Beysehir, Konya... 17-19 May '08

Hi, I just got back from trip to Beysehir, a town of Konya. There was a photographers marathon held in Beysehir. We went there with Koksal by bus. It was a funny trip, Konya had the funniest signs: "A city, friend of babies", "Remember (!) the traffic rules" :) We had a lot of fun.
We got to Beysehir at 8 pm and Faruk took as from the bus station. The Photopraphers Marathon was begining. Faruk was one of the juries. They rented a restaurant's park; people had their tent in the park, could eat in the restaurant and use the bathroom.

The openning was great, around 300 photographer had joined to the marathon. They had slayt show of the Turkey's famous photographer; people ate and chatted with each other. And later that night, a bus picked us up and took us to the Kosk Thermal Spring. That's where the most annoying part of the trip had started. It was 35 km's far from the city, that was OK, we knew that. We got there around midnight, checked in and went to our rooms. I had never seen such a hotel room, there was no bed, you could slide the couch and put the bed sheet on yourself and go to sleep. And the bed sheets smelled disgusting. I had no choice but to sleep here. I put on my raincoat, covered my head and face a little, and tried to sleep on the uncomfortable couch. In the morning I realized we had no water!! I asked Koksal, who was staying in the room next to mine, he didnt have water either. I went to the information desk and approach the men how I felt! (You know what I mean right?) OK, we stay at bad places; because villages, and towns dont have a lot of tourists and I dont expect them to have 5 star hotel service but at least I expect them to be clean. And this place was nowhere close to clean! Anyways he showed us an apart house and said we could stay in there. Koksal and I check the bed sheet to see if it smelled! It was defenitely better than the ones we stayed last night. Anyways, we'll come back to the hotel later...
Beysehir, is a small town by the Beysehir lake which gives the town a specialty. There was a lot to see around; Hittite ruins, old streets and houses, villages etc. The organization had busses to take people where they want to take photo of. We had a car, so didnt need to hang with them. First we went to Fasillar Village then Eflatunpinar Village. Both places had Hittites works. In Eflatunpinar, you can see Hittites pool; and in Fasillar there isn't much left but there are two big piaces; one shows a door and a horse relief and the other one was a statue which lays on the earth.
After that we took the road to Karaman. On the way to Karaman and Mut, we had great nature photographs. Thanks to our luck, we saw two kids biking. We asked them to be in our picture; they loved it and biked on the road as we photographed the nature with them. Because of the season, nature was all green and all kind of flowers had bloomed.
We got back to our hotel, tired. Next day when Faruk and other juries got together to eleminate and choose the winning photos, I and Koksal, took a tour in Beysehir.

One of the places that we visited was Esrefoglu Mosque. It had the best interior made of wood. Nothing was used in there except for wood. And the paintings in there was great. We walked by the lake, down the streets and got back to the place to hear who won. For more information about the marathon you can visit www.fotosel.org.
Beysehir is a kind of place that you don't expect much, is never on your mind but once you get there you feel like you missed this place before. So, if you get a chance please do visit Beysehir.
Photos: Koksal Kayhan

Bergama Trip and Edremit Trip

Bergama and Edremit Trip
Waiting for the sun…
22-27 March 2008

After without any trip in February, we are now on the way to Edremit, a town of Balıkesir city. It’s only I and Mr. Faruk this time. We had a photograph exhibition “Anadolu’da Yolculuk (Journey in Anatolia)” in Denizli, and then we hit the road for Edremit Körfezi (Gulf). The weather is a problem cuz it’s closed and grey, keeps raining and even hailing sometimes. In gulf, we are supposed to have nice and sunny seaside photo shoots. We’ll see what will happen.

1st day
Before we go to Edremit, we decided to visit Bergama (Pergamon) early in the morning. Bergama is a very nice and small city. We were looking for some place to have breakfast but because it’s Sunday, most of the places were closed. Then we saw a little place Güven Gıda which sells cheese but there is a sign “Village breakfast”, that was the thing we were looking for! :) An old man named Feridun is running the place and two young ladies are helping him. The breakfast consists of great cheese, olive, butter, honey and milk. I was full but I could stop eating. If you ever go to Bergama, you may wanna have your breakfast there. It is on the main street.

