Strolling through Istanbul

Finally a “strolling day”. We did the “Around the Blue Mosque” stroll from the book “Strolling through Istanbul” and re-visited the Hippodrome and surrounding area.

Then we went though the back streets to the Mosque of Mehmet Pasa. It’s a Sinan mosque and quite lovely. The medressa was filled with young boys reciting the Koran. Then it was on to the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus. Fortunately, it was open and we got an explanation of the problems they’re having with both train vibration and with water from the Sea of Marmara causing the church to lean. There was no apparent restoration going on – so a church from 527 AD is being left to disintegrate.

We walked along the seawalls of ancient Constantinople, past the Palace of Buceleon and though the Stable Gate to a little medieval area of streets with names like “Street of the Bushy Beard”, “Street of Ibrahim of Black Hell”. From there, we grabbed a quick bite at the Backpackers Café (we fit right in…)

Then, we headed for Taksim and strolled the areas once known as Pera and Galata, the European section of the city. This was the section of town filled with merchants and foreign embassies.

We took the tram through the tunnel to connect to the old tram line taking us to the top of Taksim Square.

The buildings along Isitklal Caddesi are spectacular. They need a lot of clean up and it would be a world class pedestrian street. The embassies, built during the 16-18th Centuries, were classic buildings- often with churches built nearby.

We stopped for a drink at the Pera Palace Hotel (beers for 1.9M, cokes for 1.6M. Needless to say, it was a one-drink stop.

The hotel itself was built as the terminal hotel for the Orient Express, has a 107 year old lift (the oldest in Istanbul) and an array of famous people who once stayed there (including Ataturk, himself).

At this point, our feet were aching and we headed back for the hotel. We had visions of a great Indian meal at the local (and only) Indian restaurant. What a disaster. We ordered wine; cold…it came warm. We sent it back only to be charged for it on the bill (even though we only had a few sips before sending it back). It took the manager of the place insisting on calling the tourist police to sort things out. It was quite a spectacle. All the local merchants telling the guy to stop being such a jerk (we were offering to pay for two glasses- not the entire bottle). Then the police arrived and we both got to tell our story. The guy finally caved (in front of the entire block, now filled with interested bystanders). Dinner turned out to be soup and spaghetti on our balcony- room service and peace and quiet (and very tired feet)

Istanbul

Administrative day…and what a day. We spent the morning dealing with e-mail and trying to get our Armenian Airlines tickets sorted out. The guy running the agency was an idiot and it took us 2 hours to get two airline tickets. We took him out of the loop on the Georgia tickets and went to Turkish Air ourselves and had the tickets done in 15 minutes. Then, it was another fight with Citibank and our hose job at Akbank (American Express’s agent) trying to get US dollars. It took the entire day to just get the basics done.

Photo courtesy of Flickr
We did get a chance to stroll through the streets of Taksim- a beautiful part of the city filled with elegant, but in many cases, dilapidated old Ottoman houses- very Victorian looking. We winded our way down to Galata Tower and took in the view of the city from the top. The tower was built in 1348 in connection with the expansion of the Genoese colony. The views were spectacular.

Iznik to Istanbul

A few tourist stops in Iznik (formerly Nicaea). It’s a lovely town, filled with trees and greenery. The city was the home of the First Ecumenical Council and also the Seventh (the deliberations solved the problem of iconoclasm- and changed the church policy to allow the depiction of images).

Then it was off to Istanbul again. Another ferry ride cutting off several hundred kilometers and we landed in Istanbul, found a beautiful hotel with a balcony overlooking the Sea of Marmara (for $50). We spent the day relaxing, catching up on email and just enjoying the city. We went back to the Buhara (Martin #1) for dinner and had the same waiter. It really was like being home.

Antakya to Iznik

A nuclear start—5:00am- for our 12-hour drive from Antakya to Iznik. There was nothing easy about the day…just lots of driving and lots of passing truckers (who evidently use Sunday as their travel day to escape the Turkish drivers). We did get our first traffic ticket- and we’re still not sure what it was for ($30 later, we didn’t bother to get clarification).
By 6:00, we finally made it to Iznik and found a cheap, very basic place right on Lake Iznik. We met some locals celebrating their daughters’ birthday and shared in her cake.

