Where the West melts into the East

For our last vacation in Turkey, Carson and I decided to head East to a part of the country that seemed to live more in legend for our Western students than anything else.

With words like Kurds, Honor Killings, and the PKK being thrown around we left knowing that it would be in far contrast to our first Bayram way back in September that was filled with sandy beaches and warm salty seas.

We flew into Trabzon to get things kicked off. While it was nice to be back on the Black Sea again and gaze towards Russia and the Ukraine, it was the Sumela Monastery that we were truly interested in. Getting an early start paid off and we enjoyed the vertical car ride, and even steeper hike up to what looked somewhat similar to “Dracula’s Crib”.

The Monastery stands at the foot of a steep cliff facing the Altındere valley about 1200 meters high. It was founded in the year 386 (during the reign of the Emperor Theodosius I, AD 375 – 395) by two Athenian priests – Barnabas and Sophronius. Legend states that they found an icon of the Virgin Mary in a cave on the mountain and decided to remain in order to establish the monastery. During its long history, the monastery has fallen into ruin several times and been restored by successive Emperors.

After spending a night cheering on Trabzon Spor (futbol) in a local pub with some serious fans, we were content to have seen and done all there was to see and do in Trabzon, and it was off to Erzurum.

From Erzurum on, the Turkish towns, peoples, and beliefs began to change.  The further east we ventured Turkish Nationalism was replaced with Socialist ideals and remnants of the Soviet Union’s influence. Perhaps most dramatically, Turks were replaced by Kurds. The one thing that perhaps did remain constant was the locals love of Obama, hatred of Bush, and Lonely Planet’s utter confusion when it came to maps and hotel locations of the towns.

Prepared to find a deeply conservative and remote lifestyle in Erzurum, Carson and I were more than a little tickled to be met with lingerie clothing stands on the streets and the always-insightful words of 50 Cent — the American rap artist. Perhaps the least interesting of any town we visited, after a half a day of site seeing and castle dwelling (along with a gorgeous sunset while perched upon the castle walls), it was off to Kars and a rendezvous with another good friend from our program, Emma Harper and her brother.

Kars itself was not necessarily our dream when it came to ideal destinations. We spent the first evening hiking to the local castle and checking out the unfinished (ironic?) friendship statue representing Armenia and Turkey.

An early wake up call and a new found love for Turkish Menemen (basically under cooked scrambled egg with glorious honey at its side) brought us to one of the highlights of our trip–Ani.

Our Kurdish hotel owner (turned taxi driver) drove us out towards the boarder of Armenia with the Kurdish radio blaring but drowned out by his own socialist ideals and human-first, Turkey-second world perspective spiel.

Ani is a stunning, uninhabited medieval city alongside the Tzaghkotzadzor valley which also happens to divide Turkey and Armenia.

Once the capital of a medieval Armenian kingdom, the “City of 1001 Churches” was strategically located for defensive purposes as well as for proximity to several of the great overland trading routes.

For the time period, Ani was considered one of the most technically and artistically advanced structures in the world.

Ani’s population of 100,000-200,000 people rivaled that of Constantinople and Cairo at its peak.

With immense and snow capped mountains looming to the West and Turkish check-points and watch towers overlooking Armenia to the East, to call Ani surreal is an understatement.

Happy to escape the rain and long dolmus (Turkish translation: “Stuffed” (think grape leaves)) bus rides we arrived at the small town of Dogubayazit, my personal favorite of the trip. With Mt. Ararat and perhaps Noah’s long lost arc looming nearby we wasted no time in hiking up to the main attraction: Ishak Pasha Palace.

An Ottoman-period palace constructed in 1685, Ishak Pasha is a rugged and remote counterpart to the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.

Serving as a rare example of historical Turkish palaces, the Palace is justly depicted on one side of the Turkish 100 new lira banknote.

Even more excited to be outside of a city than outside of a dolmus, we spent the remainder of the afternoon climbing in the nearby hills, the Koran blasting from valleys below.

Every so often, we had short glimpses of camouflaged Turkish military.

With a little free time to spare and the lure of a local waterfall in between Dogubayazit and Van, we found ourselves wandering in no-man’s land. In a strange turn of events, we were taken in by a group of Kurdish men who offered us breakfast and hospitality in exchange for our foreign stories and explanations of what brought us so far East.

We closed out a great vacation with a day and a half tour of Van. As the southernmost point of our road trip, Kurdish dancing and music was widespread.

Our first day in Van was spent atop a castle overlooking Van Lake, and the night ended beautifully as we met up with one of Carson’s Bilkent students, Rohat, whose uncle happens to own a very nice hotel and offered to wine and dine us on his bill alongside his extended family. With raki flowing and dish after dish picked clean, Rohat’s father took us through his younger years of traveling through nearby Azerbaijan, Iraq, Armenia, Iran, and Russia…impressively mastering at least 5 languages along the way.

Barely recovered from the previous nights food coma, we headed out for our last day of site seeing on Lake Van. Consisting of saline and soda, the lake is one of the world’s largest to have no outlet.

Interestingly enough, the original outlet was blocked when a nearby volcano erupted. As we headed out by boat to see Akdamar island and the Church of the Holy Cross, we were entertained with stories of the Great Van monster who stuffs its large and grotesque belly with foreign travelers and tourists. The cathedral was more than worth the Lake Monster risk as it contains the only surviving medieval Armenian church in which most of the wall paintings are still intact.

With a true Turkish shave to close out our last day which apparently includes them using a lighter to burn off the high cheek bone hairs, we returned to our last two months in Turkey clean shaven and nose hairs picked efficiently out.

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