Kilis at the border of Syria

March 13th


The next morning I scramble to get myself and my belongings in order.  It's 9:30 and I have a plane at 12:45 to Gaziantep, home of Baklava.  It's recommended that you arrive an hour prior to your domestic flight; I know that things in Istanbul have a tendency to not go as planned so I give myself more time than necessary; hence the rush.  The transportation takes about an hour to get to the airport, which is also to factor in.  Rushing to prepare, I realize it's too late to take the bus to the airport - every one hour interval - and head towards Taksim square to find a Taxi.  I try my luck at picking a Taxi... no- that one is ugly, no- that one has missing paint...and so on.  Taking the Taxi in Istanbul is a hit or miss, you will never get out of Istanbul with all positive experiences when using the Taxis.  In the words of Mehmet (who usually wears only black), you have some really dirty and terrible drivers at the wheels of Taxis.  In my zombie like state from sleep deprivation I pick a Taxi and wish myself luck.  

That luck would not come.  

I enter the Taxi and inform the driver that I am not going to Ataturk airport, rather Sabiha.  I ask him why the meter is not on, and he begins to press a few knobs.  18.00 Lira so far.  Great.  I know it's not going to be a good trip.  After some small talk I start to doze off.  About an hour later we reach the airport and the meter reads 113.20.  

"130 Lira"

"Meter says 113.20"

"Tolls for entrances"

I rationalize it- he's made a good point, accept it, and go to withdraw some money from an ATM.  I come back, hand him two fifties, a twenty, and a ten. 

"Sir.  You gave me a five."

"I'm so sorry" and I tell him to exchange me a ten with three 20 bills.  

He takes it and does not give me the five back.  He ignores me and I take my bags and decide to not mess with it.  Then I realize that he fucked me over.  I take note of his license plate and later report him, but I doubt it changed anything.  

I board my flight and go unconscious as the view of the mountains envelops into the clouds.

I arrive at airport Havalimani in Gaziantep, meet my new hosts - Richard and Angelina (names changed), parents of Rose, who I contacted on Couchsurfing.  For informational purposes, I am actually going to stay in a city called Kilis, which is a few KM from the border of Syria.  I think to myself, "this is it, we have come this close and we are nearly there...but the journey is not over yet."  We go shopping, I reminisce about the days in Plovdiv and Ivan Vasovo, spending the day with the family doing ordinary every day things.  They buy a few things for me, Salep to be one, and we head to Kilis.  

Halep is Aleppo, a city in Syria - my would be destination.

This kid was dancing so freely so I had to take a picture!

Gotcha.

But before coming home, they bring me to a mosque on top of a hill...

     

One thing I forgot to mention is that Rose's parents don't speak English and I don't speak any Turkish - sounds just like home alright :) 

Did I also menton that Richard is a police officer?

Our whole interaction up til this point was mostly us communicating out of a phrase book of Turkish and English, and me saying silly phrases like "Stop, thief!"  

I settle into my home for a night.  Richard comes into my room and we start to communicate through my dictionary.  About ten minutes later I get the point that he's trying to tell me to take a shower and I do so.  Afterwards I head to dinner, where I am accompanied by a young student learning English.  He reminds of me a teenager that Lily, my sister, and I once saw working at a Wendy's (fast food chain in the USA) who had acne everywhere and had gotten our order wrong - poor guy, it must have been his first few days.  Anywho, he acts as our interpretator for the rest of the night and he does a damn good job at it.  Although his confidence seemed to be rather rocky and he quite nerdy, his translations were fine considering his surroundings.  Rose's parents absolutely spoil me with food and tea, by the way.  Richard tells me to go upstairs to look at the view.  We enter another apartment and I'm asking myself, "whose home did we just enter" when it actually turns out to be our translator's home.  His mom is fiiiine I must say - anyway so we catch a glimpse of Syria from the apartment.  The dad of tour ranslator- we shall name him Data from now on; a tribute to Goonies - tells me that the building heights are a max of five stories due to earthquake precautions.  I take one more view of Syria at night and we head back in.

