"Yes?"

"Has someone kicked the kitten?"

"It was me," he chuckled with a look of delight on his face.

"Mehmet please tell me you didn't!" I pleaded.

Mehmet was now laughing hysterically. Perhaps he was embarrassed.

"Yes! It was me!" he assured me.

To my surprise I started laughing too. I think I was shocked by his frankness. The last person I would have suspected of kicking Kato would have been the polite and good natured Mehmet.

Anne was now looking at us both with a look of disgust. "I'll kick you, Mehmet" she threatened.

Suddenly I found myself acting as peacemaker between, Mehmet who by now could barely stand up he was laughing so hard and, Anne whose eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her face.

The next day Kato was back to his prancing self. More importantly I had persuaded Mehmet that kicking Kato was not a good thing to do and that I wanted to see him become friends with the kitten. I am happy to report that by the time we left Kato had been adopted by all the staff and was fed so well that he had a pot belly proportionately larger than mine.

Some time later in week 1: V and I were lying in bed facing each other as we drifted to sleep.

V to me: "Look at your breasts..."

"Huh?"

"Look at you - you've actually got a hairy cleavage!"

I could see that she was winding herself up for a row.

"You're boobs are bigger than mine for goodness sake..."

With that she grabbed the loose skin on my chest and gave it a hard pinch.

"Ooooowwww!"

"Shut up before you wake the whole place up!"

A bed time row was averted because I was in too much pain to talk.

Early part of week 2: Ramazan, our driver took us to a Turkish Bath. I asked him to join us so that he could show us what to do. We were also joined by 'Naj', a guest we had come to know, who wanted to try a Turkish Bath.

A Turk with a huge belly (not proportionately as big as Kato's) and a moustache that divided his face into two led us into a steaming black and white marble room.

Marble basins were set at regular intervals on top of marble benches lining the walls. The room, some 20' by 25', also had a raised marble block in its centre which could accommodate 4 people lying on their backs whilst having a massage.

We all opted for a 'liff' and a massage. Then we all sat down to sweat. When it became too unbearable we would throw cold water from the basins on to ourselves. Just as I was beginning to worry about being man handled by the Turk and his large bushy moustache, a handsome looking blonde man who turned out to be Romanian replaced him. Then he got to work on us, starting with V.

After a rigorous liff using salt - which made our skin squeaky clean - he created a huge amount of lather by blowing into what looked like a pillow case and squeezing the soapy bubbles all over my wife. Then, alarmingly, his hands disappeared under the foam and he proceeded to pummel my wife's back, I think.

I am too anglicised to feel any 'gheirat' but if I did have any, I would have jumped the masseur. Instead I gave everyone in the steamy room an awkward smile.

Half way through V's back massage - the front was yet to come - I decided to have a little fun. I gently eased the Romanian out of the way and continued to pummel V hoping she hadn't found out about the swap. I then slapped her buttocks hard and proceeded to squeeze them tightly. All my darling did was to freeze till she was rigid.

Only the giggling from the others in the room alerted her to something being amiss. As she looked up looking slightly shocked, she peeled in relieved laughter to see that it had been me all along. "You idiot! I nearly died of shock" she said.

As all this was going on the Turkish masseur led a young German lady into the room. Why he was so eager to massage her would become clear later. He lathered her back and quickly turned the now purring lady on her back. Her only covered area was her crotch - and then only barely. As he massaged her sides and shoulders he would let his hands sweep over her now fully exposed breasts.

His leg massages were similarly daring and goodness knows how much he was enjoying himself. We later saw him leading the smiling German tourist into the private shower area. If he had deliberately rubbed her fun bags with soap he couldn't have done a better job. I thought to myself.

"What a great summer job!"

"You are such a pervert" V replied. "You'll be arrested after your first female massage and end up being bummed in a Turkish prison. Your mum can visit you and send you tubs of vaseline."

I decided not to mention my Turkish summer job to anyone else.

And so the two weeks sped by. I don't think we will ever return to Kas because, as always happens when you have a fantastic time, it is always impossible to replicate the fun had first time round. Enjoy the pictures.

PS: There was a young Turkish administrator at our lodge who fell in love with Kato. She made sure he was watered and fed. By the time we left, Kato had his own 'bed' in the reception room on a comfy looking sofa. This is one fortunate pussy cat.

Comment for The Iranian letters section
Comment for the writer Siamack Salari


ALSO
By Siamack Salari

Salari's features

RELATED

Mission accomplished
Traveling to Turkey to bring my daughter & visit Rumi
By Jahanshah Javid

SECTIONS

* Recent

* Covers

* Writers

* Arts & lit

* Opinion

* All sections

Book of the day iranbookshop.com



Shamloo's complete works (2 volumes)

Amazon Honor System

Copyright © Iranian.com All Rights Reserved. Legal Terms for more information contact: times@iranian.com
Web design by Bcubed
Internet server Global Publishing Group