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A visit to eastern Anatolia and Istanbul
by Norman Black of Marietta, Georgia
Caravanserai, han, mosques, abandoned churches, local markets, and new foods, sights and smells were parts of the tour to eastern Anatolia (plus two days), which I enjoyed, on my trip there from Sept. 1-15, 2011. (Aug. 31 and Sept 15, in Istanbul, are reported at the end of this tour report.)
The group I traveled with assembled, in Sept. 2, at Ataturk Airport, in Istanbul, a fine, modern complex, and then traveled, with Turkish Airlines, from to Trazbon, east of the nation of Georgia. On the afternoon of Sept. 14, we returned, to Istanbul, from Kayseri. The flights with Turkish Airlines lasted for less than 1-1/2 hours, but passengers were served a meal on the first mentioned flight and a nice snack on the second.
I was favorably impressed by the service and good food, on both flights with Turkish Airlines. This was a nice contrast the treatment passengers receive on domestic U.S. flights. I reckon U.S. airlines could learn a lesson from Turkish Airlines for use on domestic-U.S. flights.
My tour by bus, arranged by Euphrates Travel of New York, began on Sept. 15 and included harbor towns on the eastern Black Sea, central Anatolia east of Ankara, places on Turkey’s eastern borders, including Antakya (Antioch), on the Syrian border. We also visited Adana and Tarsus (the birthplace of St. Paul of the New Testament) and a cave, in Sanliurfa, where Islamic tradition says Abraham of the Old Testament was born.
Near Trabzon, we visited Sumela Monestary high under Mt.Mela’s uppermost and overhanging stone cliff. It was built in the AD 300s by Greek monks, but abandoned and badly damaged, in1923, during Turkey’s successful war to resist the peace treaty resulting from its part on the losing side in World War I. A look upward at the overhanging cliff is awe inspiring or frightening, depending upon one’s emotional state.
One high point was a visit to the hill top of Goebekli Tepe and the Paleolithic temples there, which were made by a hunting society about 11,600 years ago (7,000 years before the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. This is the world’s oldest example of monumental architecture and the first known structure man made that was larger and more complex than a hut.
We also climbed nearly 2,100 m (6,890 ft) of Mount Nemrut to terraces cut into the hill-top. There we saw remains of huge stone figures of Persian and Greek gods. The site was built on the order of King Antiochus I Theos, between 64 and 38 BC., and included statues of him, so he could also be worshiped.
Lake Van
The most interesting part of the tour to Lake Van was the Armenian Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross, on an island in the lake. The bas-relief carvings around the church’s outer walls and paintings on the inner walls and dome show important biblical stories and characters. The Armenian Orthodox Church was allowed to hold a service there earlier this year, and many thousands of Armenians’ resident outside Turkey attended it.
Altogether, the religious buildings we saw, in eastern Anatolia, witness the exertions man will expend to placate or win favor with whatever supernatural spirits or gods he reckons can help or hurt him.
Unfortunately, because of road building, we did not see Turkish Van cats, which reportedly like to swim in water and have one blue-colored eye and one amber-colored eye. It was just as well, for the attractive, all-white cats were in a rug-sales building and a rug-sale pitch would have accompanied our visit to see them.
At Karatepe, we visited Arslantaş National Park and open-air museum. The place was an important neo-Hittite fortress (after collapse of Hittite empire in late 12th century BC), on the Ceyhan River, in the Tarsus Mountains. Artifacts displayed are from early 8th century BC to early 7th century BC and show a big-nosed people whose descendents remain in the region.
Amongst the many other memorable sights were bridges and buildings built by many civilizations, including Hittites, Romans and Byzantines, Crusaders, Seljuk Turks, and Ottoman Turks. There were also many buildings built as churches, by ethnic groups no longer in the Turkish republic, and now used as mosques or museums. Especially memorable was tour members’ ability to see and (briefly) be parts of street life, mingling with residents of the towns we visited, as well as seeing the countryside, as we drove across its great expanse. These experiences also gave us a partial sense of changes under way in Turkey and the present state of those changes.
In the country’s southeastern area, one could identify many Kurds and Arabs by the head scarves they wore to differentiate them from others. Kurdish women wore white head scarves, and many Arab-speaking women and men word green ones.
We saw massive Ataturk Dam, which is one of several dams that now make Euphrates-River water available for farming. We also saw large areas of southwestern Turkey these dams have turned into fertile farmland, which now provides better incomes to residents there. Other energy-producing activities we saw were oil wells and large windmills on ridges.
In part of this now arable landscape large-acreage land owners called amir preside over great farm areas cultivated by their extended families. It is also an area where polygamy is yet practiced and some men reportedly have as many 12 children with each wife. In urban tourist areas one often encounters a surplus of children hawking shoe shines, tissue, bottled water, and novelties, but they are probably urban bred.
In urban and rural areas we saw new, steel-reinforced concrete homes, commercial buildings, and apartment houses, as well as a large amount of road improvements, and road and bridge building.
The weather during the trip varied from warm to very warm and every day was clear, except for a period of light rain, on the first day.