I beat Data at chess over some tea and we all head back down to Richard's and Angelina's to discover that they ordered pistachio baklava.  More food.  I don't know whether or not to be happy or feel like a glutton.  We start discussing politics and we get to the topic of how I know Rose...  Apparently she told them I was her friend.  

Backstory:

So as I was festering in my schematics to travel the Middle East, I knew that crossing the Syrian border would be a 50/50 chance- look at the first blog post.  I decided to give it a shot at finding a couch on the border of Syria/Turkey and did my research on which border crossings were not congested.  Doing my reading on Killis, I decided to pick it based on previous stories.  So I thought to myself, "why not try to find a couch..." and there it was.  The first person I messaged was Rose, who had not logged in for weeks - reasonable given the location; no one willingly goes out of their way to visit Killis.  She answered me promptly and told me I could stay, and that her parents would arrange to meet me at the airport.  She studies in Austria on Erasmus, so she could not actually be there in person, but I suspect she may have told a white lie or two...

Okay.

So we get to subject on which parent Rose looks more like, Richard or Angelina, and I'm just answering ambiguously.  Then Richard asks me how I liked Austria/Vienna - keep in mind that Data is translating - and I answer that I have never been there.  From that point on, Richard has his hand on his chin and is in a reflective state.  Trying to rationalize the relationship between me and Rose, I'm sure he was confused as to who the hell was in their home.  We take a few pictures and I talk to a few family members through Skype; even Rose herself.  Kind of awkward I must say.

We arrange details for tomorrow morning-  the crossing, and I call my parents before heading to sleep.  

March 14th

I wake up and think to myself We eat breakfast - my favorite; olives and feta cheese.  Angelina and I bid eachother farewell and Richard and I head to an office...

He bids me farewell and hands me a piece of paper with his cell phone number on it.  Giving me those cold eyes, I could feel his concern as our eyes last exchanged gazes.  

I get into the car of the transporter.  Inside his 10 year old daughter sits with us and they drive to get some papers.  All the while, Transporter is waving and honking at people.  I start to think that Richard may have arranged something special - afterall when you are an officer, you know people.  We reach the Turkish exit gate, I get through successfully.  Then we reach the Syrian entrance gate and proceed to enter the customs/stamps building.

A rather decrepid building, the only thing that seemed to be in somewhat decent condition was the portrait of Bashar al-Assad, the "President" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashar_al-Assad).  

Transporter's daughter walks up to the booth and hands over her passport, which is filled with stamps.  I walk up next and hand over my passport.

"Where is your Visa from embassy?"

"I don't have one, I have been in Germany for the past six months."

"We cannot give you Visa, go to Gaziantep Syrian Embassy"

"That's for Turkish residence only."

"Gaziantep Syrian Embassy"

Transporter's daughter says something to me in Turkish, but I cannot understand a single word.  I had read from various sources that a "Baksheesh" may be in store; otherwise bribe.  I had two 50 Euro bills stowed away...but the repercussions for bribing an officer did not seem too appealing.  I like risks, but being put into a Syrian jail was not on the list of my priorities.  An officer not in uniform directs me to follow him and we head towards the automobile entrance/exit, he hands my passport to two guards and we start a small conversation on my whereabouts. 

"Where are you from, Japan?"

"From the United States, but I study in Germany."

"But you look like Jackie Chan!"

"Wow, from United States and studying in Germany, that's surprising..."

I had banked on the thought that my heritage just might give me an edge on my entrance to Syria.  I even picked Kilis because it was not a high traffic border and had picked so early in the morning to ensure that there would not be others trying to enter as well.  

The officer not in uniform (I'm sure there's a word for that) directs me to Transporter's car.  "Chanta" means bag in both Bulgarian and Turkish.  Benno and I once compared words between Bulgarian and Turkish and I found it interesting that so called "family" names were held in the Bulgarian vocabulary, whereas words like "Chanta" or "Shishe - bottle" were universal (the Bulgarians were held under Ottoman rule for about 500 years).  

