More on Traveler's Diarrhea

As I was getting sick last night, I very cautiously farted a few times (It takes a brave man to fart in Asia - and we're almost there.)  This morning, several horses were found dead in the street, and the dogs had all left town.  

More on the call to prayer:  The call is done live, over a microphone.  YouTube is full of videos and audio of the Azan.  When we were in Cairo a few years ago, we got to hear the call done by an apparently very famous muezzin who did the Azan/call to prayer, for our group, live and in person without amplification - quite beautiful.  It's very formal:  "Allahu Akbar" - God is Great -  repeated 4 times, and on with various prescribed phrases repeated - takes 3-4 minutes.  Can be done to a variety of different melodies.  There is even an "American Idol" sort of competition for best Azan - done in Instanbul.  Volume seems to be an important part of the whole thing, not a good thing if your hotel is right next to the minaret as ours is.  I'm not looking forward to 5:30 AM.

Turkey was part of the Roman Empire - eventually Istanbul, then called Constantinople, became the capital as Rome itself went to the dogs.  Then, the Turks invaded from Central Asia and brought in the new language and customs - in the 11th century.  It was then the seat of the Ottoman Empire, and controlled much of the Middle East, northern Africa, southeastern Europe - until it was on the losing side in World War 1.

In the 20's Kemal Mustafa - later called Kemal Mustafa Ataturk - became the father of the secular republic of Turkey.  Although it's still a primarily Muslim country, it is politically still secular - for instance, women can't wear Hijab (head scarves and such) in the Universities and in government buildings - apparently generates quite a bit of controversy.  On the other hand, it's very hard to find alcohol - lots of conservative spillover, especially with the current party in power which is pretty conservative.