Izmir, Karşıyaka, Çanakkale and back to Istanbul

It's cold in Istanbul, very cold indeed when the north wind sweeps icily in and across the city from the black sea. So like a flamingo, I migrated south to warmer parts during the night. I suppose I'g better tell you how this unplanned part of my travels has gone: Terribly.

Don't take this the wrong way, I loved every day I spent in Izmir and the surrounding area, the hosts I found were fantastic and even a few people from the local couchsurfing community got in touch (albeit too late) to meet up during the day. 

The problem is after three weeks inside Turkey, I still feel like I haven't scratched the surface. I go from large city to large city because that's where the hosts are, it takes days just to find a good host for 2-3 days, meaning I'm always on the internet either scanning lists of potential hosts, reading profiles or writing personalised requests to stay with them. I've toyed with the thought thought of just finding my way to some random small town and letting fortune take over. Walking into the town  square, waving my arms in the air and yelling 'HELP!'

The problem is language, I can order food and drink, I can buy a bus ticket, I can ask where something is, and say please. This however isn't enough. I want to tell people I like the way they've arranged the flowers in their window box, admire their Ataturk portrait, talk about the things we dream about, ask if the land here is good for growing olives or grapes and understand the complexities of the answers. I will always be that goofy tourist, no matter how many phrases I learn. Perhaps it's about time I accepted that and swallowed my pride.

The night bus to Izmir boards a ferry.

On the way to Asia for the first time!

I decided to take the night bus to Izmir, I could sleep on the bus and arrive the next morning bright and full of energy to explore this new place.

Why don't I learn?

I arrived in Izmir after about one and a half hours sleep, poorly dressed for the pre-dawn cold and somehow an hour before the bus was supposed to arrive. It was a shock to be dropped shivering on a street corner, but just along the road the most amazing view awaited me, so I took a seat on a little wall and had a breakfast of biscuits and mandarins.

Pelicans of Karsiyaka

Sunrise over Karsiyaka

The waterfront is often said to be the pride of Karsiyaka, indeed it is beautiful as, unlike the view across the bay in Izmir, the sun is always near or over the sea. Many natives of the area (including one or two I know well) have fond memories of going to the sea with their relatives as children, including these rather fetching dolphin statues in one plaza. Admittedly it is a nice place to spend an afternoon, especially if the wind is not so cold. One Saturday afternoon I observed a sizable percentage of the town's population just walking along the sea-front, promenading if you like. This is not the only familiar pastime that the locals practice; they also like to ride the ferryboats across the bay. In fact I do to.

Feeding the seagulls from the open back of the ferry. I tried to get a nice picture of the food being given to a bird directly, but the timing was too difficult.

The Sea-front in Izmir

I like Izmir, it has a much more 'chilled out' (perhaps Mediterranean) feeling than Istanbul. Also it has around 1% of the street hustlers of Istanbul, meaning I was only accosted by a smartly dressed gentleman offering to be my guide and friend once. By the old bazaar/market in fact, right where you'd expect this species to have it's niche. I did try to buy socks here too, but couldn't find a shop that sold them all of the time. It was always a case of 'come inside the shop sir' whilst they send a boy (in uniform bad fringe and black leather jacket) to the actual shops for right and left socks to find some matching pairs for me to buy at marked-up prices.
Izmir has a few things to do and see, but not nearly as many things as I expected so my conscience was free to just do what I wanted to do and wander around wide-eyed taking the whole place in.
The minor residential streets just inland from Bostanli are quite something to wander through. Plants line the balcony rails, still many are in flower and you can just catch their perfume from the street. Turkish flags with the image of Ataturk hang from some while from others women beat carpets or shake brooms or mops over the unsuspecting pedestrians below. Municipal workers seem to be on a perpetual break from laying the new cobble-bricks in the wet sand that has been spread evenly and miss the local stray cats using it as a toilet due to being pre-occupied talking  (presumably about their boss, football or politics) over tea in little tulip-shaped glasses.  

