Aleppo

The first stop in Syria was Aleppo; a more traditional city in the north of the country. Upon arriving & finding a cheap hotel we soon immersed ourselves in the city’s labyrinth of alleys.

The city’s biggest souk, which seems to run all the way to Damascus, offers everything. Every possible colour is contained within its clothes, carpets, spices, meats, household goods, and anything else you care for.
The smells contained within include the life-cycle of a chicken shwarma: the live chickens, the raw meat from the butchers, the spices used to flavour it, the smokey grill used to cook it, through to the the cardamom-infused coffee & apple scented tobacco used to digest it.
Market sellers shouting, vans beeping horns, meat sizzling on a grill all assault the ears. The clink-clink of tea-sellers, hauling their urn in one hand, in the other chinking a couple of glasses from which the sweet shai is consumed.

And Syrians are incredibly welcoming people. Walking in the street, they will often ask “Where are you from?” and upon replying, tell you sincerely that “You are very welcome in Syria”, ahlan we sahlan. This is how we met Ala’a on our first night, who walked us around the city, before taking us to his favourite narghile joint.

More photos from Aleppo.

Aleppo market

The hustle-and-bustle of one of the fruit & vegetable markets bordering a souk in Aleppo.

It looked a little like this.

Crossing the border

A mini-bus from Gazientep, where we had spent the previous day, to Kilis which sits right near the Syrian border.

From there, a taxi across the border, where our passports were used by the driver to buy duty-free; I get the impression that the black-market, along with the promise of cheaper fuel in Syria, goes a long way to subsidise the taxi fares.

Güle gale Turkish, goodbye English said one of the three Turks with whom we were sharing the taxi, as we crossed between the border posts.

I am excited about what comes next.

Ahlan wa sahlan, Syria.

Şanlıurfa

Still traveling with Tony, we arrived in Şanlıurfa the day before Turkey’s “Republic Day”, expecting some sort of celebrations for the fête nationale. The closest we came to this were a few more people visiting the kale & Halil-ur-Rahman mosque below it, as well as feeding the fish that swim in its waterways, than is perhaps normal.

Exploring the labyrinth of side streets off the main road cutting through the city I pulled out my camera to take a shot of a little square, and a child ran into frame. Within seconds, we had a little mob around us, practically demanding us to take their photo, each vying to be the one in shot, tussling their friends out of the way, before themselves being replaced by another grinning head.

There is seemingly little going on at night, but we did discover two things. First, the Dondurma cafés, serving the local speciality of clotted cream covered in vermicelli-like pastry and drenched with honey & pistachios. Oh yes.

Second was upon hearing some music emanating from a little alley way, we soon found ourselves invited into a make-shift tent where a Turkish band were playing. People were sat around on cushions appreciating what seemed to be modern anthems, occasionally getting up to dance. Being the token foreigners, I soon found myself plucked out by the singer, dragging Tony with me, as we made our best attempts to dance, ever-so more self-conscious of our situation, the sorts of moves are usually accompanied by at least a couple of drinks a little stronger than çay.

(More photos of Urfa.)

Mount Nemrut

Nemrut Dağı is known for its temples and the carved heads of the statues of gods which now lay at the base of a funerary mound from a Commagene king of two thousand years ago. We thought it would be a nice place for a hike in the mountains.

The weather had other ideas.

After negotiating a couple of seats in a minibus to get us to the mountain from the local Tour Guide Cartel, we arrived at the visitor centre as the rain hammered down and the mountain was shrouded in cloud. The driver, and presumed head of the cartel, didn’t understand why we didn’t want to carry on the tour & then stay in his hotel. “There is nothing else to see here, and nowhere to stay, and it is going to rain for three days” he told us.

He was right about the rain, but we managed to get a couple of beds in the dormitory beside the visitor centre, which is habited by the Turkish staff selling Kurdish trousers & miniatures of the Gods’ heads to tourists.

Going out for a hike was off for the day: it was cold, we were already soaked from having visited the temple ruins at the top of Nemrut, and visibility was down near the non-existent mark. Once all the tour-groups had left, there was only Tony & I, with the six guys who occupied this brick shack, its blankets reeking of stale smoke. The evening was spent trying to understand the rules of tavla, which they played with wild gestures and occasional strong words.

At 4.30am our alarms reminded us of our cold surroundings, and we were pulling on boots and jackets to watch the sunrise up on the mountain. The cloud was coming back after a clear night, but we did have ten minutes of unhindered sunshine before the mist rose up, producing a very eery atmosphere.

We negotiated another ride back to Kahta from a driver bringing up another group. After passing by the statues at Arsemia and its castle ruins sitting atop the cliff-face opposite, a Roman Bridge of Septimius Severus and another burial mound, we were back in Katah, catching a bus to Şanlıurfa, which swept past the lakes of the Ataturk dam project.

(More photos of Mt Nemrut.)