I go to get my bags and Transporter and his daughter enter their car and leave for Syria.  Ununiformed officer brings me back to the automobile gate, where the two guards have arranged for someone to drive me to Gaziantep.  I get into the unknown car and we drive to the Turkish gate.  

Back into Turkey for me.  


Throughout the carride I realize that this is failure, but I learn from it; enter Syria with a damn Visa next time.  I started to regret not bribing, and start letting my mind wander into the past.  And fall asleep.


We get to Gaziantep and the driver drops me off at the Syrian Embassy, I already know what is going to happen.  They're going to either tell me yes (unlikely) or tell me to wait some ungodly amount of time for a yes or no on entrance.  The latter occurs and the embassy representative tells me he is sorry, there just is not any other option.  I leave for an internet cafe to orient my way through Gaziantep and devise my plans.  

Gaziantep has the reputation of two things: Baklava and being a boring city with shy over a million citizens.  I suspect that tourism is not one of Gaziantep's strong points, after being the only tourist and having hotel owners come up to me.  I walk through the streets and receive stare after stare, glance at the cheap wares, buy myself a wrap/doener and give it to a kid, and end up in another internet cafe.  They serve me tea and I ask a few questions using Google Language Tools.  The exchange went a little like this...

"Hello, which bus do I take to get to bus station?"

"I will show you"

"That is very nice"

Introductions and small talk aside, I board the small van, when I am greeted by an elderly man.  The whole bus laughs and my internet cafe pal hints towards the bus station.  Ten minutes later we are there but I do not realize it, so the bus driver tells me - thank goodness.  

Immediately as I walk towards the entrance of the bus station, two men greet me and ask me where I am going.  We walk in...

This place is nice.  As noted before, the Turkish must have a passion for their busses, because their stations are incredibly nice.  This bus station was huge as well - not as big as Istanbul's mind you - but huge regardless.  It's a giant circular building with skylights and a palm tree in the middle.  Small offices of bus companies like Varan, Metro, and so on create a smaller inner ring, with their booths facing the center.  On the opposite side of these offices are small stores that can either be grocery or restaurants.  Classy.  


I can imagine that life here can be very boring.  Sitting in this office all day, waiting for people and busses.  Not my ideal lifestyle.  I purchase my ticket with a company called "Tesiles" with promises of internet access and leave my belongings in their office.  The workers get to know me and we share tea.  I pull my netbook out and start walking around for a connection signal.  The workers of another office stop me and tell me the password- right on.  They introduce me to all of their acquantinces, Ali, Ibrahim and so on, up to the point where one of them gets on my computer and gets on his Facebook to friend me.  I later go on to prevent him from seeing any of my information.  


The bus ticket initially stated 19:30, but as soon as 18:00 hit, they told me it was time.  Before boarding the bus I leave a postcard of Freiburg behind - as I have done with my previous hosts or anyone playing at least some significant role in our temporary relationships.  I board the bus and sit next to this rather large Turkish man.  The ride would last for 16 hours.  


After eating at one of our many pitstops, nature calls.  So at our next stop, a gas station, I look for the first opportunity to do my business.  We must have been in somewhere with a higher elevation; there was snow on the ground.  To my dismay, none of the stalls were open and it was time to get back on the road; shit.  


About an hour later at 1:00, we stopped at a bigger establishment, where there were rows and rows of toilets- holes in the ground.  At this point I realize there are no other options despite my true unwillingness to squat (it is one in the morning, all I want is a nice porcelain toilet to sit on).  


At 3:00 in the morning, an attendant budges me to inform me that I am getting off the bus.  Istanbul already?  This ride is supposed to last sixteen hours... So in a fit of confusion, I remain in my seat, and the people outside the bus are yelling at me- I believe they were telling me to get off.  I look to the Turkish man next to me and ask him "Istanbul?" and he asks them.  They open the hatch for my baggage and I go outside.  I see a bus behind us with "Istanbul" in its LED screen.  I guess they're transferring me.  I go to get my bags and go into the other bus - much more comfy to say the least, and I see the attendants from both busses exchanging money.  


I sleep and we arrive in Istanbul.