Final Photos from Turkey

CaPpaDoCia (Anatolia)

We went to Cappadoccia in the central Turkish state of Anatolia for 3 days. What an incredible trip. Turkey is divided into seven distinct regions, and Anatolia is certainly the driest and home to some of the first churches in the world. The Hitites lived in this region for a couple of thousand years before Christ, making their homes in beautiful rock formations. Some of these cave dwellings are in monoliths, some in the sides of steep mesas, and others in extremely unique and strange formations. We saw one example of the cave dwellings that was 20 stories high, like an ancient skyscraper. We also descended 8 stories underground into a total hidden underground city where 5,000 people used to live with no sun at all. Intricate ventilation and well shafts all carved into the stone create a sense of space in cramped rooms and tiny passages, made small to prevent knights in shining armor from entering. Even in the well-lit subterranean chambers and passages a sense of claustrophobia and insanity sets in – I can’t imagine living my whole life beneath the earth without the sunlight. Sometimes they would come up, but mostly people stayed below where it was safe from early Christian persecution, then (300 years later) the first Muslim invaders, then (400 years later) the Crusaders. After 1100 AD people stopped living there. I had a hard time understanding why people abandoned the gorgeous caves above ground, but after an hour of descending 10 stories underground into a complete maze and not seeing even 1% of the city, I was ready to surface.

Cappadoccia was just amazing. I had seen cave dwellings in southern Colorado at Mesa Verde and some of the most beautiful land formations in Southern Utah, but this was certainly something else. There are thousands and thousands of these caves, all unique, and some of the earliest churches in the world dating back to 330 AD. From outside, the caves look crude, like funny Dr. Seuss style dwellings in a total imaginative dream world, but the insides were unexpected. With domed roofs and columns, the caves seem like European churches, and many of these churches have Byzantine paintings depicting Bible scenes dating back to Constantine. The paintings of course have been re-applied several hundred times since then, but the style is the same, and entire stories are depicted for the illiterate people of those times. You enter the churches only to step on the graves of the congregation, the dead wishing to still commune with the living. There is no glass, are no guard rails, and no flash photography – there you are, in the oldest Christian churches in a now-Muslim country. Phenomenal. In a few years time I’m sure the tourism in this place will explode.

Istanbul, Turkey

After spending a blur of an evening in Bucharest (we arrived around 12am and left at 11am from our hotel) we hopped on the last train of our journey: a mere 20 hours through southern Romania, Bulgaria, around the tip of Greece, and through Turkey to Istanbul. We slept in our own compartment in comfortable accommodations, which was fine because, as our new best friend the train attendant told us, "Bulgaria? I like to look at Bulgaria like I like to look at my ass! There is no something in Bulgaria" (I told him that "nothing" is the word for "no something"). But we enjoyed the ride until 1am when we had to unload to buy Turkish visas. Eastern European countries apparently have two borders, not one, for each crossing. I don't know what stands between all these dual borders, but certainly not options for two Americans who, when asked whether we'd pay in Euros or dollars we answered, "Romanian!" (I didn't even know the name for the currency). The man selling visas shook his head grimly. Our friend the attendant and the Turkish conductor spotted us 30 Euro to get us through... we were deeply grateful for his generosity and saving us from abandonment at the Turkish border in the middle of the night.


Arriving in Istanbul on the edge of the sea was a welcome change from rain, rain, rain. The Mediterranean climate and food is mild and perfect this time of year. Every morning for breakfast we've had different types of local breads, five types of sheep and goat cheese, Turkish coffee and olives with our eggs. Yummmmm! Istanbul is a city divided into 3 parts, so it's hard to know where to start. We stayed in the Old City of Sultanahmet in a small hotel close to the Aya Sofia - my mom's favorite. The Aya Sofia is an enormous domed church built sometime around 500 AD, with mosaics that had to be excavated under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk when Turkey became a republic. It's incredible to see both Christian and Muslim influences in the same ancient building and hard to believe that the Muslims covered the mosaics with plaster when it became a mosque...the amount of work that was done on the Christian mosaics below is almost painful. Sultanahmet is also home to the stunning Blue Mosque, perched on a high hill directly across from Aya Sofia, and the underground cistern with two giant Medusa heads grazing the fish-filled waters. Everywhere you turn there is beauty and ancient history.

