Day 11 - July 12th
We arrived in Sanliurfa (Shawn-Loo-Fa) at about 7 in the morning. We were now in far eastern Turkey, just a few kilometers from the Syrian border. We took a taxi to the hotel Valiligi Konuk Evi, a 19th century stone Ottoman building. It was the most expensive place we stayed on the whole trip, but it was really nice, and right in the center of things in Sanliurfa. (It was about 30million Turkish lira, which is like 23 bucks or so, as compared to the 10 million we paid in Goreme) We got our showers in and changed into some pants for the day's mosque visits. We ate breakfast at our hotel in the courtyard. For some reason a man was washing carpets right there in the courtyard while we ate. Next we booked our tours for Harran the next day, and Nemrut the following day.We visited a mosque and contributed to the local imam's personal gratification fund. Next we happened by a bunch of children playing outside of another mosque. We went inside as the children followed after us in a huge crowd screaming "Hello" and "What's your name" over and over again, probably the only English they knew. The place we entered turned out to be a school for learning the Koran. The imam invited us into a back parlor to talk and shared water, fruit and tea with us. He was fluent in Arabic as well as Turkish and although delighted to find out that I was half Arabic, was also disappointed that I can't really speak the language. However with Toby, and hasan there to translate what Toby couldn't, our communication was not too difficult.
He asked what religion we were. Toby dodged the question, but I told him that I was raised catholic (no mention of course of my current lack of religion). He said that was good and that we were all brothers under the same god. He then invited us to ask him questions about Islam. Toby was pretty diplomatic at first, trying to avoid the tough questions, but eventually we did probe a bit deeper. In particular, I asked that since we were all "brothers", would we share in the same afterlife. That through him for a bit of a loop, but eventually he stated that the book of the Jews or the Old Testament, was like the first draft. The New Testament, i.e. the bible, was like the second draft. The Koran delivered to us by Mohammed is the final copy. He said that people that had studied the first and second draft, but had not looked at the final copy, would still be rewarded, because they do not know the rules they should be following. But if they know of the Koran and yet do not follow it, they will be punished. What he left unsaid I thought, was that it was unreasonable to assume that anyone would not know of the Koran.... so therefore, to hell with the lot of them! ;) Haha. Still, it was an enlightening conversation regardless and was a wonderful way to spend part of our day.
Next up we had lunch at a local place nearby. Sanliurfa is unfortunately known for its peppers I guess, and every meal we would have here was really spicy. What I could eat was good. Next, we visited another local mosque here, which was purported to have sacred water. People were coming in and filling jugs with it.
After that we visited the outside of the Halil Rahman mosque. It has a sacred carp pool outside. The story is that a follower of Islam was about to be burned by non-believers, but the fire turned into water and the wood into carp. If a carp from the pool is taken or harmed by someone, that person will go blind. While visiting the sacred carp pool, as Toby and hasan fed the fish, I was approached by a Turkish university student. He asked me if he could talk to me for a bit to practice his English. Of course I agreed. We spoke on various topics, what I had seen so far and such for 20 minutes or so. Eventually he also called over a horde of his little cousins to meet me, and his uncle who could also speak a tiny bit of English. He invited me to his home for dinner that night and I politely declined.
We climbed up to the citadel overlooking Sanliurfa and explored it a bit before finally returning to our hotel. I relaxed and took some notes about our journey thus far, hasan took a nap, and Toby went out for a bit to do God knows what. ;) While I was chilling out in the room a Jackie Chan movie came on in Turkish. It was still amusing. There is also a commercial that would come on from time to time advertising the local cola, Cola Turka, with Chevy Chase and some random Texan on it. Indescribably weird. When Toby came back we went out wandering again for a bit and ended up walking through a meat market. Yuck. Nothing like row upon row of dead animal parts, heads, brains, testicles, etc to make your day.
That night for dinner we ate out on a terrace around the corner from our hotel that overlooked the castle. There was a band playing on the floor above us so we got to listen to pleasant Arabic/Turkish music while we ate. My dinner was good, but hot. Toby's dinner was so hot that even though he is a glutton for spicy food sweat was poring down his face as he ate it. For desert we had Kunefe, which is kind of a shredded wheat and cheese dessert thing.
Sanliurfa - The mosque with the sacred water.
Sanliurfa - Sacred Carp.
Sanliurfa - Me on bridge over Sacred Carp.*** 28 second movie(9.5mb) - Sanliurfa - Sacred Carp Pool.
Sanliurfa - View from Citadel.