Urfa to Antakya

Urfa is a beautiful little city. It was so nice to be out of Kurdish country and into a more Turkish town. The town has taken their major tourist attractions and surrounded it by gardens filled with trees and flowers. On a Saturday, it was filled with Turks picnicking and enjoying their day off.

We visited Prophet Abraham’s Birth Cave- with separate entrances for men and women. Inside it was like peering into someone’s unfinished basement…with a few women praying on rugs facing the cave walls.

Prophet Abraham's Birth Cave:



Then, we climbed to the Kale (fortress) to get a view of the city and see the two columns where local legend has it that King Nimrod, unhappy with Abraham, had him flung from a slingshot off the cliff. God intervened and created a pool for Abraham to fall into, thus saving his life.

Throne of Nimrod:

The pool today is filled with “sacred carp” (who look as if they may turn to cannibalism shortly due to serious overpopulation. The locals consider it a sin to kill or eat the carp).

Pool of Abraham:

In the market, we bought a pair of pants for John and Martin- hard to describe the cut – with a huge swath of cloth hanging between the legs. Not sure what problem this solves.

Then it was off to Antakya (Antioch). The city has a definite Arab feeling (and was once a part of Syria). The museum has a collection of Roman mosaics, unfortunately poorly marked.

We also drove out to the Cave-Church of St. Peter.

Tradition has it that this cave was the first Christian church- used by St Peter and Paul when they lived in Antioch. It’s also believed that Antioch was the first place the term “Christian” was used.

Inside the Cave-Church of St. Peter:

Nemrut Dagi to Urfa

Leaving Diyarbakir was tough- trying to avoid the city and getting a little lost in the process. We finally made our way to the ferry going to Nemrut Dagi. The ferry ride itself was an experience- cars, trucks and a few horse carts filled with Kurdish nomads.
(Note- Turkish drivers cannot back up their cars. We watched one guy try to back up the car on the ferry for at least 10 minutes).

Our car wouldn’t start when trying to get off the ferry and we had a heart attack moment trying to figure out what we would do in the middle of no-where in a land where the horse is the primary mode of transportation. It finally started and we headed off for Nemrut Dagi. The road disintegrated as we make our way up to the summit.

We finally got to the top, parked the car in an empty parking lot and went to buy our tickets. It turns out that today was a festival day and it was free. It was terribly windy and cold, so the local soldier guarding the site gave me his sweater to wear to the top and then escorted us to the summit. Gazi (his name means warrior in Turkish) was a professional soldier, 31 years old. He had spent 10 years in the army and was charming as he helped me up the rocky climb, holding my hand on the more difficult climbs.

The site itself was spectacular. It was formed when a megalomaniac pre-Roman king cut two ledges in the rock and filled them with colossal statues of himself and the gods, then ordered an artificial peak of crushed rock 50 meters high to be piled between them. Earthquakes have toppled most of the heads from the statues-and it’s a strange site to see these huge (2 meters high) heads standing on the ground. We actually made it down from the summit and onto the return ferry. I finished up the journal while being stared at by a 10-year-old boy who was mesmerized by the PC and typing.

We finally got to Sanlurfa (Urfa) and spent the evening planning our next few days and the drive back.

Van to Diyarbakir

Departure from Van and heading to Diyarbakir. The military checkpoints on the road became even more frequent (Diyarbakir is supposedly the center of the Kurdish separatist movement).

The guidebooks call the city (tongue in cheek), the Paris of the East and compare the city walls to the Great Wall of China. Not quite…. but the walled city is quite amazing. The city itself is four main gates with two main roads intersecting at the center. The rest of the road plan is a maze of narrow, twisting, mostly unmarked alleys.

We decided quickly to employ the services of our bellboy at the hotel (a converted caravanserai). A good move- the city is majority Kurdish and was filled with street urchins begging for money (and occasionally throwing stones). We would have lasted about 5 minutes without our guide. All of the children know two phrases, “Hello” and “What is your name?”.

Our guide walked us through the slums south of the Citadel and it was quite an education. Thousands of children and their mothers with no men. We found the men in the teahouses inside the city walls playing cards and drinking tea. Our guide explained to us that the government has been very unfair to the Kurds- giving them no programs or support. Most of the families have 8 or more children and they’re lucky if even one of them can go to school. The future looks very bleak- nothing but begging and religion in their future. We stopped by a typical Diyarbakir house. They are made of black basalt and divided into summer and winter quarters with an inner courtyard. We made a few other stops at an old Armenian church in ruins and the Meryem Ana Kilisesi (Church of the Virgin Mary), still in use by Syrian Christians. Our guide walked us up on the city walls for a view of the entire area and then invited us to his house in New Town. He was a charming Kurdish boy of 25 who was very intrigued with the idea of marrying a European (or American) girl. We offered him Stephanie and he was very keen on the idea.

