By the time we got to Dogubeyazit (pronounced with a soft ‘g’) we changed our plans slightly and were now going to travel back to Erzurum with Nuri rather than spend extra time in Dogubeyazit. After five days on the road we just needed a couple of days off before flying back to Western Turkey for the dawn ANZAC Day service. It proved a good decision. Dogubeyazit does not offer much attraction as a town and we would have been twiddling our thumbs out here in this small town right next to the Iranian border.
For the tourist there is a set group of sights which we duly drove around, the most impressive of these being the Ishak Pasa (last word pronounced ‘pasha’) palace a few kilometres out of town up in the hills. Iran is just over the hill. The palace was built by a local warlord in the Ottoman era when this part of Turkey was at the far reaches of Istanbul’s control. The setting is superb and the view framed by the stone windows is stupendous. It’s a pity the modern roof has been plonked on top, which at least protects the interior from the elements, but stands out like a dog’s bollocks.
Nuri started chatting to some other tourists at the site, who turned out to be a couple from the Czech Republic. This sent Nuri’s friend antennae quivering as his ‘great friend Petr’ is from that country. Petr runs a tour company and often brings people out to Turkey for white water rafting. Nuri has even visited Petr in the Czech Republic, although apparently Petr doesn’t speak English very well. Nuri had been trying to organise a tour with Petr and thought that Petr didn’t understand what he wanted so he saw these hapless Czechs as a way to communicate properly with Petr. He didn’t hit them up for a favour straight away but as his luck would have it as we left Ishak Pasa it started raining pretty heavily and we saw the Czechs walking along the road. We offered them a lift back to town and they accepted. Nuri then rang Petr, had an incomprehensible conversation about the details of passports for the upcoming tour that needed to be sent through. He then shrugged and rolled his eyes at Petr’s English and handed the phone over to the young Czech girl who must have been wondering how she got into this situation. She was soon laughing along with Petr, no doubt about how odd Nuri was. She handed the phone back saying that Petr hadn’t confirmed a tour for that year. Nuri just about ignored her and started to drive into town. The car we were in automatically locks its doors above a certain speed and when this happened the Czech couple exchanged a look. Sarah kindly offered to let them join us in driving around the sites of Dogubeyazit for the rest of the day but after some half-hearted hemming and hawing they declined and got out near their hotel. Afterwards, Sarah and I agreed that we had suddenly thought, in the face of outside company in the form of the Czechs, that Nuri may be eccentric, but he was our Nuri and – like one’s beloved but sometimes infuriating grandfather – and we felt protective of his eccentricities.
The other sites of Dogubeyazit are out of the bottom drawer. There was the caravanserai located in a very picturesque setting in the middle of grassy hills but unfortunately locked. The commander of the military outpost next door came out to explain that they had mislocated the key, and anyway didn’t have time to come and open it up for everyone who turned up. They did have time to come out and explain all this though, the commander flanked by armed guards keeping a wary eye on the school kids next door as the only likely military threat in the area. The caravanserai was used in the silk road as a resting point for the camel trains, a large building big enough to shelter all the men and camels for a night or two, and despite this function, quite beautiful.
Then there is Noah’s Ark, which sounds interesting but is really just a big flat rock in the shape of a boat that biblical “scholars” have tested and found to be the right age for it to be the fossilised remains of the boat from biblical stories. It is conveniently close to the legendary resting place, Mount Ararat, which loomed nearby, shrouded in cloud for most of the day. I couldn’t really summon much interest in it, but luckily it hadn’t completely dulled my senses or I wouldn’t have been able to warn Nuri about the big mound of gravel that we almost drove into on the way down the mountain.
Next stop was the meteorite hole right next to the Iranian border which our guidebook explained was not created by a meteor but is simply a geological anomaly, a sink-hole or something of the sort. In fact, it is really just an unimpressively large hole which is home to a lot of pigeons. The final site was the Iranian border itself which I don’t really consider a site. Going across borders is interesting but looking at them fails to elicit a thrill from this seasoned traveller. The road to the nearby ice cave wasn’t open, which we were kind of glad about because we just wanted to get to our sleeping place and crash out.
Nuri said he knew a great place on the road to Erzurum, and who were we to argue? In the end it turned out to be an amazing place. It didn’t look promising as we drove through another grey, shitty looking Eastern Turkey town found a few kilometres off the main highway, and kept going past the small town which gave way to farmhouses. Then we pulled off the road passed a few sheds and saw steam rising from the ground. Behind one of the sheds hot thermal water was pouring out of the ground, staining the rocks white. The sheds were actually public baths, not quite as stylish as Iceland but just as effective. We stayed in a nearby rustic guesthouse where Nuri insisted on cooking a barbecue, despite it being dark and cold enough to necessitate beanies and gloves. In the end the little barbecues they use over here did a great job, just a metal box filled with fanned coals and a wire griddle over the top which cooked even frozen chicken wings to perfection and with liberal salt and lemon tasted fantastic, or maybe we were just enjoying the hot chicken thawing our fingers. With dinner out of the way Sarah and I were free to spend an hour or so by ourselves in the hot outdoor thermal pool as the freezing drizzle rained down. The pool, about as big as a suburban pool in Australia, had white stones at its base, cloudy white water and the perfect temperature. It felt like we were alone on an old Roman bath. It was the best way to spend our last night with Nuri.
In the morning we just had to drive the two hours back to Erzurum, which gave us much better views of Mount Ararat and an old bridge on the way.
