Our last days in Turkey, Our first encounter with Iraqis

We took a bus from Goreme in Cappadocia to Gaziantep in the south of Turkey, which was to be our final stop before crossing into Syria.  The bus ride was supposed to last about 3 hours, but about 90 minutes in our bus overheated with a busted radiator.  We were luckily able to pull over at a truck stop which had a mechanic.  The mechanic ended up taking over 3 hours to fix the radiator.

During these 3 hours we slowly got to interact with the other passengers.  No one could really speak English here in the heart of Turkey, so people just made faces indicating that it was taking forever to fix the bus.  One guy finally had the courage to try to strike up a conversation with us, basically asking us where we were from.  We told him Hong Kong, which we’ve learned is a lot easier for people to comprehend than saying Canada.  The exchange was mostly smiles and shrugs on either side.   Eventually people started to take more interest in us, and next thing you know the whole bus was surrounding us.  This is not an exaggeration; all of the passengers on this bus were hovered around us (there were about 10 of them).

The other riders went around in a circle saying where they were from; a few were Turks from Gaziantep, one guy was from Lebanon, and the rest were from Iraq!  Supposedly the bus went to Northern Iraq (Kurdistan) after Gaziantep.  These Kurdish Iraqis could speak Kurdish and Arabic, the Turks could really only communicate in Turkish, and the Lebanese guy (who was named Zaki and was hilarious) could speak Arabic and a little bit of English and Turkish so he ended up being the group translator. 

Basically, pictures of wives and children were passed around to everyone, and one of the women there proudly placed her super cute baby on our laps to hold for a while.  They asked us where we were going to after Gaziantep and we indicated that we were traveling to Syria, and then Lebanon and Jordan, and all the Iraqis were like “Why no Iraq????”  Hilarious laughter ensued as they made bombing sounds and were shooting air pistols at each other.  Pretty amazing that they could make light of such a tragic situation.  They were all Kurds though, so their region is significantly more stable, and they seemed to be quite happy that Saddam was dead.  One guy said “Saddam” and then pretended to hang with his tongue sticking out, which was followed by more laughter.

At one point the engine started and we all went outside to take a look.  This is when all of them tried to give me their best Kung Fu stance which usually can get annoying but this time it was pretty funny.  The bus was a Mercedes bus, so one guy yelled “Made in Germany no good, Made in China good!” with more laughter.  Eventually the problem was fixed and we made it to town where everyone got off to shake our hands and to say goodbye.  Before we parted ways everyone made sure they got pictures with Di and I.  One Turk getting off told us to follow him and he paid for our transport (he wouldn’t take our money) and took us to the door of our hotel.  The Lebanese guy gave us his number and was adamant that we call him when we arrived in Beirut.  This was definitely the most fun I’ve had waiting for a vehicle to be fixed.  The above picture is with the most outgoing guys on the bus.  I am the second oldest guy in this picture (I was shocked to hear their ages, they’re mostly in their late 20s.  Please correct me if I’m wrong but I definitely feel as though I look younger than them.  Must be the Oil of Olay).   The Lebanese guy is the one wearing Di’s hat.  I hate to make light of this but check out the epic unibrow on the guy second from the right.  The first time I saw that over here I thought it was really funny, but in Turkey it’s almost been an hourly occurrence, seeing a guy with one eyebrow and one eyebrow only.

Anyways Gaziantep was a nice town with a fabulous (yes I’m using the word fabulous) mosaic museum.  There really are no tourists in this town so the museum was ours for about 5 minutes.  After that, about eighty uniformed 10 year olds showed up on a school field trip.  We were definitely way more interesting than the mosaics to them, as they kept running away from their teachers and following us, trying to wave and say Hello!  The teachers kept yelling at them to get back in line.  At one point we could hear a few sprinting up to us, and as we turned around the guy in the lead quickly screeched to a stop, with the resulting 5 students behind him ploughing into his back, straight out of a cartoon.  We took longer than them to check out the exhibit, but a group of them were waiting for us at the exit!  They were all yelling and waving “Bye” as we walked through them and I decided to turn around and take a picture.  They were more than happy to oblige as all them started to immediately laugh and pose, teacher included.  I was also given my first Koran here by a local on the city bus.  It was in Turkish though, so no I haven’t read it.

The next day we took a bus to Kilis, the border town, and grabbed a taxi to take us to Aleppo in Syria.  Though we heard stories of how tough it was to cross the border from other people, we had no problem and were through relatively quickly.  The border was quite disorganized though and I’m glad we took a taxi instead of walking through and finding a ride on the other end like we did at the Libya/Egypt crossing.  The taxi driver did take our passports to load up on as many duty free cigs as he could, but we didn’t mind, as long as we got through.

Turkey is truly an incredible country.  There is striking and unique natural beauty, an amazing modern metropolis, fantastic food, a beautiful coastline, a rich history, a strong culture, and wonderful, friendly people.  In addition the independent travelers trail is pretty standard (Istanbul – Selcuk/Ephesus – Fethiye – Olympos – Cappadocia-Istanbul doing it either clockwise or counter-clockwise) so along the way you are bound to run into people you’ve seen previously in other towns or you’ll meet people who can offer you advice as you keep moving forward.  Meeting other travelers who will no doubt have interesting stories and viewpoints always adds to the experience.  In short, Turkey is a country that you need to visit.  We liked it here so much that we plan to return relatively soon to check out the less traveled Northern and Eastern regions, with another pit stop in Istanbul, a city we fell in love with.  Who knows?  Maybe by then Iraqi Kurdistan (as of today the safest part of Iraq, and braver tourists are trickling in) will really be open to travelers looking for the next region ripe for exploration and discovery, with friendly Kurds like the ones we met more than willing to host and to share their undoubtedly incredible stories and experiences.