Anatolia, Where the Past Is the Present

My mother always wanted to see Mt. Ararat. Not so much for the Noah story, but because, like Timbuktu, it seemed impossibly remote. I always wanted to see the Silk Road town of Diyarbakir for much the same reason. Both are in eastern Turkey, and for the last several decades, both have been extraordinarily difficult to get to. Until recently, this area was so politically sensitive that the Turkish government actively discouraged tourists from going there. That has changed.

Turkey, eager to join the European Union, has made great strides toward turning its eastern provinces into a tourist destination. Peace agreements with Kurdish nationalists--longtime violent foes of the Turkish government--have helped ease tensions.

In June, Mother and I found a British tour group going to the places we had dreamed of seeing. We signed up at once.

The same fascination we felt is drawing more and more tourists to Turkey. Spanning two continents, thousands of years of history and dozens of ruling civilizations, Turkey is an open-air museum that intrigues many Westerners.

While the eastern part of the country, which we visited, offers tourists a share of hardships, it also offers adventurous travelers a look at some of the world’s oldest archeological sites. It is a region astonishingly rich with the remains of scores of civilizations and empires, stretching from the Neolithic period to the early 20th century.

Our trip took us from L.A. by way of London to Istanbul, where we joined a group of 15. Istanbul straddles the border between Europe and Asia, the only city in the world built on two continents.

Anatolia, the Asiatic part of modern Turkey, is a peninsula between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. It has always been the shortest land route between Europe and Asia, so people from both continents have swept across it since the end of the last Ice Age in 12,000 BC. Greeks, Persians, Armenians, Mongols, Scythians, Georgians, Assyrians, Jews, Arabs and Celts all left their mark.

From Istanbul we flew to Trabzon, on the Black Sea, and boarded our tour bus. Three days later we were crossing a volcanic plain south of the town of Igdir when our guide, Fatih, half Kurdish and half Turkish, pointed to a cloud bank on the horizon and announced “Mt. Ararat,” believed to be the landing place of Noah’s Ark.

The landscape was marked by eroded cinder cones and fields of ripening grain. Ararat, 16,945 feet high, was shy that afternoon, or maybe aristocratically aloof. Its snowcapped peak refused to come out from behind the cloud cover. As we got nearer, we could make out the shape of Little Ararat, a companion cone, 12,877 feet high, which sits on the larger cone’s flank.

Disappointed at being denied a better view, we drove into the frontier town of Dogubeyazit. Isolated and remote, the town has been nicknamed “Dog Biscuit” by those who pass through when it’s too hot or too wet. We were lucky. The weather was beautiful, and even Dogubeyazit’s potholed streets looked picturesque.

Fatih led us into the tiny Krystal Cafe on a side street for lunch. Most eastern Turkish cafes have a glass-fronted counter right inside the main door, where the dishes sit cooking and the customer points to what he wants. At the end of the counter, a cook threaded chunks of chicken and lamb on long skewers and popped them over an open fire. Standard fare in local cafes was chicken or lamb kebab with rice, yogurt and nan (flat bread), followed by a clay bowl of meshur sutlac, a delicious rice custard pudding. In two weeks, we never had a bad meal.

Fatih, a doctoral student in Turkish Neolithic history, was eager to show us as much as he could of his country. After lunch we headed three miles east of town and up a precipitously curved road to the late 17th century site of Isak Pasha Saray. An acropolis of the Urartian empire (1200 BC) once stood on a promontory above the valley. Square-mouthed cave tombs with Persian-style friezes dotted the mountainside below it, but when we scrambled up to them, we found them flooded. The foundations of later buildings also rest on the site, including a 16th century mosque built by Selim the Grim, father of Suleyman the Magnificent.

Holding pride of place on the promontory beneath the acropolis is the Isak Pasha Saray, a sprawling 366-room fortress-palace built by a Kurdish chieftain and his son.

