Tel Aviv and Haifa

After a long and somewhat sleepless night on the floor of Sabiha Gocken airport in Istanbul, during which we were "kindly inwited" over the PA system to board several thousand planes, Kelly, Chris and I arrived in Tel Aviv. Unfortunately, my preparations for a border-crossing-worst-case-scenario ended up being necessary, Chris and I were detained at the border for intensive questioning due to our recent travels in Iraq. The security guards could not understand why someone who was not Muslim would have any interest in religious sites in Iraq, despite the fact that we visited primarily Yazidi (not Muslim) sites. As we sat under the fluorescent lighting, fellow travellers regaled us with horror stories of their previous trips, where they were detained for 3-5 hours each. Thinking of Kelly stressing on the other side of security, and nervously watching the hours before Shabbat (the Jewish day of rest, when public transport and most stores and restaurants close) tick away was not a super pleasant experience, but we were released relatively quickly and were able to get on our way only a couple hours off schedule.

Plodding through the sunny streets of Tel Aviv, weighted down by our rather large backpacks, we noticed a lot of rainbows and fabulous looking people. By a stroke of luck, we had arrived on the day of Tel Aviv's legendary gay pride parade. The colourful people and interesting street art provided a welcome distraction from the sweat dripping down our backs while we walked from hostel to hostel in a modern-day reenactment of Mary and Jo's search for accommodation in the holy land. Eventually we found a place downtown, very near the beach, who were willing (for an exorbitant price) to put us up in sun loungers on their rooftop. We spent our first evening in TV walking the beautiful beach front board walk, marvelling at the absurdly toned and tanned bodies of the locals running past or doing very public chin ups. It was really cool to see all the people who are or support gender and sexual minorities having such a good time as well. Due to several nights of no sleep, we opted out of the party, which judging by the stragglers heading home when I woke up with the sun in the morning, was quite something.

We spent our next couple days seeing what Tel Aviv has to offer (it wasn't enough time!). We relaxed on the beaches, which I think may house the softest sand in the world - it seriously feels like walking on pastry flour! We loved exploring the colourful streets, which offer amazing artistic viewing, both of the hipsters in their crazy outfits that blend western and middle eastern garb, and of the street art, which is everywhere and encompasses mediums from busking to graffiti to sculpture. We spent an afternoon exploring the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, which had an impressive collection of the masters with pieces by Van Gogh, Klimt, Picasso and Degas, some truly bizarre modern art (I may be an unrefined heathen, but it often left me confused - from the background Kelly cries "that's the point!!"), and my favourite, a very thought provoking exhibit by artist David Reeb, called "Let's Have Another War", featuring paintings and video pieces about the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. On our final day, we trekked out to the beautiful green campus of Tel Aviv University, which houses Beit Hatefutsoth, or the Museum on the Jewish Diaspora. It was well set up with interesting dioramas, but I felt that information was lacking; for example, the circumcision exhibit, which I was interested to understand more from a religious perspective, due to my strong belief that any body modification (particularly when it is done for non-medical reasons) should be done with the informed consent of the person concerned, said only "Jewish boys are circumcised on the 8th day of their life. It is a covenant with God." However, it was interesting to see the ways that Jewish culture and history throughout the diaspora are presented to visitors, and it was a noteworthy celebration of Judaism. For anyone visiting the campus or museum in future, the museum café's iced coffees are amazing, and I credit them with saving me from friendship-threatening heatstroke.

Last night we took a late bus to Haifa, where we made our way to a more distant beach and stumbled about in the dark looking for somewhere to pitch our tent. It turns out that our night vision leaves something to be desired, because although we were not arrested for illegal camping, we awoke on a dirty bit of beach next to a serious construction zone where people were working, casting us confused and unimpressed looks. Undeterred, we packed our bags and sought a hostel to store it for us.

Unfortunately, due to the security situation in Israel, that is not possible, and we had a solid day-long workout carrying our giant packs around. We descended several hundred stairs through the stunning Bahai Gardens, where the Bab, the leader of their faith, is buried in a golden domed temple. The world's youngest monotheistic religion, Baha'i faith centralizes around a belief in the equality and unity of all people, regardless of religion, gender, or nationality. The terraced gardens on the slope of Mt. Carmel, where Elijah the prophet lived and worked miracles, are a pilgrimage site, one of two that all Bahai must visit in their lives. Pilgrims must climb thousands of stairs that lead through the gardens, stopping to pray or meditate, signifying not only physical but spiritual elevation. The beautiful flowers, bushes, symmetry, fountains and location of the garden are breathtaking (it's not just the oppressive heat!) and we enjoyed the tour. This evening we made our way to Akko, which has a much more mixed population than Tel Aviv and the areas of Haifa that we visited. It's nice to see more of the diversity that Israel has to offer, and it is nice to hear the call to prayer, I was missing it. The adventure continues! And we will sleep well in our first beds in 4 nights.