After an afternoon walking the streets with the Kurdish hoards, we decided that it was a hotel evening. The call to prayer was chilling- the city has more mosques per square meter than any city in Turkey- with all the mosques going at once, it sounded like a beehive. We bought a few beers (the hotel was charging 1.5-M lire- 4 times what we had been paying) and chilled our wine, ordered a chicken shish and watched the show (literally) at the hotel. The hotel was filled with 200 Turks for dinner and an evening of Kurdish folk dancing.

Dogubeyazit to Lake Van

We had a clear view of Mount Ararat in the morning.

The main site in Dogubeyazit was Ishak Pasa Sarayi.

The building was built in 1685 by Colak Abdi Pasi and completed by his son Ishak in 1784. Using an Armenian architect, it’s a mix of Seljuk, Ottoman, Persian, Georgian and Armenian styles. The palace has a huge harem, mosque and even a courtroom. Justice was swift in those days- the trial was held in the courtroom, the verdict delivered and if guilty, you were hung from the gallows nearby.

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We were tagged by what we thought was a UIG (UnInvited Guide). He followed us through the site pointing out each room and it’s function. We tried to brush him off until we realized that he was the architect responsible for the restoration of the palace and was just honestly happy to show us the site and his work. He was a wonderful man who unfortunately spoke very little English- but we managed to get by with a lot of sign language and charades. After our private tour, he invited us for tea and we spent an hour talking with him and the owner of the local restaurant getting travel advice for eastern Turkey.

On his advice, we nixed our plans to visit Erzurum and headed for the true east. Assured that it was completely safe, we headed off (with the warning that all the roads closed at 4:30). Military checkpoints were frequent and we saw the most APC (armored personnel carriers) we’d ever seen in our lives patrolling the roads. Airborne commando officers carrying AK-47’s were manning the checkpoints. and the trucks were staffed with machine guns. We had just a little trepidation at our change of plans.

Our first stop was Lake Van. We made it in time to make the ascent up to the Rock of Van, the fortress of the Urartian capital.

The kingdom of Urartu, called Ararat in the Bible, flourished from the 13th to the 7th C BC. The hike up was quite a feat although the local population seemed to make it up with ease (even the old women in chadors). The town itself was definitely Kurdish—all the men wandering in the streets- oblivious to cars, young boys driving cyclos carrying eggplant and other veggies. The few women we saw were cloaked- although we did spot a few that could have been working in downtown Boston.
Our hotel guaranteed us that the lounge on the roof only played music until 12:00- and that it was quiet music. We grabbed a quick dinner on the roof restaurant (the only clientele) and headed to bed…only to be awakened at 11:30 with pounding Turkish music lasting until 12:30. Turkey is truly the land of no sleep.

Artvin to Kars to Dogubeyezit

We hit the road opening perfectly and sped past the trucks lining up to make their way out of town. The drive turned remarkably scenic as we headed towards Kars. There was nothing in any guidebook and it was one of the most scenic drives we’d ever seen.

From Savsat to Ardhahan, it was beautiful alpine meadows in bloom with wildflowers. From Ardahan to Kars it was green carpeted hills.
Kars itself was another story. It was literally an Easter egg hunt to try to get the ticket for Ani. Our first stop was the tourist office (moved since the LP guide), so we had a kind policeman show us the way to the new location. The unmarked tourist office had one man, complete with TV and newspaper, who filled out a remarkably long form (name, address, occupation, etc). Then it was off to try to find the tourist police to get their approval of the form. Finally, the last stop was at the museum to buy the ticket so you can drive the 45-km to the site. A few military checkpoints on the way where they check your form and passport and we finally made it to Ani.

The road to Ani:

Ani:

The city has walls of over 1 km in length and it’s got the feeling of a medieval ghost town. It was originally the site of the Urartian capital in 961 and subsequently was taken over by the Byzantines, Seljuks, Kurdish, and the Mongols. The site sits on the gorge overlooking the Arpacay River, which forms the border between Turkey and Armenia. Photos are fairly restricted since you can’t point your camera towards the Armenian border. What’s left of the Armenian churches are spectacular.