We stopped in at yet another of Nuri’s relatives who ran a driving instruction school with a very cool stripped-down car enabling the learner to see how everything worked. Another sugary orange tea later and we were back on the road.
As we were pulling into town Sarah reminded Nuri that on our first morning driving together he had invited us to his family’s home for dinner. Nuri seemed surprised that he had done this but insisted it would be no problem. So our last day driving with Nuri ended in confusion. We paid him his money plus a tip but he then claimed that he counted the two half days he was with is as two full days. Luckily the tip we planned to give covered this, so he just talked himself out of a tip in the end, but honestly, he is very honest.
He offered to pick us up in his uncle’s car to take us to his family home for dinner a couple of nights later, but of course we paid for the ride. Much cheaper than getting a taxi he assured us. Nuri’s home is a modest affair in a small outpost on the outskirts of town. Nuri told us that his wife smokes too much – ‘like a train’. Indeed, Mrs Cicek cooked her delicious meal on a pipe stove in the living room with a fag hanging off her lip most of the time. Like Nuri, she was friendly and smiling, and we sat down with his wife and four of his six daughters for a superb dinner of rice, chicken, bread and salad, all cooked to perfection. This was followed by a (sadly, large) glass of orange tea which we drank while Nuri’s daughters fawned over Sarah and took photos with her, which all of them subjected to serious critique. It was a generous invitation to share their meal and experience local family and village life. We really enjoyed it – Sarah, in anthropology mode, particularly.
The following morning was nearly our last encounter with Nuri when he drove us to the airport and gave us a brief farewell. He rang periodically during the rest of our time in Turkey trying to get us to see a travel agent that he knew in Istanbul. We missed most of his calls, not intentionally. Six days was more than enough time with him and we flew back to Istanbul glad to be on our own once more. But it has to be said, he did give us an ‘amaizy’ tour with ‘too much’ ‘crazy beautiful’ stuff.
Kars, the biggest city we had been in since Erzurum, is the setting for Orhan Pamuk’s novel titled Snow. Kar means snow in Turkish, which might just be the author’s play on words. The Turks don’t seem to think of Kars as being called Snow City or anything like that. After another excellent breakfast in the brand new hotel, so new that they were still trying to impress people, we headed off to walk around the conveniently clustered sights of Kars. Yes, another castle, but this one on a more grand scale and one that we could get inside and wander around. There were a couple of local high school boys who called out ‘hello’ and seemed struck with mute awe when we replied ‘hi’. We could understand – thinking back to language classes at school, it did always seem like an abstract art to learn foreign words – not something that you might actually communicate with. Sarah invited one of them to have a photo with us, while the other ran away in fright.
There was a tea seller in the castle (of course) selling samovar tea and for once I got a glass, pretty sure that my travel fatigue would counteract the minuscule traces of caffeine by bedtime. It was tasty black tea and I drank it with sugar in the Turkish style, sugar cube held in my mouth while I sipped the hot tea through it. The other sights, a mosque, hammam and old bridge could be taken in from the sunny ramparts while we drank the tea so it didn’t take long to head off for the real reason for being in the area, the Ani ruins.
This is yet another place we had no idea existed before doing research for this trip but the photos immediately captured our attention and we earmarked it as a ‘must-see’. But before we got there Nuri had a detour for us to see an “ah-maizy” red church. It wasn’t looking so good when an hour later we were still trying to find it after driving through three identical looking villages, getting directions by following a tractor, and harassing a gang of Turkish turkeys.
We eventually stumbled across the right farm which has a one thousand year old church made from red stone just sitting in their backyard. They use it as a storage shed for farm equipment and sacks of grain. It sure beats corrugated iron as a talking point but the unique setting was really the main point of interest – that and avoiding the snarly farm dogs.
So on we went to Ani which has a special aura about it. This abandoned city was the capital of the Armenian kingdom and dates from the 9th century. It is literally a stone’s throw from the modern day Armenian-Turkish border. Guard posts are framed against the sky on the surrounding small grassy hills. The old city itself is amazing. You enter through the still impressive stone gates and have a smorgasbord of gothic churches and mosques to wander amongst, through the grass and crumbling rubble. It’s so quiet that we only saw one other couple and the overcast sky was just the right mood for this abandoned capital.
We stopped for the night in the town of Igdir. Its only redeeming feature was the breakfast which, for once, lived up to Nuri’s hype. There were three types of cheese, one of which is a speciality containing mountain grass, beautiful jams, halva, fresh bread, olives, honey with halva melted into it, honey with labneh mixed in, sour cherry juice and sweet black tea. It was tops. Rolling past on the street were open-air trucks filled with household items, goats and donkeys, often with Grandpa balancing precariously on top as though auditioning for the Turkish version of The Beverly Hillbillies. These were families heading off for their summer house in the mountains to graze stock and take advantage of the cool weather and peace up there.
Before getting to the Georgian Valley, a remote area of Eastern Turkey famed for its old buildings and – unsurprisingly – Georgian heritage, we drove back down the mountain to Yusufeli to see a church we had missed on the way up called Barhal. It was Nuri’s favourite church in the area. “It’s not beautiful, it’s crazy beautiful,” he told us. Nuri could apply this sentence structure to any adjective. “It’s not good, it’s crazy good.” “It’s not busy, it’s crazy busy.” It turns out that he was on the money with this church which is definitely crazy beautiful. In even more spectacular mountain scenery that we had seen previously this remote church is also falling down slowly but the way it frames the sky only adds to its beauty. If we were the religious type, or even just to be reflective humanists, this would be the kind of place we’d like to be contemplative in – a soaring space with the dome of the sky for a ceiling.