My first hosts in Karsiyaka, a sneaky picture while they were cooking supper. (Yayla Corbasi)

The best thing about living in Izmir, in my opinion. Too dirty to swim in, apparently. And most definitely too cold.

I like how the Izmir mindset is generally pragmatic and cosmopolitan, liberal and progressive. Both my hosts in the area were very laid back and open-minded (no, not in the couchsurfing reference-code way!) which they assured me was common for the area, the current prime-minister seeing the city as a thorn in his side and a hotbed of opposition to his conservative policies. I never did get to ask anyone about 'The Great Fire' although there are reminders here and there if your eyes are open. There are certainly no monuments to the suffering of the civilian population although there are a few victorious monuments marking the day the Greek army were driven back to the sea, but not the aftermath. Too messy I expect, someone with too much pride may need to acknowledge something dreadful happened. Such is the state of Aegean national politics. 

A much-overlooked sculpture park. The lion to the right of center is at least 2600 years old. 

However, after just over a week it was time to move on. Without, may I add seeing almost all of the 'must see' attractions in the area  I chose to travel a few hours north to Chanakkale where there were many more interesting things not to see. 
I've grown accustomed to missing out on tourism by now; I don't have a driving licence with me, nor would I use a hire car if I did, it's a matter of stubborn principle. I find excuses of course, like not going to Ephesus because I was out drinking the night before and woke up late, the weather being cold and nasty and the public transport being sparse. I think I didn't go because it was OK not to. I'm allowed not to visit these places. It's my yardstick I'm being measured by, no-one else's.
It's my bloody trip.

The Bosphorus straights at Canakkale

In Canakkale I began to get the feeling I was starting to understand the country better; if you don't know it is the site of the Battle of Gallipoli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign in particular Canakkale was the site of the WW1 allies' first attempt to run the Dardanelles straight, reach Constantinople, knock the Ottoman empire effectively out of the war and open a southern sea route to Russia. It may well have worked if mines hadn't been laid in the straights prior to the attack. The Denial of the straights to the British and French navies and the subsequent land campaign occupies a colossal part of the Turkish folk memory. I suppose it is as if the Battle of Britain (national survival) was crossed with Thermopylae (overwhelming odds) and the Battle of the Somme (horrific casualties). It is also the battle in which modern Turkey was largely conceived and forms a part of The War of Independence.  

The replica of the minelayer Nusret

Ataturk forever..

The battle also ties in with the Ataturk story, so it's pretty much the most important thing to have happened to the Turkish people since yogurt was invented. However, when walking around town and going into the visitor attractions and museums in the area I cant help feeling that a myth has been built up around a truth, historical fact has been pumped up and given steroids where appropriate and quietly left out if not. This wall and rampart has been re-built after being destroyed by the allied bombardment but not labeled as such, however this shore defence gun was destroyed after the war and most definitely  not by British shells and clearly labeled with these facts. The examples will long outlast the time available to me to write. However what I can say is that a lot rides on the myths built on this place. Many are mutually supporting, the largest myth of them all; of the identity of the state of Turkey. More on this later.

Ramparts for artillery at the fort in Canakkale

The caption for this model was just the slightest bit weighted towards a politically convenient narrative of national survival battles against a cunning and powerful foe. But what did I expect if the exhibition is built and staged by the military?

Hmm, a Trojan horse.

That feeling when the breakfast buffet is all just for you...

Happy new year!

