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![]() September 27, 2004Diyarbakir to the HasenkeyfWe left Diyarbakir to head east towards Nemrut Dagi, taking a minibus from the southwest corner of the city. We drove to iverek where we changed buses for Kahta-bound bus, timed to coincide with a ferry crossing. The van dropped us off at the small village of Narince on the road to the summit. Ed attempted to call our guesthouse for a ride to Karadut, but no one was answering the phones. We sat by the side of the road drinking Cappy fruit juice as we watched tractors pass by.Finally a tourist bus passed and stopped. The driver asked where we were staying and offered his own guesthouse at a discount. We told him we had a reservation, but he persisted. It didn't pay off. We told him we had decided to stay in our guesthouse; he shrugged and drove, singing to himself. In Karadut we checked in and debated whether to visit the summit at sunset or sunrise. A woman appeared at the door and asked us if we'd be interested in accompanying them that evening to share the cost of a dolums. We thought about it and thought about the idea of getting up at four in the morning for the sunrise. We decided to ascend that afternoon. At six thirty we piled into a van and began driving. The road wound around the mountains through small villages on good roads. Just past the ticket booth, the road deteriorated. Mining roads cut swaths over the hills, and as we climbed we could see them carved through the landscape. Soon we could see the ridge and the conical summit. Cars crept up, silhouetted against the sky. Around 40 B.C., Antiochus I Epiphanes built two ledges atop Mt. Nemrut and erected statues of himself among a pantheon of Greek gods. He then ordered an artifical peak of crushed rock be built between them. The heads have since tumbled from the tops of the statues, leaving an image that brought Shelley to mind. We climbed the gently sloping path up to the eastern terrace and looked at the heads piled in a row before their towering headless bodies. A platform had been cleared as a helicopter landing path. The sun was sinking behind the conical summit, and a wind made the air brisk. Walking around the northern edge, we walked into the sun to the western ledge. There, the bodies and heads were left more haphazardly, the arrangement more beautiful than the ordered look of the Eastern terrace. There are plans to reassmble the statues, but I hope they leave the Western terrace as it is. Tourist groups took pictures or lounged against the ruins outside of the enclosed area, waiting for the sun to set. We looked for the Isreali couple with whom we had shared the dolmus, but they were nowhere to be found. As the sun set, the rock changed colors, from white to orange to slate. As the light faded, the groups returned to their buses. We lingered. The curator allowed a professional photographer and his art directer behind the protective barrier and they shot as the summit grew dark. The wind picked up and we walked back to the van. The Isreali couple was waiting for us. They told us that they had come from Sanliurfa, where they had picked up a stomach bug. They had been sick for the past week. We told them that that was where we were headed. The guidebook warned against eating raw meat in Sanliurfa; in the desert heat it spoils rapidly. We took their condition as a word of caution. In Sanliurfa, we got lost in the bazaar. Suddenly, north became west, and we couldn't find our way back to the hotel. We toured the Uli Camii and the State Art Gallery for the architecture of the building. The museum itself seemed to be in the midst of reinstallation. The beauty of Sanliurfa rests in the southern tip of the city, where the Dergah complex of mosques and parks rest at the foot of a hill upon which the remains of the citadel is perched. We sat above the park and had tea to re-energize before attempting the climb to the citadel. The sun was setting, drawing shadows across the city. We paid our bill, walked through the park, then began the quick climb. We stood between the pair of columns that stand sentry over the city. Dubbed the Throne of Nemrut, they are named after the supposed founder of Urfa. The views were spectacular. At seven, as the sun disappeared behind a hill, the gatekeeper signaled he was leaving and locking up the complex. We walked down and then toured the mosques. Beside the Mevlid-i Halil Camii, we spied the entrance to the Prophet Abraham's birth cave. Ducking our heads we walked into the humid enclosed space. A man insisted that we drink from the fountain; Ed and I each took the barest of sips. Once back in the outer courtyard, I turned to him and joked, "I hope that's not what the Isreali couple drank." I didn't then realize that that wasn't to be the end of our culinary adventures. That night we returned to the Cardakli Kosk for dinner. We sat on the terrace with its unspoilt view of the Dergah complex. A Turkish band was playing, and the waiter placed us at a table right in front. The music was loud, the guests clapped along. A boy danced for tips. We ate and listened and watched. When we were finished we asked for fruit for dessert. Suddenly waiters appeared with trays laden with desserts. A black square and a yellow triangle square to plates they placed upon each table. One, I recognized as a sweet I had had in Jordan. The yellow square was a cheese-based dessert drizzled in honey. I had no idea about the other. We tried the black square and found it savory and spicy. I was shocked. I tried another bite. In front of us, a man and a woman told us it was chikofte. We asked them what it was. She asked if we spoke German; we shook our heads. They searched for words, but merely repeated the name of the dish. We thanked them, and I left the rest of mine untouched. The next morning Ed and I parted ways. He headed west to Gaziantep and the border crossing at Barak for Syria. He would spend the next seventeen hours on buses and cars en route to Amman, where the Egyptian cotton sheets of the Four Seasons awaited him. I went east towards Mardin and Hasankeyf. Mardin is built along the side of a mountain overlooking the southern plans straight into Syria. I found a small hotel and wandered the bazaar and the main streets, ducking down side streets as the spirit moved me. That night I ate on a terrace overlooking the fields as the sun set, turning the yellow plains orange until only lights dotted the plains below. The next morning I left for Hasankeyf. The bus dropped me off in the small town just before a bridge that spanned the Tigris. I checked into a hotel and then walked down to the banks of the river. Restaurants had set up huts on stilts by the riverbank. I hopped into one and ordered grilled fish, then took off my shoes to dangle them in the cold running water. After lunch I climbed up to the ruins of the 14th century village clinging to the top of a gorge above the river. I looked down to where I ate lunch, at the base of the cliffs, and looking back I saw cave dwellings reminiscent of Cappadocia. Across the river, the Zeynel Bey Turbesi sat by a cotton field. That afternoon I would admire the turqoise-tiled tomb. Looking back to the east I could see the city and the ruins of the original bridge that was built across the river. A villager had turned one of the pylons of the bridge into a home. Laundry hung over his back porch. If all goes well with the GAP project, the village is slated to be innundated with the completion of the Ilisu Dam. As I stood looking over the narrow river, I tried to imagine the fields and towns covered by a vast expanse of water and I remembered walking the streets of Feng Du, on the banks of the Yangtze River, now already under water. There, the signs of destruction were already pleasant, as signs noted the future water level months from when I was visiting. But in Hasenkeyf, the small town seemed not to notice the coming floods. In the afternoon, the two tea houses were crowded with guests. And at night, small groups gathered in front of televisions brought out onto the sidwalk, tuned to the news or to football games or to American movies, their backs turned towards their village. Posted by eku at September 27, 2004 2:54 PM | ![]() |
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