Update From the Eastern Front
(Please forgive my spelling and general organization issues, I`m on a borrowed machine with a Turkish keyboard and operating system.)
This is my third day here in Batman, so much has happened already. One of Apo`s brothers owns the local internet cafe, so I`ve got a moment away from the wedding preparations to post. That`s right, one of the family is getting hitched and there will be non-stop dancing and feasting for the next two days. The video camera has been rolling for it all, so the southeast of Turkey will come alive for you after editing has been completed and I`ve found suitable music to cover the inane comments I make while filming.
Yesterday four of us took a dolmuş to Hasankeyf and after a hike through the hills overlooking the Tigris river we made our way up onto a plateu far above the river where the ruins of a mosque bake in the sun. Tall dry grass and thorny plants cover the hillsides broken by protruding rock that, when viewed from far away, appears to fall along the hills in bands, much like layers seen in canyons worn over the millenia by the rivers flowing through them.
In the clefts of these rocks previous inhabitents carved their dwelling, complete with stairs and shelves. One we entered turned several corners and a staircase in the rear of the cave took us up through darkness to a cave overlooking the river. The mouth of the cave had been carved into an arch and the floor made level.
Towards the castle and town the cave buildings took on a more developed look, incorperating hinged doors and roads paved in stone removed from the hillside. Looking East I felt the great expanse of Asia, the enormity of the land and man`s history enacted upon it.
Expect a lot more when I return to Istanbul on Tuesday. Well, I`ll probably need a day to recover before I can kick into high gear with photo and video processing. So make that Wednesday!
This is my third day here in Batman, so much has happened already. One of Apo`s brothers owns the local internet cafe, so I`ve got a moment away from the wedding preparations to post. That`s right, one of the family is getting hitched and there will be non-stop dancing and feasting for the next two days. The video camera has been rolling for it all, so the southeast of Turkey will come alive for you after editing has been completed and I`ve found suitable music to cover the inane comments I make while filming.
Yesterday four of us took a dolmuş to Hasankeyf and after a hike through the hills overlooking the Tigris river we made our way up onto a plateu far above the river where the ruins of a mosque bake in the sun. Tall dry grass and thorny plants cover the hillsides broken by protruding rock that, when viewed from far away, appears to fall along the hills in bands, much like layers seen in canyons worn over the millenia by the rivers flowing through them.
In the clefts of these rocks previous inhabitents carved their dwelling, complete with stairs and shelves. One we entered turned several corners and a staircase in the rear of the cave took us up through darkness to a cave overlooking the river. The mouth of the cave had been carved into an arch and the floor made level.
Towards the castle and town the cave buildings took on a more developed look, incorperating hinged doors and roads paved in stone removed from the hillside. Looking East I felt the great expanse of Asia, the enormity of the land and man`s history enacted upon it.
Expect a lot more when I return to Istanbul on Tuesday. Well, I`ll probably need a day to recover before I can kick into high gear with photo and video processing. So make that Wednesday!
posted by Alex Gray at 11:54
1 Comments:
Batman is very flat, unfortunatly no caves unless you count the crawl space under Apo's house.
The pictures will start rolling in tomorrow evening when I return to my beloved computer.
A while back I made a very stupid American blunder. Apo and Hasan were talking and I kept catching the word 'batman' and assumed they had just been to the movie theatre. So I made some off hand comment about DC Comics and after a minute of blank stares they returned to their conversation, which I now know was about this town.
Hasankeyf (which for the longest time I thought refered to Hasan, not an amazing castle and town) is noting but caves, many beautiful photos from there.
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