Feeling it all fall apart in Anuradhapura

Tortured thoughts of her kept me up late again last night, despite the exhaustion making my limbs ache. She filled every dream and nothing was ever right, and I was halfway though a thought about her when I woke up.

Another day trying to see the beauty of it all through shit-colored glasses.

It's something after 7:00 when I walk out to get food from the Family Bakery on the main road, where the women will smile shyly as I order, and they will ask if I have change when I try to pay with a 1,000 rupee note ($8) but I need the smaller bills for the bus to Jaffna today.

The roads are good here, smooth pavement between reddish dirt shoulders where plants grow so ferociously they are like sedentary explosions. Men in tired slacks ride bicycles slowly, while younger men in crisper shirts zip past on motorbikes.

Women in brightly colored saris give cameras a meaning as they walk slowly along the road with consummate dignity. Someday I'll get a picture of it... One in forty makes brief eye contact with me. One in a hundred smiles back. None are unfriendly, it's just the way it is here.

The men all meet my eyes and say good morning, usually with a smile. As I walk around this town I feel like the guest of honor strolling the grounds the morning after his speech, but my only performance was how much I can sweat during dinner...

The flock of schoolgirls in bright white skirts giggles as I approach, and responds eagerly to my “good morning!” with a chorus of replies. Just past them the boys are swaggering a little, but grin even wider and all reply as well.

The town's motorcycle cop has a stern mustache and hard eyes that make me double check that I have broken no laws in the last...ten years. He stops me on the way out, his manner relaxed, his uniform sleeves bright white, with red reflective tape accenting the gloves.

“Excuse me sir. Yesterday I saw you walking that way, now you are doing so again.”

“Yes, I am going to get breakfast.”

“You are still here.”

“I am still here. For another couple hours.”

“Very good sir.”

I buy a devilled chicken bun for breakfast and two vegetable buns to have in my bag for the ~5 hour bus ride.

On my way back the officer does a U-turn to pull up beside me.

“Excuse me sir. Come here.” My mind does another quick check. I don't have my passport on me, could that possibly be a problem? “How long you have been in Sri Lanka?”

“About a week. I was in Colombo, Kandy, and now here in Anuradhapura.”

“What is your country, sir?”

“The United States, America.” I say, since different people respond to different versions.

“Aah! America! What are the differences between your country and Sri Lanka?”

I search for something interesting but innocuous. A passing car honks at the bushes. Good enough.

With a smile, “People here honk more often.” His answering smile is bright under his dark mustache. I am encouraged that he does not chew betel nuts.

“In your country sir, how is the police?”

I don't know what to say to that, and he helps me out. “There the law is very strong, yes?” I agree with him. “And in your country there are many murders.”

I waffle a bit. “Well, there are many people, but yes, there are many murders.”

“And in your country anyone can have a gun?”

I decide not to try and remember felon gun restrictions. “Yes, anyone can have a gun.”

“There is no need for a...” he taps his pocket, “a permit?” I tell him we do require permits and he asks if I have a gun in my country. I tell him no.

“I am sorry to be bothering, sir, but I am police officer and when I see person from another country, I like to talk to him to work on my English.”

I assure him I don't mind at all, tell him he speaks very well (he does) and ask where he learned it. He gestures at the street with a smile. “Here. Have a nice day sir!”

Near my hostel there are three brothers who are always out riding bicycles. Yesterday I made race car sounds with the oldest as he rode his overly-large rusty bicycle barefoot and at top speed down the road, his youngest brother perched on the rack behind him with wide eyes.

They are out again today, and smile shyly at me. When I say good morning they burst into grins and say good morning back. They keep waving until I am out of sight.

Mornings like these, non-events in some respects, are exactly why I travel. That walk should have me high all day, but as I open the door to the spare room with smears on the walls and mosquitoes in the bathroom, I remember how I've felt the entire time I've been here...I try to hold onto the good feeling, but it is not easy.

Time for a new place.

Leaving Israel, passing through the future (and the past), and arriving in Sri Lanka.

It was difficult to leave Israel with a good taste in my mouth.

Tel Aviv traffic at night

Trains and buses were sleeping due to a holiday, and the hostel told us it was a flat fare for a taxi to the airport. I found an extremely likeable professional dancer from Holland to share the cab with, and away we went. Halfway there the driver asked which terminal we needed. Dancer Man was on a budget carrier, Terminal 1, and I was on Royal Jordanian, Terminal 3.

