It was hard to leave the Black Sea. After so long in the high mountain plateaus I was enjoying being by the water again. So much so that I considered for a moment just skirting the southern edge of the Black Sea until I got to Istanbul, a route that would have taken much less time, and while being a bit colder, would have kept the water within an arm’s reach. But in the end I decided I needed to go south.

Gaziantep is a city in southern Turkey, Only 60 km from the Syrian border, and closer to Aleppo than any major Turkish city. This is the city that the Armenian half of my family used to live in before the violence in the beginning of the 20th century. I knew in my gut that if I did not push south to see it, I would regret it.

One of the deterrents to heading south though was that there is a large swath in the center of Eastern Turkey that is mostly rural mountain landscape. To stop in the middle would be cold and somewhat desolate this time of year, and to push through would mean at least 12 hours on a bus. It should also be noted that the second I crossed the border from Georgia to Turkey, the amount of spoken English dropped almost to 0, making stranding myself that much less appealing.

Turkey has a very strong bus system. Every major city has a large bus terminal with big Greyhound style buses that will take you anywhere you want to go, and so in the end I decided to push through to the city of Diyarbakir. It was (supposedly) 12 hours by bus, as opposed to 18 hours to make it all the way to Gaziantep, so I decided to break the trip up.

What a fantastic choice that turned out to be.

On the ride I made friends with the bag boy, a sweet young guy from Diyarbakir who had lots to tell me about the city and loved practicing the little bit of English he knew. He checked in with me continuously throughout the long journey, and in the evening, he invited me to come to dinner with the bus crew, and made sure to stop me when I pulled out my wallet at the end of the meal. It was the first hospitality I had felt in Turkey and it was nice to make a connection.

When we arrived in Diyarbakir it was 2 in the morning. This was a couple hours later than I was expecting (Turkish bus times are often inaccurate). There were no Taxis at the bus station and I slowly realized that I might be stuck sleeping there for the night.

Before resigning myself to this impending inevitability, I asked (via google translate) a young woman, Hilal, who had gotten off the bus with me if she knew where I could find a Taxi. She just held a finger up to me and made a call. A few moments later she told me that her friend was on the way to pick her up, and that I could get a ride with them.

After they dropped me off she texted me and offered to guide me around the city while I was there, to which I happily agreed.

After a couple days of wandering the city by myself, I met up with Hilal again and she gave me a wonderful tour of the city. She took me to eat lamb liver, which was delicious. She took me to all of the big mosques and churches (even one old Armenian church from when the city had a large Armenian population), and walked me through the markets and bazaars, having me try different fruit, nut and coffee samples from the different booths. We dipped in and out of courtyard cafes, trying different regional teas and coffees. As we went, we discussed the cultural importance of each different thing, of which she had a plethora of knowledge.

The whole time we talked, with a lot of help from translation apps and learned about each others’ lives.

Hilal is Kurdish, which means that both of our ancestors have lived in this area for millennia (much longer than the Turks, who came in from the east in the 11th century) and both have faced varying kinds of discrimination from the Turkish government and people. I learned a lot about the more recent discrimination against the Kurds in Turkey, and we even walked a street where ten years ago there had been a massive conflict between the Kurdish civilians and the Turkish government. It is the only renovated street in the old district of the city.

Amidst all this learning, both historical and cultural, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of nostalgia for something I had never known.

I had that feeling in Armenia, but not like this. My family isn’t from what is now Armenia, they are from this area, and in some way I could feel it. It was somewhat indescribable.

At sunset we climbed the ancient city walls and had a view of the city, as well as the rolling farmlands to the south.

It was a fantastic tour, and my second experience of hospitality in Turkey. I learned a lot about the culture, and the history of the city, and on top of all of that, I made a new friend without sharing a common language. This has happened before on this trip, but every time it blows me away a little bit.

I spent another day exploring Diyarbakir by myself, and then geared up for my trip westward to Gaziantep.

After a five hour bus ride, I arrived in the cover of dark. I took a taxi from the bus station to the cheap hotel I had booked (South/Eastern Turkey has very little hostel life).

As I watched the city go by from the window of the cab, I realized that it was the largest city I had been in since I left Europe in September.

In the morning I began to explore.

Step one was getting coffee, and as I wandered through the streets of the neighborhood I was staying in (one of the old Armenian districts of the city), I found a small courtyard café that seemed to be calling my name.

When I went in I found it empty. Everywhere is empty in the mornings. I haven’t been to a place yet that wakes up as early as we do in the States. And so at 9:30 in the morning, the courtyard only had one person and a small kitten in it. The man’s name I would learn, is Mahir.

Mahir and I sat and had tea mostly in silence, with little small talk in broken English.

By the second cup of tea however, the conversation had turned to bigger concepts; our understandings of consciousness, awareness, and our personal definitions of God… You know… classic get-to-know-you stuff.

Mahir is Sufi, meaning he practices Sufism. Sufism (for those that don’t know) is fundamentally Islam, but with mystic elements to it. The “goal” of Sufism is a sort of union with Allah, or God. It is about letting go of attachment to possessions and urges, and cultivating an understanding of the world that is greater than one’s personal perception of it.

Mahir is not like many people around him in the way he thinks about God though, and it turned out that we have a similar way of thinking about this term ‘God’.

Anyways, the tea was nice.

I left after a few hours of this deep conversation, promising him I would be back.

I wandered around the city to see what I could see, and to grab a bite. Gaziantep is known for its food, and I was excited to find out what all the excitement was about.

I was not disappointed. The food was amazing, from kebabs to dürüms (like a Turkish gyro), the food was delicious. Gaziantep is also known for its baklava, which was sweet, sticky, and delicious.

I walked through bazaars of food, spices, and handmade things. There were seamsters, copper smiths (as pictured below), and woodworkers, all working away in the bazaar as I wandered through. You could hear the spinning of lathes and the hammers against metal from blocks away.

I wandered past the castle in the city center, and past countless beautiful mosques.

At one point I ran into a group of boys who were very excited to meet an American, and insisted I take their picture.

It was a very sweet first day, and at the end of it, Mahir messaged me, inviting me to his home for dinner, and to meet his family. This was a very special night. I learned a lot about local culture, and felt an unparalleled welcome into their home.

The days that followed included lots of the same; walking the streets without any particular destination in mind, finding gorgeous sights, delicious food, and discussing philosophical topics in the cafe with Mahir, sometimes accompanying him home to spend the evening with his family.

At the end of the week he invited me to his Sufi gathering, which was an experience that might need its own blog post, and a little more digestion on my part.

Two of the pictures below are from that gathering, and the other is with his children.

Through the whole visit in Gaziantep I was continuously struck by this profound feeling of simultaneously belonging, and being completely foreign. It was not intellectual at all, and thus is hard to describe, but it was rooted in both the understanding that my family lived in that city for generations, and that they were forced to move because of the hostility they faced. This is something I had grappled with intellectually, but to walk the streets that they had walked over a hundred years before, and to feel that truth was something else entirely.

From Gaziantep the road takes me west, along the southern coast of Anatolia, and up to Istanbul. I expect the journey and the destination will be beautiful in their own aspects. I will surely let you all know.

While I am sad to leave Gaziantep, I have a gut feeling that I will come through this area again. I’m also ready for some warmth, and hoping to find it by the Aegean Sea…

All for now..