We had the site to ourselves and it was eerie to see what was once a city of over 100,000, now in ruins. As we headed out, one of the soldiers on guard started talking to us in a distinctly American accent. It turns out he was the son of a Turkish couple living in the States and was putting in his time in the Turkish military and planned to live in Turkey for a few years.

On the way to Dogubeyezit:

Off again for another exciting car ride to Dogubeyezit (called “dog biscuit” by the tourists). The town is a dusty frontier town, 35 km from the Iranian border. The streets are unpaved and filled with men walking down the middle of the streets, horse carts. We realized that we had hit our first Kurdish town. After a quick hotel search, we found a great hotel with a view of Mount Ararat (where Noah’s ark supposedly landed after the flood. They still have groups coming to search for remains of the ark). We had dinner at “Tad’s Lokantasi…with all the men in town. We were quite a sight. Fortunately, they actually had something besides kebaps…so we had soup and their version of spaghetti. The thunder god put on a tremendous show at night- lightning, thunder and a huge downpour.

Trabzon to Artvin

The morning was a productive one. We got our Georgian visa at the Georgian consulate in Trabzon. A simple process- no forms, no pictures- just hand over your money and you get your visa. A quick stop at the bank (since our Citibank ATM still wouldn’t work) and we were off to Artvin.

We made a quick detour to the “Yayla” country- where the Hemsin people live. It was very alpine and we stopped in a small town, Camlihensin, for their local specialty- muhlama (a cheese soup doused in butter.) A few bites were all we needed.

The Black Sea coast has several minority groups, the Laz and the Hemsin. The Laz are a Caucasian people that speak a language akin to Georgian. They have a reputation for fierceness and were the bulk of Ataturk’s bodyguards. While the Laz live on the coast and migrate to the hills for the summer, the Hemsin live in the hills.

Then we were off for our drive to Artvin. It got a pretty bad write-up in all the guidebooks, but it was the only place to stay on our way east. It’s the home of a huge summer festival (we missed it by a few days) of bull wrestling, drinking and dancing. The town had the feel of an old Colorado mining town, filled with burly men with nothing much to do. We stopped for a bottle of wine and met the local owner who, with a lot of charades, told us about the dam being built outside the town and about the road closing times. Good info since we were planning an early morning start the next day.

Trabzon

Well, they promised that the A/C in our room was “fixed” when we got back from dinner. Not so…and, the windows wouldn’t open without pulling the handles off. So, at 5:30 am, John headed to the reception area for a tour of 9 or 10 other rooms, none with working A/C. So, he headed to our 2nd choice hotel and got a room for less money with working A/C and we threw on our clothes, packed our bags, paid our bill (at a reduced rate) and checked into our new room. Within 12 hours, we had changed rooms 5 times. Needless to say, we were exhausted and slept in till 9:00.

Our tour of Trabzon and area took us to Monastery of Sumela, Virgin of the Black Rock. This monastery is cut into the sheer face of a cliff (very Tibetan) and is in the middle of a beautiful valley with wooded slopes. We figured out that the 3-km walk from the parking lot was not a necessary experience and took the car to the third walking access point. We trekked up the path with women in babushkas and thongs. The monastery was founded in the 6th C to house the icon of the Virgin of the Black Rock and actually inhabited until 1923 when the Greeks were expelled from the country in the population exchange.

On our way back to town, we stopped to wash the car (this poor car had been through a lot in the past few days). John left his shoe (fortunately only one shoe- since it was the $300 French pair) and we didn’t realize it until we were back in the city. So, we headed back to a laughing attendant who gladly fetched the shoe.

Then it was back to Hagia Sophia Cathedral (now museum), a mid 13th C monastery church. The church is filled with frescoes depicting the miracles of Jesus.

Then it was on to Ataturk’s villa (another of the many “Ataturk slept here” stops across the country). He actually came to the villa three times and the wealthy family who built it gave the home to him. It’s a beautiful, Victorian looking home overlooking the Black Sea, filled with photos of the man himself.

