Day 131: Sunrise on Mt. Nemrud – Karakut, Turkey

(Him: Charlie)

For a second time in a week, we woke up in pitch dark to see sunrise. This time around, instead of from a hot air balloon (in Cappadocia), we are atop a majestic mountain, with gigantic sculpture of various gods, and a possible tomb of King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene.

The King was a full-of-himself maniac, who constructed huge sculptures on top of the lofty mountain. Over the years, the heads of the figures had fallen off to their feet, but the mystical yet majestic feel continue to impress every tourist! When the sun started beaming at sunrise, spreading a golden coating on the sculptures, it was truly a magical moment!

Day 130: 28 Hours From Central Turkey To Sea-Side Georgia

(Her: Joanna)

Like most of our trip, we ended up leaving Turkey 2 days earlier than planned.  After Mount Nemrut, we didn’t know how but we know that we need to go to the Black Sea coast to get to Georgia.  An adventure started!  We have no idea where we will end up tonight.  Cool! 

The adventure didn’t start out well.  We were on the road side waiting for a mini-bus to a small town where we were told we can catch a bus to a transportation hub that hopefully we will be able to find something overnight on the way to the Black Sea coast.  We forgot that it was Sunday and transportation is usually less frequent. 

There’s always something good you can find from the worst situation.  If we hadn’t have to wait for almost 2 hours on the road side for the bus, we wouldn’t meet a friendly guy from Istanbul who gave us home grown figs and something that’s like fruit-on-the-go; then 2 kids from town who helped us find out the bus schedule and bought us ice cold water from their neighbor. 

Finally, we cramped into the bus we needed to catch.  The definition of a full bus is quite different in Turkey.  When all the seats that comes with the car is full, you can always squeeze in a few more people on plastic chairs to take up the tiny isle space.

Someone on the bus knew how to speak English and confirmed for us that the mini-bus will drop us where we can take another bus to the town we planned to go.  We caught the bus no problem and arrived Diyarbakir.  The only problem is that we arrived the mini-bus station instead of the bus station that we passed by but we didn’t know we need to get off.  When we looked lost, a kid popped by to offer help and led us to a mini-bus that he said can take us to the bus station. 

After a good hour of zig sagging through the town where the bus driver seems to want to pile as much people to his van as possible, he told us to get off to walk across the street to the bus station.  Everyone were so confused and later found out that we have to climb through a construction site to get to the bus station. 

Finally we go to the bus station at Diyarbakir and found an overnight bus that can get us to Trabzon on the Black Sea coast.

We got to Trabzon at 8 AM in the morning and found a 9:30 AM bus that can get us to Batumi in Georgia.  Little did we know that this 206 KM distance took over 5 hours.  Firstly, the bus stopped at every single town between Trabzon and Hopa, where the Turkey-Georgian border is.   Then, everyone had to get off and line up at the Turkish border to exit.  The only issue was that there was only 1 officer at the border.  Everyone was pushing and jamming into the queue.  It was chaotic and unexpected given Turkey is a country heading into EU. 

What a contrast to the Georgian side!  We were greeted with a brand new building and friendly staff with proper queue system.  There is even a tourist office within the building at the border.  I think this is the first country that got it right to have a tourist office right at the border.  I’m feeling good about our upcoming visit at Georgia.  

Day 129: The Next Canadian Pride – Diyabakir, Turkey

(Him: Charlie)

Canadians are a proud bunch! The national pride is most vividly shown on July 1 across the nation, when red/white paint takes up kid’s face and maple leaf flags dot every street. Canadians are also proud of Canadian inventions too. From snowshoes to basketball, to telephone, most Canadians can name them as if they invented them.

In the last decades or so, the Canadian pride would have to be the once mighty telecom conglomerate Nortel and, the most recently, RIM. The latter pushed the Canadian pride to a lofty height by almost bringing the Coyotes back to Ontario!!

Fast forward to present day, Nortel has vanished and lackluster RIM is far from the superstar it used to be. What goes with them, perhaps, is a dent in the pride on Canadian inventions? If that’s the case, I’ve found a very competent candidate for some celebration – the Just-for-Laugh TV program!

