Adventures with Old Maps, Buses, and Trusting Strangers

Maybe we shouldn't carry a guidebook that's 10 years old.

Well, we don't usually carry a guidebook at all.  Our experiment with Lonely Planet in Indonesia was a disaster--so much energy wasted on making sure we saw each and every temple (really, after two or three, they all look the same) and getting frustrated when the quoted prices were totally different than LP's estimates (and they always were).  Otherwise, we've been mostly guidebook-free, relying on internet research and asking around to make our way.

But then I ran across an old Turkey guidebook in Nepal for only 200-something rupees, and I couldn't pass it up.  I mean, Abraham's birthplace has been, well, Abraham's birthplace for the past 6,000 years, so certainly I could use the guidebook to research interesting cities and sites.

According to the map in the guidebook, Şanlıurfa's old city center is only 1 km east of the otogar, or bus terminal.  We stood facing east, looking down the road.  Not much in that direction, just dusty beige hills in the distance.  Hmm.

I popped my head into a bus and asked, "Şanlıurfa?"  The driver pointed to the other side of the road, the side that heads west.  Not east.  Hmm.

A man stopped his car on the other side of the road.  I think he was asking where we were going, and we said, "Şanlıurfa!"  He waved us to the other side of the road.  I looked at Dave, puzzled, then looked at the map again.  Yep, east is still on the right side of the page.  We want to go east.  Hmm.

The man flagged down a west-bound bus for us.  The driver actually exited the bus and waved at us.  Hmm...

I hesitated.

The man charged across the street like a testosterone-pumped bull charging a red cape.

Father Abraham (In a Purple Headscarf?)

After Mr. Turkish Bull got our stupid, foreign asses onto the right bus, we found ourselves in the middle of Şanlıurfa. On a whim, I dragged Dave into a bookstore, where I scored a pocket Turkish/ English dictionary for 3 lira.

This came in handy, as shortly thereafter we were mobbed by a dozen young boys who would be our friends for the afternoon. Twelve-year old Mahmut somehow had a Turkish/ English phrasebook with him, so we swapped phrases such as, "I hope you have a safe journey" and "How many children do you have?"

little mahmut in the white shirt next to dave

The boys decided to take us to "Fish Lake." As the legend goes, King Nimrod got really pissed off at Abraham and threw him into a fire. God/ Allah was all like, "Oh no you don't," and He turned the flames into water and the coals into carp. The fish in this pond are huge, glossy, and very excited to eat the pellet food sold by vendors in the park.

"fish lake" at dusk

The next day, we made a pilgrimage to the cave where Prophet Ibrahim/ Patriarch Abraham supposedly was born. The sign next to the door noted the segregated sides for men and women and requested that women to wear long skirts and headscarves (and to refrain from taking photos during prayer). Fortunately, I happened to wear my long skirt and to have a scarf in my bag.

entrance to ibrahim's/ abraham's cave

I don't think I would have taken any pictures, anyway. The mood inside the cave is pretty intense. Women swathed in the purple headscarves typical of Şanlıurfa sat on carpet squares in tight rows, either praying or sitting quietly. One woman was reading a beautiful Arabic Quran. Some women were filling up cups or bottles with holy water from a spigot. A little boy ran around, occasionally shrieking. One woman was crying.

It blew my mind to think that Abraham was born here, oh, plus or minus 4,000 years ago. And this city has been continuously inhabited for nearly 6,000 years! Even the historical Buddha was born "only" 2,500 years ago. Such history! And how lucky I am to have visited so many sacred places this year. Too bad Christians, Muslims, and Jews seem to forget that they are all children of Abraham...

urfa's citadel

After visiting Abraham's cave, we climbed to the top of the Şanlıurfa kale, or citadel, to enjoy the great views of the city. Highly recommended, it was a lovely little walk.

other tourists at the top

Şanlıurfa fashion is... distinctive. Many women wear traditional clothing: a velvet, floor length dress with a leather belt, a velvet cloak, and then another light brown cape. It reminds me of medieval dress. Both men and women wear purple headscarves, apparently all the rage this year. But there are also many women who wear trendy long skirts and snazzy, urbane long jackets.  This is Turkey: part West, part East, part modern, part traditional.

women in typical urfa dress

How could I resist? My lone Turkey souvenir is a trendy purple Urfa headscarf.

this picture destroys any chance at holding public office in the united states.
(i'm not sure i'm disappointed.)
but isn't it a pretty color?

