Anatolian Express XVI: Back in the City of the Sultans

June 11, 2014 My day started very early in Bodrum on Monday, with the night clerk at my hotel calling me at 5:30 am to wake me up. I had a shuttle bus to the airport to catch in forty-five minutes and had barely slept a wink the night before. I blame this condition on a lack of alcohol, as I'd refrained the night before from indulging in the rakı and watermelon fest that had typified the rest of the evenings on the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. Figuring I had to get up early, I'd toned things down a bit, but then wasn't really all that tired by the time my head hit the pillow. Serves me right for trying to organize things too much. It was pretty cool walking through the streets of Bodrum in the early morning. Normally, everywhere is packed with sweaty grim-faced tourists running the gauntlet of Turkish touts shouting out their wares in English. At such an early hour in the morning there were no tourists to be found, though it's not as if the streets were deserted. A number of the shopkeepers were setting up for the day, one that wouldn't end for them until after eleven o'clock at night.  I got to the airport without issue--other than the fact that our bus pulled over on the side of the highway for ten minutes while we waited for a late traveler to board. I was flying Onur Air, my old fave from the grand old days of the 1990s. The steward's badge indicated that his name was, in fact, Onur, which was vaguely amusing. Traveling in style with Onur & Friendz

Anatolian Express XV: Bodrum, Gümüşlük & Yalıçiftlik

Sunday, June 8, 2014 I rolled into Bodrum on Friday after a three-hour trip from Marmaris. It was easy traveling on a little (one-buttock seats) but uncrowded bus. The weather was sunny and warm, and we drove through a nice new highway that took us through the mountains. As was the case with most of the trips I've taken during this past month, the ride was considerably shorter than my guidebook, published just seven years ago, indicates. It's testament to the degree to which Turkey's infrastructure has been developing in recent years. From the bus as we pulled into Bodrum

Anatolian Express XIV: Marmaris and İçmeler

Thursday, June 5, 2014 On Wednesday morning I got up early-ish and had my final breakfast in Fethiye before hitting the road for Marmaris. Fethiye had been fun. I'd like the place where I was staying, especially as they had a nice veranda that had a view of the harbor and the hills beyond. I'd gotten into the habit of drinking rakı and eating watermelon there at night. Of course, people in Turkey would usually include white (feta) cheese as well, but I guess two out of three wasn't so bad in this instance. The trip to Marmaris ended up taking about three hours on a little bus. We traveled through bright green valleys and attractive mountains not unlike those I'd seen between Antalya and Fethiye. The bus pulled into Marmaris in mid-afternoon, and within an hour or so I was installed at my hotel and ready to check out the town.

Anatolian Express XIII: Fethiye and Karmylassos

Tuesday, June 3, 2014 Sunday was a long day. It started off in Gaziantep at four o'clock in the morning with my alarm clock ringing. As fun as my trip through the southeast had been, it was time to get moving. I had a plane to catch in a couple of hours. When planning this trip, the idea had been mainly to see places I'd never been to before. I therefore ended up seeing some places--like Sivas--that some might consider just a wee bit prosaic, while other destinations during this voyage--such as Urfa and Mardin--are fascinating but off the beaten track, at least as far as Turkey is concerned. After the past few weeks of travel, however, I figured I could use a little time resting and relaxing in the sun. That is what has brought me here to Fethiye. I think Fethiye is actually a bit farther east than this map indicates, but you get the general idea

Anatolian Express XII: Feeling nutty in Antep

Sunday, June 1, 2014 Those of you who know me are aware of the fact that I'm not much of a 'foodie.' Something about that term has always rubbed me the wrong way. I guess I've just met too many Americans whose only interest in foreign cultures related to eating. In a place like Antep, however, eating is the thing to do. The place is widely considered to have some of the best food in Turkey. Antep is also known as "Gaziantep"

Anatolian Express XI: Amazing Mardin

Friday, May 30, 2014 Yesterday was one of the best days so far on this trip. I traveled the furthest east and south that I'll go during these travels, and also felt like I'd come the closest to accomplishing what I'd set out to do in embarking on this trip--putting the past couple of years behind me and beginning the process of thinking about what I'd like to do next with my life. I also saw some beautiful sites and met nice people. What more could you ask for in a daylong excursion to Mardin?

Anatolian Express X: The Haunting Euphrates

Wednesday, May 28, 2014 The last couple of days have been really busy. On Tuesday I visited Göbeklitepe and Harran, and today I went to Halfeti. All of these places are within a couple of hours of Urfa. Göbeklitepe is an apparently revolutionary archeological find. It's thought to be a temple of some sort dating back more than eleven thousand years. This is what a National Geographic article from a few years ago had to say about it: Known as Göbekli Tepe (pronounced Guh-behk-LEE TEH-peh), the site is vaguely reminiscent of Stonehenge, except that Göbekli Tepe was built much earlier and is made not from roughly hewn blocks but from cleanly carved limestone pillars splashed with bas-reliefs of animals—a cavalcade of gazelles, snakes, foxes, scorpions, and ferocious wild boars. The assemblage was built some 11,600 years ago, seven millennia before the Great Pyramid of Giza. It contains the oldest known temple. Indeed, Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known example of monumental architecture—the first structure human beings put together that was bigger and more complicated than a hut. When these pillars were erected, so far as we know, nothing of comparable scale existed in the world.