We then had a long drive through what ordinarily would be a spectacular valley but it is now full of dusty roads and construction vehicles as they assemble more dams for Turkey’s hydro-electric power. We had stopped for a toilet break and Nuri gave Sarah the hurry-up saying that we had to be at a certain point on the road before it was closed for an hour while they did construction work. He then chose a very odd time to have a tea break and we ended up just missing the deadline and waiting in the sun for an hour for the road to open. Nuri! We ran out of time that day to drive up to the crazy beautiful lake near the Georgian border but we made an attempt the next day, taking in the half-submerged minaret of a drowned mosque on the way. In any event the road to the crazy beautiful lake was blocked by snow so we took some happy snaps of the snow and continued on our way. Even with all the construction work the valleys were rugged and beautiful, totally dry and rocky but towering above the road on either side.
We spent the previous evening in the town of Borcka (pronounced bore-ch-ka) where we had pide for dinner at a restaurant with Nuri’s uncle and Nuri’s friend, a hotel owner where we were not staying because as Nuri explained to everyone, “it wasn’t clean enough for us”. It was a very male Turkish evening of sitting and not saying very much. Sarah tried to get the conversation started by asking questions, as she does, but it didn’t take long for silence to resume its natural place. I was as happy as a pig in shit, eating the delicious piping hot pide, sprinkling chilli salt flakes on it, and saying nothing. Bizarrely Nuri suggested that the following day we could drive into Georgia (the border was not far away) but we demurred in favour of sticking to the schedule, avoiding the need to get visas and spend even more time with Nuri. The boys invited us to the town square for a drink which we politely declined, preferring our own quietude than sharing it with this random company.
In the end I think Nuri would have preferred it if we had stayed at the dirty hotel. Although the hotel we stayed at was reputedly newly built and a grand three stars it was already showing signs of wear. There were scuff marks on the walls, random piles of dirty laundry and abandoned glasses and room service trays bearing the evidence of people in party mode. Sure enough, at about 10pm the music kicked off downstairs sending a rumbling bass through the floor and during the night people drunkenly stumbled the corridors trying to find their rooms. I jammed my ear plugs in and didn’t sleep too badly, apart from some particularly intense yelling at some point during the night, but Sarah didn’t get a great night’s sleep and Nuri was wrecked the next morning, bemoaning the manners of his fellow guests. He had a dozen or so cups of tea and got back into driver mode without skipping a beat, but Sarah was on the edge of her seat as the day progressed knowing how tired Nuri was. There’s nothing like driving down the wrong side of the road at 150km/h with a driver who hasn’t had any sleep to enliven a road trip.
The photos from the Georgian valley will be quicker at illustrating its beauty. The gorge, castle and church were unique in their own way despite having echoes of what we had seen previously.
Another of Nuri’s habits was to tell us all about his friends. He is tenacious once he has made your acquaintance and told us how he called his Canadian friend Sharon regularly. She apparently visits with her family and friends every other year. Nuri massaged her with his 18 techniques which he learned from the best teacher in Turkey. He practices massage every now and then at his Grandfather’s village, when he’s not conducting tours or selling carpets. This village has the most medicinal water in all of Turkey. We were encouraged to contact Sharon if we were in Canada, and wondered if she lives in dread of calls from Nuri or his random ex-clients like us.
We bunkered down for the night in Kars (pronounced with a soft ‘s’) after having dinner with Nuri’s engineer friends, which was a little stilted as they didn’t speak English and we were catatonic after a long day’s drive. After all the hype about the super amazing DSI hotel in Kars that would be incredibly cheap and have the best breakfast ever, Nuri rang about it on our way into town and discovered that it was full. We really didn’t care about the hotel but it would have been nice to be spared the constant build-up to such a damp squib. At any rate we stayed at a nice new hotel which was having its grand opening the following morning. Worryingly for the future guests of the hotel, they couldn’t get the toilet in our room to stop running. I stuck a toilet brush in it to deaden the sound of the trickle somewhat and it was once again ear plugs in for a trip to the land of slumber.
In the morning we drove from Yusufeli to a tiny village with a stream running through it. The previous night we told Nuri that we would like to do a bit more walking so we parked the car in the village and walked 7km up the dirt road along a burbling stream with blossom everywhere, bees buzzing, squirrels squirrelling, blue skies and a warm sun. Nuri kept his casual suit jacket on but let it hang loose from his shoulders to let heat escape from his body. Two old local men wandering down the path quizzed Nuri on why we weren’t driving to the church, the answer being that it is sometimes more pleasant to walk, especially on such a fine day with a river running, abundant cherries and fresh drinking water running freely from taps. “It’s much better here in summer,” Nuri told us, pointing out the spot where he plucked fresh fruit of the trees with another tour group.
The church was fantastic, in a beautiful remote spot halfway between the ‘winter village’ below us and the ‘summer village’ above where the locals relocate when the temperatures warm up. The Otkhta church was built in the 11th century as well and housed a nunnery. It is another in this area that you just wander around in as though it has been abandoned in someone’s backyard.
After wandering back downhill we had lunch at a guesthouse by the river, comprising barbecued chicken wings and fresh salad which was quite delicious, but not as good as the dried mulberries and walnuts for dessert which came from the trees we were sheltering under. It was a very relaxed afternoon but we had to make a move to head into the Kackar Mountains before it got dark.
