Massive Mountains, Asian Turkey: Erzurum

Erzurum is not the most popular tourist destination in Eastern Turkey, but I want to get to know at least one more place except for Istanbul before leaving for Georgia and the description of a university town with some beautiful architecture monuments and a center of jewelry-making from a local black stone made me want to go inland for a few days. So I return to the bus station after just one day in Trabzon to get on another six hours bus trip. It will be the most most eerie bus ride on this whole trip, it's a real pity my camera was broken, but on the other hand not taking pictures maybe makes it easier to take in the vastness of this moonscape. Everything looks just completely out of scale. Nothing blocks my view in this nearly vegetation free part of the highland, countless flat cones with perfectly straight edges majestically fill the huge looking area to the horizon.
We pass by a truck that just fell off the road on that same day and turned over. When we take a break on a newly built, not yet fully functioning gas station I enjoy the crisp clear mountain air, chilly and dry for a change. The break, however, turns into a repair stop about five men take turns looking under the buses hood, but it doesn't seem to work. I have a fight with my phone which is erratically disconnecting and reconnecting, finally I manage to message my host in Erzurum. After about an hour we continue the trip. At some minor stop in the middle of this massive nowhere the conductor makes me change the bus and some hours late I arrive at Erzurum's modern bus station.

My hosts show me a bit of the town by car and invite me for traditional Turkish lunch to a restaurant. Although only one of them speaks English we easily find a lot to talk about and are soon deep in conversation about German politics, Turkish food, soccer, the landscape and many other things. I am truly grateful for the kind and generous hospitality, especially after the long bus ride and not understanding where I was going.
The guys I'm staying with are really sweet and show me around the town which is an important army base and university in this part of the country and they always worry if everything is fine - it sure is! They even help me get my camera fixed, so here are some pictures of the central square and one of the old mosques, quite different from those in Istanbul.
The days are still hot and we just take a brief look at the busy life downtown before sitting in the shade outside the university eating sunflower seeds and talking about politics, patriotism, culture and modernity, religion and family values. Such a lot of world to see!

The nights are pleasantly mild, so me mostly walk after dark, have delicious ice cream and visit the Taşhan, an old trading house that contains loads of tiny shops selling jewelry made from the black stone (black kind of amber), the Oltu Taş.  

I wonder why there are ski jumpers decorating most of the street lamps on the bigger streets. They seem a bit out of place at these temperatures, but I can well imagine that it gets very cold round here in winter. And yes, there are ski jumps here, I can see them in the distance behind the university compounds. In 2011 the XXVth Winter Universiade were held here, something like Olympic Games for university athletes, I never heard of it before, the city is still proud of this event. There is something going on in this far Eastern corner of the country after all. I do see it is a very different part and a very distant place from most other parts of Turkey. My host points out that he definitely views himself as an Asian. People in Western Turkey might identify with Europe to some extent, for him that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever. He has seen four other cities in Turkey and never left the country, so he uses Couchsurfing to improve his English (and German and Russian to some extent) and learn as much about other places as possible by talking to his guests and reading on the internet. It humbles me to be welcomed with such hospitality and openness by someone to whom I cannot offer the same in return as he cannot afford travelling - for now, hopefully that will change in the future...

On the third day it's once more time to leave. I wake up early and walk around in the garden taking pictures of the huge landscape all around:

Crazy Night Bus and Blue Black Sea: Trabzon

After nearly a week in the metropolis my plan to head East is set. Ivana helps me to get a ticket for the night bus to Trabzon more than 1000km along the Black Sea coast, I get a confirmation from my Couchsurfing host in Erzurum where I will go after that and I bought a LOT of Turkish delight. My farewell experience is smoothly slipping through major traffic chaos by a giant portion of good chance.
I don't want to hurry with my heavy backpack and I don't know exactly how long it will take me to walk from the hostel to Taksim for the shuttle to the bus company's central station, so I leave hours early, get a kumpir on my way for dinner and unexpectedly find myself in the six o'clock shuttle instead of the seven o'clock one. Traffic jam is the natural condition of Istanbul streets, but today something is just not right. It takes us more than two hours instead of one to get to the main station at the highway. Most people on my bus thus missed their long-distance connection. I feel quite lost on the huge dusty yard overcrowded with people, bags, and buses. No one speaks English, someone manages to gesture to me I just have to check the number on the bus to find mine. I find some teenagers who do speak English, they confirm that my bus will leave on this side of the yard, not on the opposite side 70 meters away, out of sight. It's already nearly an hour late and I start to get quite nervous. I hear a man in a white shirt say something about Erzurum to someone and I show him my ticket. He beams at me, oh, yes, that's right! I have to come with him! He takes me and the other guy with him, hurrying between heaps of sand, stones and concrete: Our bus has already left and he is the conductor looking for the two missing passengers! We hop on board while the bus is slowly making it's way back onto the overcrowded city highway. Praise to the well organized Turkish long-distance buses. (You have to reserve your seat to your name, including your gender. Men and women are not allowed to sit next to each other.) You also get fed all the time. Tea. Biscuits. Tea. Ice cream. Water. Nuts. Tea. Within two hours. I fall asleep shortly after midnight. I wake up briefly at 4 am. When the clock doesn't show the time it informs me about the temperature of the dark grey landscape outside with steep stones on both sides of the road: eleven degrees centigrade.