“The price you paid only covers one terminal. Another 40 shekels to go to the other.” That's just over $10.

Then I was scanned, swabbed, and under suspicion before I even entered the terminal.

“Why did you go to Morocco?” (Three years ago.)

“Um...because it's pretty?”

“Why twice?”

“I took my girlfriend the second time.”

“What's her name?”

“Do you want her measurements too?” (No, I didn't say that. I am not writing this in an Israeli prison.)

Obviously there is a lot of love in this country,
I tried to focus on images like this...

Then I stood in front of the bag inspection corral, where 3 of the 13 to 16 staff were actually working, slowly, and waited for my turn to have my underwear spread across the desk and rubbed with a magic wand. I knew I needed to do laundry, but this was just embarrassing.

I sat there planning my packing list for next time. 1 leather T-shirt/harness, 3 blow-up dolls, 5 vibrators, 7 riding crops...would that be a mitzvah?

I had two flights to reach Sri Lanka, changing planes in Amman, Jordan. That was a big hit. I had to try and explain why I was stopping there...on Royal Jordanian Airlines.

Finally I was handed a boarding pass. “You'll have to go to the transfer desk in Amman to get the other two.”

“Two?”

“Yes, for the flight from Dubai as well.”

“Dubai?”

Given the assortment of words that were floating around my head, the theory was the less words I actually used, the less likely I was to get in trouble.

My second flight had been canceled, so for the second time in the last three years I was flying to Dubai to be passed off to Emirates Airlines. This is not a problem, because Emirates is fantastic, and the airport is a trip in itself.

Hard to tell (I was running to my gate)
but that black wall is a waterfall...

I've been to some oversized and ostentatious airports (see: Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv) but nothing matches Dubai International for sheer sci-fi spectacle. You walk for miles through a canyon of subtle commercials and stylish ornamentation, ascend and descend escalators alongside 3-storey waterfalls, and pass hi-tech displays that are ready for Tom Cruise in futuristic white haute couture to chase an alien villain past at any minute.

Take a train, because, hey, why not? Eventually you reach Terminal A to find yourself inside the massive arching ribs of an international transportation behemoth, but luckily it swallowed some nice bathrooms too. I brushed my teeth and took a seat behind Jimmy Buffet's younger brother, who was telling a lengthy story about calling his credit card company to two women who were both immersed in their phones.

Dripping down through it all was the awareness that last time I walked those corridors I was with K, our backpacks stuffed with toothbrushes for kids in South Africa. Her absence this time made every bench into a memorial as I wondered “Is that the one where we fell asleep on each other's shoulder?

I wonder if the guy whose giant hairy arms flopped into my side of the armrest noticed my refusal to look up.

Good thing I put the camera away before I started
falling asleep. Not a great idea in a tuk tuk...

A sleepless interlude in the surreal world of air transport, Gangster Squad showing on my tiny screen, and then I was in Colombo. I navigated the customarily poorly-marked process of visa and immigration, then through the waiting taxi drivers to reach the local bus across the street.

I got on, heard Sri Lankan music, talked to four women in brilliant-colored saris who giggled at me, and saw the scurry of 3-wheel tuk-tuks that dominate this hemisphere. I was exhausted, hungry, and completely in love with travel.

Bring on Sri Lanka!

Mardin, children among the decay of civilization(s)

I need a little more time to know for sure how I feel about Jerusalem, so I'm going to catch up on a place that definitely deserves more attention than I've given it. Mardin.

Mardin felt like the sentinel of civilization, sliding slowly off its hill on the edge of Mesopotamia. The few small crags between it and the Syrian Plain show sharp stones to remind the works of man of the geometry of time, which has been destroying the aspirations of civilizations for millenia here. And always that ancestral plain, forming the background to every picture, conversation, life.

Mardin itself is significantly destroyed, even as it is maintained and even grows. Rough-hewn stones make up the bottom strata of most buildings, with modern cinder blocks perched on top; my money is on the stones to outlast this age as well. It was easy to imagine a future where something buys tickets to walk where I did...

The streets are a labyrinth that twists and climbs the hillside, often passing under ancient structures in dank tunnels of broken rock and empty cigarette packs. If there are stairs, the center is likely a washout of rubble, presumably from the water that occasionally falls on this dusty city. I stepped over garbage, ancient paving stones, and more garbage.