Sanliurfa - From Citadel towards Sacred Carp and our hotel.
Sanliurfa - Similar shot with me in it.
Sanliurfa - Citadel from our dinner terrace at night.
Sanliurfa - More.
Sanliurfa - Closer.
Sanliurfa - With Toby.
Sanliurfa - Other diners, and some of the city.Back to Top
Day 12 - July 13th
We were supposed to be up super early today, as we had to meet our tour driver outside the hotel at 5am, but Toby decided to sleep in a bit. Throughout the trip, Toby had been hassling me about how long it took me to get ready (like 40 minutes including bathroom, shower, shaving, and the application of sun tan lotion) and calling me Grandpa, so he finally got his wish as I had only 15 minutes this time around. He was impressed that I managed.Our tour guide for the morning showed up driving a taxi about 15 minutes late or so. We got on our way and eventually reached the town of Harran. This place is kind of famous for religious folks as it is mentioned in the bible as a place that Abraham stayed. There are some ruins of a castle and a very large mosque, but otherwise it is mostly just a poor village. The village houses are a strange beehive like mud house that is supposedly found nowhere else. After looking around a bit, we got back in our taxi and were then driven to some man’s house. The man came out of his house and asked us for money for tickets, and he pulled out some official looking museum tickets. Talk about a scam. After Toby yelled at them for a while, we eventually forked over a few million TL aka like 2 bucks. Toby’s comment at this point was that the Turkish will nickel and dime you to death.
Next up we went to Han el Ba'rur caravanserai, which was like a little village and city walls east of Harran. Following that, we visited some kind of Quarry with no name as far as I know, but it was really neat. The driver drove the taxi part way into it, and then we wandered the caves with our flashlights at the ready exploring all that was there to see. Following that we drove further east along roads that were becoming even more non-existent, to Suayb City aka the City of Jethro. This place was pretty much just a rubble field for the most part, but it did have an interesting little mosque.
Last stop on our journey was Sogmatar. This was basically a really small and poor village with the ruins of some walls, turrets, and a temple in the surrounding area. One thing that stood out about the village was that in the midst of all the local hovels, was a very nice school building with a flag. We wandered the ruins a bit and went up to the top of one of the turrets. Two of the local village children followed us around. One of the children we learned does not go to school, because his mother won’t let him. On our way down from the turret, our ears were assaulted by the braying of a donkey that apparently thought that 100 yards was too close for us to be. Moments later, one of the village dogs came growling and barking towards us. So we chose an alternate route as the sound of donkey, dogs and children filled the air.
One of the men in the village is apparently given a stipend from the government to entertain tourists and we were invited into his house for tea. Our tour guide/taxi driver had brought a watermelon along, so we ate watermelon and drank tea with some of the locals. We were also given some horribly nasty Arabic coffee to drink, which I have had before. In the course of the conversation we learned, among other things, that prior to us, there had only been 2 other tourists to this place in the last year.
We left and went back to Sanliurfa. We had lunch and spent some time in an Internet café. We went to a fruit market so Toby could get some grapes. The air there was filled with a multitude of flies, and I found the whole area pretty disgusting. Later that night we went to a movie (Just Married, it was ok). I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier, but they have assigned seating in their movie theatres…interesting.
Harran - Ruins of Mosque.
Harran - Village, Bee-hive houses.
Harran - Inside Castle - Toby.
Quarry - Hasan.
Quarry - Me & Hasan.
Quarry - Toby.
Quarry - Me.
Sogmatar - Toby.
Sogmatar - Turret - Toby.
Sogmatar - Turret - Me.
Sanliurfa - Toby in our room.Back to Top
Day 13 - July 14th
At 7am our Tour bus to Nemrut met us. Jusef was to be our guide and driver for the day. He was a pleasant fellow who would rattle off a large amount of detail about an area we were visiting and always follow up with, “thank you for listening to me.” Another of the popular Jusef catch phrases was, right before a landmark would come into view he would say, “1, 2, 3, SURPRISE!” Really, it made the atmosphere of the trip pretty enjoyable. We had two fellow tourists on the bus with us. One was safak (sha-fawk), he was a Belgian student. The other, Mariana, was a teacher from Sweden.Our first destination was Attaturk Dam. This dam serves as part of a method of turning a large area of previously desert land into agricultural area. With as much water as its seemingly diverting I can’t help but wonder though what kind of effect it has on the Euphrates further down in Syria and Iraq. Shortly after the dam, we stopped somewhere along the Euphrates to eat some watermelon and dip our feet in the super COLD Euphrates. Toby, Hasan and Safak all actually went for a swim in the river. I think they all about tied on how long they could stay in the water, like a minute or so. :) I still don’t quite understand how that river gets so damn cold, its practically freezing.