For a more contemporary experience we left the Marmara Sea for the Bosphorous, only a 20 minute metro ride across the bridge, and went to Taksim. On a 2km pedestrian-only promenade you can see every single slice of Turkey. Old women from the country with head scarves, lots of young people wearing Western clothes, old men smoking pipes and walking in 3 piece suits, "fashion Muslims" walking the strip arm in arm with their shiny silk headscarves, pretty much every type of person you could imagine. There are TONS of people packed wall to wall, but the promenade is not claustrophobic, and you get into the rhythm of moving with the current of humanity. At night I found a great jazz club with my friend Pinar, and the Bienal is a contemporary art festival that was also happening at the time. Istanbul is a cross between contemporary and traditional cultures, where old and young mix and you can hop back and forth over the water from "Europe" to "Asia."

Among the incredible mosques, palaces, endless archaelogical museum and gorgeous tiled walls, one place especially stood out to us. Rarely have I ever been so shocked by a life experience that I come out of a situation floating on clouds, as if the trees and temples and Bosphorous Sea were all part of some elaborate wax museum that mimicked reality. However, as I stepped out of the last hall of many that we visited on the grounds of the sultan's palace perched high above Sulanahmet, my mom and I looked at each other in disbelief and laughed. I could attribute such surprise at simply not having done my homework or knowing what lay inside the unassuming chamber, where I saw a whole array of artifacts belonging to all the patriarchs of monotheism. Was it enough to see not one, but seven tufts of the Prophet Mohammad (may peace be upon him)'s beard? They had two of his swords used in his return to Medina, his bow and case, a jeweled box containing a tooth, an imprint of his foot and an armoirre. So far from Mecca and in a secular (though Muslim) country I could not believe that they had so many of his sacred relics. But that was not enough for the Turks. We saw the supposed shriveled right arm of John the Baptist, the very arm that baptized Jesus (peace be upon him, too), covered in gold, and a piece of his skull. Abraham's bowl sat in the same case as the arm, the eating utensil of the father of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. And across the way a petrified staff, looking strong and in good shape, which apparently belonged to Moses and was the very staff he held when he parted the Red Sea (or his walking stick around that time). So they say, all relics pillaged from Egypt, but we got our meager $5 worth from this unexpected room where we decided to poke our head at the last minute. There was only one thing I could say when we came out: "Holy f***!"

We ended our week with a beautiful boat ride to the Prince Islands, only an hour and a half south of the great city. We spent the day wandering all over the largest island, eying the enormous colonial-style wood houses that perch on the windswept cliffs. The islands don't have any motorized vehicles, so we took a horsecart to the topmost point to the St. George monastery, where 360 degree views showed ocean, other smaller islands, and, in the distance, the long snake of Istanbul along the coastline. The island was worlds away from the enormous city, and the views incredible. We took the ferry back and topped off our night with some incredible jazz in a small club with our Turkish friends, a perfect last day in Istanbul.

Enter "the East"

Tiny houses with red roofs, only a single room large on subsistence plots, stately homes as you enter the outskirts of the upcoming industrial town, then industry and factories and smokestacks and tenements, the stately homes again, then the small shacks spotting the fields under the heavy and ominous sky as you break back into rolling fields of corn and green, green grass. This is what you see through the train window from Prague to Budapest. Rain sheets down sideways while snow falls lightly between the water, creating a blanket of illusion that looks strangely peaceful and terribly cold. The deciduous trees are all turning color, and the pines higher up on the hillside are covered in a very thin white layer and it’s breathtakingly beautiful. Life seems hard in these areas, not difficult to see in the closed faces of the people, or into the cold towns littered with graffiti. The largest (and seemingly hippest) place we passed through is called Brno in Slavakia, where a bunch of young people in fashionable clothes either entered or exited our train car. We sit warmly listening to Czech, Slovakian, or Hungarian, but mostly the people are silent.


And…into Budapest late at night (again), delivered into a gorgeous, arched train station with no ATM and closed information kiosk. Luckily, we had made our very first hotel reservation (other than London) in advance, and sailed to our bright, warm hotel amongst driving sleet. Despite the cool reception, we already loved the city. Our intuition was confirmed as we walked along the broad, Champs D’Elysse-like venues such as Andressy (similar to 5th Avenue of New York), which took us down to the banks of the mighty, roiling Danube. Along the way shops, hotels, churches, synagogues, bureaucratic affairs and opera houses all sit in enormous buildings with classical European architecture, the entire city hovering around the height of the sixth or seventh floor. The Hungarians certainly have a flair for design and hold nothing back in the intricate roof tiling, the layout of cobblestones beneath your feet, or in the majestic buildings that can be seen in all directions from nearly every intersection throughout the expansive downtown area.


