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Saturday 2004-05-15 - Antakya, Turkey
A thunderous welcome
Today we cross the border to Turkey, where the city of Antakya is our first stop. Crossing the border (where we get our Turkish visa) is no problem but just after we are in, I see dark clouds on the horizon. Indeed, more rain is awaiting us, and soon we’re driving through a big thunderstorm. This one isn’t over quickly however, and when we arrive at our hotel it’s still pouring. We want to go out for lunch and then go to an Internet cafe but think we’ll wait a bit until the rain gets a bit lighter; one look out of the window a few minutes later tells us otherwise: not only is it still pouring, but the street has turned into a river! People pulling up their trousers to wade across the street, a cat making big jumps trying to get home without getting wet (unsuccessfully), bottles, crates and even a chair floating by.
When we finally go out we find a little restaurant for lunch and an Internet cafe on the way there where I am sitting now typing this — struggling with the layout of a Turkish keyboard where the ‘ı’ (i without a dot) is in the place where on our keyboards the i is, with the i somewhere else entirely — listening to the hum of people (this is a large room and it’s busy) and the clatter outside of the rain which has started again.
Eating out in the middle of nowhere
Our driver, Ali, and two guys (one is called Mehmet but I didn’t catch the other’s name) from the hotel are invited by our tour companion for dinner. Ali knows a restaurant somewhere outside the city of Antakya. Thom, Carla and I are coming, too. With the bus we drive out of town, to a little village that doesn’t look like there would be a restaurant — but there is, and it’s packed. The owner welcomes us, obviously pleased they’re bringing tourists. The meal is excellent, the company even better. This afternoon I bought a little dictionary and I barely lay hands on it: Mehmet and Ali use it all the time to communicate better with us since they don’t speak English. Joking and chatting, eating shish and köfte, three kinds of salad, bread, three kinds of humus; drinking Yeni Rakı, a kind of beet wine, and water: a great evening in a place where tourists never come — I wouldn’t be able to find it back either!
Sunday 2004-05-16 - Antakya, Turkey
A mosaic of history
In the morning we go to St. Peter’s Grotto: the natural cave high above Antakya where St. Peter preached and founded the Christian community, later made into a church, and designated by the Pope as a holy place. Interesting historically, but there’s not really much to see. Somewhat more interesting is a huge sculpture of the face of Maria carved into the rocks near the cave; the face has been removed by Muslims later, since their belief forbids making images of humans but the outline is still recognizable. It can be reached only by clambering up rocky paths (or not-quite paths) but it’s worth the effort, and from up here the view over the city is even nicer.
Then on we go in the bus, to visit Antakya Kalesi: the original spot of old Antioch on top of the mountain. The stronghold commanded the whole river valley below. Up there, about 665m high there’s only a crumbling tower and parts of the walls left but still it gives a good idea of the size and importance of the city and the walls that girded it.
In the afternoon, after a quick lunch, we first visit a small mosque in the “new” old city, with a lovely quiet courtyard shaded by trees. Then on to the museum. The Hatay museum has a superb collection of well-conserved Roman mosaics from the second and third centuries, as well as some sarcophages, one very detailed, in which also gold ornaments and the skeletons of a man, a woman and a young woman were found. When Syria was captured by the Romans in 64 BC, Antioch became the eastern capital of the Roman empire; the museum gives a good impression of the splendors of the city in Roman times.
Monday 2004-05-17 - Şanlıurfa, Turkey
Tea near the holy carp pond
After a ride through a beautiful landscape of rolling hills with vineyards and orchards, grain and strawberry fields we arrive at two in Şanlıurfa (or Urfa for short). The three of us go looking for the tourist office first, because (of course) I want a map of the city. Two boys approach us, wanting to help and practice their English: they offer to walk us there. They’re very nice, and their English is surprisingly good. Chatting all the while, we end up in the pleasant park around Abraham’s cave where there is a small office of the tourist police; they’re friendly and give me a nice brochure of the area, but they don’t have a map; the friendly officer writes down the address of the real tourist office for me, so we can go there later (or tomorrow).
We invite the boys to share a tea with us near the pond with the holy carp, and they tell us a little about their life. We’d estimated them about 18, but both turn out to be only 15. Both have a number of brothers and sisters and come from outside the city. One, whose parents are separated, stays with his grandmother; the other lives in the school’s dormitory where they both study mathematics. Life at the dormitory is “boring” but both boys are obviously quite serious about their studies and practicing their English.