This Montreal based TV program, which plays jokes/pranks on people, is hilarious and does not require any language skills to understand. I suggest it should a Canadian pride because the program is being played everywhere in the world. I have personally seen it on airplanes, buses, European countries, and most recently, today in Turkey!

Most people may guess it’s a program from the US or Europe, but just like people couldn’t guess the origin of basketball, Canadians can come up with amazing things!

Perhaps the next time Canada hosts an international event, the Just-for-Laugh green monster can jump out to greet our visitors, just like “Mr. Bean” did at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Day 127: Life of a Kurdish

(Her: Joanna)

I randomly came across a trip advisor review about a Kurdish village home stay when we were loading up maps of the next city we are heading to.  Both Charlie and I were thinking “Cool!”.  That’s exactly what we want to see.  We decided to squeeze in a night at the home stay and email the organizer.  Likely, she replied almost instantly.  Not knowing how to get to this town and the schedule of the buses, smartly, Charlie asked the owner of the place we stayed (via Google Translate).  Sweet! 

Unexpectedly, we were picked up by a really nice Fiat mini-van by a guy dressed in traditional Kurdish pant, sharwaal (like what Charlie was wearing in the pic) but speaks really good English.  I was a bit confused.  After a 15 minute drive from the town Hilvan, we arrived the village of Yucavali. 

We were greeted by the host, who is a 19 year-old local boy and speaks really good English, his mom, and dad.  We were invited to sit in their garden filled with fruit trees (and chickens and turkeys running around) and had tea, of course.  It wasn’t anything fancy but really raw and neat.  There were 2 other guests from California joined us.  Though the host was so young, he was very composed and organized.  He gave us a briefing of the village, their tradition, and the history of the community project, which the Home Stay is part of it. 

Kurdish people used to be nomadic until 7-8 generations prior.  You can still see some tradition from their currently living style.  Even though they live in a house, they sleep outside the house in the summer time or on the roof.  The house is sparsely furnished with essential equipments.  Surprisingly, the living/dining/napping room has AC.  Thank God to that as it was crazily hot in the middle of the day which the AC made the heat a lot more bearable. 

The main living area is lined with carpet and cushions.  During meal time, the area will be lined with a table cloth where we ate.  There’s no shower or bath.  It is plain old school pouring hot water into a bucket, mix with cold water, and splash yourself clean.  It is my first time washing myself like this.  We have access to steamy, hot water to shower anytime in the day.  Often we forgot that it is a lot of effort and a lot of energy is being used to bring us such luxury and comfort.   

It seems like that most work end up on the shoulder of the women in the household.  I woke up at 6 am to check out what the mom does in the morning.  The host’s mom was already awake by the time I got out of bed and finished sweeping and cleaning the front porch, and gathered a bunch of branches.  She quickly fed the chicken and milk the cow with well trained skill and speed before she set up to make bread on the mud ground in front of the house.  You can see the strength of the host mom just by how she kneads the dough.     Not an easy job being a housewife in rural area.  The host mom showed me how to roll the dough into bread.  Though I thought my first Kurdish bread was a success,  I am not even close to her amazing skillfulness in multi-tasking between roll the bread dough, keeping up a steady fire to bake the bread while baking the bread on the metal plate that requires constantly flipping and turning to avoid it from being burnt.  My piece of bread never made it to the breakfast table but a nice meal for the chicken.

From the eye of a city person like me, the life of these villagers is tough and they seem to be very poor.  However, they get to spend a lot of time around family and friends versus spending the bulk of your time at work; caring for and helping each other versus socializing with people that don’t truly matter;  spend time in nature, breath air and equally respecting nature versus spending time indoor with little exercise and develop all sorts of chronic disease; enjoying food they made organically versus constantly worried about the source or safety of food we purchase from supermarket where the bulk of our food are genetically engineered or mass produce in farms that ran like manufacturing.  Everything has its pros and cons.  Are city people really wealthier than villagers like them?  Like the host’s father said with a satisfying laughter, “I’m just a small farmer.”

When we ask the host whether he will inherit the farm and continue to live in the village, he gave us a shrew and said he wanted to work in the tourism industry while other family members can help his father out.  Though these villages are mostly secluded, as they get exposed more and more to the outside world and man-made needs, more will give up their lives in the villages.  Less and less of them will appreciate what they have.

