Travelogues

(NB : last update : 2008 11 27).

(Because of the length of the text with all the links, I had to divide it in 2 parts. The 1st part is in the other travelogue with the same title, "From lake Van till Black Sea (1)".
(links in italic refer to WS photos)

Aug 6 - AYDER & TOPLUCA (above Çamlıhemsin which is above Ardesen)
NB : in reality, I got in Ayder on the 7th of August, Aug. 6 was mainly spent in buses and dolmuses : Somkaya=> Doğubayazit=> Erzurum [what a long, fantastic road in between !]=> Ispir ;
then 7th of August : Ispir=> Rize=> Ardesen=> Ayder=> Ardesen=> Topluca ; this change of dates was necessary to get the correct order in the photos.
Ayder was really too touristy for my taste, OK there are lovely wooden houses but the only activity nowadays there is running hotels etc. and I wanted to sleep like in other places with families ; so I returned to Çamlihemsin with the same dolmus and the driver presented me to a young woman, Hatice, who was waiting for her husband to go up to their small village ; they are rich but they work really hard over there, Mustafa came late from his work place 2 hours away, he is a "pastaci", making all sorts of pastries for hotels ; when he has a day free, he gets up before sunrise and accompanies his neighbours to work in their tea gardens... I was woken up really early and unfortunately could not accompany them as they would be far away for the whole day.

Aug 7 - ÇAMLIHEMSİN (above Ardesen on the Black sea) Back in Çamlıhemsin, I visited several traditional houses in nearby villages ; many families live nowadays in big cities, some in the capital ; this is a prosperous region in Turkey, so (to my disappointment) many houses have been completely rebuilt more comfortably, except for a few ones where everyone was gathering for the holidays - The Hemşin people have kept their identity and are in general more educated than the people around them, one of the families had brought from Ankara their laptop and we viewed their last pictures, which was fun.
- 4 generations in a wooden house, and in the same room : love in the eyes of the grandma and the 'dede' relaxing (2)

Aug 8 - ŞAVŞAT (after having travelled towards the border with Georgia, via Hopa and Artvin) The road between Hopa and Şavşat is splendid but a series of dams are being built and in a few years, part of the road inside the gorges will be flooded ; the houses there have already been abandoned, their owners coming only in the summer to pick the fruits. Bus connections are not very convenient and the roads are slow and tortuous, so I arrived late in Şavşat in the mountains with a glorious sunset ; by that time, I felt tired and had to force myself to ask for hospitality (NB: I fear terribly the noise in hotels), but is it luck or is it that people are so friendly ? The first family to whom I was asking to find a traditional house searched for me in their neighbourhood and again, I was hosted by the wife of an imam (her husband being absent) : was surprised by the modern and secular aspect of that young and modern woman, always running briskly in her wooden house, busy between several tasks like baking her bread, listening to her young daughter, joking with her cousin who had visited with her children etc : a fantastic atmosphere in that house, I really felt at home and totally accepted.

Aug 9 - SARZEP (near Ardahan), go and return back to Şavşat I had spent some time in Ardahan in 2007 and in 2006, I had loved the road from Şavşat : you pass in a few minutes from pine forests to Alp-like scenery and finally, you arrive in the high plateaux of east Anatolia... That day, I was on that road 2 times, then visited a farmers village with very funny old women who were as curious of me as I was of them... A real pleasure ! Spent again a night in the lovely wooden house of Savsat.

Aug 10 - festival in YAYLA EKSIOĞLU (2640m) with famous singer Sibel Can, halfway between Rize and Ispir That day was unbelievable, the very traditional people from Rize etc. were ready to joke, run, sing and dance in the most unbridled manner - all this, under a freezing rain !
=> Seen at that festival :
- 2 men busy with barbecue under the rain
- some young members of the crowd singing happily with Sibel (a small photo of her in the WS mentioned in the note)
- a girl teases her brother before a picnic, also another view of other families who picnic in the drizzle
- displays of affection and teasings in a family, (Please, have a look at the WSs : - he was first chased and then lifted from the ground by one of these women, - then kissed and fed by other ones).

Aug 11 - GÜNEYSU (near Rize) and bus till Ordu, then night bus till Cappadocia
The traditional houses near Rize are splendid ; again, I entered into some of them to admire the old oven and to listen to the tales of the family - and again, these were mostly people on holiday, now living in Istanbul and visiting the few relatives who had remained there. Again, fascinating to observe...
In Güneysu :
- 6 smiles @ 4 windows (out of a similar traditional house from the same area),
- welcoming smiles from the same women, some moments earlier
- some of the same women inside their traditional wooden living room with their family (and a link to 6 WS photos showing more about these traditional houses)
- "the secret" between 2 "old" friends
Seen in Rize :
- "There are no stupid jobs ..." !
- a costume that is now an exception, thanks to Atatürk who had strictly forbidden such ways of dressing (NB, FYI : an old photo by my great uncle showing the fashion in the street = Istanbul, at the turn of the 20th century).