It doesn’t matter that we haven’t found the actual tourist office, because now we know the way to the park, overlooked by the citadel (yet another one), where some of the main sights of the city are. We decide we’ll come back here tomorrow, and the boys take their leave. A while later we walk back to the hotel, with a very nice impression of the friendly people of Şanlıurfa.
Tuesday 2004-05-18 - Şanlıurfa, Turkey
Medieval atmosphere
This morning, Carla and I first roam through the curving alleys of the old town of Urfa with its medieval houses. It’s a veritable labyrinth, no right angle, no straight street, beautiful bow-windows and some houses actually built right over the streets, and — not suprisingly — a lot of interesting doors for my photographic collection.
We end up near the river (an open sewer) where Kurdish people have a market of second-hand clothes. It’s quite obvious the Kurdish people are among the poorest in Turkey, even though we’re here in Kurdish territory.
On we go along the vegetable market and through the bazaar until we end up near the carp pond where we meet Thom.
“We nice to meet you”
First we (Thom, Carla and I) have lunch together, and while we chat a little afterwards, one of three girls next to us asks if she can practice her English with us (a question we’re to hear more often). Of course she can, and she immediately joins us at our table. At first the words come hesitatingly but gradually Döne gets over it and starts talking better; the other two girls, Songul and Esin, join us, too, and since they don’t speak English, Döne starts translating both ways. All three girls have several older sisters and study biology here, like one of the boys we met yesterday staying with family in the city; they have a small grant from the government, dad pays the rest and though their families are well off, they don’t have much money to spend. Tomorrow they’re going on a tour to Mardin and Diyarbakır: they spent the last of their savings on the tickets.
We talk a lot about various subjects. The European union (Döne, with an obvious strong sense of identity, isn’t enthusiastic about joining, and also — with some justification — seems worried Europeans look down on the Turks), relations between Kurds and Turkish people (Songul is Kurdish and the three girls are the best of friends, but surprisingly Döne says she doesn’t like Kurds - a strange contradiction we’re to encounter more often), are we rich? (depends), music (they know European stars, why don’t we know Turkish singers?) and so on.
We offer them a drink and chat on. Döne also writes down a lot of useful Turkish words for me in my little notebook. When we finally separate, we find we spent all of four hours just sitting near the pond chatting - and practicing Döne’s English. In my notebook she writes: “We nice to meet you. Thank you for everything. We love you too.” We had a great time with them.
A visit to the mosque around Abraham’s cave and the citadel overlooking the park complete our visit to Şanlıurfa.
Wednesday 2004-05-19 - Harran, Turkey
Beehives
Our first stop of the day is at Harran where there still are “beehive” houses: mud brick houses in the form of a beehive: the steep round roof allows warm air to rise up so air at ground level remains cooler. Unfortunately our visit is rather disappointing. The architectural aspect is interesting but there aren’t very many original beehive houses left and most families live in newer houses (the classical box model is not as cool!) and use the beehive houses only as stables.
The place is also obviously spoiled by tourism, with children running around trying to sell their handiwork but not taking no for an answer. There is a castle which is probably interesting in itself - but after the impressive castles we’ve already seen on our trip, Harran’s small castle doesn’t really pique our interest. We all agree that the planned 1.5 hours (originally even 2) is too long for a visit to this “museum” village; an hour is plenty, even if you want to have a look inside the crumbling castle.
Wednesday 2004-05-19 - Mardin, Turkey
Early Christian history
Our final destination for today is Mardin but to get there we have to go back to Şanlıurfa first: there is no other road. Once on our way out of Urfa again, the landscape gets gradually greener and after riding through the beautiful valleys we arrive at Mardin, an old city built hugging a mountain side. It’s now a little after 2 in the afternoon, and we have somewhat empty stomachs. Asking around for directions, we find out that our hotel is not in the city at all, but in Kızıltepe, 20km back! If we go there first, we won’t have time for our goals in Mardin, so we decide to do the tour before going to the hotel - and skip lunch.
That was a lucky decision: when (after quite a bit of searching through the confusing narrow streets of the city — all curving to follow the contours of the mountain) we arrive at the Antioch Syrian Orthodox monastery outside of the city at 3:10, we find it closes at 3:30! The monastery (Deynulzaferan) built like a fortress on the top of a mountain is interesting, but we cannot even see all of it any more — and the place is packed with day trippers: unfortunately we picked a holiday to arrive late… Still, we do get at least an impression: enough to want to spend more time on exploring this interesting complex and its history if we ever get back.