The ferry ride to Eceabat

So what is it to be Turkish?
I have made some vague conclusions based on the observations I have made throughout my limited time in the country. I have asked the people I have met about life, their beliefs and habits, probably asking some awkward questions in the process although I only asked the toughies to people I thought wouldn't react badly. The results are most likely skewed by only travelling in the west of the country and only talking to young, educated and 21st century minded people. This is what I have found:

Turkey is a multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-faith society, in fact it is several societies telescoped into one physical space, several ways of seeing the world and even several economies coexisting on the same income. If it were a person it would be schizophrenic. This is evidenced best by the political views of the people I have stayed with versus the party currently in power. One side liberal and reformist, the other traditional, religious and conservative. 
However, there is more than that,
Historically much nationalism was and probably still is based upon the idea of 'Turkishness', however Anatolia has an incredibly long and rich history before the Turks arrived. These peoples of Anatolia were not wiped out  by the invaders from the Asian heartland but persisted with their own language and customs in many cases. Even those groups that converted to Islam and learned to speak in the new language kept many of their old ways. Then the Ottoman Empire drew new peoples in from near and far and of course moved a few around against their will. This all contributes to one of the most racially diverse populations I have ever seen, just riding the metro is a delight for a casual face spotter, in one car you can spot individuals that would not look out of place in Britain or Denmark, France of Spain, Northern Italy, Poland, European Russia, Asian Russia, Mongolia, China, Greece, Egypt and the Levant. All speaking Turkish.

In my last week in Istanbul I began to get a better understanding of how this happened; after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire the remnant of the empire centered on Anatolia was fighting for survival. Arab nationalism to the south, Soviet expansion to the north-east, Greek invasion to the west which at first threatened to capture the whole west coast of Asia minor, Constantinople and push along the Black Sea coast re-capturing ancient Byzantine territories. Everywhere there were pockets of the very people threatening to consume Turkey practicing their own languages, customs and religions.

Gunner Sayit saves the day yet again, in statue form.

The Mehter band perform for me and 200 schoolkids and their teachers

I love this picture.

The Turkish army under Ataturk managed to carve a new country out of this mess by first driving out the invasion, putting down rebellions and then the stage that interests me; the consolidation. Turkish became the only language to be spoken, Sunni Islam the only form to be practiced. The Koran was to be translated into Turkish as was to be the language of religious affairs to remove the influence of the new Arab states forming to the south. Of the disparate peoples in the new republic many left or were forced to leave the country, a process that continued until the 1970s. Many died in events that still inspire controversy and hatred today.  If you ever visit Istanbul after you have 'done' the main sights and buildings I recommend a visit to the National Military Museum which in spite of it's name is half cultural center. The legend of the Turkic tribes spreading from their home in central Asia, conquering and populating the world as they went is right there, presented often in face-slappingly gaudy modern artworks painting these ancient eurasians in the palette of modern Turkish faces.  Here is the myth distilled and presented for you in a single building, cherry-picking historical fruits here and there and fusing it into a single narrative. As the quote , written over the theatre where the re-created Ottoman Mehter band play, from Mustafa Kemal himself says: "Nations that are unaware of their history are obliged to die out". What else was there to do but write a history.

An ossury built from gravestones from the relocated graves of Le grand champs cemetery

The Roman Catholic cemetery  contains the graves of French, Italian and a huge Levantine population, descendants of Byzantine Constantinople.

Gravestones of the English merchant families that settled in Galata and the surrounding districts, I wonder if this is the cause of some of those faces on the metro?

Myths again. Bilge.

My hosts district.

Modern Turkey, too modern.

However, it worked. The myth covered the cracks, it took like a skin graft on raw flesh. Turkey was born. Or created. The choice is up to the individual. It is a modern country, but it is not western, rather it exists at the cross-roads of the world. I would like to see the nation acknowledge the differences between it's disparate peoples, the shared origins with it's neighbours and the need to encompass all traditions within it's borders. I wonder...

Well done if you've read this far. This post is huge. I'm finishing it off in Bahrain waiting for my connecting flight to India and another adventure. I'm sad to be leaving Europe behind. I miss the places I've been and I miss it's peoples, especially the ones who have opened their homes and their hearts to me. I have the feeling even if I stay in my Aegean loop I will never be ready to leave, never be finished. There's always more.

See? Modern?