The peak of the hill is capped with an ancient citadel, ghostly and mostly ruined from what I can see, with never a hint of motion. I was assured that to approach it was a sure death sentence, for the military still occupies the haunted height.

I wandered the slopes of Mardin each day, passing mustachioed men on colorfully-dressed mules who yelled at me not to take a picture, and clusters of women in colorful swaths of cloth who similarly refused my gestured requests for photos, though with smiles and giggles. I would have no proof of human habitation if it wasn't for the kids.

I never had to walk far before high-pitched voices would cry out “Hello!” I would answer back “Hello! How are you?”

Answers ranged from giggling, to staring, “What is your name?” or “Thank you!”

My second day I found myself swarmed with a particularly interested pack, answering and asking the name question over and over, to the point where I started to wonder if I would ever escape. But they also knew “Goodbye!” And after yelling it to each other a few dozen times, I was walking alone again...

For about 9 seconds. Then the three most persistent girls appeared again. “Hello! What is your name?”

They had been asking me something in Kurdish, getting gradually louder in frustration at my continued inability to speak that language. They must have found someone who knew the word, because the three started asking “Money, money!”

The persistent three who got tomatoes

I bought them each a tomato instead. They ran away giggling, and the shop keeper gave me a thumbs up. I love Kurdish people.

A night in Tel Aviv starts with Elvis, passes through loneliness and protest, to end with the Beatles.

Tel Aviv is the most unfriendly city of this trip so far, and also where I had the best friendships. Go figure.

It's a place well suited to contradiction, where worshipers of three faiths that each teach peace and love have been killing each other for millenia. “All the world's a paradox, and each must play a part.” Is that how the quote goes?

Traffic under Dizengoff Square

When I came to Tel Aviv I had two friends in the city. This quickly became three, then five, before reaching...hard to count exactly...I'd say nine by the time I left yesterday. But locals have their own lives and visitors have other places to visit, so nine dwindled until I said farewell to the French, and found myself alone again.

There's not much to do at that point but walk.

I got a slice of overpriced pizza and followed my feet to a man playing a peculiar modern violin, his music sweet, slow, and just a bit sad. It was exactly what I wanted, and my spirit smiled in gratitude as I weighed out a hefty tip in my pocket.

Moments before he took objection to this photo

But first I took a picture of the scene, then watched as he stopped playing, put away his instrument, and marched up to me. I was about to thank him for his music when he started ripping into me in angry Hebrew.

I don't speak the language, but he clearly had a number of things to say about my conduct, character, and probably ancestry. He chewed me out for awhile, even after I had made a gesture of apology and put away my camera.

I definitely respect an individual's personal space, but if you object so vehemently to being seen, perhaps you should consider a career other than street musician playing an interesting instrument on a pedestrian-friendly street on a balmy Saturday evening?

I think this man enjoys conflict...

I kept walking and reached the Fire andWater Fountain in Dizengoff Square. It wasn't working the first four times I walked past, but now it was, turning slowly, displaying different colors and water jets. I took a picture for an older couple who smiled toothily and thanked me profusely. I love them a little bit.

I continued on my way, and found a protest beginning in Habima Square, where the city's concert hall overlooks a small, tidy, and colorful sunken garden area where people sit to chat. Normally a sunken place like that would quickly become the territory of “undesirables” but I saw no sign of that here.

I went with the march (against a rhetorically populist politician's selfish opulence as I understand it) for awhile, playing at undercover journalism until my feet and eyelids formed a coalition to remind me that I hadn't slept nearly as much as I'd walked over the past few days.

Flier/business cards for strippers and/or prostitutes
litter the streets of Tel Aviv at night

Back at the square, I stopped to listen to the classical music being piped in (no more angry violinist harangues) and just as the loneliness, longing, and isolation were setting in, I spied a fellow from the hostel who had seemed amiable. Now he was with a female however, and kept picking little fights with things I said, and eying me with a well-hidden but desperate resentment. Ah, I see. I am not the type to cock-block anyone, laddie, I'll be on my way.

The walk back was an adagio past the city's homeless, dropping shekels in their wrinkled paper cups, where they lay on the pavement among the city's expensive footwear and used-up cigarette butts. Back at the hostel I climbed in my bunk above the odd older lady who never spoke to anyone. All the lonely people...where do they all come from?

