What a Weekend, Part 2

Hello again, folks,

I finally have time to update this a bit more, as I've handed in one term paper this afternoon, and the next isn't due for nearly a month. So, I'll finish updating on my trip last weekend:
First of all, as I can't upload any more photos on Flickr for a month, I'm posting the links to my Facebook albums from this trip:

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031030&l=55352&id=911357

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031038&l=78bd6&id=911357

http://bu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031046&l=dc2dc&id=911357

The first two albums are from Diyarbakir, the last is from Mardin and Urfa (or, as the locals call
it, "Sanliurfa" meaning Glorious Urfa)

Saturday morning, we checked out of our hotel in Diyarbakir, and got directions to "the minibus station," where the front desk clerk assured us we could get a dolmus to Mardin. We set off down the street, skirting the piles of broken glass from the bus stops and broken bottles, and after 10 minutes or so, came upon the minibus station. Except, it was pretty clearly abandoned, and appeared to have been abandoned for years. There were no busses, mini or otherwise, anywhere around the building. There were, however, several people setting up produce stands, so we asked one of them where the dolmus to Mardin was, and ended up being led to a bus to the city bus station by the vendor's son. We arrived at the bus station, got on the dolmus to Mardin, and were off. We were pretty lucky, as we snagged the last 2 seats on the dolmus; everyone else had to stand. I ended up sitting next to a really nice Turkish lady who shared her simit with us (she was very vehement about sharing her simit; she wouldn't take no for an answer!). They charged 6 lira, which I thought was a little high, but it was a posted price, so no bargaining. The dolmus made a few stops about ten minutes out of town to drop off some folks, which was really nice, because there were at least 35 people on the dolmus, and there were maybe 16, 17 seats. We were stopped by a police checkpoint, which was mildly exciting, but it went pretty smoothly: the gandarma asked for the IDs of the guys sitting next to the door, looked at it, talked to his superior, and let us go on. We arrived in Mardin a little disoriented, because the dolmus let us off at the western part of the old town, next to the main road, instead of the eastern part by the bus company offices, as Lonely Planet had said they'd do. We got ourselves sorted out and struck off for the bus company offices, to buy tickets to Urfa later that evening and to leave our luggage. Along the way, we saw a sign for Kirklar Kilisesi, which we recognized as being in our guidebook, so we stopped to visit. In English, the name is the Forty Martyrs Church, it's a 15th century church, and it's still in use. It was absolutely gorgeous, there were tapestries hangingon every spare patch of wall, the apse was incredibly beautiful, and the tabernacle was gorgeously ornate; I took lots of photos. As we were there, a big tour group came in, and we listened in to the tour leader, hoping to learn more about the church, but they were all German, so we remained unedified, and continued on to the bus companies. Again, we found that the prices were fixed and non-negotiable, at 15 lira, which was a big ripoff (I can get from Ankara to Istanbul for 12, and we paid 15 to go to Antalya from Ankara, which is 8 hours of travel, versus 3 and a half from Mardin to Urfa). After booking and paying, we set off again for the historic section of Mardin. We dove into the bazaar, which seemed to consist of the entire old town south of the main road, and windowshopped our way to the Ulu Cami (a lot of towns seem to have an Ulu Cami...), where we took photos of the minaret and the building; we didn't go inside, because even though the mosque itself was built in the 12th century, and by the Seljuks no less, the inside is supposed to be pretty plain, the result of damage to the mosque during the Kurdish rebellion in 1832. It seems like the Kurdish issue isn't such a recent thing... We went back into the bazaar and found ourselves back on the main road, next to the Sehiyide Camii, where we took photos of the minaret and the really impressive below-the-street entrance (I could probably publish a coffee table book of minaret photos by now...) before turning our attention to the attraction across the street: the post office. Lonely Planet calls the Mardin central post office the "most beautiful post office in Turkey," and I agree. It's housed in an old, beautifully restored caravanserai, with intricate architecture and the requisite shrine to Ataturk, of course. We headed back across the street to have tea at a cay salonu next to the mosque, and pondered what to see next. Mardin is built into a hillside, so each street climbs a little higher up the hillside, until at the very top a trail zigzags its way up to the kale (castle), which crowns the hill, and as we looked up towards the top of the hill, we decided to go for it. We hiked up sidestreets perpendicular to the main road that were actually steep staircases, past honey-colored buildings and little kids who just looked at the two odd foreigners and continued playing. We passed one man, who took a look at Le Xuan and called out "Ni Hao!" I called back "Women hen hao; ni hao ma?", and he just stopped and stared. He definitely hadn't expected me to know Chinese!