Next stop was Karakus Tepesi, which is basically a small monument of rocks on a mountain surrounded by some animal columns. It was erected by Mithridates II back around 20 BC. After that, we visited the Yeni Kale or new castle. This was a neat little fortress on a narrow mountain spur. Coming up the stairs from one of the darkened tunnels here I was running a bit too fast and I continued right into the ceiling at the end of the stairs, banging my head quite hard. It hurt…a lot. We went across the gorge to the old castle, which really is nothing more than a couple statues and a lot of rocks. Toby, Hasan and Safak went down into a dark stairway there that was literally swarming with flies. Toby ended up falling in some mud down at the bottom.
Next we stopped for a bit of lunch. I had some kuzu shish which was again spicy but good. The cracked wheat that came with it was way way way too spicy to eat. Jusef told us that the only thing in the Sanliurfa area that doesn’t get peppers and spices is the sweets.
The road up to Nemrut became this horrible cobblestone monstrosity that bounced the bus to and fro madly. On the way up, from way off to the left side of the road came this horrible wail. “SU!”, and though I couldn’t hear the rest of his words, I’m sure it must have been something like, “Please God, I’m dying, give me water,” based on the tone. Jusef gave the man some bread and a big bottle of water that he had gotten earlier. It almost seemed like he had brought this stuff for exactly that purpose. The man returned to a little hut way off the road. I really have no idea what he’s doing there.
Nemrut itself is pretty impressive. King Antiochus I way back in like 40BC had decided he was a god and so when he died his tomb was concealed beneath a 165ft high man made burial mound composed of small rocks that had to be carried to the top of this mountain. Surrounding it are statues of Antiochus as well as his fellow gods such as Zeus. There were a horde of tourists there as well as some important dignitaries. Apparently the day was some special anniversary of some sort, I don’t recall what now. In addition, the Minister of Culture and other officials were there due in some part to an upcoming decision on the remounting of the heads of the Nemrut statues onto their bodies. The place was also filled with quite a few Jandarma (like military civilian police, doesn’t have an exact equivalent here) carrying their machine guns. We spent a few hours there looking around, snapping pictures and talking.
After Nemrut, Jusef dropped us off in Adiyaman where we were to catch our bus to Adana. We had a bit of time to kill, so ate at a really nasty place that served, among other things, sheep’s head stew and liver kebabs. I believe the meal I had here made me relatively ill for a few days afterward.
Attaturk Dam.
Attaturk Dam - Me.
Attaturk Dam - A small part of the lake formed.
Euphrates River - Toby.*** 38 second movie(14.6mb) - Euphrates - Toby and Hasan swimming, Safak getting out.
Roman Bridge - Hasan.
Roman Bridge - River Valley.
Roman Bridge - River Valley 2.
Roman Bridge - Facing bridge from valley.
Karakus Tepesi - Looking away at Safak, Toby, Hasan & Mariana.
Yeni Kale - Me inside castle.
Yeni Kale - Safak, Hasan and Toby inside castle.
Yeni Kale - Looking out towards Valley and bridge.
Yeni Kale - Looking up ridge at part of Castle.
Old Castle - Hasan.
Old Castle - Hasan, Toby, Mariana, Safak - Yeni Kale on the ridge in the background.
Mt Nemrut.
Mt Nemrut - Lion Statue.
Mt Nemrut - Me with God heads.
Mt Nemrut - view of Attaturk lake/resevoir.
Mt Nemrut - Toby.
Mt Nemrut - Statues.
Mt Nemrut - Toby with heads.
Mt Nemrut - Heads.
Mt Nemrut - Mariana with heads.
Mt Nemrut - More of the Attaturk lake/resevoir.
Mt Nemrut - Statue.
Mt Nemrut - Statues.
Mt Nemrut - Mariana and Safak, I love this shot!
Mt Nemrut - Mariana and Safak again.
Mt Nemrut - Me, Mariana, Safak and Toby.
Mt Nemrut - Mariana.
Mt Nemrut - Toby.
Mt Nemrut - Toby taking picture of sunset.
Mt Nemrut - Toby and Hasan, Sunset.
Mt Nemrut - Me after sun has set.
Mt Nemrut - Toby taking picture of Hasan.
Mt Nemrut - Me taking picture of myself, take 1.