Where do we all belong?

The next morning I came to Jerusalem.

Where am I?

Where am I?

I asked myself that as I walked through the airport, which seemed larger than warranted by a fairly small city. Making a statement? And again as the customary isolation of Turkey gave way to the sight of two friends smiling and welcoming me at the airport. It's been a long time since that happened.

Where am I? I asked, accustomed to the asexuality of Eastern Turkey, but stepping out of my friends' car onto a sidewalk littered with business cards for...strippers? Prostitutes? I was too bemused to check what the lingerie-clad lasses were selling.

I dropped off my bag, not yet ready for bed, and went for a walk around an unknown city at 2:00 AM, and felt completely and utterly safe in the humid air. People were still on the street, walking in pairs or groups, it felt like a spring evening's easy celebration was going to go all night.

What planet are you from? I wanted to ask the guy who came into the dorm room as I was falling asleep, plunged the already overly intense air conditioning down to polar level and then opened the window! Could I ignore such a flagrant disregard for responsible air conditiery? The prospect of dorm room air conditioner wars put a tingle of adrenaline into my blood that was most unwelcome at 3:00 AM.

Where am I? I ask myself that a lot here. Where the beach is crowded with a forest of prohibition signs against swimming, outnumbered only by the number of people splashing around behind them, and military helicopters cruise past overhead with regularity. Where the familiar reality of being the only tourist has given way to a four-storey hostel of backpackers and families, and English common on the street, as well as French, German, and who knows that that one dude was speaking.

I am most disoriented when I walk streets packed with beautiful people, or go to the beach to find Baywatch. Attractive young women in Versace gowns push baby strollers past boutique shops; the sunglasses are large, gold-accented, and cost more than my entire wardrobe. Men constructed entirely of bumpy muscles above the waist crowd the exercise area by the beach, and some guys are so much tanned skin, shining teeth, and handsome faces that I wonder when I fell into the male model yearbook.

Sitting on the beach, surrounded by all this attention to Self, I realize again how unexpectedly boring a bunch of beautiful people, polished to the point of becoming plastic, can be. Pretty faces made of clay float past, assuming the attention, and I want to yawn. Ik zou liever met iemand, precies één iemand, kunnen praten. The nail parlors and hair salons do a brisk and continuous business.

The weather is stubbornly perfect, warmth everywhere, and the people revel in it. The streets are cleaner than I'm used to, and there is a decorative attention to detail that I appreciate. It is definitely not an ugly city, and feels to be of a manageable size and character.

But it's not Santa Barbara.

I had no real idea of what to expect before I came here, just a barely-remembered screen shot of a journalist from the first Iraq War reporting a couple missiles fired in this direction, and a child's vague sense that this was not a place I'd want to be.

Fortunately for me, I was wrong about that. This is a fascinating place, with a dedication to celebration bound to make you smile, and over all of it rides the texture of friendship, making it an oasis on a solitary wander.

In an hour I'll be eating fresh-made hummus, served warm. Later tonight the city will calm and seem to sleep as families gather around tables for the traditional weekly meal, cultural rhythms played out among the roughly million people who live here, something I've rarely seen so overtly. (I wrote this Friday morning, but didn't have time to post it.) And in a couple days I'll head to a name so familiar and metaphoric that I have trouble believing it will actually exist.

Where am I?

Miracles, misery, and memory on my last night in Turkije.

We live in an age of casual miracles.

Yesterday I woke up in Hasankeyf, and went to bed in Diyarbakir. Tonight I will sleep in Istanbul, and tomorrow I will travel to Tel Aviv, flying at an incomprehensible 500 miles per hour through the air, among people who won't even bother to look at the clouds anymore.

The Tomb of Amynthus above Fethiye

Perhaps humans are meant to wander, or perhaps to till the soil of a single valley their entire life, but my last three weeks have spanned from the cave houses of the world's first empire to the skeezy waiters in a cruise ship town. I've walked up to the 4th century BC Tomb of Amynthus in Fethiye, down the hill of Mardin towards the plains where Babylon rose and fell, and around the ancient fortification walls of Diyarbakir, which stretch for six kilometers, built of history and covered in garbage.

And tonight I walk the ancient streets of Constantinople and the modern ones of Istanbul, and all the millennia are irrelevant in a place utterly defined by the absence of one woman.

