Flying to Diyarbakar and a bus to Mardin, Turkey - Iraq Project II
This is a reposting of my Iraq Project II. I will post a dispatch-entry Monday thru Friday until the original project is recreated. The real-time journey was posted by The Janesville Gazette in February and March, 2008.
Flying in Turkey
posted February 21, 2008
The flight to Diyarbakar, Turkey was on time, quick, and uneventful except the cabin was extremely hot. Out the window however, the whole of Eastern Turkey is under snow.
There was a big bus out side to take me to the main "bus garage" as they call them here, which is a menagerie of vans, taxis, cars, carts, people and kids. No time to visit Diyarbakar this trip. Last time I walked the looming, crumbling old city wall. I saw an old woman chase some naughty kids away from me with her potato knife. They were begging for money. I believe Diyarbakar is a sprawling city. It is a complex maze of narrow streets and blocks of apartments and shops. The old walled city is ominously dark in timbre.
The ride to Mardin is about 50 miles. Mardin is a gem in a quasi-war zone. I believe it is about 50,000 people. It sits on a mountain like a city in a post card. Reality check - as the crow flies, I am about 90 miles from the Iraqi boarder. It is about 33 degrees Fahrenheit here with only a dusting of snow. The Internet shop is across from my hotel - "otel" in Turkish. The hotel guy remembered me from 18 months ago. They get few if any Americans. Finally a bed after three days on the road.
Mardin has two sections. An old city on the mountain. "New Mardin" is down below with its utilitarian apartments and Soviet style architecture.
.JPG)
Looking up at Old Mardin from utilitarian New Mardin, Turkey
- Photo by Bob Keith, February, 2008 -
Here there is a Assyrian community. I have made friends with an Assyrian fellow I met last time and runs a shop on the winding main street. He said there are about 350 of his people in the area. They are Christians and have a church in town. Remember, Turkey is about 99 percent Muslim.
Two cops came into the Internet shop last night at 11:30 p.m. The were loaded down with machine guns and equipment. One asked me where I was from. I told him Chicago because every one in the world knows Chicago. It is too hard to explain several times every day where Whitewater and Janesville are. Well, if push came to shove, Janesville is getting to be a far burb of Chicago. The cop just laughed and said something about the Bulls and shook my hand.
The call to prayer woke me up at 5:00 a.m. The sound cracked from the nearby mosque through the cold morning air. Mardin has elements of modern Turkey, yet it is layered with Turkish culture. There are mosques, shops, produce markets, farm machinery, travelers, and of course the military.
.JPG)
Tea and breakfast with a crew of traveling electricians - Mardin, Turkey
- photo by "the waiter," February, 2008 -
.JPG)
Internet 90 miles from Iraq in Mardin, Turkey
- Photo by Bob Keith, February, 2008 -
The kids were playing war games at the Internet shop when the electricity went out. It went out three times today. The hotel has a generator. From now on I am in a culture of generators. The power grid is unpredictable at best to all points east.
Bob Keith
Mardin, Turkey
Flying in Turkey
posted February 21, 2008
The flight to Diyarbakar, Turkey was on time, quick, and uneventful except the cabin was extremely hot. Out the window however, the whole of Eastern Turkey is under snow.
There was a big bus out side to take me to the main "bus garage" as they call them here, which is a menagerie of vans, taxis, cars, carts, people and kids. No time to visit Diyarbakar this trip. Last time I walked the looming, crumbling old city wall. I saw an old woman chase some naughty kids away from me with her potato knife. They were begging for money. I believe Diyarbakar is a sprawling city. It is a complex maze of narrow streets and blocks of apartments and shops. The old walled city is ominously dark in timbre.
The ride to Mardin is about 50 miles. Mardin is a gem in a quasi-war zone. I believe it is about 50,000 people. It sits on a mountain like a city in a post card. Reality check - as the crow flies, I am about 90 miles from the Iraqi boarder. It is about 33 degrees Fahrenheit here with only a dusting of snow. The Internet shop is across from my hotel - "otel" in Turkish. The hotel guy remembered me from 18 months ago. They get few if any Americans. Finally a bed after three days on the road.
Mardin has two sections. An old city on the mountain. "New Mardin" is down below with its utilitarian apartments and Soviet style architecture.
Looking up at Old Mardin from utilitarian New Mardin, Turkey
- Photo by Bob Keith, February, 2008 -
Here there is a Assyrian community. I have made friends with an Assyrian fellow I met last time and runs a shop on the winding main street. He said there are about 350 of his people in the area. They are Christians and have a church in town. Remember, Turkey is about 99 percent Muslim.
Two cops came into the Internet shop last night at 11:30 p.m. The were loaded down with machine guns and equipment. One asked me where I was from. I told him Chicago because every one in the world knows Chicago. It is too hard to explain several times every day where Whitewater and Janesville are. Well, if push came to shove, Janesville is getting to be a far burb of Chicago. The cop just laughed and said something about the Bulls and shook my hand.
The call to prayer woke me up at 5:00 a.m. The sound cracked from the nearby mosque through the cold morning air. Mardin has elements of modern Turkey, yet it is layered with Turkish culture. There are mosques, shops, produce markets, farm machinery, travelers, and of course the military.
Tea and breakfast with a crew of traveling electricians - Mardin, Turkey
- photo by "the waiter," February, 2008 -
Internet 90 miles from Iraq in Mardin, Turkey
- Photo by Bob Keith, February, 2008 -
The kids were playing war games at the Internet shop when the electricity went out. It went out three times today. The hotel has a generator. From now on I am in a culture of generators. The power grid is unpredictable at best to all points east.
Bob Keith
Mardin, Turkey
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