The Kackars are a remote range with only a few villages scattered up and down its slopes. Strictly speaking it was a bit early in the season to be driving to the highest village but we thought it was worth a shot. The road into the mountains has recently been expanded, which simply means that rather than being a single lane for its entire length there are now some areas that can accommodate two cars. This means much less reversing should you encounter a car coming the other way. Nuri explained in detail how careful a driver he was and how well he knew these roads. The trick, he said, was not to go too fast around these blind corners. At night you could tell someone else was coming by the approaching headlights, but not in the daytime. We then nearly had a head-on collision with a car coming over a rise. “You see!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “If I go faster we have accident.” He then abused the young kid driving the other car who just looked thoroughly confused by this old man. Nuri then undid all his good work on the way down by almost running into a truck coming the other way, and this time Nuri was at fault, but it didn’t stop him railing against the driving habits of others as he committed the same sins.
The narrow road twisted through another stunning valley with the mountains getting bigger the further in we went. We stopped at a small village for Nuri to recharge with tea and have a quick look at another impressive church that is kept locked ever since the local imam ran off with all the church’s gold (Christian booty). Nuri hinted that two brothers he was friends with, even though he didn’t like them, were somehow involved with the robbery. We bumped into the brothers at the tea house where Nuri warmly embraced them.
The higher we went into the mountains, the more snow was piled up by the side of the road. Just before reaching the old stone bridge the snow was as high as the car on both sides of the road. We drove 15 minutes further to the end of the road, through what felt like a tunnel of snow either side of the road. The view of the mountains in the advancing twilight was spectacular. “It’s much better in summer, super,” Nuri informed us.
We stayed in the village of Yaylalar that night at accommodation that Nuri promised was not 5-star but “10-star!” In the end it was fine, a hotel built with pinewood so that it smelled like a sauna and was just as hot once the heating was cranked into action. “Wait until you see the hotel in Kars,” Nuri promised us. It was owned by the DSI government infrastructure body but he could get us in because a friend of his was the head engineer. “The president stays there when he’s in town and it will only cost you $30 a night!”.
While we waited for the Yaylalar hotel rooms to heat up, Nuri and the hotel owner drank tea and played backgammon. We sat next to the wood stove and did such internet related tasks as are beholden to the modern traveller. When it was time for dinner we were treated to a local feast: cabbage rolls, lentil soup and fresh yoghurt for dessert. Perhaps not the best ingredients to give the digestion just before a road trip but it went down very well with the requisite sour cherry juice, to which we were slowly becoming quite addicted.
We awoke the next day to sun twinkling off the snow. Nuri had been talking up the breakfast at this hotel since the trip started and it was indeed excellent with about a dozen varieties of jam and fresh honey. We considered it good fuel for a day of sightseeing, but Nuri promised us that the breakfast at the DSI hotel was even better. “It’s ah-maizy!”
Our 60-something local tour guide Nuri picked us up from our hotel promising that each day of our tour would be better than the one before. He had a strange driving style. His seat was so far forward that he could have steered the car by gripping the steering wheel with his teeth. Hunched over like this he looked like Mr Magoo without the spectacles and he admitted that his eyesight wasn’t the best. Despite this he drove at a fast clip on the four-lane roads through the valleys and cut corners wherever possible. Travelling with Nuri was a lot like doing a road trip with your Grandfather but despite repeating some of the same stories, he didn’t talk constantly and we settled into a semi-comfortable silence for most of the driving.
Our first stop was Tortum village which is nestled under high rocky mountains. Nuri stopped for a chat with his friends, something that happened in every village, and only just restrained himself from having a quick cup of tea. We travelled on and nearby, a few kilometres down a tiny road off the highway which we never would have found ourselves, we saw what we will call the Tortum castle, improbably perched on a rocky outcrop. I don’t know how they managed to build it up there but it’s very difficult to clamber up even without a suit of armour on so it must have been impossible for invaders.
Driving further on through the valley we noticed elaborate brass water taps set into stone with constantly running fresh mountain water. You can just pull over and fill up your water bottle. It’s a strange site for a couple of Aussies more used to water restrictions and droughts. You really want to pull over and turn the tap off to stop wasting water. Every town has free water taps which anyone is welcome to come and use.
Our next stop was the Oltu castle which despite not being open that day was still good to circumnavigate from the ground. There was a rash of building during the Crusades with many Christian-style castles and churches being erected. Almost all the churches we saw in the area were constructed in the 11th century when the European powers were conducting campaigns to free up the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and doing a bit of plundering along the way.
We drove up a lovely little valley with quaint houses and trees beginning to show their summer foliage lining the narrow road. The small church here was still being used but mainly as a mosque, although Christians could still pray there. The local imam opened it up for us to have a poke around in. At almost 1000 years old it is in remarkably good condition although the frescoes have faded with time. The Turkish carpets lining the floor would be a good addition to many European churches.
The final church of the day, called Oskvank, is amazing, all the more so because of its crumbling structure. High domed with the faint traces of frescoes remaining, walking inside you can still see the sky through the half collapsed dome. This is a particularly holy Armenian church and the visiting Armenian priests and pilgrims have been known to hack rocks and engravings loose to carry home with them as talismans. We were again the only visitors at this church and there is no entrance fee or guard, just a big sign telling you that it’s a Turkish Heritage Site. Apart from naming it as such there doesn’t seem to be much care or attention given to the site.
