Day 224: Adana - Gaziantep

Nov 13 - It is Sunday but the street are full of traffic. Load up on breakfast again, do some work in the room, and we head to the otogar by taxi (TL 65). The bus ticket does not have a platform listed, so we stand around at the most likely area I expect to see our bus.

While waiting around in the largely vacant, no-smoking lounge, I am approached by a man in all dark clothing, who begins by telling me, in English, that he is a police officer. He has a firearm and handcuffs on his belt, but I ask to see identification anyway. I don’t like people announcing they are police without supplying some kind of proof. Once he shows me his card, I let him ask me questions. He just wants to know where we are from, how long we’ve been in the country, and if we are tourists. For some reason he tells me where he is from (Mersin). He is nice enough, but of course no police officer is just asking stuff out of curiosity. After he leaves, I am left with that uneasy feeling that something is up.

The departure time and many buses come and go, but I see nothing that looks like ours. Go to the office I bought the the tickets and ask. It takes a while but they confirm that it is late. Finally, about 40 minutes later, it shows up and we are off.

Pass through the flat farmlands of Cilicia and soon start a slow ascent on to the eastern highlands. I can’t really call it Eastern Anatolia, as this only starts much further east. And it is not really a highlands anyway, being less than 800 meters elevation. Many pine forests here, and continued farming where it is flat enough. Occasional, huge concrete structures dot the sides of the highway, many under construction.

As usual, the Gaziantep otogar is far out of town on the north side. Buy onward tickets, get some money from the bank machine, and take a taxi into the old city for TL 60. The small downtown streets are blocked with traffic so leave the taxi and walk the remainder to our hotel. It is in a small alley.

The average temperature of Gaziantep is about ten degrees C less than Adana. Just that 700-odd meter elevation change causes a big change, at least this time of year. It still has that dry, semi-desert feel, but with a definite chill. We are about 95 km north of Aleppo, Syria.

Gaziantep is also known as Antep. It is on the list as one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. It has gone back and forth between empires many, many times since antiquity. It achieved a long consistency of rule under the Ottomans, beginning in 1516, when it was conquered by Sultan Selim I. Being part of the former Greater Armenia, the Armenian population here was always large, but extermination and forced removal since the 1880’s eliminated virtually all traces of that culture (similar to Adana).

Step out to eat, as it is already evening when we check in. Today is Sunday and it seems the whole population is eating out. Our hotel is nestled in a warren of narrow alleys, but once out on the larger streets, the traffic is at a standstill and the many restaurants are bursting with families. The air is full of smoke from the grills, feverishly cooking chicken kebabs and other meat dishes. Plates of salads, pre-prepared and awaiting distribution, are stacked to the side. We locate an upstairs restaurant with some free tables and get some dinner. For a huge meal the bill comes to TL 100, or less than $6.

Walk around the old city for a bit, looking for some fruit to buy. Talk to a small shop owner from Aleppo, Syria, who has been living here for seven years. That places his exit from Syria at about the same time as when the Russians and the US entered the Syrian civil war (2014-15), and when Aleppo was destroyed by bombing (2017).

One thing that is becoming very clear since Adana is the lack of tourists. Admittedly, we are probably seeing Turkish tourists, including many families, but the strong showing of European and even greater numbers of Russian tourists have simply vanished. It is as through all of them only want to be near the beaches.

At night, I see in the news that a bomb went off in the Taskim district of İstanbul, on Istiklal Street by Beyoğlu Square, killing six people and injuring over 80. This is the area we went on Day 187 (Turkiye II) when Janet was looking for gifts. It is a huge tourist district, with many internationally-known stores. It is suspected that the attack was perpetrated by the PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) and the PYD (Democratic Union Party). The latter is the Syrian branch of the PKK.