Dinner just had to be McDonald’s tonight…. too many kebaps. Email worked and we had a bottle of wine in the room and played catch-up.
Commentary:
Hotels in Turkey: we started to understand the guide book comments about hotels. They often refer to hotels recently renovated so that things still function. We found a quote from our guidebook that sums it up:
“..the Turks are perfectly able to organize a good hotel. It’s not the building but the running of the inns that is so bad. When they are started- new and clean and rather expensive- with all the latest available devices- the owners sets out his chair in the shade of his doorstep, places his magenta stockinged feet comfortably out of his shoes in an opposite chair, reads his paper, and expects his clients to carry on with all the remaining details. Some crone upstairs with one tooth in her head is walking around with a handful of rushes that stroke the dust along an unwashed floor, the beds are made with sheets or quilts that may or may not be changed when the guests depart in the morning, and in a year or two every one of the modern devices is wrecked”

On the Turks, a commentary from David Hotham, who spent 8 years in Ankara as The Times correspondent: “The Turk is unusually filled with contradictions. Not only has he East and West in him, Europe and Asia, but an intense pride combined with an acute inferiority complex, a deep xenophobia with an overwhelming hospitality to strangers, a profound need for flattery with an absolute disregard for what anybody thinks about him. Few people, capable of such holocausts, are at the same time so genuinely kind, helpful, magnanimous, and sincere as the Turks. It is as if his nature compensated its capacity for one extreme by a propensity towards the other.”

Amasya to Trabzon

We woke up to the sounds of the “3 Stooges” outside our window at 6:30 am. Two locals were tossing large plastic jugs from the second floor of the building next to us- with a tremendous amount of talk and coordination. It went on for at least an hour.

At that point, we gave up on the idea of sleep and started our drive to Trabzon. The first half of our day was spent on a horrendous road crossing the mountains. Most of the pavement was freshly tarred- but they hadn’t quite gotten around to the gravel part. It went from tarred roads to horrifically pot-holed roads. We did see a brown fox scamper across the road- John claims that it’s good luck(?) Finally, we made it to the Black Sea coast. The cities on the coast are a mass of concrete boxes. They’ve done nothing to make this beautiful coast attractive- but the sea itself was far more beautiful than we expected.

The Turkish driving style is quite interesting. On open roads, they go like a bat out of hell- racing down the roads. When faced with the challenge of passing, they freeze and there can be as many as 8-10 cars following these huge trucks- no one willing to take the chance to pass.
Trabzon on Saturday night was a busy city and we took the first hotel we could find. Fortunately, it had A/C (barely working), an autopark and CNN. We dumped our bags and asked about a local restaurant. The staff claimed that the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed- but recommended the Suleyman, about 2-km out of town. After a 2M lire taxi ride (about 3 times what it should have been if metered), we arrived at this lovely restaurant on the Black Sea. 1M beers (we had been paying 400-600,000) and no service- it was a very strange place. It was filled with groups of Turks- some belonging to a football group. We made a quick exit, headed back to town and walked around to get a better feel of the city. It had a definite Russian tourist feeling. We grabbed a quick kebap and headed for the room.

Ankara to Amasya

Time to leave Ankara and head for “eastern Turkey”. We drove to Bogazkale and the Hittite cities of Hattusas, the Hittite capital and Yazilikaya, an open air Hittite religious sanctuary with rock carvings. We also visited Alacahoyuk. The ruins are mostly foundations now, but you can get a sense of the vast expanse of these ancient cities, dating back to the 14th Century BC.

Then it was time to drive to Amasya, reportedly one of the most beautiful and “Turkish” towns in Turkey. We actually found the pension that Alice Settles wrote about in her book, Turkish Reflections. A very funky B&B (with no breakfast) place- a renovated Amernian priests’ mansion with huge rooms, definitely set up for the backpacker crowd.

Amasya was one of the capitals of the Pontic Kingdom and sits on the banks of the Yesilirmak (Green) River, surrounded by high cliffs and a spectacular castle on the hill. It’s a charming little town with rows of Ottoman half-timbered houses and the rock-cut tombs of the Pontic Kings cut into the hills.

The Pontic Tombs:

We walked around the castle (Citadel) for amazing views of the town, had a few drinks at a horrible tour group hotel, before taking our hotel owners’ recommendation and headed to the local dive, Bahar. The restaurant was filled with men- but had wonderful food ($12 for a chicken dinner with a bottle of wine). We headed back to the hotel after dinner and met a lovely Australian couple and talked for a few hours, trading travel tales.