One thing is for sure, having bucked Soviet power beginning with their revolution in 1956, the Hungarians are not quiet about their distaste for the communist state. All streets, squares, monuments and national galleries have re-acquired their pre-Soviet names, and the pride in the architecture (as contrasted to the industrial-utilitarian style of their northern enemy) has doubled. The city is beautiful and empty, invoking the feeling of Berlin’s wide an unpopulated thoroughfares with a design more akin to Paris. However, the move eastwards was not lost on us, and in the ancient Hungarian church we saw walls covered top to bottom in geometric patterns, more similar to Islamic artwork than repetitive Christian figures and martyrdoms. We crossed the Danube from “Buda” to “Pest” where we could look out over everything from the immense castle wall. We even made our way to one of the 7 “underground wonders of the world,” an intricate underground labyrinth under the fortress that supposedly could hold up to 10,000 people if needed. The quarters were tight, musty, and dark, but the natural underground caves which had been connected by people over millennia made us feel like we were walking backwards into pre-history.


We loved our three-day visit to Budapest, drinking amazing hot chocolate in the ornately gold-gilded New York Cafe, learning a bit about Hungarian folklore, and enjoying the last major European city on the cusp of Eastern Europe and (further) the Middle East. The prices are beginning to dive as English slowly wanes, and as we roll across Romania to Bucharest we’ve seen the landscape transform from impressive metropolis into small villages interspersed with industrial towns. Romania from the train window seems incredibly poor and isolated, yet the landscape looks almost identical to Californian wine country, with yellow hills and green canopies lolling in the distance (we even spotted some vineyards situated beneath the scattered snow pockets). Strange then to see a woman carrying sticks and wearing her traditional headscarf, or a man driving a horse cart through his cornfields. With infrastructure on par with India’s (large pipes running along the train tracks, rusted out compartments and factories probably from the Soviet days) while looking like California in fall, a strange sense of disorientation is setting in. Our train thumps through the pitch black past the place where Dracula supposedly lived, on towards the former home of inspiration for the legend: Vlad III the Impaler. With a long history of suffering and poverty (and some Dracula sprinkled in), Romania is a strange and barren land. Bucharest will be a quick stop before our 20 hour push to Istanbul.

Pious, Pitious Prague

Well, in all honesty we were really looking forward to Prague. What we were confronted with was a wall of tourists nearly end-to-end in the Old City. The darkened, cobblestone streets that I had pictured were hard to navigate through bumbling groups trying to all take pictures and simultaneously walk and unfold umbrellas at the same time. Yes, awkward. And yes, beautiful. The city is certainly aesthetically pleasing with Gothic towers and Art Noveau styled entryways to many of the small shops. But at the end of the day, the ex-Soviet regime has put on its commercial hat and shows no signs of letting up. And for all the beauty and layers of history within the city, it's hard to see much past the glittery trinkets and neon signs from the center.

BUT, there are redeemable aspects of Prague as you get out of The Trap (as we began to call the main hub). The first restaurant we went to was an total gem. We thought we had topped the charts with a basket of Czech bread, two enormous Pilsners and delicious soup... until the live music started. A middle-aged man with an unending repertoire of techno-Polka began to bang out the tunes on his synthesizer. Jackpot, we loved it! Second best was an exhibit of Georg Baselitz (a German painter/sculptor) that we found incredibly raw and inspiring at the Rudolfinum on the Vltava River. The cemetery for the old Jewish Ghetto is eerily beautiful, but we had to wake up early and get there when it opened to avoid the hordes of people and around-the-block lines to get in. The headstones tipped and swayed with the settling earth in unexpected patterns, giving the graves a sense of peace. Most of the sites were 10-12 people deep, and the main synagogue was better preserved than the national museum. And Prague being the final home to the Czech artist Alfons Mucha meant that we had to pay tribute to the father of Art Nouveau. A collection of his beautiful lithographs can be found in a museum that shows only his work.

(On a separate not, DO NOT go into the Prague Castle, where a ticket and audio guide for two people comes to $120. The line to get a ticket extended well outside of the office, and after waiting for nearly 45 minutes just to get a ticket, we found that the prices had to be bargained for - no wonder it took us so long! We finally got the cheapest ticket - only to be able to walk in and see the chapel and a bunch of bureaucratic buildings. The beautiful, young woman trying to sell us our ticket lied about a two hour line that we would need to stand in without an audio guide, and when we still didn't want it she almost didn't sell us a ticket, saying she needed to sell the audio guide. Our whole bargain took about 10 minutes, with an hour-long wait out the door, nearly cost us over $100 for a racket, and I think we might have made that young lady cry because we simply didn't want an audio guide for an obscene amount of money. If you go to Prague, enjoy the free view from the castle, it's more beautiful from a distance anyways!)