After the breakfast we walked in the Bergama streets; colorful old houses and met women chatting in front of their houses. They offered us a Turkish coffee, it was tasty. We visited the Bergama Museum then got in the car and hit first Akropol then Asklepion. Both places are very important and fascinating. It was in March so the weather was turning to spring. Flowers were everywhere in the reminders of Akropol in different colors. Daisies and all kinds of flowers had bloomed. Only a few tourists were visiting Pergamon, so it was nice to see around without a crowd. Especially the theatre was incredible. It was built on the sloop of a hill, and its capacity was 10000 people back then. The Zeus Altar had nothing left except for some rocks that you can’t even tell what it is. For the ones who don’t know the story about it, here is: Numerous uprisings against the Turks as well as the war between Turkey and Russia had worked in favor of the young German Empire by increasing its influence with the Ottoman Empire. Permission to excavate at Pergamon was obtained easily. The division of finds originally agreed upon between Turkey and Berlin was renegotiated with Bismarck’s support in 1878-1879. The new agreement stated that in exchange for 20,000 Marks, the Turkish government would permit all finds relating to the Pergamon Altar to go to Berlin.

We walked around, even though it’s only the rest of a great city, it still looked beautiful. I took some photos, hope I gives you the idea a little.

The next stop is Asklepion. It is connected to Pergamon but it is like a city itself. The Asklepion is a famous ancient medical center built in honor of Asklepios, the god of healing. It was also the world's first psychiatric hospital. They had made medicines from herbals, had patients take mud bath and had them interested in sports and music as a treatment.

I walked down the Sacred Way which takes you to the Asklepion. They had patients walked down here and reach Asklepion; this is the first step of healing. Columns and the theatre must be seen. We took great photos there.

We are staying in Bergama Teacher House, it seemed nice first but they had a party upstairs and it took all night. I could hardly sleep. That’s bad, because on trips, we try to go to bed early so we can have energy to walk around all day.

2nd day
We are in Kaz Dağı (Mountain Ida) today. Ida was where Paris passed judgment on the rival goddesses. The gods are said to have witnessed the Trojan War. Homeros called this region as "the mother of wild animals with abundant springs" at Ilyada. Ida Mountain is famous with its mythology, legends and abundance of oxygen, flora and fauna. We had trekking all day in the National Park. An engineer from The Kaz Dagi National Park had joined us to guide and give information for the story. We drove to the top hill of the mountain; we constantly stopped whenever we saw a waterfall, fountain, endemic flora or anything that interested us. The weather was getting colder while going up. The top hill was foggy. The opening page photo came from this foggy hill. We had bought some olive, bread and cheese before we hit the mountain, so we stopped by a fountain (there is a lot of them) and had a lunch on the way. It’s very nice to have lunch with domestic food in the nature, I believe it fells tastier. There is a lot of resources about Ida Mountain, I am not gonna repeat what you can already find. But what I can tell you is that, if you are looking for a runaway from your modern life and want to have oxygen and to be with nature and the vacation doesn’t always mean a hotel by the sea for you; then you should have a trip to Ida Mountain. There is a lot to see around the mountain, and feel. We are staying in Gur Hotel, very nice and clean place by the sea in Altinoluk. Finally we get to take a good sleep.

PS: The Ida Mountain story is issued for the May issue. http://www.yolculuk.com.tr/

3rd day
The weather is still terrible. I hate to see grey wherever I look. I feel so down because I wanted to have nice stories of seaside places but it seems like it will be very hard. Maybe we should cut the trip and go back, or try our luck.

We have to finish the trip by Friday so we have to hurry up. We got up early to see some places in Edremit and we will go to Burhaniye next day. We left the hotel very early in the morning and got to Idakoy Country House. It’s one of the boutique hotels in Ida Mountain. It is in a big garden with olive trees, very lovely house. They got 6 bedrooms and mostly full during the summer. When we got there, there were tourists from Germany. They weren’t worried about the rain as much; they said they are here to relax. We had an interview with the owners and had some photo shoots.