Did Father Abraham wear a purple scarf?  I guess we'll never know...

Diyarbakir, My Heart (Or: How To Communicate Without a Shared Language)

We flew from Kathmandu to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.  The only thing I'll remember about the UAE is that drinking water is not freely available in the airport--guess that's what happens in the desert?  The flight from Sharjah to Istanbul didn't arrive until midnight, so in typical Davo and Nico style, we slept on the cold marble floor of Istanbul's Sabiha Gökçen Airport.  The following afternoon, we flew to Diyarbakir, a predominantly Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey.

Why Diyarbakir?  Why not.  ;-)

Ok, I'll stop being cheeky.  :-P  The well-worn grooves in the Asian backpacker tourist trail left me disillusioned with the potential for meaningful travel experiences.  I wanted to get a little farther off the beaten path.  Most tourists to Turkey stick to the western half of the country, but everything I've read highly recommends a visit to the eastern half.

Sold.

It was clear that we were the only foreigners on the flight to Diyarbakir.  Diyarbakir's airport terminal is smaller than Ithaca's.  All signs were in Turkish.  We said, "Otobüs" to some men in uniforms.  It worked!  The pointed us outside.  The bus driver knew only one English word:  "Yes."  Well, I guess it's time for adventure!

We were dropped off at some place near the old city.  I'm used to locals staring openly at me, and we sure drew some attention.  Within five minutes, a group of children had noticed our big backpacks and circled us like puppies wanting playtime.  A young woman shook Dave's hand vigorously and kissed my cheeks multiple times.  This was the pattern for the next few days:  someone talks to us loudly and slowly in Turkish, repeating the words again and again, as if that would help me magically understand (it's hilarious!!).

ercan, ugur, and another guy whose name i forget

Ten minutes later, three non-English speaking students befriended us and appointed themselves our unofficial tour guides for the evening.  Together, we toured the "mean streets" of Diyarbakir.  Diyarbakir had/has a bit of a bad reputation due to local activity by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), a terrorist organization according to the USA and the UN.  This is a poor city by Turkish standards, and my impression is that many Turks from the west find it backward, provincial, and conservative.  Young people frequently told me that they had 7 or 8 siblings.  A surprising number of men sit in teahouses in the middle of the day--unemployment is high.

We visited the city walls, the central bazar, and the Ulu Mosque, and we drank tea together.  The students identified themselves as Kurds, not Turks, and were very proud to teach us Kurdish words and to drink Kurdish tea.  Kurdish pride is everywhere and constant.  When the man selling me a bus ticket randomly indicated that Diyarbakir was Kurdish, not Turkish, I said "roj bash" ("hello" in Kurdish) to him, and I thought he would die of happiness on the spot.

woman wearing the white headscarf typical of diyarbakir

muhammed and sabra

As we were walking to our couchsurf host's apartment, a man stopped us to invite us to dinner at his home.  Muhammed, who is studying to be an imam (Islamic leader), lives with his mother and his sister.  We learned that his family is Zaza, which is related to but not the same as Kurdish.  His mother made an amazing vegetable dish of eggplant and tomato, served with bread and rice, with a drink of ayran (a watery yoghurt).  It was delicious!  When she saw Dave's bare feet, she insisted on giving him a pair of socks.  I liked her a lot, and I think she liked me, as well.