After having brushed my teeth at a highway stop the next morning and spending some ten minutes in the sun enjoying the chilly morning air while our bus is washed, too, I get to know a new type of coastline. The highway is practically next to the beach, there is the Black Sea to my left for some hours. It is very dark blue and very detached from the land and humans as the narrow strip of brown sand is wedged between the water and the highway. Quite a distant sea...


We arrive at Trabzon in the early afternoon. It's quite easy to get the dolmush to the center, but I am a bit disoriented and walk around a lot in the heat before I find the pension mentioned in the Lonely Planet. The rooms are very tiny, very brightly colored, very tidy and everything smells of chlorine. My window also faces the mosque with the very loud muezzin mentioned in the book. I don't mind, he won't call when I'll go to bed and once I'm asleep even he won't be able to wake me up.
Unfortunately I don't have time to take the tour out of town to visit e mountain monastery, so I just walk around the city center and explore this down to earth harbor city. It is quite a contrast after Istanbul, modest, small, no tourists. I stroll thorough the market quarter. Having forgotten my scarf I buy a nice simple bluish grey one for two Lira to be able to visit one of the beautiful mosques. I manage to buy a small box containing about a hundred hair pins for a similar amount of money and a half of a huge loaf of freshly baked bread directly from the window of the bakery. I feel like I got what I need for the rest of this trip.

For the first time since I left Srebrenica it starts to rain heavily, so I spend some time in an internet cafe, verifying my schedule for the following day and writing some emails. Later I meet my train and Istanbul buddies and some friends of their's. They stopped here for some days on their way to Georgia and made use of the low prices for clothes. It's really great to exchange some more views of Turkey and get some valuable information about Georgia. And as my phone is really starting to fail me they even lend me their spare phone (I returned it on New Year's when we all happened to celebrate in Dresden, Germany)!

- Unfortunately my camera broke so I don't have any pictures of this part of the trip. -

Glimpses of Istanbul (Istanbul III)

Thursday is the day of free admission to the modern art museum Istanbul Modern - not for non-residents, though. I decide to buy a ticket and although I don't know all that much about modern art I enjoy the different exhibitions of modern Turkish artists. When I have to leave I spend some more time in the yard, a stone garden looking out to the Bosporus and decorated with some entries to a recent architecture competition. One of them transports the movements of the water underneath to metal circles looking like slender giant mushrooms. The sun sets gleaming on the by passing ships and the opposite shore.

Politics are not as obviously heated as in late May when Taksim and Gezi Park dominated breakfast conversations in the partly Turkish team of the psychiatric clinic in Berlin I did my internship at. But even without previous experience and with very little knowledge of this city I recognize some signs of public activism. One day I happen to run across one of the long stairs leading up from the Bosporus painted in rainbow colors. On the next day I start to question my sense of orientation when I cannot find it. Later I learn that it had been painted illegally by citizens not willing to wait any longer for the city council to do something about street repair. There is a heated discussion about the boundaries of personal freedom and public property and at some point the stairs were painted grey again. There is a lot of police in the side streets of Istiklal, the avenue leading to Taksim Square, and the square itself...

I spent one day taking the ferry (not a tourist boat, but a regular part of public transportation as I know it from Hamburg) up the Golden Horn and visiting some sights along it, first the complex of Eyüp Sultan Mosque where I see many dressed up little boys in white glittery uniforms accompanied by there families to celebrate their upcoming circumcision. The huge cemetery extending up the hill towards the Pierre Lotfi café is a very popular destination for families, as well. The view of both the graves and over the Horn is quite spectacular - and I spend at least half an hour in the queue for the cable car back down to the ferry.