So, all in all, Prague was a bit of a disappointment. As we battled the near-freezing rain and a barrage of tourists, our main sources of reprise were delicious homemade soups and large pints of good beer in quaint, warm cafes. Prague has been the home to endless battles, upheavals, religious clashes, despair, Soviet takeover, a Velvet Revolution and, ultimately, a peaceful city with beautiful architecture and it seems that everyone in the world must agree - ruining what should be treasured. At least we had the synthesizer and accordion!

East-West: Berlin

Torn by historic animosity between east and west, wrecked by the German and Soviet armies during the death throes of WWII, encompassing the grandeur of communist and fascist dreams, Berlin today is thriving. Not economically per se, where unemployment hovers around 18% throughout the city, but in terms of being the most happening art hub in the world. In a city where rent is cheap (if not free in the countless squats that house entire artist colonies), making art is still not only possible but also probable. From street art to spontaneous performance, from “civil disobedience nests” in the park to thriving gallery collections, we finally made it to the artists' Mecca.

We landed ourselves in Mitte at the center of the city and began our exploration of the city's main museums, where five enormous museums have been constructed on an island in the center of the Spree River. We immediately decided to enter Pergamon, where German archaeologists have taken and reconstructed some of the several most impressive monuments from ancient Greece to Babylon (my mother was also blown away by the depth of the collection, saying it was even more complete than what she's seen in Greece or at the British Museum). When you enter the museum through a small door you are immediately confronted with an entire ancient Greek temple with a larger-than life characters from its frieze circumventing the space. Intimidating steps invite you to climb the stairs of the temple lit by natural skylights, and to turn and look back on the massive room housing the entire structure. From there you can enter another room, housing two more temple facades, and enter the third largest room through the original gate to Babylon, the Ishtar Gate. The gate is made of gorgeous blue tiles that rise to a formidable masterpiece. The museum was incredible, albeit stolen (or “acquired”) treasures from the ancient world, and three of the best exhibitions I’ve seen all housed in a single building.

After museuming during our entire first day (and meeting up with an old friend in the hipper part of town of Kreuzberg), our second day was dedicated to seeing national monuments and contemporary art. We made our way through the surreal Berlin architecture, passing from modern feats of glass and steal to classic European styled domed cathedrals, enormous beaurocratic buildings that later housed the Nazis, and, of course, the Wall. At the end of WWII, during the German’s last stand, 22,000 Soviet soldiers, 20,000 German soldiers, and 30,000 Berlin citizens were killed in ten days. It was only later that the liberating army became Berlin’s next oppressor, creating the infamous boundary between east and west; the Berlin wall.

The sense of Soviet occupation, the horrible atrocities orchestrated against European Jews from the Nazi capital, of the incredible suffering on the part of Germans on both sides of the Wall following WWII, and celebration following the collapse of the Soviet Union all hang on the cold, crisp air of Berlin. Enormous streets throughout the city, which have been pounded by the boots of countless soldiers from several countries over the past one hundred years, remain largely empty, the grandeur of the city underscored by empty sidewalks and sparse traffic. The people you do meet are incredibly friendly, and we spent the last half of our day visiting local galleries and looking at thought provoking artwork from the thriving art community. Some wine and food with my good friend Fox topped off our stay, having seen just about all we could see in the blur of a two-day visit.

AMSTERDAM!

We left London on a train to Brussels, where we transferred to the Amsterdam line. Not stopping in the dreary, freezing capital of Belgium, we shoved along towards a city neither of us had visited. Leaving the Brussels station I looked out of my window to see women dancing in small window-cages in their lingerie for passers-by; I was under no illusion of still being in India now. The train ride took several hours - British, French, and Belgium countryside passing under in the relentless drizzle - and we arrived wet, tired and hungry at the Dutch-speaking station just after the sky had turned black. We quickly grabbed a cab to our hotel that we chose off a screen at the tourist info kiosk, and entered the most warm, garishly decorated lobby off a small canal. Our room itself sported several competing interior styles; the intricate wall-paper setting off the densely patterned carpet, our modern chandelier (that we LOVE) not matching the fake gold candelabras that hold our light bulbs, the thick, heavy and dark-colored (and might I add, dramatic) mauve curtain certainly has nothing to do with the faux black fur that rests on my bed as comforter, yet they all work. The Dutch interior decorations met nothing but admiration from these two Americans, too happy to put down our luggage and be out of the rain in an ensemble of patterns, colors, and material.