We spent this entire evening in the company of new friends who know maybe a dozen English words between them.  A shared language is not necessary for communication, nor is it necessary for a good time.  With the university students, we pantomimed our sentences like a three-hour game of charades.  Better entertainment than communication, but guaranteed to provide plenty of laughs!  At Muhammed's house, we used Google Translate to "talk" back-and-forth.  The translations aren't always perfect, but it's possible to talk about more than "I like ___" and "This is called ___ in my language."

on top of the city walls

The next day, we wandered around the old city again.  My journal lists twelve separate awesome interactions with Diyarbakir citizens, from someone who wanted to practice English with us to multiple invitations for tea.  The old itself has a medieval feel, a twisting maze of tiny streets flanked by ancient taupe buildings.  I had the best meal since New Zealand--some sort of cold eggplant dish with rice, fresh bread, and multiple salads.  Pomegranates, olives, and cheeses are sold on the street.  We climbed up onto the city walls and watched the sun set over the city.  There is nothing to interest tourists here, and that is precisely why I love Diyarbakir.

the courtyard of a centuries-old hotel,
back when europe was in the dark ages and the muslim world was the light of civilization

I couldn't take enough pictures to truly express our experiences, but here's a start:

Travelin' Buds, Part II

For 107 days, from July through October, Dave and I were never more than 10 meters apart.* In October, our traveling band grew, first including Jay, and later Charlie, Mike, and Chris. Another 33 days of sharing everything--from a room to details on bowel movements to decisions on where to go and what to eat.

That's a lot of together time, especially if you're an introvert.

Surprisingly, constant companionship hasn't driven me insane, nor has it ended my relationship with Dave. Travel has brought us closer; we know each other at a deeper level, and we're better buddies because of it.

Traveling with Jay was easy. A group of three is a manageable size, and Jay handled his first experience traveling in the developing world freakishly well, like he has been living in India for a decade.

Traveling with Charlie, Mike, and Chris was different. Five borders on a big group: to keep together in a crowd, to get a meal in a restaurant in under two hours, to make decisions. Mike and Chris often were unwell, too, so they weren't having a very good time. :-( As their “hosts,” Dave and I felt responsible, though there's not much we can do about a country's pollution, cultural differences, or diseases.  In the end, though, I had a good time with them, and I hope they can look back on their trip with amusing, maybe even fond, memories.

So what have we been doing for the past few weeks?

• Hanging out in Kathmandu, visited Patan and its Durbar Square
• Walked a few days of the Helambu trek to the north of Kathmandu (pictures here)
• Did a half-day jeep safari in Chitwan National Park, searching for rhinos and tigers and sloth bears, oh my! (pictures here)
• Chilled out in Pokhara and celebrated Mikey's birthday

sunrise in chitwan national park...  ooooo, jungle!

Davo and I are still in Pokhara; we'll be here about a week total until our flight from Kathmandu to Istanbul on 12/6.  We're using this time to learn about both Turkey and Israel and to put some thought into how we want to end this trip.  After 33 days of sharing his attention, it's so nice to have Dave to myself.  Other than relaxation, we have absolutely nothing planned for this week.  It's GREAT!

*Ok, that's an exaggeration, we were apart for 24 hours when he climbed Gunung Agung on Bali and I stayed in Ubud...

A Pilgrim on Thanksgiving

The historical Buddha was a man. Not a god or a demi-god, not created from the Holy Spirit—he was simply a human. On Thanksgiving Day, I became a pilgrim myself and visited Lumbini, the place of the Buddha's normal, messy, human birth.

hi, buddha

Lumbini isn't exactly Nepal's prime tourist attraction. Inside the Sacred Garden, the Maya Devi temple (named for Buddha's mother) encloses a stone, put into place a few millenia ago, which marks the spot where the Buddha was born. Just outside the temple, there is a sandstone pillar erected by the Emperor Akosha around 250 B.C. The brick-lined pond where Maya bathed before the birth is just around the corner. The Maya Devi temple is surrounded by sal trees covered in prayer flags on a grassy lawn.

maya devi temple, the pool, and akosha's pillar on the left

North of the Sacred Garden are monasteries and temples from every Buddhist country and several that are not (France, Germany). I stayed overnight in the Korean Monastery, which provides room and board for pilgrims and travelers for a nominal donation. The Korean Temple itself and the evening service held there were beautiful.

inside of the korean temple...  very beautiful

And that's about it. There's not much to see. Lumbini Bazar, the tiny village outside the park, has one street. Many of the temples and monasteries within the park are still under construction. If you're not Buddhist, there's not much of a reason to come here.

