We checked in to our hotel (it was bright orange and silver outside, with flamingo-pink rooms, pretty darn fun), where they gave us the top floor room with city views from 2 sides. They were pretty excited to have us stay there, the front desk staff also brought us tea to our room and called to ask if we needed anything else. I think at least some of it had to do with the fact that they were like 20-year-old guys who clearly did not spend much time around girls of a similar age...
Anyway, we set out to find dinner, which is surprisingly difficult in places that really celebrate Ramazan if you're trying to eat after Iftar: restaurants open for the Iftar meal, everyone eats exactly at sundown, and if you get there later, there is no food. We ran into this problem in Diyarbakir, but finally found this back-alley 3-storey restaurant with an open table on their roof, and had a great meal of kebaps and roasted vegetables while watching cats fight in the ruined house below our rooftop seats. On our way back from dinner, we stopped at a han (old caravansary) and spent some time looking at/learning about carpets and chatting with a very nice shop owner. Protip: the cheapest carpets (and they were beautiful) I've seen in Turkey are in Diyarbakir.
The next day we got up bright and early to explore the city. Diyarbakir, like Van, has breakfast salons, which are a fantastic idea: they have full breakfast menus, but will generally just bring you a full Turkish breakfast: boiled egg, honey, thick cream, several kinds of cheeses, olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, and lots of bread to eat everything with. It's a good start to the day, especially if (like me) one is not a morning person.
From breakfast, we checked out bus prices to Urfa and climbed the city walls for a bit, getting increasingly perturbed by the Incredibly Loud Explosions we kept hearing. The packs of small children running around with guns also were a little disconcerting. We finally figured it out: the kids had all been given toy (...mostly toy) guns for Seker Bayram, and were out in the streets having epic gun battles with their friends, shooting up the town with pop-cap guns, BB guns, and fireworks for added effect. They also were smoking up a storm, but that's more normal for the area than gun-toting child gangs.
This is, on a micro level, what we found in Diyarbakir; I took this in the old Armenian Church, where these kids live with their families. These kids are pretty young--the older ones were out in the streets having more intense mock battles.
So we explored the walls, which are really fun to clamber over, and have stunning views of the Tigris River Valley (...and the poor section of Old Diyarbakir on the other side).
After that, we headed over to the Chaldean Church, which I'd not seen the last time I'd been in town. It was beautiful, and still in use, albeit by like 4 families (not a lot of religious minorities in Diyarbakir, really). We got a tour by the very nice caretaker, who also gave us Bayram candy (Seker Bayram is a little like Halloween in that kids go around to all their neighbors and relatives to get candy and money). We then headed to the old Armenian Catholic Church, which is not functioning as it has no roof or interior contents. It is beautiful though. From there, we dodged the rain on our way over to the Syrian Orthodox Church, which is designed a bit more like Byzantine churches, and still in use. At each church, families lived in the courtyards; I can't imagine what it must be like to grow up living in a church, they all seemed pretty proud of where they lived though. And the courtyards were pretty cute.
The Chaldean Catholic Church
The Armenian Catholic Church
The Syrian Orthodox Church
After seeing the churches, we wound our way through several back alleys to find Taranci'nin Evi, or the poet Cahit Sitki Taranci's house, which is now a museum. It was pretty simple, with models of late Ottoman daily life and samples of Taranci's work and correspondence. I really enjoyed it, because Taranci is one of my favorite Turkish poets, and I spent a lot of time translating him for my directed study a few years ago. While at Taranci'nin Evi, we ran into some teenage girls in Diyarbakir with family for Bayram. They were really nice, and we chatted for a while about school, what we were doing in the region, and such. After we left the poet's house, we ran into them in another part of the city; they were so bubbly and eager to talk with us, and we were more than happy to speak more Turkish.
Taranci'nin Evi
By this time it was getting to be about time for our bus to Sanliurfa, so we looked around for a restaurant, decided we weren't that hungry, and then found...an egg sandwich stand! Those of you who were in Niger with me might remember that I'm quite a big fan of the humble egg sandwich; it's pretty much the perfect meal, and not too big. This one sadly had no onions or Maggi, and had Turkish ketchup instead, but was really good. We enjoyed our sandwiches and then ambled over to find the bus to the otogar, where we headed out of town to Sanliurfa, arriving late that night.
I find it odd that I've been to Diyarbakir twice now and both times seen guns in the streets and heard explosions in the air, but both times were not normal days for Diyarbakirlis. There's something about that city though, I really love it, and I think it might be my favorite city in Turkey. I certainly will be back.
Alright, that's more than enough for now; as the pics above suggest, I've loads of new photos up on Flickr; the ones of Diyarbakir's Armenian Church are particularly good, for my usual photography standards (if I do say so myself). Hopefully I can get the rest of Bayram up here soon and then move on to more recent things, finally...
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