We stopped at a cay evi (tea house) for Nuri to get his tea and biscuit fix for the afternoon. He slammed down three big glasses of black tea in no time, leaving at least two dozen more required before he hit his daily average. Our planned itinerary was to drive to the Kackar Mountains (pronounced catch-car and deriving from the Armenian for cross-stone), through the Georgian valley to Kars and the Ani ruins before finishing in Dogubeyazit (pronounced normally but with a soft ‘g’). We would then spend a couple of days in Dogubeyazit, Nuri would drive the car back to Erzurum and we would catch the bus later. We planned it this way to cut down on the number of days that we would be paying for car rental. Once in the car again Nuri started angling for us to extend our time with him by telling us how dangerous a city Dogubeyazit is, but he was sure we would be fine on our own. He said that one time he had been in the city with another tour group and overheard some men speaking in Kurdish saying how they were going to ambush and kill some people in the tour. He told the tour operator about it and she freaked out but Nuri calmed her down and talked to the men, personally averting the crisis and winning the tour operator’s lifelong admiration. But he was sure we would be fine there, even though Dogubeyazit is the only city in Turkey where he feels unsafe. We just made non-committal noises as he veered at speed around another corner on the wrong side of the road.
We arrived late in the day at the Tortum waterfall next, of course, Tortum lake. The waterfall is spectacular but as Nuri often pointed out to us, everything around here is much better in summer. The waterfall is fed by an artificial lake which powers a hydro plant. This would explain the huge number of powerlines in the area which managed to creep into almost every potential photo. There are many more dams planned for this region and many of the gorges which are popular for white water rafting are slated for future dams. The town we stayed in that night, Yusufeli, is going to be underwater when they get around to finishing the nearby dam. There are numerous empty apartment buildings in Yusufeli trying to take advantage of the government compensation by hastily erecting buildings before the area is flooded.
Night had fallen when we entered town and Nuri made calls from his car to a few guesthouses, none of which were open for the season. We tried a hotel instead, which was basic. Outside the window the river roared passed but the short beds had foot boards which I demonstrated would not be ideal for my long body. Nuri moved us on to another, even more basic hotel without a toilet in the room. Nuri wouldn’t accept that either so we went over the road to an even more basic room which did have a separate toilet that didn’t flush and a shower which you could only have used by standing on the toilet. We insisted we were happy with the room just so Nuri would stop marching us around town.
We had a very pleasant dinner by the rushing water of the river, some home-made kofte meatballs and rice. Nuri joined us for all our meals, as though he couldn’t relax until we were safely locked inside our room.
We met Nuri on the corner of the main street in Erzurum near the old castle and the double broken minaret mosque. The latter are major landmarks in this, the coldest town in Turkey, which is surrounded by tall snow covered mountains. The Russians come here to ski and as a result, the shops are full of gaudy Eastern European style furnishings. Nuri asked us where we were from and when we said Australia he mentioned a professor from Melbourne that he had shown around the many archaeological sites around town. He proposed giving us a tour of the area and invited us back to his carpet shop for a glass of tea to discuss it in greater detail. Normally we don’t accept invitations from strange men but Nuri’s grandfatherly manner put us at ease, we had some time to kill before dinner, and it was bitterly cold. Nuri is in his sixties, slightly hunched and with a head that looks uncannily like the father from Six Feet Under from the top of the head to the eyes, and like Leo from The West Wing from the nose down. He has dark lashes as though a light kohl had been applied and spoke decent English along with Turkish and his native Kurdish. Once in the tea shop we explained that we don’t drink caffeine which, to a man drinking 30 cups a day, took a while to sink in. We got orange tea instead, which is not as nice as it sounds, more like very hot, overly-sweet orange cordial.
Nuri showed us photos from previously happy tour customers and, after sleeping on it overnight, we decided to do a six day tour with him. He got a good rate on the rental car and $50 more a day for his services. He was to prove slightly annoying in many ways but as he repeatedly told us, “honestly, I am very honest”. As with many of his statements this was a slight exaggeration (he said we were part of his family on the first morning) but he gave us a good tour in the end.
Erzurum is the largest town in this region of Eastern Turkey. It has the feeling of a place used to enduring long and cold winters. They really only get two warm months in the year. During the height of winter it can reach -60 celcius. We were there in early spring so it was only mildly freezing. The wind blew in from the icy mountains and sent us scuttling through the streets to try and reach our destination faster. On that first night we went to the Erzurum Evleri restaurant, although it feels like partly an Ottoman museum as well. They have taken five Ottoman houses, connected them together and decorated them with Ottoman-era bric-a-brac. The result is a labyrinthine maze of rooms done up in different styles with cushions on the floor, raised rooms and little cul de sacs. Walking through the place is an adventure in itself. We eventually settled in an old fireplace near with a stove around the corner heating the place where we had yoghurt soup and kebabs with rice.
The next morning brought a bright and sunny day and we walked through town, past all the shops selling massive tea urns, and into the hills. We took a shortcut through a field full of goats tended by an old man and walked up towards the old fort which overlooks town. There was no-one else around other than a random guy who assured us with sign language that it was fine to walk up the road despite a threatening looking military sign posted next to the gate. When we came back down he had locked the gate behind us so we had to gingerly climb over the barbed wire fence. The view from the fort was fantastic and we were the only people up there. Quite a modern structure, it was flat and built into the hill – but climbing on to the grass roof gave us a lungful of fresh snowy air and an amazing view of the surrounding mountains.