We were fascinated by the rooms that once contained the harem. They were a series of identical, connecting rectangles with small hooded fireplaces that couldn’t have given off much heat. Windows looked out on a sheer drop. From a hallway at the end of the rooms, a long, dark staircase descended to a rocky patch of ground where wild poppies grew and the wind howled around the walls. It was labeled “The Harem Garden.”

“The girls must have gone nuts up here day after day,” Mother remarked.

I had no desire to move in, but when I saw our hotel a few hours later, I considered changing my mind. The Sim-Er Hotel back in Dogubeyazit was dusty, sprawling and strange. Towels were folded like white-winged butterflies on the ends of our beds, and the bedcovers were draped over the floors almost to the walls. The plumbing had a tentative air about it, and when our sink fell off the wall the next morning, with a resounding crash that woke the entire floor, I can’t say I was surprised.

But the saving grace of this dingy little domicile was the second-floor veranda that looked out on Mt. Ararat. By the time we had checked in and checked out the amenities, it was almost sunset, and Ararat had decided to put on a show. All the clouds had vanished, and the pristine beauty of its snow-covered peak shimmered in the pink light of the setting sun.

Mother and I sat on the veranda, drinks in hand, and admired its beauty.

The next day we continued south, arriving in the afternoon at the tip of Turkey’s largest lake, the mineral-rich Lake Van. Ringed by snowcapped volcanoes, Van has a total surface larger than the country of Luxembourg. Once the heart of the Armenian homeland, the area around Van now is home to many Kurds.

A Kurdish terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), is considered to have a presence in the eastern provinces of Turkey. Consequently, the U.S. State Department advises visitors to travel only during daylight hours and on major highways.

But we saw no indication of problems during our visit. We found the Kurds to be friendly and hospitable. At rest stops all along the road, picnicking Kurdish families offered us tea and smiles.

At the town of Van we checked into the Tusba Hotel on the lake. The view was great, but the brine flies weren’t.

Lunch was under blue awnings on the beach. Despite the high alkalinity of the water, a sardine-like silver fish with great pale eyes lives in the lake. We tried this local delicacy but found it bony and very salty. “They taste like they’re pre-pickled,” Mother said. The farm-raised local trout were better, and the local beer was the best of all.

Small boats run from the docks near the restaurant to the Akdamar, an islet where in 921 the Armenian king Gagik Artzuni built a palace, a monastery and the Church of the Holy Cross. The palace and monastery are long gone, but the church, with its folkloric carvings and frescoes, still stands.

Hauling groups of tourists, the boatmen raced to the island. The strong breeze felt wonderful and blew away all the brine flies.

We landed and clambered up to the top of the small hill where the church was perched. Fatih pointed out carvings on its basalt facade: Adam and Eve smiling smugly by the Tree of Knowledge, and David looking less than happy at discovering the size of Goliath. Good old King Gagik himself appeared among the carvings together with his brother. Both were larger than the figure of Jesus nearby. So much for false modesty.

Long before the Armenian kingdoms occupied this area, the kings of Urartu (or Ararat) covered the hilltops with forts and palaces. Fifteen miles southeast of the town of Van, at Cavustepe, King Sardur II built the castle of Sarduri-Hinili between 764 and 735 BC. It is on a high hill, and the hike is exhausting--especially in the heat of the afternoon--but the view from the top is spectacular.

The ruins of the Urartian city, dating to the 8th century BC, lie below. A 3,000-year-old irrigation canal skirts the hill. In Sardur’s mountaintop temple, at one end of the ruins, cuneiform-inscribed black basalt blocks look as if they were carved yesterday. Like Gagik’s church carvings, they told us that Sardur was one heck of a guy.

Huffing and puffing down the hill, we were delighted to find a tea garden by a lake only a few minutes’ walk away.

As usual, the place was crowded with picnicking Kurdish families. We ordered soft drinks, but a young Kurdish couple at the next table poured out small glasses of apple tea and brought them over to us. Pleased to discover we were Americans, they wanted to know how we liked their country. Then, with a great deal of laughter, they showed us how to hold the sugar cubes in our teeth and drink the tea around them. The next day, driving out of Van, we passed the same couple on the street, and we shouted and waved at each other like old friends.

