Admin panel

Renés blog

Bla (:

Mardin

Posted Sat, 14 Feb 2015 15:33:12 GMT Turkey Traveling "Kurdistan"

I hitchhiked from Şanlıurfa to Kızıltepe with a truck and continued by bus to Mardin. My truck driver paid the bus to Mardin, as it was not on his route and he agreed to drive me to Mardin (It's not possible to decline a offer to get something paid in Turkey).

Mardin is a historic city built into a mountain at the edge of the Mesopotamian flats with a nice views over Mesopotamya. It features mosques, churches and a university.

  • Yenişehir (new city) of Mardin

  • Very narrow streets, a bit too narrow for some cars/drivers :)

  • The old town of Mardin at the planes of Mesopotamya in the background

  • The citadel of Mardin

My Couchsurfers were people trying to escape the reach of their family, because they don't give them much freedom. They were talking only little english and I found myself again in teaching some english words.

They showed me the full scope of turkish and kurdish hospitality by giving me way too much food. I had to eat all the food. At some point I started to stop eating long before I was full, so they made me only eat twice as much as I needed :)

  • Dinner prepared by my host

  • Breakfast made by the girlfriend of my host

Şanlıurfa and Harran

Posted Thu, 12 Feb 2015 17:00:13 GMT Turkey Traveling "Kurdistan"

After I arrived in Şanlıurfa and met Halil, my host in Urfa, we went to his language school, where he was learning english. I met his friend and teacher, Sinan, and I attended a english class. I was seated next to Sinan, and was asked some questions about me, my travels, german culture and Europe. In return I asked some questions to the students.

As Halil had to work turing the day, we met every evening at the language school and I attended two more classes with more questions. The classes consisted of people from 15 to about 40 years.

To my surprise, their english was a lot better, when Sinan was not present in the room. Sometimes it happened by accident, that we talked about politics (We said before we should try to avoid that topic). Erdoğan is not an easy topic to talk about, as he polarizes very strong. But most people were very open to talk about politics: "Istanbul is far away, here we can talk".

  • My class :)

  • Şanlıurfa

Şanliurfa is a very hard place when you are on a vegetarian diet. When I told Sinan and Halil, that I'm vegetarian, their first reaction was: "No meat, no life". It seems like most people in Urfa life by this mantra. It was really hard to find a restaurant which had vegetarian food on the menu.

We had breakfast in a "Vitamina": Yoghurt with honey, olives, warm cheese and fresh, warm bread. The only other local foods I had, was grilled chillies and a really good dessert called "Şıllık": Crepes made with nut flour topped with crushed nuts and fruit syrup.

  • Owner of vitamina breakfast restaurant

  • Feeding the fish at fish lake (on of the big tourist sites of Urfa)

I visited Harran, a historic city 50km south of Urfa. There I met a local guy who was studying to become a tour guide. He had two weeks off university and visited his parents in Harran. He showed me all around the town and explained its thousands years old history. In the end, he introduced me to Jamal, another local boy.

Jamal had a motorbike and made a 130km tour with me, to show me lots of other interesting sights in the region. We visited some old caves, (moon- and sun-) temples and rural villages. And we saw the new road, which was in construction, to prepare the region to be a new touristic spot in turkey. He said I might be one of the last tourists who visited, before the region is commercialized (The big roads will be finished in march).

  • Traditional house in Harran and my guide

  • Children on the way home after school

  • Village life

  • Construction of the new road for the tourists

Gaziantep

Posted Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:03:25 GMT Turkey Traveling "Kurdistan"

Antep is close to the Syrian border and made a lot of capitalistic progress in the last 10 years. This leads to a very interesting city. On my first day in Antep I met Turkish and Kurdish people, Syrian refugees, Europeans who volunteer in helping the Syrians and American capitalists who try to make money in Antep.

I met people who are very pro capitalism and people who are on the opposing side. This lead to many good discussions about capitalism and socialism. I got the impression, that turkey is making many mistakes which other capitalistic countries made before. Some turks believe money equals happiness, but forget about its consequences on people, the nature and life quality.

Initially I only wanted to stay one night, but the many discussions and interesting people made it worth to stay for 4 days.

  • The main shopping street of Antep

  • Mosque with traditional black and white pattern

  • My hosts chilling with some tea and hookah

  • Syrian kid at work

Antep is known all over turkey for its good food. Many people say it has the best kitchen in Turkey. You probably heard of Baklava before, it originates in Antep and is made with locally grown pistachios and wheat.

More dishes from Antep:

  • Atom, a beverage with lots of fruits, nuts and honey
  • Katmer, another sweet dish made with local nuts and lots of sugar
  • Gözleme, looks like filled crepes, but is made without eggs

One event describes very good, how hospitable and generous the local people are to foreigners. One day, I walked through the industry district of Antep on the way to a museum and got hungry. I went into a small restaurant and got lots of food and tea. The moment I wanted to pay, the owner of the restaurant said it was free for me and offered me to pay the bus to the museum for me. I refused as I needed a walk after three large plates of fried vegetables, smoked aubergines, chickpeas and bread.

  • Preparing Atom: Blended fruits, nuts and honey

  • Atom :)

I went to a 500 year old Hamam in Antep, "Tarihi Naib Hamamı". I expected to have sauna, pools and maybe some steam rooms. In reality it had one big hot stone and some rooms with washing basins. So it actually is a bath house. I paid a strong guy for "Kese" and massage. "Kese" is a strong scrub which feels like you got your skin peeled off.

  • Shoe cleaner

  • My favorite mosaik at the mosaik museum

Hitchhiking works really well in Turkey, as there's lots of helpful people and it's very common. I tried to hitchhike from Antep to Urfa and waited at the wrong spot. After 5 minutes of waiting, there were about 10 people explaining me in kurdish, syrian and turkish, that I'm at the wrong spot. Eventually one of them organized a car to the bus station and they paid me a bus to Urfa without a chance for me to refuse the money.

About Me

me

couchsurfing soundcloud

Last posts:

Archive:

Categories:

Wallaby-Blog. Used technologies and libraries.