Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Eleven: Sultan, the Kurd

(NOTE: Sultan's name has been changed to protect his identity)

Sultan was quietly sipping tea on one of the tables of the restaurant that I entered to have my lunch.

I tried to strike a conversation with a really pretty girl, who apparently ran the restaurant… she couldn’t comprehend… and tried seeking help from Sultan.

“Come here brother. She doesn’t know English… she is not even the regular attendant at this restaurant, her father is ill… and she is replacing him for a day or two”

I joined Sultan… He instinctively ordered a tea for me… and asked me – where I was from… India, ah such a beautiful country, I long to be there…

“Thanks! I think Turkey is beautiful too…”

Sultan… I came to know was an ethnic Kurd… he was the first Kurd that I had met in Turkey… I had met a few of them in Syria in 2007, when I visited the northern Syrian town of Aleppo and its outskirts. He worked in Antalya… as a tourist guide… he told me most of the Kurdish youth are jobless and many of them migrate to Turkish tourist towns of Istanbul, and Mediterranean coasts in search of jobs. Right now… this was a lean tourist season in Antalya and he was in Pamukkale to search for additional jobs.

“You know… we face tough times” … pointing towards the television… there were news about riots all over Turkey… between the ethnic Kurds and Turks… “Our leader Abdullah Ocalan is in the prison… they are killing him slowly. They treat him like a common prisoner and now sending him to a smaller prison cell… very inhumane”.

I had heard about Kurdish problem for many years… and was advised to not to talk about it while in Turkey… the ears of Turkish Mukhabaraat (Intelligence Department) is everywhere… but as I realized later… the Kurdish question is unavoidable… somewhere or the other, someone, A Turk or a Kurd would draw you into conversations regarding it and you are coaxed to believe his or her stand on the issue. The issue is very emotive. Abdullah Ocalan is termed as Osama Bin Laden by Turks and Gandhi by the Kurds… such is the sharp divide.

We gradually shifted towards mundane issues… “Pamukkale is beautiful… but yes you are right, there is nothing much to keep you at this town beyond travertines. But why do you want to go to Konya… why not Antalya or Olympios”

It took me some while to tell him about… how I have been hearing of Maulana Rumi, ever since I have started learning Persian… how he was the greatest Sufi to ever walked the face of earth… how he is equated sometimes to the Prophet, himself. It was a pilgrimage for me… Konya.

“Let me see… it would be very difficult to get a bus to Konya right now… there can be a few buses from Denizili… but I guess around this time… they would also be full… your best bus, therefore, is a Dolmus”

Dolmus are minibuses plying all over the face of Turkey… between short to medium distances of up to three hour journey. One doesn’t need to book a Dolmus beforehand… one just hitches on to a vacant one… it carries up 15-20 passengers. Something like- Trax running in Indian countryside. Most of the people who travel on Dolmus are locals and therefore, according to Sultan, I might also get a local flavor during my journey.

He drew a plan for me… a minibus to Denizili… Dolmus to Isparta (not to be confused with its famed namesake in Greece)… Isparta to Egirdir… and then Egirdir to Konya… he said that if I start early morning… I might reach Konya by the evening time… same as the 1 pm bus, which waits for me… but then the experience would be superlative, albeit a wee bit more expensive.

It was time to bid him farewell… while I was walking away… he said something interesting… “A few days ago a beautiful Indian actress came to Pamukkale for movie… She was the most beautiful women I have ever seen”… She was Katrina Kaif, shooting for a song in the movie ‘Ajab Prem ki Gajab Kahani’… the song eventually was a chartbuster and one of my most favorite songs- ‘Kaise batayein kyun tujhko chahe’.

Travetines and Hierapolis are side by side… once you buy a ticket to Travetines… you can walk further ahead and see Hierapolis. Travetines is a most surreal site… it needs to be seen to be believed… especially the calcium carbonate terraces, which deposit blue colored water… the sight is divine… but for the crowd.

Pamukkale is visited by hordes of crowds… both Turks and foreigner… I remember Yusuf telling me that I might be disappointed with the atmosphere in Pamukkale… he was partially correct… Travertines is a very small area and imagine thousands of tourists trying to get foothold within that small area… it spells chaos… and not time to relish the divinity of this beautiful place.

Further ahead is a museum and a resort, where one can actually bathe in a pool of mineral water… however the entry to the resort is steep. It is said that bathing in that mineral water is good for skin diseases.

Still further ahead Hierapolis… spread over acres and acres of land… the prime sights though are limited… a beautiful amphitheatre, which is a bigger marvel than the one I saw in Selcuk… with a capacity of 18000, but with a steeper gradient… it was a delight to see… and then the necropolis… where one can see different types of tombs of Greco-Roman times…. One can see how tomb-making changed over time… as also the stratification viz tomb assigned.

I roamed in Hierapolis till evening time… the place has many trails and one can follow them to while his time away… they all take you to different ruins… as also give you an opportunity to walk and be with yourself… away from the maddening crowd at Travertines… some places give you wonderful panoramic views of Pamukkale City…

It was the sunset time… and I started retracing my steps back to the city.