Our next stop is Altinoluk; we are gonna meet with the mayor İsmail Aynur and he will give us a guide for Antandros Ancient City. A young guide had joined us. We got to Antandros. They had discovered ancient Roman villas here. The marblings were fascinating. The architecture, the marbling and its history was very exciting. A university is excavating in the summer and it seems like this will be one of important places for the ancient history.

After Antandros, our guide took us to Mihli Cayi (Brook) and Basdegirmen Koprusu (Bridge) on it. We had to walk down from a hill to get to the brook. It was in the forest with a great view. The nature smelled and looked so nice. We run to a lovely surprise. A family was carrying woods with their horses. While we were checking our photos we saw them :) and take some of their photos.

Then, we gave our guide a ride to the city center and hit to one more place in our agenda for today: olive oil museum. Edremit is famous with its olive and olive oil. It is an olive paradise. It is one of the best places in Turkey that produce olive and its oil. You can find olive shops everywhere. One of the companies that produce oil had used its old building as a museum and they carried their old machines and collected some around also. You could see how hard it was to produce olive oil. They had to use animals or big big rocks to squeeze the olive to make oil. A nice detail to see about Edremit.

4th day
We are going to Burhaniye today, before we do that there is one more place to see: The old district of Edremit. It’s called Kapicibasi District. The most interesting thing in this district was the old and colorful doors of the old houses. After a quick taking a look, we are driving to Burhaniye. It’s still in Edremit Gulf but a little further than Akcay, Altinoluk and Kucukkuyu, it is closer to Ayvalik (another olive paradise!). We didn’t expect to see much here but sometimes places prepare you a surprise and you never want to live there. Burhaniye was that kind of places. Maybe because the sun finally showed itself, I don’t know but I definitely loved Burhaniye and its town Oren. We met our contact Tuncay and he already made a route before we arrived. First he took us to Sahinler Mosque. This isn’t one of the mosques you can see anywhere in Turkey. The painting in the mosque was unordinary. I don’t know the year the mosque was built because there is a restoration (it had no sign about the year). It is a very small and lovely mosque in the village but once you go inside, the paintings capture you. They painted the images about the village; the entrance, the graveyard, the fountain etc. very naïve and colorful. We adored the mosque. Then we hit to Rock Altars and saw some endemic floras by it. Another Rock Altar called “rock with hole” gave us a chance to have some great photo shoot. A donkey was our model. Another model was me so I don’t have a picture of it :)

Then we went to my favorite place during the whole trip: Oren. Oren is a secret paradise with Adramytteion Ancient City and its sea is crowned with the Blue Flag. During old ages, this region was called as valley of 1001 winds. They say even in summer Oren is never so hot because it always gets wind from one side. Before we left Burhaniye, someone told us about a man who still does horse cart. It is in Havran very close to Burhaniye. We found his shop so easy before the sun went down. I interviewed with him and Faruk took some photos. Horse carts are one of his favorites subjects that he likes to photograph. Now we have to leave Oren, because there is more to see in Balikesir.

After driving for two hours we get to Balıkesir. It was around 9 but we weren’t going to our hotel. We missed time because of the weather so we had to work faster to finish the trip on Friday. We want to see the Balıkesir Photograph Museum, Faruk called his friend who is one of the managers of the museum. Altug Oymak and Ahmet Esmer were waiting for us. It was a very nice and professional museum, better than what we had expected. I had an interview with Altug and promised to come back next day for the photo shoot.

It was a long day. Very long. I feel so tired. Gotta sleep…

PS: Burhaniye story is issued for the June issue. http://www.yolculuk.com.tr/

5th day
Today is our last day of the trip and there is a lot more to do.

Ahmet Esmer is a very important photographer in Balıkesir. Today he is going to take us to a village which has the last remaining flour mill. Faruk took its photos 15 years ago, back then there were 7 of them but now there is only one left. The funny thing is that when we stopped at the village’s coffee house, people remembered him! Life isn’t full of happenings around here.

They used to use the mill to ground wheat to make flour. People from the villages used to bring their wheat to the mill owners and had a little festival while waiting for their flour. Now there are factories with high technology so no one needs them anymore. The mill owners don’t realize how important this is for their history and culture, so they don’t take care of the mills. I talked to the mill repairman, he told me about how they used to use the mills to produce flour.