Anatolian Express IX: Urfa

Tuesday, May 27, 2014 My day started early, at 5.45, with a call from the front desk at my hotel in Malatya. It was time to start getting ready to head to the bus station. For some reason, it's difficult finding transportation between Malatya and Urfa--a first, frankly, for me in Turkey, where it seems like it's almost always possible to find transportation at the ready between any two points. Yet I'd been having trouble, in my one night in the Apricot City, finding a bus leaving at a decent hour. The closest I'd managed was a small (one-buttock seats) bus to Adıyaman with an outfit called 'Petrol Turizm,' with the assumption that I could eventually find another small bus taking me the rest of the way to Urfa. In the end, I opted for the big bus leaving at 6:30 am. At least I'd end up having more time in Urfa, I figured.

Anatolian Express VIII: A taste of Malatya

Sunday, May 25, 2014 It's been a long day, one that started early in Sivas. I ran out of my hotel, grabbed a couple of poğaças and a newspaper, then ran back and had breakfast before my taxi came. I was on my way to Malatya.

Anatolian Express VII: Sivas and Divriği

Saturday, May 24, 2014 I had three great days in Kapadokya, but it was time to move on. As awesome a place as Kapadokya is, I also wanted to spend some time in some real places in Turkey--actual cities where normal people live, rather than just tourist enclaves. While Kapadokya is an amazing place that I totally recommend seeing, it wasn't the only sort of place I was looking to spend time in this summer. I got up at seven in the morning on Friday and had one last breakfast at the Paradise Hotel, watching the hot air balloons float over the fairy chimneys. I then packed up my stuff, walked to the bus station and headed to Kayseri. We were in a little minibus, and I sat up next to the driver. He was a wrinkled white-haired dude named Vahdet who had retired two years ago from a career as an Army officer. As we chatted, he asked me the usual questions--where am I from, am I married, how old am I, etc. It turns out he was one year younger than me. After an hour on the road, we arrived at the Kayseri bus station, where Vahdet dropped me off. I bought a ticket forward to Sivas for a bus leaving about forty-five minutes later. Within a few hours of driving through austere terrain, we arrived in Sivas.

Anatolian Express VI: Encomia for Kapadokya

Thursday, May 22, 2014  I woke up early on Tuesday morning in Ankara, freezing cold in my room. Ankara was nice, but damp and chilly. May 19th—a national holiday—had been a fun time to be in the capital, but I was ready to leave. Kapadokya was calling.

Anatolian Express IV: Thinking Beyond Erdoğan

Monday, May 19, 2014 Well, it's certainly been an interesting first several days in Turkey this year. As was the case last year, when my arrival in Turkey coincided with the explosion of a peaceful sit-in at Gezi Park into a nationwide series of protests, my visit this year has been met by yet another instance in which the Turkish Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdoğan, appears to be coming apart at the seams. So much drama, so much unnecessary strife. Now, not only has an aide of Erdoğan been photographed kicking a protester in Soma just days after the mine disaster there, but the good Prime Minister himself has also been accused of punching a protester in, of all places, Soma.

Anatolian Express V: Ankara Getaway

Monday, May 19, 2014  It's been a fun first week back in Turkey, with the first four days spent in Istanbul. But as great as Istanbul is, I also needed to get away from there. One thing I really wanted to do this summer was travel, rather than just hang out in one place the way I usually do when I'm researching. After the last eighteen months or so, I'm interested in catching my breath and spending a bit of time by myself thinking about what to do next. So, after passing a bit of time in the City by the Bos, I decided to head east, to Ankara. Ankara? Really? Yes, really. Greetings from Sunny Ankara!

Anatolian Express III: Istanbul Shotz

Sunday, May 18, 2014 This is the first time since 1997 that I've actually paid my own plane fare across the Atlantic. Everything else over the years that have passed has been covered courtesy of whatever university I was affiliated with at the time, or else by organizations like Fulbright, ARIT, IREX, NCEEER and other institutions whose funding has been slashed in recent years and no longer give out money the way that they used to. I'd actually applied for some grants earlier this year, and have still yet to hear from a couple. But I couldn't wait any longer. I had about a month between sending off my manuscript and getting it back from my copyeditor. I really felt that I needed a holiday, but wasn't sure about where I should go. It seemed kind of silly, at first, coming to Turkey for a vacation. After all, I come here every year. Wouldn't it make more sense to go someplace like Vietnam or Costa Rica?

Anatolian Express II: Soma and Toma

Saturday, May 17, 2014  It's been a busy few days in Istanbul since I arrived on Wednesday afternoon. I haven't been doing anything particularly touristic, at least with respect to sightseeing. Basically, I've been seeing my friends, people I've known, in some instances, for over twenty years. Others are folks I've met along the way during the course of all the trips I've taken back to Turkey since returning to live in the US in 1999--I think I've come to Turkey every year since then. Some people, meanwhile, are new friends, as it seems like every time I come here I meet someone new that I end up keeping in touch with. Almost all of my friends--and particularly the ones I've been hanging out with this week--despise the Prime Minister, Tayyip Erdogan. Like many other people in Turkey and elsewhere, they're appalled by Erdogan's reaction to the Soma mining disaster.

Anatolian Express: Back in Istanbul

Thursday, May 15, 2014 I arrived in Istanbul yesterday after a long flight from Bozeman, with stops in Chicago and Frankfurt en route. It was a good trip, and it's great to be back in the TC. The trip was exhausting, of course, but even on the final leg I was chatting away a mile a minute with Alp, a dude I met on the plane to Istanbul. I had meant to sleep, but frankly was too excited. It's exhilarating to be here on vacation, rather than having to work. This is the first trans-Atlantic plane ticket I've actually had to pay for myself since 1997, and I'd forgotten how liberating it can feel to actually pay your own way once in a while. Not that I'm against receiving free airfare for research, mind you.