From there we go to the Antioch Syrian Orthodox church in the center of Mardin. Here a priest who speaks passable English gives us a nice lecture about the early history of Christianity and and all its different branches. The Antioch Syrian Orthodox and Alexandrian Orthodox churches were early branches, like the two Catholic ones, one of which became the Roman Catholic Church, the other Greek Orthodox. The Armenian Orthodox church (of which we visited a small church in Damascus) is a later branch off of the Syrian orthodox church. I hope I got all that right… The church building itself is very nice — and old — with many paintings, icons and embroidery, some of it obviously made by children of the community. The effect is almost homely.
Thursday 2004-05-20 - Diyarbakır, Turkey
Kurdish capital
The ancient city of Diyarbakır, situated on the banks of the river Tigris and inhabited for over 5000 years, is the Kurdish capital in Turkey. We arrive already at eleven at our hotel within the old city walls after a trip from Mardin through a gradually more green landscape with rugged mountains and some agriculture.
After a short visit to the mosque (essentially closed to us since a prayer service is starting) with market stalls in the courtyard and lots of noise around, we decide to walk along the inside of the city walls on the way to another Christian church. We end up walking through the poorest, and not the most pleasant quarter of town. 90% of inhabitants of Diyarbakır are Kurds, and while Kurds are among the poorest in Turkey, the poorest of them in Diyarbakır live here in tiny houses below the old city wall.
The children are quite irritating, constantly begging for money, grasping your hands and clothes. Apparently more naive tourists have taught them that if you keep asking, ultimately they will give money — just to get rid of you. That’s a good way to create beggars out of children. We try instead to just ignore them but that isn’t all that easy: they also like to jump in front of the camera when you want to make a picture — not to be in the picture, but just to get in the way.
Luckily the grown-ups are mostly friendly, especially after you greet them first. A small group of women is baking bread in an outside oven, and they invite me to have a closer look and take a picture. Farther on, a girl sits in a doorway with her friend crocheting a fringe for a shawl. She’s quite happy for me to take a picture of her. I compliment her friend about her shawl and she tells me its fringe was also made by the other girl who then shows me her samples. Obviously she does this for others who can pick a pattern from the samples, a way to make a little (extra) money. Mother also wants a picture, and a small boy writes down the address.
A young man who’s accompanied us uninvited since the mosque turns out to have a small shop with carpets and jewelry; he invites us for a cup of tea in his shop. On the way, he tells us he’s half Kurdish - something not very common here.
More history
After we take our leave from the carpet seller at the mosque nearby we try to finally find the Christian church we were looking for — which we succeed in doing only with the help of another crowd of children and some friendly older people. The church, another Orthodox Syrian church, is obviously for a small community only. Three families live in the buildings surrounding the church proper within the church grounds. The priest speaks some English, another man some German, and together they lead us around their small church with many beautiful and very old paintings badly in need of restoration. We leave a donation for the church.
Our next goal is the old city wall: an enormous wall built of black basalt stone, still surrounding the whole old city and 6 km long; the top of it provides a good view of the city of Diyarbakır and its surroundings. At several places there are stairs where you can get up the wall; we climb up via stairs inside one of the gates and immediately attract another crowd of children. These are friendly and try to play guide (though we’d rather walk without them). Of course we don’t give them the money they obviously hope for when we leave the wall after a nice walk. But these somewhat older children don’t seem to mind too much: they had a good time with us, apparently.
A Kurdish evening out
Our tour companion met a Kurdish man in Diyarbakır today; he knows about a cafe where there will be live Kurdish music this evening. We all gather to go there after dinner. It turns out to be a very nice and also interesting evening. The cafe is in a cellar - and quite open; only three years ago, Kurds here could not publicly play their music here, and had to meet in secret. At least the situation of the Kurds has improved somewhat now.
The singer of the band seems to be quite well known locally, and the cafe fills up: middle-aged and young people, but also whole families with children. The music is a mix of modern songs and traditional music, and whenever a traditional is played, a group of students next to us start dancing. We chat a little with them: the boys have learned the Kurdish dances since they were boys, the girls only last year. With other well-known songs they sing along. During a break a small boy comes to the stage and is allowed to sing a song. It’s obvious the Kurds cherish their own culture and keep it alive through meetings like this. The students are poor; they only share a bottle of water (they pay their share for the band, too) and can afford to do this only once a month.