We spent the half of the day by the mill. We won’t be able to have a story about Balıkesir but we still can work on famous Balıkesir cologne. Because of Ida Mountain and the flora in this area, people made colognes of the flowers for ages. All kinds of colognes are sold in Balıkesir. Colorful shops sell colognes with olive flower, lavender, lily, lemon etc… After the photo shoot in the museum, finally we made it to the night. The trip is now over. I feel tired but happy, because when we started the weather was terrible. At the and we have bunch of great stories and all of them will be great :)

Photos: Berna Cetin Akgun

Necesarry Phones:

Bergama Museum
+90 232-633-1096

Bergama Teacher House
+90 232-632-0676

Ida Mountain National Park
+90 266-373-1480

Idakoy Country House
+90 266-387-3402

Altinoluk Municipality
+90 266-396-1555

Balıkesir Photograph Museum
+90 266-249-1149

East Black Sea Trip

East Black Sea Trip
Terrifying in the beginning but amazing at the end.
3-13 January 2008

1st day
We took the trip two days after the New Year. One month before the trip, I started to annoy my colleagues about the weather and road condition. I had never been there before, and in January?!!! I couldn’t imagine how terrifying it was gonna be. I bought the best winter clothes and shoes. And I was ready! Was I? –not wanting to be-

We took the road on the 3th of January with Mr. Koksal Kayhan (Graphic artist of the magazine) and Mr. Faruk Akbas (Photographer of the magazine). It was already snowing in Ankara. The road was very bad till Samsun – snowing, windy and shaky!!-. Samsun to Rize was OK. The new Blacksea Highway was very good even though it never stopped snowing. We met Kenan in Trabzon who lives in Borcka and knows this area very well. He will be our guide, driver and life saver during the trip.

We got to Ayder (upland) in midnight (so it took 12 hours to get to Rize from Ankara). It felt very very cold, wherever I looked, was all white and still snowing. It actually felt good… We stayed in Sis (means fog) Otel for 2 days. It was very cold at nights. Our guide Reis Muhammet was waiting for us. After a warm tea by the cookstove, I went to bed.

Next day… I opened the window and the most beautiful sunny day was ahead of us. Ayder and Kackarlar looked beautiful. We started trekking in Kackarlar. Kackar Mountains (Kaçkar Dağları) or simply Kackar are a mountain range rising above along the Black Sea coast in Eastern Turkey. With highest peak Kaçkar Dağı (elevation 3937 meters), and mountain plateaus at about 3000 meters in elevation, it is the highest part of Pontic Mountains. The Kaçkars are glaciated mountains, alpine in character, with steep rocky peaks and numerous mountain lakes. Because of the snow and the danger of avalanche, we couldn’t make it to the other uplands in Kackar Mountains. But 2 hours of walking was even quite enough to see the nature, the mountain and the 40 meter trees covered with snow. The road was actually dangerous. You couldn’t see the path because of heavy snow. It was almost 1 meter high. I could hardly walk sometimes, fell down so often. The waterfalls were frozen. The summer houses in the uplands were empty, because people live here only in summer. Because we had an experienced guide, I wasn’t afraid anymore. We got back to Ayder after the long, hard trekking and went to the only other open hotel. Its owner had guests and they cooked rice with hamsi (a type of fish which is very famous in Blacksea). Especially in this region, people are very friendly. You can just knock someone’s door and share their food and nice chat. So that’s what we exactly did! J The food was delicious. He even gave us the recipe. We were tired and got back to our hotel. And surprise! Kenan had brought Georgian wine. I like Georgian wine cuz it is very tasty and sweet. Having the wine with listening Reis playing Kemence (an instrument), was a great end of the night.

2nd day
After some photo shoot in Ayder, we decided to go to Zilkale. It’s a very old castle in Camlihemsin. But it wasn’t as easy as it seems. I had to call the Koy Hizmetleri (means village services) and Jandarma (soldiers who are responsible of the security) to check if the road was open. Some said it was, some said not. So, what to do? We just went. J The car couldn’t go so far. We got off and took a walk. We walked about 2 km and finally saw the castle. It was amazing. I can’t describe the view; you just gotta see the photo. The day was over with Zilkale’s great view.