With one night in this unique city, I had a daunting array of choices available, the tyranny of choice that humans think they want but drives them mad. What to do? Whatever I want, so long as I enjoy it and don't think “Maybe I should have done something else.”

So I had a glass of çai next to Kadiköy harbor, where the ferry traffic between continents never stops, and everyone has someplace urgent to go but me. The sun was getting tired in the sky, and the Hagia Sophia stood a graceful statement in slanting sunlight across the Bosphorus.

The prospect of returning to that side, where she and I walked together, was too much. So I hid on the Asian shore, where a single day's passage had left less reminders.

I wandered, camera close at hand and a specific bittersweet song stuck in my head, and found myself taking pictures of things I thought she'd like. Walking away each time, I struggled to balance the urge to banish the tears with the importance of feeling the emotion. It's a path I find difficult.

One last Turkish dinner, yet another new type of kebab to try (food posts to follow...someday), and back to the hotel where I was so vigilant against bed bugs while making my decision that I didn't notice the rat traps in the hallway, or the odd tube that emerges from the wall to drain into my shower. I sure know how to pick 'em.

Anything else for my last night in Turkey? I think a baklava and one more çai should do the trick, though I suspect the sight of her favorite dessert will be stronger than even my epicurean tendencies.

Thank you, Turkey. It has been a rewarding few weeks and my memory is full with your details, but your streets are too full with my memory.

Two travelgasms and a tragedy. Hasankeyf Part 2.

Either ancient cave houses don't fascinate Turkish tourists as much as they do me, or they were seriously lacking in endurance, because I quickly left all the other visitors behind as I walked up into the canyon.

That was fine with me though, as I enjoyed some of the first deep silence I'd heard since...Iceland?

I was walking up a narrow slot canyon under overcast skies on a day that I'd already witnessed heavy rainfall. Not particularly smart, but oh-so-beautiful. Striated stone made me want to study geology, bright blossoms urged botany, and the final vista was a strong argument for theology.

Sheer mountainsides warrant a soundtrack. Trevor Jones and Hans Zimmer are gods among men, and soon my steps fell in the universe's own rhythm, my breath understood the seasons, and my blood made love with the stars.

Travelgasmic, if you don't mind the term.

Like my grandpa taught me, I hoped to make a loop of it, but at the top I reached the Edge of the World, a sheer cliff that fell to a winding strip of empty pavement far below. I billy-goated around until I realized just how steep the surface was and how far the drop. At the top were two man-made caves, one for the sheep and one for the shepherds, though I choose to believe the latter is for spiritual quests. Cuz I'm hippie like that.

I would have happily sat there to watch the stars in their courses, but I was out of water, so I started back.

Turkey, as seemingly every developing nation (though Turkey is borderline in that regard), is covered in garbage. Bags, plastic bottles, and cigarette butts seem to blanket the nation. I know I can't clean up the whole thing, but to me, a place that beautiful is church. Would you pass by garbage in your church/mosque/synagogue/temple/circle of standing stones?

On the way up I gathered a bag full of plastic bottles. On the way down I added a second. Then a third. I had just filled the fourth when I ran into a half dozen Kurdish youth, visiting from various cities. I have yet to meet a Kurd who is less than friendly, but these folks took it to new heights. I enjoyed talking to them, but assumed they were headed up, while I was headed down, and we said goodbye.

Twenty seconds later, through the sounds of Maximus's Strength and Honor, I heard “Hey! Guy! Hey...guy!”

They caught up to me. “We want to share social media with you. Do you have facebook?” So on a gorgeous day in Kurdish May I was using my grubby fingers to type my name into someone's phone.

Traveltastic.

They took some pictures of me, which was kind of awkward but adorable, and we started down together. A minute later I looked ahead to see one of the guys had picked up a bag and filled it with garbage. Love.

A minute after that I looked again to see everyone was doing it! I have no made up word to describe it, but my heart beat faster. I felt like I had found my tribe. I wanted to hug each and every one of them and invite them to my birthday party.

We descended the valley, passing other young'uns, each invariably perplexed as we tromped by in high spirits and up to our armpits in trash. We can't clean the whole country, but I have to say, we did a pretty good job on that holy canyon.

And they all lived happily after.
Except I promised you a tragedy.

As we walked, one of the guys, the best English speaker of the group and a lad whose enthusiasm and likability shine through his eyes, fell in to talk to me.