At a stop on the other side of the water I try to follow another of my German-Turkish friend's recommendations. Getting to Santralistanbul, however, proves to be difficult without speaking Turkish, but I make it! This industrial complex next to Bilgi University used to be the first urban power plant of the Ottoman Empire and supplied the city with energy from 1911 through 1983. Now it holds both the Energy Museum and halls for art exhibitions. Right now there is no exhibition and university hasn't started yet either, so the place is quite deserted expect for a few students out on the lawns and a receptionist and two security guys at the museum, none of whom speaks a word of English. So I walk the halls all on my own and get carried away with taking photos of the gigantic steel instruments. It does feel a bit creepy. But definitely worth a trip:

Getting back to Taksim gives me some tension, too, as darkness falls quickly and I once again have to find the right bus in spite of the language barrier and the absence of any signs. It's always an exhilarating mix of triumph (of having made it) and gratitude (of never having to make it quite on my own) and finally relaxation of returning to a more familiar area which in contrast feels ever so much like home.

One afternoon I also take a ferry to see some more of the Bosporus, of course. I always love being on a ship and even without knowing much about what exactly I see on the shores it is a great and relaxing way to spend two hours. Probably more relaxing in my state of information overload than opting for the audio guide...

After some discussions my train buddies and I also find a day to visit Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque together (didn't manage to see Topkapi though, well, I guess I'll be back ;)). Both monuments are quite crowded, but surprisingly I don't feel like it disturbs the atmosphere for me. Both the buildings and the decorations and mosaics are huge and impressive and in some way perfect, but once more I find I have too much imagination, they don't seem new to me although I've never even seen that many pictures... Still, a must see, no doubt about that. 

After having walked around a lot, taken pictures (and - typically German - marvelled at people unable to adhere to signs not to flash) I sit outside on the stairs in silence, waiting for the others taking a look around the yard which I saw before entering. The unlikely rain we only saw from the inside has stopped and the warm stone is dry again. A slender cat sneaks up to me, I play with her for a while in spite of her questionable cleanliness. Perfect peace and quiet in the very middle of Istanbul.

Across The Horn: Istanbul II

It's been a long time since my last post, it wasn't meant to take this long, but time is flying and med school takes its toll. Anyway, while days are getting considerably longer and less cold in Northern Germany and more serious exams are drawing closer I still choose to take some moments off to think back of my big trip last summer and finally share the posts of the second half. More to come!


After the trip to the islands I finally stop to constantly feel bemused by being in a big city, some paths have become familiar, and I am back to being used to hear Turkish all the time. But most importantly I moved to a cozy hostel on the other side of the Golden Horn, right below Galata Tower. It was recommended to me by a friend of a friend who lives here and cannot host me himself as his cousin is visiting. Rapunzel definitely is a great place to stay, too, nearly like a tower itself with only two rooms to each floor and a roof top terrace with a view of the Golden Horn and the most convenient location in Istanbul with both Sultanahmet and Taksim within (my) walking distance. 

Galata seen from the Galata Bridge

Breakfast at Rapunzel (yes, Mom, I'm posting food pictures ;))

Beyond the plate...

...and behind the table

Galata Tower at night

But the most important part of it that really makes me connect to Istanbul are the people I meet here, though most of them are also just passing through, of course. As I seem to need longer hours of resting than in the beginning of the trip I enjoy to just spend unplanned hours of extended breakfast on the roof top terrace or at any time of night or day in the small common room next to the reception chatting with a German engineer, an American neuropsychiatrist, a European art historian and most importantly the Serbian receptionists who also enable me to reconnect to the Balkans and add some more pieces to the mosaic of my understanding of that part of Europe - and Europe in general - as well as both personal and professional perspectives on being a refugee, migration and shaping history by teaching history. As a German with an emphasis of migrant issues in health care and education, how cool is it to meet a Serbian studying the Turkish minority in Germany at an Istanbul university and being able to exchange and connect perspectives on this complex matter!?

The friend's friend and his cousin also offer to take me to a party and after some searching and some phone calls we end up in a most mixed international party where I meet Nesime. We are instantly in a good conversation and two days later she takes me along the Bosporus (we both like walking long distances and talking about life, the universe, and everything) and later invites me for dinner to her home to meet her delightful family.
While I still feel I really only saw a glimpse of Istanbul I know I have people to come back to in this huge city.

Bridge of bridges at dusk...

...and close up in the dark (it's never dark in Istanbul)

Still Not Really There: Istanbul I

After getting off the shuttle bus, I find the hostel Paul told me about walking the short distance from Sultanahmet tram stop feeling somnambulant. I store my luggage and go outside to get some orientation until I can check in. It's quite hot again, but I prefer the steep streets down to find the sea instead of visiting the famous mosques. The sea is one of the... well, "things" - though it's hardly a thing - I often don't realize missing until I'm back there. It's not a beautiful beach, but a narrow strip of grass and trees between the road and the rocky shore, some people's public living room. Cargo ships on the blue sea under a blue sky. Very different from the Northern German seas, but still home in this vast city that feels so different from the Balkans to me.