Next, we headed southwest for Mardin and Diyarbakir, dropping in altitude toward the great Syrian desert. When we stopped for tea at a waterfall, we studied the faces of the people around us. I had a camera, and everyone wanted their picture taken. I left with a handful of torn pieces of paper scrawled with the addresses of my models. I promised to send copies to all of them, and I did.

Mardin, on the edge of the desert 60 miles south of Diyarbakir, has been inhabited for more than 5,000 years. Like the rest of eastern Anatolia, it has a mix of peoples. It also has a mix of religions--Syrian Orthodox, Chaldean Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Muslim, Jewish, Zoroastrian and Yezidi (whose religious mission is to persuade Lucifer to return to heaven).

We were invited into the Ulu Cami, an 11th century Seljuk mosque, and later met a Syrian Orthodox priest who showed us his church, part of which dates to the 6th century. At the altar, the priest read from the Bible in Aramaic, the language of Jesus. Mardin, along with two towns across the nearby Syrian border, is one of the few places where Aramaic is still spoken.

It was late afternoon when we drove away from Mardin. An hour later we crossed the gleaming width of the Tigris River. From its banks, the black, crenelated battlements of the city of Diyarbakir rose to meet us.

Founded in 1500 BC by the kings of Mitanni, it’s a place of teeming, narrow streets, labyrinthine alleyways and extensive bazaars. At one time the city--then called Amida--sat astride one of the principal branches of the legendary Silk Road, a network of trade routes that ran from modern-day Xian in China to Rome. The city, renamed Diyar Bakr after its conquest by the Arabs in AD 639, was of such great strategic importance that it changed hands many times after that.

It had been a long road for us, as it was for the caravaners of the past, and I looked forward to exploring the city. For now, though, I was happy to check into the Otel Buyuk Kervansaray, a converted caravansary, or Silk Road hotel, originally built in the 16th century as a stopping place for camel trains. The hotel now offers such amenities as a swimming pool, and the camel stables have been turned into an upscale restaurant. A breeze blew through the courtyard as we relaxed with drinks.

Tomorrow the caravan would begin again, but for tonight we, and the camels, were at rest.

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Guidebook: Exploring Turkey

Getting there: From LAX, connecting service (change of plane) is available on Lufthansa, Delta, Air France, British Airways, Swiss and Virgin Atlantic. Round-trip fares begin at $1,240. Turkish Airlines offers connector flights from Istanbul to Van, $270 round trip, and Diyarbakir, $246 round trip.

What to know: Tourist facilities are limited in eastern Turkey; it may be easiest to visit with a tour group. Travelers should stay away from raw vegetables, eat only fruit they peel themselves, drink only bottled water and eat only hot, freshly cooked food. Tourist hotels have Western bathroom facilities, but some smaller restaurants may offer only squat toilets. We found most places clean, apart from toilet facilities in rural areas.

Taking a tour: We toured with a British tour operator, Bales Worldwide Holidays, which has tours scheduled to eastern Turkey on Sept. 14 and 28. The 15-night trips cost $3,115 per person, double occupancy, including air fare from London

to Trabzon, Turkey; accommodations; some meals; guides; and bus transportation. Air fare from Los Angeles to London is not included. Contact the company at 011-44-1306- 732-700, www.bales.co.uk.

A Newport Beach tour operator has an eastern Turkey trip planned for Oct. 5-17. It will visit Mt. Ararat, Lake Van and the Black Sea coast. The cost is $1,775 per person, double occupancy; included are transfers, bus transportation, some meals, accommodations and guides. The air fare add-on from Los Angeles is about $1,045. Contact Newport International Travel, (949) 719- 2800, www.newportinternational.net/turkey.html.

For more information: Turkish Tourist Office, 821 United Nations Plaza, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10017; (877) FOR TURKEY (367-8875) or (212) 687-2194, www.tourismturkey.org.

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Susan E. James is a freelance writer in La Canada Flintridge.