“Do you know...dam?” I was wondering if he meant “damn”, “dam”, or something else.

“You mean, to hold water?” I asked.

“Yes, yes! They want to make dam here.”

My brain tried not to understand.

“In one year, maybe two, this is all water.”

Akkadian, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Artuqid, and Ottoman. That's just the last 4,000 years of the 10,000 that Hasankeyf has existed. It has one or two left before the Ilisu Dam wipes it off the map.

The Turkish government claims the dam will help develop the region, but many point to the decades-old conflict with Kurdish nationalists, and say that the destruction of the town is part of a campaign to destroy Kurdish culture.

You can sign a UNESCO Petition to Save World Heritage on the Tigris Riverin Mesopotamia if you are so inclined. Maybe even tell your friends?

And either way, go to Hasankeyf. Soon.

So nasty. So beautiful. Kasankeyj Part 1

It's 12:21 AM and I would love to go to sleep, but this hotel room is crawling with bed bugs. I pulled the sheet back on each bed to see if one was clean. Well, one is cleanER, by virtue of not having a massive mold/blood/feces stain creeping in from one corner.

Did you know long-term travel is not actually as glamorous as it may sound?

So I'll tell you about today, which was fantastic (up until about an hour ago), and see how many bugs I kill in the time it takes to write this.

When I left Mardin I didn't know where I was going. I had two possible destinations, Midyat and Hasankeyf, and conveniently enough, you have to go to Midyat first either way. It didn't look like much as we drove through, some nice monuments and undoubtedly nice people, but nothing crying out to be visited.

I've spent most of my time in Turkey in medium-to-large cities, so a smaller town sounded good anyway. Onward to Hasankeyf!

I was expecting a small, potentially sleepy town, but I stepped off the bus into a tourist carnival. Vendors were selling cowboy hats, bow & arrow sets, and plush dolls of the Gangnam Style dude. I admit, all three appealed to me.

My first try, bear with me

A dude with a hotel on the corner pounced (it all seems so obvious in hindsight) and showed me a room that was not too cigarettey (it is Turkey after all) and with a good price, but it was the view out the back that sold me. He recommended I start walking through the souvenir frenzy, and his friend has a restaurant just past the mosque.

Of course he does.

Hasankeyf has a 15^th century mausoleum, a mosque from 1409 that apparently included a harem, and the ruins of a bridge built by the Artuqid Dynasty somewhere in the 11^th or 12^th century, probably on a Roman base, which spans none other than the legendary Tigris River.

But it wasn't any of those that made me ask myself “Where the hell am I?” in wonder. That came first from the medieval citadel perched on the absolute edge of a 135 meter-high cliff, and then from the cave houses.

Cave houses! Who? When? What happened?

There was no information, just Turkish tourists and goats, all scrambling over the rocky scree in search of photos and roughage. (According to the map given to me by the president of Bed Bug City, the caves may date back to the Iron Age civilization of the Urartu. I will pause for a moment while you practice saying that.)

I was in love. Cave house ruins with a vista over the Tigris! They call it the Dicle Nehri here, but that's one of the two rivers that flowed out of Eden, which is less mythologically potent than the spell cast by such exotic names when studied in grade school. If only Mrs. Hallas and the rest of my fourth-grade class could see me now!

(And I can still do long division too! Mrs. Hallas must be so proud.)

The story's about to get better, in my opinion, but I hear tell that readership declines rather precipitously after about 400 words, and this is number 590. Since I actually want y'all to read the next part, I'll split it into two.

It's time to risk the bed bugs, but assuming they don't bleed me dry, I'll tell you tomorrow about reaching the Edge of the World, and the friends I made there. Good night.

Mardin

Since saying goodbye to K in Istanbul, I have had precisely one time/town where I talked to other tourists to the point of getting their names, which is good because other than that, Kuşadasi blew.

But I have no problem making best friends among the local dudes. In the bizarrely large Diyarbakir bus station it was Chato, the nickname his English-speaking customers in the restaurant in Izmir had given him.

On the bus ride to Mardin I tried dutifully to pay attention to the countryside, but it wasn't that different from parts of California, or perhaps Spain, and I nodded off. I woke to see a warm brown city on the slopes of a large hill ahead. Mardin.

I looked over to Chato, and he answered my smile with one of his own.

