July 13, 2011

• The Silk Road Overland
  Wednesday 6 July 2011
  
  In the morning, I saw some spectacular views from my train window. There were steep mountains all around, though the best views were probably hidden from us train passengers as we entered a series of tunnels that lasted for 14 minutes. This time, Turkish Railways was not on time and I arrived three hours late in Adana. However, the coach to Antakya took only a couple of hours so I still arrived at my hotel before 3.00 PM.

  As Antakya - the ancient Antioch - was one of two major western end points for the Silk Road, I wanted to see the market/bazaar to get into the right mood, to catch something of the theme of my travels. My impression was that this is an incredibly long market, it just went on and on. I think it was even longer than the market in Damascus and definitely longer than the one in Aleppo.

  The Antakya Archaeological Museum was stunning. The sheer size of the mosaics make this place a must visit for anyone going to Antakya. I don't know if there are more mosaics here than in Madaba, Jordan, where I went last summer, but it surely felt like it.

  In the evening, I also attended evening prayer at the Antiochian Orthodox Church. I'm in Antioch after all! Considering the explosive growth of the Antiochian Orthodox Church in the US over the past decades, I thought the "home" church would be more abuzz than it is. However, there was only one priest, one reader and two people in the congregation (apart from me). That was it! Still a great moment, though, to go to the Antiochian Orthodox Church in Antioch.

  One thing that was funny about Antakya was that it was much easier to communicate with people in Arabic than English. After a while I didn't even try using English but used my basic Egyptian Arabic instead.

  The Silk Road Overland
  Thursday 7 July 2011
  
  Before moving on from Antioch, I also wanted to see the Cave Church of St Peter. This is the cave where St Peter is thought to have preached in 50AD and where Christians met as early as 40AD. The church building itself is obviously not from that time, but parts of it originates from the early fourth century I think, and it is listed as one of the oldest churches in the world. But being a cave church, the cave is still there, of course.

  I walked from my hotel to the church - about 45 minutes through busy streets and passing lots of industrial sites - and when I arrived there was only a smallish group of Italian pilgrims and one guy from South Korea at the church. I guess Antakya is still not a major tourist destination in spite of all the amazing things you can see here. Apart from this group of Italians, I think I only spotted two Westerners in Antakya during the 24 hours I was there.

  My 16-hour coach journey to Van started in Antakya at 1.30 PM. The A/C on the coach was't working properly - though the coach steward seemed to think that the luke warm air coming out of the vents was fine - and although the coach had a personal TV screen for each seat, it had no toilet. I much prefer having a toilet on a coach than my own personal TV if I'm on a 16-hour coach journey!

  The plan was to meet up with my travel mate Bahrom in Van. He was traveling from Mt Nemret and we were texting each other back and forth. When comparing the timings and routes, we discovered that he was actually going to board the coach I was on when it reached Diyarbakir! Great timing, especially since we had not made any plans for ending up on the same coach.

  Just before midnight, we met up as the coach stopped in Diyarbakir, and the coach steward fixed so we could sit together for the rest if the journey (every seat was taken so it took a while). Great stuff!

  The Silk Road Overland
  Friday 8 July 2011
  
  We arrived pretty much exactly on schedule in Van - just a couple of minutes after 6AM. Not bad for a 16-hour coach journey. I had not slept more than 15 minutes on the coach so I felt pretty dazed. Bahrom, on the other hand, seems to have a gift for sleeping on a coach. He somehow just folded his legs against the seat in front of him and nodded off. I wonder if it is genetic.

  In any case, I needed an hour or so of sleep before we set out for our first destination for the day: the Akdamar Island and the 10-century Armenian Church of the Holy Cross.

  After two glasses if Turkish tea and being directed back and forth for an hour while looking for the minibus stop for Akdamar Island (we never found it in spite of the fact that Bahrom speaks fluent Turkish!) we were allowed to board a long-distance coach passing by the spot where boats cross over to the island.

  What a great destination, and absolutely worth the 16 hours of virtually no sleep. Akdamar Island is this gorgeous island about a 30-minute boat ride from the shores of Lake Van. And the Church of the Holy Cross was stunningly beautiful, with the most amazing and surprisingly well-preserved frescoes inside and some very interesting reliefs on the outer walls.

  The second site of the day - the Van Archaeological Museum - was a bit if a flop as we arrived just as they were closing. One reason we were late was that several streets were closed off in the centre of Van and there was a heavy police presence everywhere. We could hear music in the distance and there seemed to be a concert going on. Later on, one of the hotel receptionists said that some important politician was visiting town, and another guy told us it had something to do with PKK, but I could not find any information about it on the Internet.

  We went straight to work on our third point on our To Do list for the day: see the sunset from the top of Van Castle. It involved quite a bit of walking and some climbing but we made it on time. The sunset over Lake Van was stunning.

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