3rd day
We hit Borcka the third day. Borcka is a village in Artvin. Mostly Georgian people live there. That’s Kenan’s village. There wasn’t much to see in Borcka cause the team had already seen Macahel (Borcka’s village, fully protected and isolated from the modern life) last year. We just went to Muratli Mosque; the ceiling was very colorful and we shoot some photos there.

4th – 5th days
The trip is getting harder. We are now in Bazgiret (Madenkoy). A very talented photographer Suleyman İnal from Artvin brought us here. He will join to our team from now on. He visits these mountain villages for the last ten years. He will be a great help to us.

Bazgiret is in Savsat (a town of Artvin). It is a village which mostly Georgian people live in. It’s located in a very high and upright place. The house that we were gonna stay was in the top hill of the village. To walk there took about an hour. There is no technology whatsoever except for the TV. The cell phones are not working. Their days are just about taking woods to their home with sleds pulled by cows, taking potatoes from the ground and watching TV by the stove. There are only potatoes and cheese to eat. Even though they live a very hard life, people are very fun and show hospitality. They like the accordion play, they have one player in the village. We had him play in front of a house and people started to dance. So cute! :)

While we walk in the village, everybody invites us to have warm milk. To be honest, I hate milk but here it was very tasty. I couldn’t help but drinking 2-3 cups in a day. It’s a very hard place to live. It has almost nothing that we cannot afford not to have in the city. The restroom is located in the outside, the weather is freezing, cell phones are out of the area etc. But they have one thing that most of us don’t have in the city: HAPPINESS! :)

It was hard to walk in the village because of the snow; it was almost 1 meter high. Every three step, I fell down. I was the only lady in the team during that two days, it was hard to keep up with men. Not to mention the dogs. I cannot be around with dogs and they had two big one in the village. Thanks to people, they tied the dogs for me. We had great photo shoots there: nice portraits, women with colorful ethnic dresses on the white snow…

6th day
Finally the hard days were over; without restroom, real food and cell phone. Right? Not quite. L We are now going to Ardahan and the two days ahead of us is the hardest part of the trip!

The weather is harsh in here. It’s worse than Artvin. In Artvin, we didn’t get cold very much thanks to our clothes and shoes. But now, we are on the road to Ardahan and in Camlibel Gecidi (crossing), it’s getting scary. The crossing is 2640 meters high. Can you imagine that we are 2640 meters high and in January it’s snowing like crazy and wind doesn’t let you open your eyes. Now I am scared! We have 2 more days to spend in Ardahan. And we have to make the stories for the magazine. We hardly passed Camlibel (thanks to Kenan) and now we are in Cildir (Çıldır). We are here to make stories about fishing and sledding on the frozen lake. It is 125 km and second big lake in Turkey. In winter the lake freezes in December and doesn’t melt till April. When the lake freezes, people crack the ice and do fishing. They throw their net, wait for a week and take the net out with full of fish. Also there are sleds pulled by horses, goes on the lake rather than the road. We thought it is fantastic and now we are here!

It seems like the town is sleeping. It’s so quite and nothing is moving. This silence doesn’t feel like peace, it is kind of bothering. We hit the Lake Cildir (Çıldır Gölü). It’s all white and nothing is around except some little villages you could hardly notice and a restaurant.

The owner of the restaurant Atalay said we were late for the fishing. How come we are late? It’s only 2 pm and the weather is open. He said it is too cold for the fishing and told us to come back next day around 11 am. So the all day was gone. There is nothing to do but to go to where we stay.

While days go by, I feel more tired and want to go to bed early. But before going to bed, I had to take a shower cause in the mountain village, there was no bathroom. Funny destiny, there is a bathroom here but without hot water. I turned on the tap and it run for 40 minutes but didn’t even get heater a bit. It means 2 more days without taking a bath. I feel tired, sleepy, dirty and homesick :( I miss my home and my husband. At least the phones are working here. So I can talk to him, and everybody is worried about me cause they couldn’t reach me for the last 2 days. There is nothing to do but to go to bed.