We were also both happy that we arrived late in the evening, because the next day as we strolled along the beautiful open channels we felt as though we were floating in a dream from which we had not yet woken. The skinny buildings sit so neatly side by side with their quintessential Dutch roofs, and the canals provide perfect guidance and serenity to walks through the old city. Having come from a hot climate, I quickly realized I needed boots to keep my toes warm as we move eastward, so we spent the day weaving in and out of amazing little neighborhoods with beautiful architecture looking for boots in countless funky boutiques. Finally (after finding a suitable pair) we made our way to the Reich museum to look at some of Rembrandt’s largest works. Unfortunately his drawings were not currently on display, but I have to say, a day spent walking in Amsterdam and an afternoon of seeing Rembrandt’s work up close comes pretty close to perfection. His darkened portraits have always been some of my favorite, and to see his work in his own place seemed to lend an extra magnetism to his familiar brushstrokes.

We spent our last day walking to Anne Frank's house, which has been preserved and constructed into an incredible Holocaust memorial. It was hard to imagine this almost fairy-like city under the heal of the Nazis, and the fear that gripped those who went into hiding as a desperate attempt to survive. Climbing the narrow staircase behind the bookshelf and arriving in the blackened quarters where 8 people lived for two years was hard to bear. Juxtoposed with Frank's poignant writing and her father's return from Aushtawitz to create this memorial, my mother and I were teary and in disbelief over the cruelty inflicted during the Second World War. We left feeling deeply moved and glad that we had seen this side of European Jewish history, emerging with a little more understanding of one of many phases this city has endured. Heading away we found a warm, quaint cafe where we could grab some tea and a croissant out of the rain and enjoy our last hours. Later we ate dinner at a little restaurant with melt-in-your mouth food, following up by walking through the famous red-light district (to see, not to buy) and passed up the sweet-smelling hash bars for a beer. A city more liberal than San Francisco, where everyone rides their bicycles even in the rain, led through gorgeous Dutch architecture by Venetian-like canals, Amsterdam has so far topped the charts for me. Next we will make our way to Berlin, and intensely fascinating city for me, before continuing on towards Istanbul.

London Town

Leaving behind the heat and masses of India, I sailed over the Middle East and Eastern Europe to be dropped in India’s colonial forbearer; England. However, as I was transferred through the London airport I was struck by how many Indian faces surrounded me. True, I had just landed in an airplane filled with both English and Indian families all from Indian descent, but after waiting in an hour-long snaking customs line, I emerged to find the entrance hall nearly a carbon copy of Delhi’s. Bleary from the trip and a couple of high altitude glasses of wine I stared out at the many searching eyes and mass of families waiting to catch sight of their loved ones. Wait, did I leave India?

I hopped on the tube, relishing the cool rush of air, even enjoying the occasional shivers, and looked out of my window into the night. Beneath the each platform sign was the platform names typed neatly in Devanagri (the script for Hindi and several north Indian languages). Surrounded by people of Indian and Pakistani decent, chatting in British English, Arabic, or Hindi, I marveled at the ease and lack of tension between all the people on the train of all colors and backgrounds; another New England.

Emerging from the train I found a myself hailing down the famous English taxi and hopped in, shuddering off a few sprinkles of rain (thank the lord!) and was whisked off to meet my mother in a cozy B&B in Bloomsbury called The Academy. We spent a couple of days there, starting our trip with the Tate Modern, which rivaled the SF MOMA for it’s permanent collection, layout, and shows and beating the NY MOMA (we both agreed). The openness, FREENESS (as in no money) and layout of the museum was wonderful, and I found perhaps too much comfort reentering a culture that had also gone through a cultural renaissance vis a vis modern and conceptual art. What a gift.

We then made our way through narrow, wet streets through lines of clean, beautiful buildings to Westminster Abbey and then St. Martin’s in the Field, where my great-grandparents on my grandfather’s side were married. Amazingly on this pilgrimage into my mother’s and my lineage, we stumbled upon approximately 100,000 people (mostly Indians) celebrating Diwali in London’s main public square outside the British Museum. We were both so happy to see such a diverse population in London and cultural embrace in the old colonial center - at least in the limited spaces I occupied. Making our way back to the B&B, we had a pint in a local pub and prepared ourselves to shove off to Amsterdam. We will be back in London in a few weeks where I look forward to spending another couple of days exploring more of London’s bustling neighborhoods. The order and cleanliness, not to mention the cool weather, have been welcome changes from the hot and chaotic subcontinent, and I will be enjoying much, much more of that from London all the way to Istanbul over the next three weeks.