The trip south from Trabzon on the coast to here was similarly spectacular as we wound through wide mountain roads with our hearts in our mouth occasionally since the bus driver veered into the opposing lane to cut corners, a particularly Turkish driving habit. We were held up at one point as bulldozers cleared the road of debris caused by the melting snow loosening the scree. Eastern Turkey was shaping up as a journey off the typical tourist path in Turkey and the chilled early Spring air made a refreshing change from the humidity of Africa.
We weren’t expecting much from Trabzon thanks to the guidebook lowering our expectations, making it sound like a working port town full of sailors and prostitutes. For all we know they are there in big numbers but the town also has a large and lively main square with everyone sitting out having their cups of tea under the trees and dining al fresco, even on the chilly week night we arrived.
We came by bus and got a taxi through the narrow hilly streets. Most of the town is perched on a hill above the Black Sea and they don’t make much use of the coastline. You have to cross a major highway to get there and it’s mainly an industrial looking port, so we spent the majority of our time in the hilly part of town. After checking into another small room smelling of stale smoke, which felt like they hadn’t opened the windows since the start of winter, we strolled into the central square and had a nice dinner on the pavement. I had an iskender kebab which is simply lamb kebab meat covered with a buttery tomato sauce with sour yoghurt. It’s quite good. Trabzon also has an amazing halva store. Halva is a sugary almond and butter based sweet which we had as part of almost every breakfast in Jordan. It’s found in many places but seemed most popular on the Black Sea coast in Turkey. This particular store had enormous blocks of halva in the window which looked like loaves of bread, to draw you in. We stopped to take photos of it and then asked the proprietor for what must have been a pitifully small order because he kindly let us have it for free.
Trabzon has an amazing Byzantine-era church named Aya Sofya. It sits on a small hill commanding incredible views of the coast. It dates from the middle 1200s when the Byzantine empire was in charge of this part of the world and exuding a very Orthodox Christian influence. Despite the years and some neglect, frescoes detailing Bible stories cover the walls and are in remarkable condition, still bright and detailed in parts. It’s easy to imagine the church in full glory when it would have been as impressively gaudy as the Sistine Chapel.
We walked back through the suburbs from this church taking in the old city walls which are still grandly towering above modernity and then took a dolmus to the other well known spot in town, the Boztepe hill. Ordu has a pretty nice hill overlooking the coast but it’s trumped by Trabzon which has a stupendous view. We got there by sunset and enjoyed watching everyone get a samovar of fresh tea, which, as caffeine-free freaks, we did not partake of. It blows people’s minds in Turkey when you inform them that you don’t drink tea. They’re at a bit of a loss as to what to do with you, so common a social ritual is the offering and accepting of tea. We had orange tea in places (really just hot cordial), the chemical apple tea, fresh apple tea which doesn’t taste of much, and rosehip tea, which was a good substitute but not widely available. Turks drink little glass cups of tea constantly (25 cups a day is not uncommon), usually with 2-3 sugar cubes, and the tea hawkers ply their trade everywhere – including on ferries, buses, in shops and on the street. There would be a revolution if Turks could not sip their tea every day. We saw barely a soul drink Turkish coffee despite that drink being the more famous in Australia.
Trabzon is also the closest city to the Sumela monastery which is one of those landmarks that you wonder how you never knew about before. We were driven in a tour van up through gorgeous mountain scenery with the spring streams running full. There was still some snow at the base of the pine trees with soaring mountains in the background. You round a bend in the round and there in the distance, literally carved out of the mountain, is the monastery. You couldn’t imagine a more picturesque setting.
The monastery was built in the 4th century and is plastered with bright frescoes depicting stories from the bible, which are still in remarkably good condition. It would have been a cold and lonely post in winter but on the day we were there it seemed like a very pleasant and fresh place. We ate lunch next to a roaring river before heading back to town.
If I had followed the tourist trail strictly we should have gone to Sinop next, the start of the interesting bit of the Turkish Black Sea Coast. As it was I couldn’t find a direct bus from Safronbolu to Sinop and it seemed much simpler to go to Samsun, a larger town further east along the coast which would get us closer to the eastern half of this very long country. Even with almost two months here it’s impossible to see everything in Turkey and as we always say at such moments, it’s good to leave some things to come back for.
Samsun was much better than we expected. The guide book painted it as a transport hub and not much more but it has a vibrant feel thanks to a large university population and a well developed harbour foreshore. We stayed in a small room and had a cheap but delicious pide for dinner. I could eat pide every day, fresh out of the oven with a crispy skin and fresh fillings. They were universally good during our travels.
In the park opposite our hotel we found exercise equipment that seems to be in almost every park in Turkey. Plump older women in tracksuits and headscarfs submit themselves to these devices that would make a chiropractor lick their lips in anticipation. You can twist, swing your legs with abandon or twirl steering wheels with each hand. Sarah got quite taken with the walking exerciser but woke up the next morning with a buggered back. To be fair, that could also be due to lots of sitting on buses, rigorous hammam massages and the 50 kilometre cycle we did in Gokceada.