We left the last row of houses and started up the near-vertical trail, passing two women having a picnic lunch with their kids. As we made our way precariously up the fairly tractionless slope, the kids would scamper by, as agile as mountain goats. We finally made it to the top of the trail, where we discovered...barbed wire and chain link fencing surrounding the castle. We walked along the fenceline for awhile, hoping to find a gate or entrance, but didn't find either, so we settled down on the hilltop to take in the views of the city. Mardin looked very different from the other cities I'd seen in Turkey; the design of the buildings was more Middle-Eastern, it seemed as though we could've been looking at a Syrian town (although I haven't seen a Syrian town, so maybe they're entirely different). Just out of town, the phrase "ne mutlu Turkum diyene" was etched into a mountainside in giant letters, an interesting statement for a Kurdish nationalist hotspot (if I'm translating correctly, it means "How happy I am to call myself a Turk", and it's a quote by Ataturk). We trekked back down the mountain (slowly, precariously), and passed some goatherds with their goats, including some adorable kids (if I ever end up living anywhere other than a city, I want a pet goat). After making it back to the main street, we consulted our map and set off towards Mardin's star attraction: the Sultan Isa Medresesi. We wandered through some really twisty and steep streets for awhile before finding the medresesi, which is an Islamic school; from what I understand (and I know I don't perfectly undrestand the concept), it's very roughly the Islamic version of a Catholic school in the US, but with more religious instruction. It was closed, as it was the weekend, but we were able to see the really impressive recessed doorway, and to walk around it to the back, where we could see into the courtyard, which had really good views of the city. We wandered back down to the main street again, where we sought out a juice shop and had fresh-squeezed orange juice made from blood oranges, and window-shopped our way towards the bus companies, where we chilled for about 20 minutes before boarding the bus to Urfa. At 8:30ish, the bus dropped us off at a roundabout in Urfa (apparently, they didn't want to stop at the bus station), and we set off down the street towards one of the hotels in the guidebook. After walking for a while, we found a different hotel listed in LP, so we popped in to check it out and ended up staying there: it was pretty bare-bones, but it was 10 lira/person, which is really, really hard to beat short of sleeping on the streets.
The next morning, we woke up to a light rain, which was actually really nice. We set off towards Golbasi, the main tourist area, with the sites where Abraham was born and where he was flung out of a fire which subsequently turned into water, and with a complex of mosques. First, we went through the courtyard of Mevlid-i Halil Camii, which marks the spot where Abraham was born. It was beautiful: not many people were there, as there was a light drizzle, but the weather sharpened the colors of the stones and the trees. We ran into some Turkish women wearing Kurdish headscarves and asked them if they could show us how to wrap them, but it turned out they were also tourists, and had it done by the headscarf vendor. This was one of the first times we'd seen Turkish tourists, and as we walked around more of the complex, we saw tons of them. There were also a good deal of Iranian tourists, which was fascinating, as they walked around in large groups of chador-clad women. We stopped by the headscarf vendor, who wrapped our headscarves for us, and met a volunteer tour guide, Cebrail (pronounced "Gabriel"). He was a Junior in high school (or the Turkish equivalent), and wanted to practice his English guiding, as he planned to work in tourism after graduating. He brought us to the pools of water that supposedly contain the water that God turned the fire Abraham was burning into, and which are filled with the carp that were originally the coals in the aforementioned fire. The carp are sacred, and it's good luck to feed them, so I did, of course. Legend has it that anyone who catches one of these fish will go blind, so...no fishing for us. We then climbed up to Urfa's kale, which was huge and had great views of the city. From the kale, we could hear this steady drumbeat, and Cebrail told us that it was from a wedding celebration. As we looked around the gece kondular from the kale, we found the wedding celebration; it was pretty obvious once we noticed the line of people dancing in the streets. Apparently, Turkish weddings are 3 days long, and this particular wedding was on its last day, the day after the actual marraige; they were celebrating the fact that the bride had, indeed, been chaste.