The hostel is huge, too, I don't really like it, so I stay only for two nights. The location, however, is quite convenient. I walk around Sultanahmet and down to the Golden Horn, following a half-Turkish friend's advice to get a fish sandwich from one of the small boats swaying behind Galata Bridge.

After getting half way accustomed to this huge city I meet my train-and-bus-buddies again for an excursion to the Princes' Islands. These islands within eyesight of the city used to be the princes' resort, now most of them are tourist destinations, one holds some military facilities. After an enjoyable hour or so on the boat we get off to explore one of the bigger islands. walking up a narrow street rising higher and higher above the sea with the skyline of the city not so far away gives a nice contrast which is intensified by the horse-drawn buggies speeding past us from time to time here.

We walk up the narrow road along the coast and consider circling the whole island, but it is quite hot and it doesn't look like there would be much more to see further up the road, so we turn inland to find a outdoor bistro obviously waiting for the evening. As soon as we sit down the Turkish pop music is changed to a disc of Anglo-American pop of the 90s... We manage to make some sense of the menu by google image search (of course there is wifi) and enjoy some spicy omelette and sweet tea. When we start to hear the songs for the second time we decide it's time to leave. After another walk, this time downhill, trying not to be run over by the speeding buggies, we return to the small town. It's been quite exhausting after all so we only take a brief walk around the old streets with their wooden two-story houses with carved decorations and spend an hour at the port eating ice-cream and waiting for the ferry back to the city. 

Getting To Far Away Istanbul: Transport And Sofia

I leave Srebrenica after four days, feeling recovered and up for a very new country. Once more I enjoy the bus ride along the Drina, through the sunflower, corn and melon fields, and across the Sava in Belgrade. When I buy the ticket for the night train to Sofia I am delighted to find the charming old man at the counter for international tickets to be fluent in both English and German (sounding very Austrian - I later hear he speaks French, too!). He also reassures me about security issues: 'This train is about as safe as a night train from, say, Berlin to Munich. Maybe a bit less.' I spend some hours at the internet café, get some food for the rest of the day and the next morning and return to the station well in time. The train is already there so I get in and find my compartment where I'm soon joined by a young German couple and a Scottish pharmacist. This by chance grouping turns out to work really well, we continue to Istanbul together and meet there several times, too. 

While the beds are nice enough, border control before five in the morning prevents us from feeling really awake when we reach Sofia at eight. On the sober and empty platform of Sofia's otherwise gigantic socialist main station a smoking guy in worn-out flip-flops tries to persuade us to directly book a bus ticket to Istanbul with his company. Not too keen on this marketing strategy we try to ignore him for a while, but maybe this is the way it works here, the price turns out to be reasonable and we can leave our luggage at the station. So we set off to find the starting point of the free walking tour, one of my travel buddies heard about. We walk down the main street with a quite impressive mix of architecture. When we finally reach the Palace of Justice, we still have time till the start of the tour, so we have breakfast, sharing our bread with a Gypsy lady.  

The tour takes about two hours and the guide, a law student is really good. It is a suitable way to learn some basic facts and see the key sights in a city where you spend only a minimum amount of time. It gives me the feeling of actually having been in Bulgaria. We get an idea both of the old history and the socialist time and of the issues of modern Bulgaria. Walking through many green parks in combination with eating a lot of really good ice cream (fig! plum!) I even manage to stay more or less awake.

Start of the tour at the Palace of Justice. Note one of the ubiquitous lions - this one however proves the sculptor's lack of biological knowledge...

A capital in layers: Very old small church, Stalin era style government building (which used to be crowned by a huge red star)

Quite impressive lady - there was a Lenin statue at this place till 1990

Last functioning mosque in the city - built of brick! - in the background on the left a synagogue

The church bell of the church of the Holy Spirit 

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral

After the tour we sit in one of the parks for a while and then walk around for quite a long time until we find a café where we just sit for most of the day, have a drink and watch the rain come and go. Finally we get up to buy some food, walk back to the bus station and take about an hour to rearrange our backpack households, sitting between the tiny bungalows holding bus company offices. At 8 we get on the Turkish bus. It's packed and unfortunately some of the elderly passengers are quite noisy, listening to music from earphones not on their ears or snoring. We cross the border two hours after midnight, this time we need to get off the bus and even put our luggage through the x-ray. We are not all that awake when we reach the absolutely gigantic Istanbul central bus station. Luckily there is a really nice waiting area where some people just continue snoring, we have some breakfast and watch the dawn growing lighter until we catch the shuttle downtown.

First morning in Istanbul, International bus station