Also in the park and a feature of many in Turkey is the statue of Ataturk riding a rearing horse with large testicles. I mean to say that the horse is depicted with large testicles but the inference is clear. Ataturk is still revered in Turkey which is interesting for a dictator whose party was summarised as :”For the people, in spite of the people”. Ataturk really arrived on the political scene after the First World War where he was one of the few military heroes to emerge during his handling of troops during the Gallipoli campaign. As the Ottoman empire teetered he drove Turkish nationalism forward with an iron will, fighting campaigns on many fronts to secure the lands of what is modern day Turkey. This would be impressive enough on its own but he didn’t stop there. He saw Europe as modern and thought that Turkey should become modern like Europe. He ended the sultanate???, banned the caliphate and turned Turkey into a secular state. He banned the wearing of the fez and vastly reduced the power of the whirling dervish sects, not banning them outright but turning them into a society rather than a religious and political force. He wore suits and European style hats and encouraged everyone else to do the same. Women were given more equal rights and access to education. Arabic script was changed to a new Turkish language which was based on the Latin alphabet with some additional characters. Some Turkish towns were so small that people only had one name. Ataturk forced everyone to take a surname and books with suggested names were sent to everyone. Ataturk himself, previously named Mustafa Kemal adopted the Atuturk name, which immodestly translates to “Father of the Turks”. All of this was enforced on the Turkish people with a ruthless single-mindedness. Opposition was not tolerated.
Incredibly all of this upheaval seems to have happened relatively peacefully. Turkey withdrew from international affairs and despite some advances from Communist Russia, Ataturk felt that this style of politics would not suit the nature of Turkish people. His reforms did modernise the country but have left some unwanted legacies. While an authoritarian state was necessary to make all these changes, the oppressive tendencies of the Turkish state have remained. Freedom of the press is still a major issue. A strong political opposition in Turkey has also been rare with the military intervening numerous times to remove unpopular governments which it views as straying from Ataturk’s vision. The generals in Turkey have been the power behind the government in not-so-subtle ways with a military committee needed to approve parliamentary decisions. Despite the popularity of Islamic parties some see secularism as more important than democracy and fight these opposition parties for fear of Turkey’s government becoming too religious . Still, with the scope of Ataturk’s vision and the success of his implementation it is incredible that a figure whom Churchill described as a genius is not better known outside his homeland.
We rented a car in Samsun and Sarah braved driving the Turkish roads, my licence having conveniently expired. Turkish drivers hit the road at speed, never indicate and have this odd habit of drifting halfway into the other lane which was also a feature of driving in Jordan so perhaps is an Arabic style? We did manage to get off the main roads as we’d rented the car specifically to drive along an old highway that winds around a portion of the Black Sea coast (having being bypassed by a new freeway with tunnels). The old highway twists along the water with sections carved through the hills, which head steeply down to the water. New bright pink blossom was everyone – the region is famous for its cherries, something we took advantage of daily with a sour cherry juice and sour cherry jam at breakfast.
This section of road contains a beautiful, small, old church dedicated to Jason and the Argonauts who as legend has it travelled along this coast in his search for the golden fleece. The fishermen would come here to pray for a successful trip to sea. Also nearby is reputedly the best beach on the Black Sea coast, which is not saying much for the others. Sarah will claim to have swum in the Black Sea but this is a vast exaggeration, she barely got her ankles wet. Even that was a chilling experience. The Black Sea is not as ominous looking as the name suggests but it would still take a long and powerful summer to make it an enjoyable place to swim.
We ended up in Ordu for lunch, another fish special on the pier with some Russian looking gentlemen puffing away like chimneys at a nearby table. This part of the world has a definite Russian feel which is hard to attribute to any one thing. The urban architecture of blocky apartment buildings and tractors next to cars on the roads is part of it, as is the cooler climate and dark pine trees on the mountains. But maybe it was just knowing that Russia and the Ukraine were just over the waters. Ordu improbably has a chairlift which takes you up a nearby mountain for a better view of the coast.
The towns along the coast are much bigger than we were expecting and development seems to have taken precedence over style, but the scenery was beautiful and it felt like we were heading further into the ‘real’ Turkey.
The small town of Safranbolu, huddled in a valley and surrounded by snow-topped mountains, looks like it has not changed since the Ottoman empire collapsed. Unlike much of Turkey, where the pressure of population growth has seen bland concrete apartments constructed, Safronbolu has managed to retain its original charm despite still being both lived in and a popular tourist destination – although it’s possible we would revise our opinion if we visited in the height of summer. The houses look like they’re fresh from the pages of a fairy tale. Even our hotel felt like it should be a living museum with its amazing carved wooden ceiling, bench seats covered with Turkish carpets and a view of the mosque outside the window through the blossom buds. In fact, there was a museum two doors down from the hotel showing how people lived in Ottoman houses and I think our hotel looked very similar.
There’s not much to occupy you in Safranbolu other than looking at the architecture, eating saffron infused sweets and walking the streets – it was delightful. Later we came across a Turkish film production, a period piece taking advantage of this frozen-in-time location. They helpfully pointed out the way to the restaurant we wanted to try where it felt like we were being served by Grandma who showed us what was in her pots on top of the stove, and we pointed at what we liked the look of. Sarah then subjected herself to a hammam, the Turkish bathhouse, which I refuse to enter for fear of permanent injury in a sudsy wrestling match. Sarah managed ok (they go easier on the women) and just had another stout Grandma type in her undies and bra cover her in suds and rub her all over. It’s not an erotic picture but warmed her up at least.
The call to prayer in the morning was piercing. It shattered the pre-dawn calm and sounded like it went echoing off down the valley, although it is just as likely that this was other mosques in the area a beat or two behind. At the end of every call here there was a couple of loud beeps which must have been the microphone being turned off, but it sounded like the muezzins were hanging up on their direct line to god. As a special treat we recorded the call to prayer so that you can relive what we heard five times a day throughout our time in Turkey. We love it.