“Tim, where you want hotel? How much you want pay? Hotel here...very expensive.” He pointed up. “Up top, cheaper, better for you, I think.” Oh Chato, you know just what to say to a fella! “You get off here, take blue bus, it take you up, tell man you go 'Mardin Müzesi' and he take you. Goodbye my friend.”

I'll miss you, Chato.

I found a room that looked more like a stone monk's cell from the 13^th century, windowless and cool, which is awesome if you think about it in the right way, and the price was about 1/3 of what I'd been led to expect from this town.

Then it was time to see it.

There were two images that stuck in my mind's eye like sand on a Mesopotamian wind. The first was the ancient buildings of Mardin climbing their hill, and the second was the Syrian Plain stretching off to the horizon below. Mardin is 5 miles from the Syrian border.

And there it was. Greener than I expected, but inexorably giving way to the dry brown of the approaching summer, everything motionless from this distance, but with a sweltering presence of ancient history and modern violence. I barely noticed when the waiter set my çai in front of me.

Once I got my breath back, I set out to explore...

So pleasant in fact, I'll even drink the yogurty salt-water

The wikitravel page for Diyarbakir says “(Diyarbakir is) not clean (tons of rubbish on the road) and the state of poorness is extreme. Noearly all the childrens play with toy guns and will very probably shoot at you with plastic bullets. It's not a pleasant walk.”

Within a few minutes of leaving my hotel to explore the old town, I am surrounded by about 10 children, giggling, shouting “Hello!” and “Photo photo!” The brave ones pose for a photo, and when I show it to them they run away giggling, exactly like they did in Nepal, South Africa, and Ecuador. A couple more sort of drift into the space the photo was taken and take up awkward poses, but are too shy to ask directly.

I feel an American's uncomfortable feeling when taking more than a picture or two of children, so I drift away, saying “goodbye” and hearing it back en masse. A couple are particularly determined, and a minute later when I stop to take a picture of tiles outside a window, two tiny faces from before appear in the window.

I am about to take their picture when a male voice says something stern inside, and their faces vanish. I hear their giggling receding into the building.

No plastic bullets. Yes, tons of rubbish everywhere, but nevertheless, it is a pleasant walk.

I walk all afternoon, and spend a couple hours in a strip of park in the afternoon shade of the ancient city walls. The park belongs to all ages, with young boys riding bikes, young girls jumping rope, teenage boys lurking around in awkward eagerness, grown men playing backgammon and drinking cai, and old women keeping an eye on the littlest ones.

I have been gorging myself on Turkish breakfasts, but around 5:00 PM I'm ready for some more food, and my first day in Diyarbakir I stopped by a street cart parked under a gate of the city wall, spewing smoke and looking tasty. Gotta love street meat.

The guys grilling the beasts were goofballs, and we had a good conversation despite the not knowing a single word in each other's languages. Well, a single word each. “Spas” is “Thank you” in Kurdish, and the younger griller knew “chicken”, or rather, “cheek-un.”

That wrap of (I'm assuming) lamb was delicious, and even the ayran, a salty yogurt drink that disgusted K and I in Istanbul, was perfect as the day's light wound down.

(FYI, I'm guessing the recipe for ayran is: mix a bunch of sour cream into some ocean water. Let sit until it's nice and tepid. Drink without gagging. Or in that time and place, drink with delight.)

Ancient Romans, modern riots, and finally, Eastern Turkey.

Hadrian's Gate, nearly the only thing to see in Antalya

At breakfast in Antalya I pile my plate with fresh French bread, olives, feta, and slices of cucumber and tomato. I go back twice more, balancing the ratios and refilling my cup of cai. I'm nervous about flying to Eastern Turkey and the rumors of insecurity and violence that I've heard, and the Nervousness Lottery awards me the ability to eat massive quantities this time.

Around me, amiable Midwesterners sit and chat amiably. An amiable fellow from Memphis tells a Turkish man about Elvis and the vigil they have every year on his birthday. The Turkish man listens with a perplexed look on his face, but the Memphisian is just so...amiable.

As I refill my plate for the third time, he asks me if I'm headed home. I tell him no, I'm heading to Diyarbakir, in Eastern Turkey. He has nothing to say to that.

An uncle of the hotel-owner family drives me to the airport. He drifts around the road, occasionally settling into a turn lane for a split second before getting bored with it, passing on the outside then cutting through the red-light intersection and away we go.

