The world they were talking about was in some ways rather wonderful. They were remembering the days when İstanbul was still a relatively small town made up of what could really be described as a set of villages. Theirs was a far more authentically Turkish Turkey, little touched by the outside world in the days before President Özal threw open the doors to international trade. At the same time they were describing a dark and troubled time, a time when political dissidents sometimes disappeared, and when political arguments were all too frequently settled at the point of a gun. Their stories stirred up mixed reactions in me. On the one hand I shivered while listening to their darker memories, on the other I wished that I could have seen the Turkey that they so vividly recalled from the days before globalization deposited a Starbucks or Caffè Nero on every street corner. It's a mixture of emotions that I share with many other travelers.A friend was telling me about some visitors who had returned to Göreme after long years away. “I think we were a bit of a disappointment to them,” she said ruefully. Their first visits had been in the 1980s, at a time when the village was a lot rougher round the edges than it is nowadays. There were no posh restaurants then, let alone boutique hotels with private hamams (Turkish baths), and fights frequently broke out in the bars, often with fairly alarming consequences.
Of course I'd be lying if I said that punch-ups were completely a thing of the past, especially in summer when temperatures run high. However, there's no doubt that, like İstanbul, Göreme has evolved into an altogether quieter, calmer and more orderly place in a fairly short period of time. For those of us who live here this can only be a good thing. Who wants, after all, to be constantly looking over their shoulder in case trouble is about to break out? But for a certain sort of tourist, particularly the sort who prefers to be called a traveler, there is something disappointing about such pacification since it tends to eliminate the chance for adventure that made them leave home in the first place.
When I raised a quizzical eyebrow, my friend started to itemize the chaotic goings-on that had taken place in the backpackers' pension she ran in the 1980s and once again I felt those conflicting emotions battling it out in my mind. On the one hand, I know that life in Göreme has improved beyond all recognition for most of my neighbors. On the other hand, I could feel my inner backpacker romanticizing the past and wishing time could stand still.
Oh well. As the chance for real adventure has diminished, so the opportunity for the organized variety in the form of safaris and their ilk has skyrocketed. And there's still eastern Turkey for the diehard explorer types.
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia. 
