Batman, it's a Town Too (Lots of Pictures Ahead)
My plane arrived in the early hours of Wednesday and a very frustrating, internet-less day later I'm back to posting.
Wow folks, it's been an action packed week. I'm still exhausted from an evening flight that turned into a very late night, but all is well and I'm back in lovely Istanbul. This city has really grown on me, as beautiful as the countryside is and as much as I already miss the friends I made there, Istanbul's streets and clutter feels very welcoming. I'll sing this city's praises another time though, I'm sure you're more eager to hear about Batman.
Where to begin? Batman is fairly large, it's certainly not a collection of shacks with donkeys tied outside, it has a real downtown and everything. The town seems to be placed in a bowl, golden hills circle Batman along the horizon. When I arrived, one of the first things of the actual town I saw was the refinery. A high concrete wall topped with razor-wire, along with signs declaring the area a "special security zone" sends a strong message to any who would interrupt the flow of fossil fuels. Most of the people in Batman just seem to ignore the refinery, it's off to one side as it is, though some I talked to felt the town wasn't receiving a fair shake of the profit from the oil. Though it might be that Turkey isn't either.
We stopped along the refinery wall and crossed the street, taking a crumbling side street and immediately drawing a crowd of children. From then until I left my ears were filled with "hello! hello!" eager children enjoying a bit of attention. Walls, and parts of buildings, were composed of cinderblocks but one thing stood out to me in particular, nearly all houses had grape vines making canopies over gardens or even roofs.
Batman also receives very little wind and a lot of sun, the heat was debilitating, I'm still recovering from sunburns. When we spent our days at home everyone would shift around as the day progressed, moving into patches of shade when the formed and staying in the cool parts of the house. But people knew how to deal with it, around the house children scurried with pitchers of water and at most stores where you paused for a few minutes, a glass of water was offered.
Having said that, the second day I was in town we forsook the shade and wise precautions, took a minibus to Hasankeyf and hiked up the cliffs to ancient cave dwellings and the castle built into the cliffs overlooking the Tigris. Enjoy the photos!
I'll write more about Hasankeyf in my next post, now I'm going to take a nap!
Wow folks, it's been an action packed week. I'm still exhausted from an evening flight that turned into a very late night, but all is well and I'm back in lovely Istanbul. This city has really grown on me, as beautiful as the countryside is and as much as I already miss the friends I made there, Istanbul's streets and clutter feels very welcoming. I'll sing this city's praises another time though, I'm sure you're more eager to hear about Batman.
Where to begin? Batman is fairly large, it's certainly not a collection of shacks with donkeys tied outside, it has a real downtown and everything. The town seems to be placed in a bowl, golden hills circle Batman along the horizon. When I arrived, one of the first things of the actual town I saw was the refinery. A high concrete wall topped with razor-wire, along with signs declaring the area a "special security zone" sends a strong message to any who would interrupt the flow of fossil fuels. Most of the people in Batman just seem to ignore the refinery, it's off to one side as it is, though some I talked to felt the town wasn't receiving a fair shake of the profit from the oil. Though it might be that Turkey isn't either.
We stopped along the refinery wall and crossed the street, taking a crumbling side street and immediately drawing a crowd of children. From then until I left my ears were filled with "hello! hello!" eager children enjoying a bit of attention. Walls, and parts of buildings, were composed of cinderblocks but one thing stood out to me in particular, nearly all houses had grape vines making canopies over gardens or even roofs.
Batman also receives very little wind and a lot of sun, the heat was debilitating, I'm still recovering from sunburns. When we spent our days at home everyone would shift around as the day progressed, moving into patches of shade when the formed and staying in the cool parts of the house. But people knew how to deal with it, around the house children scurried with pitchers of water and at most stores where you paused for a few minutes, a glass of water was offered.
Having said that, the second day I was in town we forsook the shade and wise precautions, took a minibus to Hasankeyf and hiked up the cliffs to ancient cave dwellings and the castle built into the cliffs overlooking the Tigris. Enjoy the photos!
I'll write more about Hasankeyf in my next post, now I'm going to take a nap!
posted by Alex Gray at 10:55
4 Comments:
Gardens, balconies, terraces, roofs, etc are covered with grape vine canopies all over Turkey. It's good to take a nap in the shadow of these canopies in the summer heat:)
Wasn't there any cats in Batman?... :(
There were! I have a video of them eating the leftovers from the sheep chopping. But they were all hiding out in the shady non-photogenic areas. I'll put up the video of snacking cats tomorrow.
The grape vines are great, and even in california where lots of wine is produced seeing the canopies is a rare thing. I really like how they're grown up onto the second story of houses.
If a grape vine is not trimmed but left to grow by itself, it climbes and climbes and climbes on the walls, poles, whatever next to it by twining ts branches. If you want to make a canopy, you just put a basic frame and tie the young branches of grape vine towards certain directions and voila, you'll have a grapevine canopy!
Such things can also be done with some other plants, but I don't know their English names:
Sarmaşık gülü (a kind of rose), hanımeli, mor salkım... Well... Maybe someone can tell or better show you you what they are!
Istanbul is very beutiful through all the seasons. In addition to Sultenahmet make sure you see Beshiktash and the other districts along the Bosphorus, the views are amazing. Try to get out of the city if you can, turkey is a beautiful country. Good luck on your visit here.
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