20 years ago today – Day 261

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Tuesday, November 19th – Kayseri

The morning looks great. The clouds have all but disappeared over night and the sun is sparkling off every surface. I am in a very positive mood, and so are Coen and Vincent. We pack our bags and load them onto our bikes after a minimal breakfast. We were not able to find the train station last night but we hope to make it there in time to catch a morning train to Erzurum, the largest city in north-eastern Turkey, about 250 km to the Iranian border. If there is time, we can buy groceries for the trip, which will take 12 to 14 hours.

The streets are still glistening from last night's rain since it has been too cold to evaporate. It is only slightly above freezing so I have my kafia wrapped tightly around my neck as we walk the one kilometre distance to the station. Coen is hunched over with his hands buried deep in his pockets while Vincent marches along as though it is a summer's day. The streets are full of traffic. They are wide and fairly modern, but with an edge of shabbiness that one would not find in Western Europe. The buildings are not old, mostly within the past fifty years or so, or at least they are not remarkable if they are older. I see a couple of interesting mosques, but they are nothing special after seeing the incredible ones in Istanbul.


It turns out that we have missed the only daily train to Ezurum. I suppose we now have lots of time to do grocery shopping. It's a slight disappointment but I was also regretting that I wouldn't be able to explore the city if the train would be leaving right away. The next train leaves at 7:30 am tomorrow, and arrives in Erzurum at 9:30 tomorrow night. We have our tickets and we will be better prepared.

We must go by train. If I fold my map of Turkey so that its eastern tip touches the western tip, and the northern point lines up with the southernmost point, it forms a point just north of Kayseri. It would takes us about two and a half more weeks to reach the Iranian border if we cycled, and some of that might be in snow.

So we head back to our hotel, pay for an additional night, stow our bags and lock our bikes away for the day. The central area with the few remaining historical buildings of interest is quite walkable. I bring my camera but there isn't that much to shoot. Mt. Eciryes is glorious today, gleaming brightly off to the south. It is extinct now but it must have been terrifying when it was active. I am sure many of the features in Cappadocia were created by its many violent eruptions.

I visit the Hunat Hatun Mosque and the Sahabiye Medresesi (a religious school), both of which look like fortresses. Kayseri has had three golden ages in its distant past. The first was around 2000 BC when it was a major trading post between the Hittites and the Assyrians. The second was during the Roman Empire, in the 3rd Century AD, and the third being the period of Seljuk rule around the 1200s, which was the period in which these two Muslim buildings were constructed.

To be fair, I suppose Kayseri is entering its fourth golden age as new industries are flocking here and new buildings are going up everywhere, but in this new growth spurt most of the ancient city has been ploughed under in the past few year and new buildings are everywhere. Is this progress?

Before I arrived, I associated Kayseri with the finest Turkish carpets made, so I make a point of visiting a couple carpet merchants in the afternoon to sip their chai and listen to their spiels. Usually, in Istanbul for instance, these merchants have pursued me aggressively but they become hesitant when I approach them instead, especially when they sense I have no intention of buying anything. Still, they are compelled to demonstrate their wares, which are very impressive but impossibly heavy to ship of carry.

Late in the afternoon, before the light fades, the three of us go shopping for food supplies, and then we go to a Turkish restaurant to partake in local culinary treats, such as iskender, pastirma and manti dumplings. I walk around in the evening to photograph the central square, including the Kayseri Castle walls and the Sahabiye Medresesi, which are flood-lit and quite beautiful. The temperature is dropping and there is a bite in the air. There might be frost tonight.


PHOTO 1: train station in Kayseri
PHOTO 2: entrance to the Huant Hutan Mosque
PHOTO 3: extinct volcano Mt. Eciryes
PHOTO 4: ruins on south edge of Kayseri
PHOTO 5: Kayseri Castle walls in the evening
PHOTO 6: public common opposite castle walls
PHOTO 7: the Yeni Camii at night