In travelling from Istanbul to Eceabat, the Gallipoli peninsula and Gockeada island we had been exclusively in the small European side of Turkey. The vast majority of the country is on the Asian side which is anything south of the Black Sea. This sea leads into the Bosphorus Strait dividing the European and Asian sides of Istanbul, into the Sea of Marmara entirely surrounded by Turkey and leading to the Dardanelles with the European Gallipoli peninsular to the North and the rest of the Aegean Turkish coast to the South.
This long-winded explanation is to explain that by catching the ferry from Gockeada to the Gallipoli peninsula and then another ferry across the Dardanelles we had entered Asian Turkey at the city of Canakkale, not that you would know it. It’s Asian in name only and like the rest of the Western coast of Turkey it has a very Mediterranean feel. We had fresh grilled fish for dinner in a cute little waterside restaurant and I tried the life blood of Turkish drinking, raki, otherwise known locally as ‘lion’s milk’ for the way the clear spirit becomes cloudy when mixed with water, which is how everyone drinks it. Raki is the most popular drink in Turkey and is most similar to ouzo, although they would claim that raki is much better. It is a good food drink and goes very well with fresh fish. I dare say I could cultivate a taste for it, but hopefully not to the extent that Ataturk did. Raki pulled him into the grave via cirrhosis of the liver, but more on the impressive Turkish independence leader later.
Canakkale is famous for two things. The first is hosting Antipodeans during ANZAC Day commemorations, although the Turks have their own celebrations on the 18th of March, the anniversary of when the Allied ships tried to bombard the forts in the area into submission and instead lost several ships to mines. The other famed attraction is the ancient city of Troy. Canakkale is the nearest big city and as such they have the honour of housing the wooden horse from the execrable modern film version of the Troy legend. I’ll cover ANZAC Day in a later post.
Although the ruins of Troy are given short shrift in many guides, and are admittedly not on the grand Roman scale of other sites, there is something in the air when standing on the ancient mounds looking at the setting described in Homer’s Iliad. The landscape is beautiful, vast plains being farmed, grassland peppered with flowers and a small hill which contains the nine ruined cities of Troy jumbled up together in their urban tomb. The site is difficult to get a grasp on as the cities have crumbled together and excavation is not complete, and may be impossible to finish in any coherent way, but enough of the walls and rooms have been exposed to give an impression of the place and it’s hard not to feel the force of history here in so celebrated a spot. Even out of tourist season there were crowds of German tourists being led around and a crowd of cats begging food from them. The German archaeologist Schliemann was the first to uncover Troy and he looted the jewellery that he found, mistaking it for jewellery of Homer’s Troy when it was in fact from a much earlier period. He had a very uncivilised approach to excavation initially. He dug an enormous trench right through the middle of the city, destroying much of it in the process, but he gets credit for discovering the site and apparently he became more circumspect in his approach in later years.
Getting around Turkey after the trials of Africa is blissfully easy. The big coaches are comfortable and modern, many with wifi access and all with free soft drinks and snacks served by a waiter moving up and down the aisle. In addition to that they offer free pickup from the centre of town in smaller mini buses that take you out to the main bus station. It could not be more convenient. For smaller trips there is the dolmus (pronounced like doll-moosh) which are the Turkish version of the dalla-dalla or bush taxi in Tanzania. Unlike their African equivalent the dolmus drivers do not try to break the world record for most number of people in a minivan. Everyone gets their own seat and possibly there will be one or two standing for a short time. Dolmuses travel set routes but will pick up or drop off passengers anywhere along it, rather than at fixed stops. The dolmus system would be the perfect public transport solution for Canberra where buses come infrequently and struggle to fill up, while taxis are exorbitantly expensive. Who better to man Canberra dolmuses than all the retired public servants who could get out of the house and meet new and interesting people? We think it would make a huge improvement to life in the capital.
From Canakkale we passed through Bandirma, staying overnight in a super cheap but comfortable hotel with a nice view of the harbour on the Sea of Marmara. We had a super cheap dinner to match the hotel room but it was super delicious. There is a type of restaurant in Turkey known as the lokantası that does a small buffet from which you compose your own meal, but not in the Western sense where food is left sitting for days. This stuff is freshly cooked and excellent. You just point at the rice and the bean stew and they arrive at your table with a massive basket of fresh bread. Happy days. Bandirma was also the location of a nice piece of Turkish honesty. Everyone we met in Turkey was friendly and there was remarkably little hassle but the taxi driver in Bandirma made us feel bad for haggling with him. We were still in African mode and bargaining for how much the ride from the bus station into town would cost. He told us that it would be 20 lira (about $10) but we said, no, no, 15 lira. That’s when he pointed out that he had a meter which made haggling redundant. It was a reasonable distance into town and when we arrived at the port the money owing on the meter was 23.16. I gave him a 20 and a 10 but he refused to take the 10, saying that he quoted us 20 so that’s all he would take. It was a small gesture but very kind. Then there was the young guy who bought us a chocolate bar each just to be genial. They really are a kind people.
In the morning we caught the fast ferry from Bandirma back to Istanbul, disappearing into this inland sea, as big as a Canadian superior lake. After picking up our Indian visa in the capital of capitals it was time to head out east, along the Black Sea coast, starting with the Ottoman town of Safranbolu.
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