7th day
We got up, called the sled driver, waiting for him while watching the view. I am wondering why the winter tourism hasn’t developed here. It has got the most fantastic view, the lake is frozen for 4 months and people can make money to live. But there weren’t the only one who is having problems. We had a terrible surprise. Our gas was frozen, the car wouldn’t start. We had to call people from the district and have them bring us anti-freezer. After Kenan spent 2 hours with the car, it actually worked! He decided to empty the tank for the night so we wouldn’t have the same problem again. Did we? Well, wait and see L

The sled driver is now seen on the frozen lake like a little spot. Tuncay Aydemir is the champion of the last 5 year racings. I got in the sled and he started driving on the white frozen lake. While interviewing with him, he was riding the horses for the photo shoot. It felt like I was in a minimalist fantastic movie. The horses were sweating; the heat and the cold were meeting on them. There is no word to describe that experience. He took me to the Atalay’s Restaurant (Atalay’ın Yeri) for fishing. I got off, thanked him for the ride and left for the fishing. Mr Atalay already prepared the nets, digging and shovel. We are going to experience another fantastic moment. They cracked the ice with digging and shovel, reached the water, pulled up the net that they already left last week. And the fish are jumping alive from the net onto the frozen lake. They had almost 10 fish. This isn’t as easy at it seems. Once they crack the ice, it freezes minutes later. It is that cold! We saw -20 C during the day; they say it’s -45 C at nights. We didn’t live the fish alone of course, Atalay cooked them for us and it was the tastiest and most fresh fish I had ever eaten.

8th day
Remember how I said we had a problem with the gas getting frozen. Here comes the same problem happening again! Nothing is working, anti-freezer, keeping the gas warm, nothing! The car starts but stops right after. Kenan pulled some gas down to the floor, under the gas tank and set it on fire. I thought we were gonna explode! He did it to melt the gas. It worked but only for two minutes. He worked with the car for hours and finally we got back to the road. Now we are going to Damal for the last story. Women are dressing dolls with their ethnic dresses. The dolls won a competition in Japan. It is a way to make money for women here. After having the story here, we are done! But it wasn’t going to be too easy. After driving for 20 km, the car stopped again. The weather was so cold that it froze the gas while driving! We got off, it was freezing. Mr Faruk and I decided to leave the team, hitchhike, and get to Damal. A truck stopped and took us; we drove with him the half of our way. I called the municipality of Damal and told them to send us a car. Once we got there, Mr Faruk got so excited of what he has seen. He had two old lady dressed with their ethnic dresses and took their photos in their own home while I am having interviews with them.

In the mean time, I was worried about the team that we left behind. I called them, they still couldn’t stop the car. And it was getting late. If we spend too much time here, we couldn’t pass the Camlibel Gecidi and had to stay here for one more day. I told them to leave without us, we would find a way to get to Artvin and meet them there. Did I believe myself? Not really…

I called everywhere; the municipality, the district, even offered a cab to give more money so he could take us to Artvin. No one wants to pass the Camlibel Gecidi that late. We will never gonna get out of Ardahan! We are so stuck in here! Everything is so nice and fantastic but I wanna get back to my home and normal life! I was calling everywhere, but no help. So we asked for a ride to central of Ardahan and we were gonna try to find a bus to Artvin. And we did. It was a dangerous trip; we saw car crashes on the way. But we made it to Artvin. That’s what counts. When we get back to Artvin there was no snow, no wind and I felt warm after 4 days.

They say, the journey is not where you reach at the end, it is what you live to reach the end. I believe it’s true. I will never forget the experience I lived in Artvin and Ardahan. Because it is hard, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. You should try, so you will have unforgettable journey stories like I have.

Photos: Koksal Kayhan, Faruk Akbas

Necesarry Phones:

Cildir Municipality
+90 478-311-2151

Cildir – Gençlik ve Spor İl Müdürlüğü Facility (for accommodation)
Zafer +90 537 921 1897

Damal District – Nursen
+90 478-651-4293

Reis Muhammet (Kaçkarlar guide)
+90 535-873-6479

Sis Hotel (Ayder)
+90 464-657-2030

Madenköy Village Headman İsmail Tanıyan
+90 466-581-2201