We climbed back down from the kale, through a rock tunnel with absolutely huge stairs; they were not built for my legs! We went over to the Rizvaniye Vakfi Camii and the Halilur Rahman Camii, which both overlooked the ponds with the sacred carp. Halilur Rahman Camii marks the spot where Abraham fell to the ground after being flung from the fire (he landed on a bed of roses, so apparently he wasn't hurt too badly...). We were only allowed in the women's side, as it's a big pilgrimmage site, but it was still really nice; it had a sacred air to it, probably partly because everyone inside was so reverent. Rizvaniye Vakfi Camii was a little plain after seeing the other mosques, but it was quiet and empty, which was nice, and had a cozy feel to it; if I was Muslim and lived in Urfa, I'd want to go to Rizvaniye Vakfi Camii for my prayers.
By then, we were a little tired of Cebrail; nice as he was, he couldn't understand our Turkish and we couldn't understand his English, and he had showed us the touristy places and wanted to take us back to his house, which we didn't particularly want to do, so we set off towards the bazaar, which was mostly closed as it was a Sunday, but which had a kervanseray in the center which was supposed to have good tea. We had a nice cuppa, and headed out in the direction of the hotel section of town, telling Cebrail we were heading for our hotel and the bus station. We window-shopped our way back to the hotel, still accompanied by Cebrail, who offered to wait outside the hotel for us, which we politely declined. We met a lot of really nice Turks (and Kurds!), and I was really impressed by Turkish hospitality, but if anything they were a little too hospitable: in Diyarbakir our city walls-guides offered to meet us at our hotel the next day and accompany us around the city, the curator at the museum invited us to his village for the night, and then for the next day, and escorted us back to the main road, Ali the photojournalist invited us to hang out at his place, and to crash at his house to save on our hotel bill, and offered to meet us at our hotel the next day to show us around the city; in Urfa Cebrail invited us to his house, and offered to wait at our hotel to escort us to the bus station, and pretty much anyone that we asked for directions offered to escort us there. Oh, and pretty much everyone treated us to tea. It might be a cultural norm, but it was a bit overwhelming; and as two female travellers in a pretty tense and emotionally-charged region, it didn't seem wise to get off the beaten track much (unfortunately, it might have been different if we'd had a guy along...such are the realities of life, I suppose).
Back at the hotel, we sat in the lobby talking for 10 minutes or so before looking outside and noticing that it was pouring, so we stayed in and talked and watched some Turkish music videos. By the time it finally cleared up, we were about ready to head to the bus station, so we set off. We took the wrong fork in a road, where our map showed a cemetery on the wrong side of the street, but we were pointed in the right direction by some friendly Turkish ladies who seemed to be pretty used to foreigners getting lost in their back yard: they knew we were headed to the bus station, and called out to us in German that we were going the wrong way before switching to Turkish, which we understood much better. Once we were on the correct side of the cemetery, we made it to the bus station, and bargained the prive of our tickets to Ankara from 40 lira to 35, which was still high, but not too bad. We settled in the bus company office, and did some of our copious amounts of class reading before getting on the bus back to Ankara. We arrived in Ankara at 5:30 AM, and found that the dolmuses didn't start running til after 6, so we went into the bus station and killed time staring blankly (we were pretty darn tired) before catching a dolmus back to campus at 6:30. By 7, we were back in our dorm, with just enough time to check email and catch an hour of sleep before heading off to our morning class.
It was definitely one of my more memorable weekends; all in all, it was a great trip!

Hope you all are doing well,
Happy Belated Birthday, Kelly!
-R