Mt Nemrut - Me taking picture of myself, take 2 - super smile.Back to Top
Day 14 - July 15th
We arrived in Adana in the early morning at the new otogar or bus station. From there we had to take a dolmus to the old otogar. At the old otogar, a little kid approached me with a scale and, in Turkish, asked to weigh me or some such. I was tired of the little Turkish kids trying to sell me stuff by this point, they are worse than spam e-mails, so I basically just ignored him (not that I could really answer him worth a damn in Turkish regardless). So he talks to Toby and asks why I’m not answering him. Toby tells him that I don’t speak the language. So the kid basically tells me to fuck off in Turkish and Toby yells at him as he walks away. Fun stuff. For future reference, I believe the word used was sik (sick). Got to love those relatively innocent sounding English words that mean something horrible in another language.From the old otogar, we had yet another dolmus to take, this time to a gas station. From there, one more dolmus to our final destination, Karatas. Karatas is a quaint little town on the coast of the Mediterranean and also happens to be where Hasan’s family lives.
We arrived at Hasan’s house and had breakfast. I met Hasan’s mom and his brother Mehmet. After breakfast, Toby and I rode on the back of motorcycles driven by Hasan and Mehmet to one of the more out of the way beaches nearby. Played in the water a bit and when we got out had to practically dig the motorcycles out of the sand and rising tide. Moved them to a better location and then went down a little inlet to a place where Hasan bought some crabs. We alternated carrying the crate of crabs back to the bikes and on the way Mehmet got pinched by a crab and dropped it. Crabs went scurrying madly everywhere as we tried to frantically throw them back into the crate without taking injury. Eventually, we got all but maybe 3 back into the crate and got back to the bikes. As we left the beach, a dog started barking at us and made chase. He got close enough to snap at the air by my legs a few times before Hasan managed to pick up enough speed to leave the dog in the dust.
When we got back to Hasan’s house, the water was out. So we went by his Aunt’s place for a bit just to wash off the saltwater, before returning to prepare the crabs. Toby, Hasan and Ozel (his mom) cleaned and prepared the crabs, while I took a nap. :) They cooked the crabs on the grill and Toby taught them about melted butter for the crab. When I woke we had some crabs and fish (Caught by Mehmet I think and then tossed on the grill as is) for lunch and then I went back to sleep. When I woke up, we went to a different beach and went swimming some more. We came back for fish dinner at Hasan’s.
That night the whole family went into town for what amounts to a beach party. I guess that is the thing to do there at night, and it was pretty busy with lots of dancing and families on the playground and such. Their kids playground by the way, is probably the best example of its kind I’ve ever seen with a really amusing swing set that is designed in a star pattern so that if every kid was to swing inward at the same time and jump off their swing they would collide splendidly in midair. We played a bit of OK on the beach, but had to leave early because Toby and Hasan were practically falling asleep at the table. We stopped for some ice cream on the way back and then turned in.
With all the swimming and such today and the next day, not many picture opportunities, sorry.
Adana - Ocean at night.
Adana - Toby, Ozel, Hasan and Mehmet.Back to Top
Day 15 - July 16th
After breakfast we went met up with a friend of Mehmet’s who is a fisherman’s son and happens to have a boat. We took the boat to a little island about 2km or so off the coast. Toby and Hasan made use of some goggles to view the wildlife in the reefs along the island there for a bit. When we left, we all grabbed onto a rope attached to the boat and got dragged along at high speed for a bit. It was quite entertaining. Afterwards, the rest of those wimps got dragged all the way back to shore. I, however, decided to try swimming all the way back. I managed it and felt quite a bit of accomplishment, as that’s the farthest I’d ever swim in open water. *flex*Then it was back to the house where we had some chicken dinner. As an aside, plates at Hasan’s house consisted of edible (and quite good) bread. We had some tea with Hasan’s family, including his sister and then it was time to leave.
We took the reverse route back, IE, dolmus to gas station, but this time rather than going through the whole old otogar to new otogar thing we just took a taxi to the new otogar. Toby argued for a bit with the taxi driver over the rate as seems to be traditional now but we decided it was worth it.
We now started on our luxurious return journey to Istanbul on a Varan bus. They are like the first class bus company out in Turkey and very professional as compared to the others. As an example, when we stowed our luggage it was all tagged and we were given actual claim numbers as opposed to it all being just tossed on there and pulled off by whoever asked for it at each stop. Varan also has its own rest stops along the way with better food options and restrooms. Quite nice.
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