Good and Lost

My last day in Tbilisi was spent walking around and meeting up for one last time with Nino, Nino and Marine for coffee and food at their apartment. It was a good last day, and I was sad to go, but the dark fell soon enough. My bus was at 8pm, so Nino R. (Razha’s sister) accompanied me to the bus station and saw me off, and soon enough I was rolling again back toward Turkey.

The central land border with Turkey was either closed or not used by the bus system, so I ended up heading back west through Kutaisi and Batumi and showed up once again, at about two in the morning, at the Black Sea coastal border at Sarp. Customs was a simple process, taking no more than half an hour for the entire bus to get through, and tried to sleep a bit for the few hours left to Trabzon.

We rolled in to the Trabzon Otogar at about six in the morning, and I walked around to look for a bus to Kars. I quickly found that, because I’d gone back to Trabzon instead of directly south from Tbilisi, all busses to Kars ran through Erzurum, and it wouldn’t be possible to get to Kars until late that night. I checked my calendar; I would have to be back in Istanbul in just a few days to catch my plane to Istanbul. So, I bought a ticket to Erzurum and ate breakfast while waiting for my bus. Kars and the ancient city of Ani would have to wait until my next visit.

I slept for most of the ride to Erzurum, but awoke as we were crossing a snow-covered pass. Erzurum is the highest large city in Turkey, and is surrounded by snow-covered mountains. It’s also reasonably wealthy; we passed several ski resorts the last hour or two before arriving. I stepped off the bus around noon to slate-gray skies, low clouds obscuring the mountains. After the impressive Georgian capital of Tbilisi, Erzurum was initially unimpressive, with the usual squat multicolored buildings of ten or twelve stories that make up most eastern Turkish cities. I did find a hotel for reasonably cheap, though, and dropped my pack to explore a bit further.

It was reasonably warm, but the streets were soaked in the slush of melting snow. Still, it was a nice enough city, especially once I moved into the older part of the city. After a couple weeks of Georgian churches, the mosques seemed to be everywhere–including one memorably large one with a grocery store, of all things, built into its base. Erzurum is built on one side of its valley, and slopes constantly up in one direction toward the mountains. The effect reminded me of a seaport like Trabzon, and I was constantly glancing down to orient myself by the sea, only to see the wide white plain stretching north toward the mountains.

Up the hill is the older part of the city, with several old fortresses and municipal buildings and one medieval double-minaret mosque, the symbol of the city. There were few cafes or restaurants as such, but I did manage to get a good meal at one of the city’s many cafeteria-style diners before heading back for the night. The next day was more exploring, but overshadowed by my fast-approaching return to the States. Whenever I travel, I wish I could travel longer; that I had no return ticket. But always, a few days before that return becomes necessary, I feel my interest in old buildings and sights waning, and I’m ready to pull up stakes and move, as far as possible, toward home.

So it was that the next day I packed my things and walked down to the Erzurum train station. I walked up to the ticket office and asked my carefully researched question: “Ne kadar bilet, yatakli vagon, Stamboul?” This meant, as near as I could tell, “how much for a ticket, sleeper car, to Istanbul?” Turkish-speaking readers, please forgive my mangling of the language.

The ticket agent understood me well enough, however, and after offering me a student rate (when traveling, it often pays to be a student, even when you’re not) sold me a ticket in a sleeper car, all the way to Istanbul, for 75 lira–about $50. It was a long journey, about 36 hours, but covered two nights. So, for $50, I had the equivalent of two nights lodging and transportation across Turkey.

It turned out to be a good move. I waited at the station until 8pm and picked up my pack as the Dogu Express pulled into the station en route from Kars (on Turkey’s eastern border) to Istanbul. I boarded, found my way to my compartment, and found myself the recipient of rather a good deal. Though not particularly large, the Turkish sleeper compartments do have a table, two expansive seats, two fold-down beds, a sink, power outlet, and even a small refrigerator. I packed the food I’d bought for the trip under the table, hung up my coat, and settled back into my seat.

What followed was one of the more relaxing days of my trip. I read into the evening and folded down my bed to sleep. It was just barely long enough; anyone taller than 5′10″ or so might have found it a bit cramped. Nonetheless, it was comfortable, and I slept well. I awoke the next morning to light rain and the Turkish steppe rolling past my window. I spent the day working and writing. Periodically we’d move out of a storm for an hour or so and the sun would shine out across the plains, passing the occasional craggy tree, small village, or low-lying marsh patrolled by low-flying herons. Then we’d pass under another storm and it’d rain for a few hours until we came out the other side.

The evening coincided with clear skies, and I was treated to one of the best sunsets of the trip, with wide-open steppe and green hills spreading wide out on either side of us as we rumbled west. We passed Ankara a few hours after dark, picking up a number of passengers bound on the much more popular shorter trip from Ankara to Istanbul. Then on, into the night, flashing past the brighter, larger western Turkish cities in ever quicker succession as we neared Istanbul. I drifted off sometime after midnight.

I awoke early the next morning as the conductor knocked on my door and told me we were pulling into Istanbul. The city was already spreading out all around us, though we were still a good twenty minutes from the Haydarpasha terminal on the Bosphorus shore. I packed my things, ran the usual check–passport, wallet, pen, camera, laptop–and left my compartment as we finally pulled into Istanbul at Haydarpasha, the western terminus of the Turkish Asian railroad.

I stepped out to a glorious day, with seagulls wheeling around the ferries pulling up to dock behind the train station, and the fleets of small fishing boats heading out onto the Bosphorous in the bright morning sun to check set lines and pull up glittering chains of small fish that had been hooked during the night. I sat for a while just to enjoy the morning sun, then boarded a ferry to cross the Bosphorus to the European side of the city.

And here I am, for my last day in Istanbul, with little to do but wait for my flight tomorrow morning. My day’s itinerary is nothing more than cafes and book shops; but, on the last day of a trip, sometimes that’s all you want.

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