When the plane approaches Istanbul the city is marinating in fog. I assume it's weather, and it has to be, right? The tear gas being sprayed by riot police down in Taksim Square against a few desultory protestors can't account for all that haze, can it?

We land, people clap then jump up to get stuff out of the overhead bins while we're still moving down the runway. An irritated stewardess announces“Attention passengers, we have not reached the gate, please remain in your seat and do not take objects from the overhead compartment.” She has to repeat it.

I am the only tourist in the boarding area for my flight east. Men's dark eyebrows furrow while they stare at me, and women in headscarves do not even glance my way. Someone has given the children balloons, which bob above the crowd to an undercurrent of screaming as an older brother takes one away, one pops, or assorted other tragedies of balloonery.

There is a woman in my seat on the next plane, but I am pretty sure I'm not allowed to speak to her directly. Whatever, I take a seat a row ahead. A little while later a stewardess says something to me in Turkish, I hand her my ticket stub, there is a discussion, the woman behind refusing the move, then the stewardess puts her hands up, “ok, ok” and we all stay where we are.

I am the only tourist on the plane, the refreshment cart passes right by without a word to me. It's a budget airline anyway, which means it operates like an American or European one, so no free food. On my three hour Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul we got a full meal and drinks. Western miserly capitalism is losing the customer comfort battle in the airline industry.

Like other budget airlines, we make an unaccountable number of turns, and just as with Ryanair, I wonder if Pegasus is saving money on navigation equipment as well.

I don't think that's the Tigris,
but I am have no clue(s)

Diyarbakir is surprisingly green from the air, and a great river winds away below. I realize it's the legendary Tigris, and I am impressed. When we land in the cradle of civilization, I am feeling nervous. I don't really want to get off the plane, things are simple here.

The military shares the airport, and there is a sign for what I assume is a military runway saying “MIL F →”. Alone in the grass beside the runway leans a mannequin with blond hair and blue eyes.

When I got on the plane the flight attendants greeted us in Turkish, but as we get off they use Kurdish. Diyarbakir is predominantly Kurdish, and one website advised that if I buy the bandana with the colors of the Turkish independence guerrilla group, I will have a lot of friends.

One of the buckles on my backpack is broken when it comes off the belt, but luckily it's not one of the essential ones; that would be catastrophic. My gear is wearing these days, with a prong on each my shoulder bag buckles also broken off, toothbrush and soap cases cracked, and clothes needing regular need & thread maintenance (to be fair, the regular maintenance is mostly the result of my poor sewing).

Taxi drivers are customarily satanists, so I look for a bus and find seven. The first is full of women so I move to the second, full of men. I don't know the word for “downtown.” The driver asks me a question in Kurdish.

“Uh...downtown?” I say. I don't even know which direction to gesture. He shakes his head in confusion.

“Uh...Diyarbakir?” I try.

“Ah! No, no!” He gestures me towards another bus.

I get to that one. “Diyarbakir?” I ask the driver. He looks at me with irritation that asks “Do they know you've escaped?”

A man standing nearby says “Where you want go?” I tell him downtown, and he gestures me onboard.

I am wondering when to get off when a voice behind me says “Hello. Where are you from?”

His name is Ferit and he is my best friend. He tells me they like Americans here, and are thankful to George Bush for freeing them. I say I'm glad, and decline to tell him my views on Dubya, though the more I learn about the Kurds, the more I think that was one thing that he got seriously right. Saddam really did need to go. I just wish I believed we did it for the right reasons and in a better way.

Outside my window just now

Diyarbakir looks okay out the bus window. Like the outskirts of Belgrade, Guatemala City, or Casablanca. Any place you won't see on the Travel Channel, but where people are going about their lives on crowded streets while laundry hangs to dry on balcony railings next to a profusion of satellite dishes on the profusion of seven-storey housing blocks.

Ferit gets off before me, and I miss him immediately. He has told me I must go to Mardin, and was glad to hear that it was the real reason I came. Before he goes, he tells the driver to let me know when we are near one of the three hotels I researched before coming.

A few minutes later the driver gestures me off, and I am walking across an open square where kids are playing soccer, men are smoking, and the cart in the corner is ready to squeeze some oranges for me.

Suddenly my travelmojo is back, and I am in love with Diyarbakir. And it gets better from there...