Kurdish Hospitality Part I

3 weeks ago, Christopher and I went on a journey through South-Eastern Turkey and Iraq.  Here is the first chronicle of that adventure.

Upon arrival in Diyarbakir, Chris and I decided to do some exploring.  Right in the heartland of ancient Mesopotamia along the Tigris river, the city was founded in 1500 BC, and has because of its strategic location, has been home to a lot of conflict.  The city has changed hands from the Hurrians, the Urartu, Assyria, Persia, Alexander the Great, the Seleucids the Romans, the Arabs, and finally the Ottomans in 1515 (though there have been many wars since then as armies invaded from Anatolia, Persia and Syria).  Renowned across Turkey and even the world as a center of Kurdish identity and resistance (see the conflict [arguably genocide] in the 1980s), Diyarbakir is bustling and beautiful, and not very touristy.  Walking down the street from our hotel towards what used to be a tourism office, we found ourselves in a very local bazaar, built around a 12th-century mosque.  It was really fun to people watch, as the style of hijab is different here, and most of the older men cover themselves as well, as they twirl their prayer beads and frown at the younger generation’s exposed hair (I covered and was glad of it).  Since the building where the tourism office was supposed to be is now a crumbling ruin, we asked some locals for help, and upon a communication breakdown, they called their friend, who spoke fluent English and who gave us great directions.  After offering to show us around, which I declined, anticipating a scam, we were on our way, and successfully found the office of the bus company we were looking for.  The very kind, adamantly Kurdish gentlemen we spoke to booked us overnight bus tickets for Friday night to Suleymaniyah, in Iraq.  We’re really excited.  While we were figuring out the paperwork, their ordered lunch arrived, and we were offered no choice but to join them in sharing their meal.  We eventually pulled ourselves away, and made for the extensive basalt city walls (at ~6km long, second in length only to the Great Wall of China, and almost twice as high).  Diyarbakir is a proud and unapologetic place, and as we wandered along the walls we weren’t sure if the stares we were getting were motivated by curiosity or animosity.  After thoroughly turning ourselves around in the bazaar, we emerged, dazed and confused, into the sunlight, and were greeted by a middle-aged, kind faces gentleman with an exclamation “I think you are my Canadian friends!”  It was Sirac, the man from the earlier phone call, and he very excitedly offered us a cup of tea, which we accepted.  Moving through the winding streets, he seemed to know everyone, patting children on the head, greeting grumpy looking old men with contagious smiles, and eventually we arrived at his shop and were offered orange cay (it tasted a lot like hot orange crush), chatting the whole time about politics and the Kurdish struggle.  When he didn’t try to sell us anything, and declared that he wanted only to make us ambassadors of Kurdistan, we agreed to follow him around for a bit.  He brought us first to a lovely restaurant, where he showed us one of the only remaining signs of what used to be a thriving Jewish population, an ancient Star of David carved into the ceiling.  We then walked into one of the Diyarbakir House Museums, made of black basalt, which apparently keeps you cool in summer and warm in winter.  There were gorgeous stencils painted on the stone around the central courtyard, and rooms branching off of it for different seasons, with insulated winter rooms and partially underground, very breezy summer rooms.  We were then led to witness an experience I will never forget, the Denge Evi.  In a Kurdish seniors center, the Dengbe Evi is a tradition of storytelling through song and chanting.  Kurdish elders were sitting in a row on kilim couches at the front of a courtyard, with chairs arrayed in front of them where younger people and a few tourists were sitting.  These wizened old men, some of them in PKK guerrilla gear, take turns singing or chanting about pain, torture, violence, genocide, love, friendship and above all, freedom.  The melodies are hauntingly melancholic, and some of the singers were incredibly charismatic... I felt like I was under a spell at some points.  The elders who are listening to the chief singer join in with a hum when singers pause in their song, which we later learned was affirmation of their pain, a sign of commiseration and solidarity.  It was seriously beautiful, and one of my favorite Turkish experiences thusfar.  Afterwards, we visited an Armenian church, supposedly one of the largest in the world.  The archways were enormous, and in order to improve acoustics, ornately carved circles have been taken out of the columns, which would have made the traditional orchestra easy to hear from all sections of the church.  There was interesting documentation outside about the genocide of the Turkish Armenian population, and an Armenian gentlemen came to tell us a bit about the history of his people in Diyarbakir.  We then returned to Sirac’s shop, and poked around the (much more reasonably priced than Istanbul) handicrafts, eventually emerging with an amazing kilim pillow for the nook.  We returned to the restaurant with the Star of David on the ceiling, and enjoyed a traditional Kurdish dinner in the courtyard.  We finished our evening with a delicious Turkish coffee, in whose grinds Sirac was able to read our futures.  Our day in Diyarbakir was really amazing, and we will definitely return for more Kurdish hospitality one day.