Turkish Letters #10 -- Bursa and Cumalikizik (Shiralee)

Busbecq stopped at several villages on his trek over the Asian Mt Olympus ('Uladag' these days) on his journey to Amazya. We had to make do with Bursa, which is certainly no village. Despite the fact that it is a.k.a the Green City#1 it certainly didn't have the rural charms of the villages Busbecq passed through.

A romantic view of downtown Bursa from the top of the old hisar section -- mountain views obscured by smog... and not a lot of greenness to be glimpsed.

What it does have in its favor is its position spread along the slopes of the mountain and the fact that it was the first capital of the burgeoning Ottoman empire. This has left it with some speccy buildings, a special place in the Turkish heart and great views. Otherwise it's the usual story. Unplanned and chaotic development have washed away most of the historical centre of the city leaving the few remnants, mostly mosques and associated buildings as usual, marooned in a sea of tawdry and crumbling commercial and apartment monstrosities. The traffic is insane. The crowds, enormous #2. The pollution, killing.

Our hotel was at the edge of markets first established in medieval times. These have grown to the size of a small suburb absorbing all before them including a very fine caravanserai or han (complete with its own mini-mosque for those caught short at prayer time) that once sheltered silk merchants and their camels. Now housing a surfeit of scarf shops and tearooms, it apparently comes into its own at the end of the silkworm season. People still raise silkworms domestically as a cash crop and the han sees some 14000 of them simultaneously trying to sell their chrysalis harvest. The rest of the time it is a cat wonderland, beggar's paradise and respite for the battle-worn shopper. Bursa's markets are terrifying and exhausting. Crowded to the max and labyrinthine, they sell things for the locals. The best bits are the produce sections (naturally). The rest is filled with enormous amounts of incomprehensible STUFF. Some of these things are impossible to imagine anyone buying. Some of them make you want to poke your own eyes out rather than risk seeing more of them. Wisest to stay out.

As usual, we walked and walked and walked and walked. We didn't find many good things to eat. Remarkably, I found falling-down buildings, homemade signs and colour combinations to photograph. More remarkably, Cade and John were patient with me.

We saw its unique (for Turkey) bridge with shops on without knowing that's what we were seeing. The surprise really is that, given Turkish enthusiasm for all things commercial that more bridges haven't been colonized by shops.

Bursa won our inaugural prize for most creative use of cabbages in a public place.

We tried to visit the museums. They were, of course, closed until further notice. We did visit a couple of tombs and mosques, which had gorgeous seljuk details, but got rather depressed at the sad state of their repair.

We also seemed to have timed our visit to coincide with some festivity or ceremony so the mosques were incredibly busy with an extraordinary preponderance of enthusiastically pious young people and we felt very conspicuous.

Bursa really wasn't much fun and it was rather a relief when we decided to cut our losses and try Cumalikizik, a tiny village on the slopes of Uladag only 30 minutes from the centre of Bursa.

	x

If a picture is worth a thousand words, I've just saved you from reading a book... although you could fill several with descriptions of Cumalikizik. It was close to perfect. Best place to spend a birthday ever-- and with the added bonus of spending it with Cade.

We were only there a little more than 24 hours and we didn't want to leave, but we had to get Cade back to catch her plane. And do some more shopping before she did.

#1 The reason for which was completely opaque to us. Some commentators have found the source for this nomenclature in the number of parks in the city, others in the use of turquoise and green tiles in its numerous mosques and tombs. In either case, I don't think that either is sufficiently ubiquitous to warrant the name.

#2 And largely composed of rude bastards. Cade pointed out that all the men simply expected that women would get out of their way - with the underlying message that they shouldn't be there anyway. And so she started barreling through them much to their surprise and my admiration.