The local bus from Lumbini to Pokhara, where I met up with the guys, took 11 hours to cover 180 km, as it stopped every few hundred meters to pick up or drop off someone. Unfortunately, it didn't stop for bathroom or food breaks. The two women in the seats in front of me alternated vomiting out the window, so I sat on the roof of the bus for a while. When I went back inside the bus, a chicken shat on my foot. I'm not complaining, though—this was not the worst Nepali bus ride I've endured.

the bus from hell.  i recommend the roof rack seats.

The bus ride gave me plenty of time to think about pilgrims and pilgrimage. The obvious connection was between Pilgrim/ Thanksgiving and pilgrim/ Lumbini. But the first definition given by Merriam-Webster online is actually “one who journeys in foreign lands: wayfarer.” Under the usual religious devotee definition, the online Free Dictionary's defines pilgrim as “one who embarks on a quest for something conceived of as sacred.” By these definitions, I've been a pilgrim since February.

wayfarer

The end of the journey—the end of the quest, if you will—is nearly here. Lately, I've been reflecting on this trip, whether I've found something sacred, whether I've found anything at all, what happens once I reach the destination. I've determined...

I don't know!  I don't know what I'm doing in 2011.  I have no job, no home, nearly no possessions, not many ambitions.  I'm feeling, though, that the pilgrimage won't be complete when I land in New York City around the New Year.  Maybe, if I'm lucky, the pilgrimage will never be complete.

And that might be my deep thought of the week.

P.S.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Travelin' Buds, and a Third Trek

The last week has been all about friendship.

I met Nirit, an Israeli my age, while waiting for the flight out of the mountains.  Like me, she was also waiting for the flight; like Dave, her boyfriend was completing the trek.  We ended up sharing a room in Pokhara for a week while we waited for our sweeties to return from their trekking adventures.  I really enjoyed her companionship and her perspective.  Nirit is the first random stranger I've met on this adventure who I would visit in her home country.

Two days ago, we said goodbye to Jay, Dave's university friend who joined us for the Annapurna Circuit.  I hadn't met him until he showed up in Kathmandu, but I'd heard a lot about him from Dave and suspected we'd get along well.  Turns out, introduction from a mutual friend is a great way to meet new friends!  Jay has a snarky, witty sense of humor that kept me amused, even when I was sick.  He's super strong, a little crazy (perfect match for Davo), and an all-around decent guy.

The day Jay left Kathmandu, other friends arrived.  I heard the voice of my old roommate, Mikey, in the hallway.  I ran outside to give him a hug and found Chris, my other old roommate, coming up the stairs right next to him!  Those clowns had neglected to tell me that Chris was also coming along...  a total surprise.  Charlie, another acquaintance from Ithaca who is currently living in India, also joined us.

After Dave as my primary companion for the past 9 months--and only companion for the past 4--it's both exciting and strange to share experiences with others again!

Ok, so what else is new...  I spent a week in Pokhara, waiting for Dave and Jay to finish the trek.  Pokhara itself isn't that interesting.  Before and/or after their trek--because that's why people go to Pokhara--most tourists end up in Lakeside neighborhood, where there is plentiful accommodation, restaurants with menus in English, and souvenir shopping.  Other than eating, sleeping, and gift shopping...  uh...  there's a nice lake and a waterfall...  nothing new if you've lived in Ithaca for a decade.

Here are some photos from Pokhara:

And here are some photos from the three times I've passed through Kathmandu:

Aaand finally...  here are the pictures you really want to see:  the Annapurna Circuit.

Ok, upcoming plans:  we're leaving for our third (AND FINAL!) trek in the Helambu Valley tomorrow morning, 11/19.  We'll be back between 11/24 and 11/26.  No internet until then.  Onwards and upwards!


P.S.  I updated the "Greatest Hits" photo album...  check it out here!