We end up dancing with them, much to the amusement of the other customers, since the steps of their dances aren’t all that easy to learn. When the show is over at eleven, we get some group pictures taken, both with the dancing students and with the band, and finally are offered a drink by the cafe management. All in all a wonderful evening with an interesting little peek into Kurdish culture.
Friday 2004-05-21 - Silvan, Turkey
Peek into the middle ages
Today is a travel day: we go to Van. The landscape upon leaving Diyarbakır is getting more and more mountainous, and we seem to be climbing gradually as well. The mountains are beautiful, and there are many spring flowers — sitting in the bus and looking out is no punishment.
Just after Silvan I notice some holes in the rocks high up in the mountains on the left just when others shout “stop” for a picture of the beautiful view over the valley on the right. I walk resolutely back to get the holes in the rocks back into view and to take a picture. It turns out my hunch was right: these were rock dwellings, dating back to the middle ages. A few of us walk all the way up to them and manage to look inside one of the holes but (as expected) they’re completely bare. Building rock dwellings so high up inside a steep mountain side must have been a form of defense, I think — though simpler than building a citadel on top of a mountain. Maybe they were farmers rather than city dwellers here.
Somewhat farther on there is a big dam on the left of the road; on the right is a large bridge with one very high arch, built in 1147; it’s well-preserved: you can walk over it (no other traffic allowed though). The size of the bridge is impressive, and it has some nice decorations in the stonework as well. The water below is a beautiful blue-green, cows are drinking and bathing in the water below. We spend quite a bit of time enjoying the view here, before we go on to Van, passing over the highest mountain pass in Turkey, Kuskunkıran, at 2235 m high. The view of the Lake of Van we soon get is stunning: blue-green water, surrounded on all sides with snow-capped mountain ranges.
Friday 2004-05-21 - Van, Turkey
Soup and Internet
When riding into Van we’d spotted an Internet cafe on a corner, just before turning into the street where our hotel is. When we set out to go there though, we find there’s another one right next to the hotel, in the basement of an office building. We do a quick inspection: It’s a nice place, with not just workstations: they also sell books, software, a few small accessories, and drinks. The price is OK, too, but we want to have some dinner first and promise to come back later.
We walk on, looking around for a restaurant, turn right twice in the direction where we suspect restaurants might be and — what a find! We discover a ‘soup salon’: the little restaurant sells nothing but soup, six kinds of soup (with bread, of course), 24 hours a day. Actually, we’re not terribly hungry, but a bowl of soup sounds like just the thing — and you can always take another one if one isn’t enough. There’s no menu of any kind: you just peek in the big soup kettles and point at what you’d like. Thom, Carla and I all have different soups. All deliciuous.
Then it’s back to the Internet cafe: both Thom and I have quite a bit to catch up. By now I’ve given up on learning to use the Turkish keyboards where the Turkish ‘ı’ (‘i’ without a dot) is where we expect the ‘i’ which is somewhere else, somewhere unexpected. It’s much easier to just type and then use Notepad’s search-and-replace to change all the ‘ı’s to ‘i’s and put the occasional intended ‘ı’ back afterwards — it sounds like more work, but it’s actually much faster and reliable.
Saturday 2004-05-22 - Akdamar, Turkey
Church on an island
Van is a big city but (apart from a museum that’s said to be nice) not very interesting in itself. Instead, we go to the island Akdamar in the Lake of Van. We’ve decided not to take the (expensive) official tour but arrange our own. With our own bus we drive back along the east and south side of the lake, with again a spectacular view of the green-blue lake with snow-capped mountain ranges all around. Where the ferry boats leave for the island, our tour companion arranges with the boat owner that he will take us there, make a circle all around the island, then give us three hours to spend there. We’ve taken along food for a picnic lunch, bought before we left.
Our main goal is the old Holy Cross church built on the island, dating back to the 10th century. There are beautiful reliefs on all the walls; inside there are still some fresco fragments, mostly blues but hard to discern what the scenes are. Around the church is also a number of grave stones, most half-toppled, some also finely decorated with reliefs.
The island has two tops; I skip the high one to spare my painful knees the steep climb but go with Vera to the lower one on the south-east side. From there you can still overlook almost all the island, and I attempt to make a panorama photograph — a bit hard to do balancing on the rocks… no idea how this will come out. The island is covered with many types of flowers, different kinds of lillies and hyacinths, wild onions, beautiful euphorbias, many species I don’t recognize. I take a lot of pictures! After our picnic lunch we return to Van, where I decide to spend the remainder of the afternoon writing.