Turkish food
No tour report would be complete without mention of Turkish food. Turkish soups I ate were varied, delicious, and mildly flavored. I also enjoyed fresh vegetables cooked in a tasty sauce and deserts that were varied and delicious. I found Turkish ice cream delicious and made it daily fare. I even learned to ask shop keepers, in apparently understandable Turkish, if they knew where I could buy some. Donderma var burda ma? enabled me to buy ice cream where I asked, or to be directed to where I could buy some.
Amongst the finest food I ate in Turkey were peaches freshly plucked on the day I bought them. They were ripe and juicy and totally unlike the hard, juiceless peaches I have found available in U.S. retail-grocery stores. Tourists should also watch for stands that sell fresh fruit drinks. At them, fruit is dropped into a blender and a juice-drink made, as one waits.
Information about Turkish food, which I read, on line and in print, says natural ingredients are used to bring out the natural flavors of Turkish food. In my opinion those that wrote this information either had a sadistic streak or were so acclimated to spicy food they did not know what natural taste is. I found spices made the taste of meat cooked in sauce so similar I could not tell, from taste, if it was goat, sheep, beef, or camel. The sauce in which wheat is cooked can also be fiery, and the char on kabaps gave a somewhat similar taste to all meat cooked by open fire.
Broadcast chants, in Arabic, to call Muslims to prayer, emanated from mosque minarets five times daily across every area toured, but seemed to be ignored by the great majority of residents and transients. The quality of the chanters varied, and the lack of synchronization resulted in “dueling mullahs” whose chants overlapped others.
Be absolutely certain you know when Ramazan is observed and the dates of the first three days following it. Ramazan moves ahead 10 days each year, and the first three days after Ramazan are not optimal days for sightseeing, in Istanbul, as many families use those days to travel elsewhere in Turkey to be with kin. One should also note whether or not one is scheduled to visit a museum on a Monday, as museums are closed on Mondays. The person you pay to arrange your tour may not watch for these days, but you should insist upon knowing when they are and avoid problem scheduling.
Mention of Turkey warrants mention of cigarette smoking, which is more omnipresent that chanting mullahs. It was not allowed on the tour bus or restaurant sections in which we ate, but was all around us at rest stops and on streets. Cigarettes and tea seem to be two ingredients Turkish men crave when awake. It almost seemed every man in Turkey old enough to buy and light a cigarette smoked. (I saw relatively few Turkish women smoke.) Tobacco is also an addiction of many European tourists. If inhaling multiple packs of second-hand smoke daily is a problem for your lungs, be certain you insist upon traveling only with Canadians and Americans: two nationalities less likely to include many smokers. This will limit, but not eliminate, the amount of second-hand smoke inhaled daily.
Squat toilets are the norm throughout eastern Turkey, except in hotels booked by this tour company. What Turks call French toilets (with sit on pots) were available in every hotel at which we stayed. However, in many restaurants and at every “sight” and at privately operated or publicly operated toilet I saw, squat toilet were installed. Use of this-type toilet requires an ability to squat and keep one’s balance. Otherwise one must speedily put one’s hands onto the toilet’s edge to recover balance. As the floor of every squat toilet I saw was soaking wet (water and not paper is used to clean oneself), that can seem unpleasant. A short yoga course in squat balancing would be a useful precaution.
Istanbul
I arrived in Istanbul, on Aug. 30, and spent the afternoon recovering from sitting in an uncomfortable, narrow seat, with limited leg room, in cabin class, on a Delta flight. On the next day, I visited, with a guided tour, several interesting places in the Sultanahmet and Seraglio Point parts of Istanbul. I was unable to visit the Grand Bazaar, because it was the day after Ramazan and it was closed.
Places in Istanbul most visitors find of particular interest include Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Archeological Museum, which houses a magnificent collection of pre-classical and classical artifacts from across the breadth of Turkey and its former empire. These places are very near each other, and, if one has no problem walking, I recommend visiting them on one’s own.
On Sept. 15, I was deposited back in Istanbul to await flights back to Georgia (in Dixie) the next day. I used the day to revisit some sights seen on Aug. 30 and also to wander through the Grand Bazaar where a mind boggling array of Turkish wares is offered for sale.
On Aug. 30, in the evening, I treated me to “Istanbul by Night: Turkish Dinner and Show”. The food and drink were good and the four-hour-long show bordered on spectacular. Three male and three female members of an Anatolian folklore-dance group performed many dances, several of which reminded me of Greek folk dances. In fact, seven guests from Greece went onto the stage and performed their versions of what appeared to me to be the same dances.
Ah! Let me not forget the three lovely-looking belly dancers, each of whom was very talented and enjoyable to watch. I admired not only their abilities and bodies, but also their stamina. As we say here in Dixie: There ain’t no moss growing on them! There was, additionally, a good male singer and a guest, from Iran, who sang equally well to impress his lady. He and she also went onto the stage and danced for guest’ entertainment. The accompanying band was good, but the loudness of their playing hurt my eardrums. Even so, this was a Turkish-delight night.
Teşekkür ederim.
Copyright 2011, Norman P. Black, All Rights Reserved
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