Day 121: A Fantastic Cultural Experience - Konya, Turkey

(Him: Charlie)

“Whirling Dervish”, when I first heard about it, I thought it’s a couple other English words that I didn’t know. But it turned out, I uncovered a whole new world that I have not heard of before. 

This “dance”, as part of a religious ceremony, is the legacy of the famous Muslim philosopher/poet, Rumi. As the dervish spin with the music, they would reach a trance state, and they get closer to god. By traveling to Konya, the place where Rumi lived and died, we had the opportunity to witness this intriguing ritual (aka Sema). The dance, or the concept, may sound funny to outsiders, but their devotion and dedication to god is definitely venerable.

Day 114: Sea of Tourists at Sea of Galilee

(Her: Joanna)

Because there is no bus running during the time of Sabbath, our plan to bus to the Sea of Galilee fell through.  With the time that we have, joining a tour was the best option though it was a bit pricey.   I was really excited to see these places that I have heard from church and the bible where Jesus lived his life and started preaching the gospel.   The story about his first miracle in turning water into wine (Cana), feeding 5000 people with only 5 pieces of bread and 2 fishes (Tabgha), and the place where his first few disciples started to follow him are all stories that I have grew up with (Capernaum).  I cannot tell what I expect from these places exactly but I am hoping I can find or feel traces of Jesus.  

Boy, was I disappointed.  Despite the fact that the Sea of Galilee was a beautiful place to spend a summer holiday, the places where significant events happened in Jesus life are now no more than any regular touristy place.  I cannot see or feel any association to the holiness I was expecting.  On the contrary, all these places are very touristy.  The worst was the Jordan River where Jesus was baptized by John.  Inside me, it hurts to such a religious place to be so commercialized.  There are different sizes of “Holy Water” you can buy and for the convenience of the tourists, the price is even in US dollar; tourists rushed to buy shirts with Jesus’ icon on and have a deep into the Jordan River; a full complex of souvenirs.  

Day 112 - 114: Jerusalem – Where is the holiness of the Holy Land?

(Her: Joanna)

Throughout our journey thus far, we came across a few where a few popular religions live “happily” and “peacefully” together, such as Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sofia in Bulgaria.   But none of these cities were these religions “live” together as dramatically as Jerusalem.  Muslim, Christian, and Jews with the same origin all live actively in this small city.  The somewhat “peace” in Jerusalem is thank to an order or rule book that the Ottoman Empire lay down detailing how the city will be run base on the snap shot when the order was recorded to eliminate any argument.  Whoever wants to change anything, everyone has to agree (which is nearly impossible).  It is quite bizarre that the same Muslim family has been locking the door of the Church of Sepulchre for over 500 years.

Bizarre and crazy are the perfect words to describe Jerusalem (and of course fascinating).  I have never seen so many religious people in one place.  Let alone religious people from 3 religions.  Everywhere you see people praying. 

Jerusalem is divided into 4 quarters – Jews quarter, Christian quarter, Muslim quarter and Armenian quarter (yeah…this is an odd one).  It is total craziness to see a street full of Muslim with ladies all covered up and see Orthodox Jews just around the corner who also dressed in black but with fashionable curly sideburn and big hat.

It seems like that the location where the foundation stone is seems to be the point of conflict.  The foundation stone is situated where the Dome of Rock in the Muslim ruling but this object is both the holy of holy for both Muslim and Jews.  Christians seems to be out of this conflict. 

It is quite bizarre to see people are so intensively touched by the holy objects and speculated location of where Jesus or Prophet Mohammed had been.  There is no evidence where exactly the places are but people just treat these places as the holy depending on your religion.  For example, there are 2 places where Jesus were crucified, died and was buried; there are 2 tombs of the Virgin Mary.  

I was bought up from a Catholic family.  I have always thought that the most important thing is my spiritual relationship with God being a person with a religion.  Rituals and ceremony are solely to assist a person’s relationship with God.  Being in Israel with so many people of different religion cramped in one country was an eye-opener for me to see how differently each religion and each person interpret the meaning of religion and their relationship with God.  Being on this land, I understand why religion has always been in the history of man a source of conflict.  I don’t feel that the Holy Land is a holy place.  What I see is the nature of human being – unfortunately, the ugly side of human being.