After our extensive lunch on the island we’re not terribly hungry so in the evening we head back to the ‘soup salon’ for a light meal, where we find most of the group also enjoying their delicious soup! After dinner it’s back to the Internet cafe in Van (there’s one conveniently right next to our hotel) to catch up with my travel blog!
Saturday 2004-05-22 - Van, Turkey
White cats? Yes, they’re real!
Next to the jetty from where the ferry boats left for Akdamar Island this morning, there was a little shop where we noted a whole collection of postcards featuring white cats. Seemingly these white cats are typical for this area; they’re completely white and all seem to have two differently-colored eyes! They’re also known for actually liking water and swimming.
Seeing these postcards, I suddenly remembered a statue we passed on our way into Van yesterday: big white cat, with a kitten, both with one yellow and one blue eye. Surely if a city puts up a statue like that - in the way many cities do, highlighting something special for the city or the area - these white cats must be important here. But actually all of us have a little trouble believing there really are cats like this here, with two different eyes - none of us have seen a real, live one here!
Update! By now I know why: these cats are so special that not only the University in Van has a special program for research (and breeding them), they’re also quite valuable. That’s why you’re unlikely to see them roam about in the streets in Van - or anywhere else for that matter.
Imagine my surprise when shortly after my return from this trip, just around the corner I practically stumbled over a white cat with two different eyes. Surely a “White Van”. I managed to make a picture with my camera phone, and found out his name is Johan (though he listens to the name “Fluffy”). But now, having met Johan here in Amsterdam, I really regret not having a picture of at least that nice statue in Van - we never stopped near it, and were far too busy for me to go back to take a picture. When I ever come back to Van, I’ll surely take some time to make one. Meanwhile, thanks to bpelvan and his friend Dr. Burhan Oral Güdü in Van whom he asked to take a picture of the statue, I can now at least point you to a splendid picture online of the Van White cat statue!
Sunday 2004-05-23 - Doğubayazıt, Turkey
Border town
It’s not far from Van to Doğubayazıt but we go via a beautiful scenic route with spectacular views and over a high pass (the highest we encounter in Turkey); on the way we make a photo stop near a huge lava field near Soğuksu, encrusted with lichen in many different colors.
Doğubayazıt has a typical border town atmosphere - hard to put into words, but unmistakable.
Old glory
In the afternoon we make a trip to Işak Paşa palace, 6 km outside of Doğubayazıt. The palace, of which construction started in 1685, was finished only in 1784. The palace-fortress, on top of a rock with a great view of the surrounding valley (but alas not of nearby Mount Ararat) originally had no less than 366 rooms and was built in five different architectural styles. Partly destroyed by earthquakes, what’s left is well restored now — but it’s the stonework only: nothing is left of any furnishings. Still we roam around quite a while.
From the palace we walk back to the village, first noticing what looks like traces of an old village just below the palace that we think must have serviced the palace: we already noticed some graves near the top of the mountain, a little higher up. Then, as we get gradually lower, we enjoy the beautiful wide landscape. A little surprise: at the edge of town the bus is waiting for us, and we climb in.
Zero Stars
Our hotel in Doğubayazıt used to have two stars, but looking at the sign on the façade we note all stars have been covered up carefully… still, the sheets and towels are clean, and the bathroom works — that’s all that really matters and we’re here for only one night anyway.
Wednesday 2007-04-04 - Istanbul, Turkey
Plain sailing now
Not much to tell about the second lap of the trip: we have several hours to kill at the airport (but need to set our watches one hour forward), and spend the time shopping (a little), chatting to get to know each other (especially the “new” group members, and (some of us) having our “last” beer — no such thing in Yemen! No trouble checking in without a Yemeni visa in our passports (Sander had given us all a letter just in case they’d make trouble over that, which happens sometimes). Taking off from the airport we have a spectacular view over Istanbul by night. On the plane a nice dinner, with “really the last beer” - Efes, a very good Turkish pilsener.
We arrive in Sana’a on time. Then we just have to be a little patient, waiting in line for our visas, but people are friendly and there’s no trouble at all. Meanwhile Marie Josee is awaiting us, and already collecting our luggage. It’s great to see her again!
Outside we meet our team, three drivers, one each from a different tribe. They seem very nice. But, all in all, it’s 2:30 when we arrive in our hotel (in the old city, just west of the Zailer wadi which crosses it) where Mohamed is awaiting us with a cup of tea. It’s 3:00 when we finally tumble into bed: it’s been a long day, but we’re here!
