Sultan Peter & Princess Karin

Mersin resembles Istanbul in some ways. Riding into the town we see the same sitesi's (summer apartment buildings) left and right of the road as in Istanbul's suburbs. The apartment blocks have names and numbers: Flamengo 1 - 8. Except for apartment buildings, traffic lights, bad road surfacing and the so enormously dangerous dolmus (not only for cyclists) that mar the city. These minibusses sway from left to right over the road to pick up people without signalling or paying attention to other roadusers. No minibusdriver even starts to think about considering cyclists. Every time when they pick someone up and we overtake the bus on the left, they just pull up and steer sharply to the left, to get on the road again. The sidemirrors on their cars are as good as new, because they never use them and might as well be ripped off. Even their neck-vertebrae, an excellent invention with which you can turn your head, are not used at all and might as well be removed.
On our guard and with our hands at our brakes we cycle at some distance of these killer-dodgems. Alive and full of adrenalin we reach the cosy centre, where we take our residence at hotel Hitit, for a reasonable price. Mersin has a nice city centre with a market and fantastic little shops filled with fruitjuices, nuts, Turkish delight, cake and other Turkish delicacies. Outside the centre we haven't discovered anything worth visiting.

A country like Turkey doesn't exist solely of beautiful landscapes and unspoilt nature. The stretches we cycle from Mersin direction Syria prove this. We pass factories, burning gas stations, and are overtaken by polluting cars and trucks that vomit huge clouds of diesel. At the end of our first day here our lungs even hurt from the low smog. We have developed more pains: Peter has discovered haemorrhoids, I suffer from cramps right below my ribcage.

In Adana a fantasticly beautiful and enormously big mosque blinds us. It turns out to be only four years old and is financed by Sabanci, a filty rich businessman from the town. Every Muslem can acquire a place in Islamic heaven by building a mosque. You need money to do so of course. Mister Sabanci has so much money, and maybe is so afraid to land in hell after his death, that he has ordered to build the second largest mosque in the world. The biggest is in Mecca of course and a religious Muslem wouldn't dare to compete with that one. Even the number of minarets you can decorate your own mosque with is limited: Mecca's mosque contains eight, so you have to stay below that number. It took ten years to build the Adana mosque, it can contain 28.000 people, more than many a footballstadium in the world.

We cycle the same route the crusaders took in the 11th, 12th and 13th century to curb Islam. It's very generous of them that they left behind some remains, at which we can gape in admiration. Like Yilanlikale, a fortress that used to protect the ancient city of Misis once. From our tent we have a perfect view of the fortress that stands a few kilometres further, and dream about the tough journeys and battles all those centuries ago. Probably a bit harder than our journey nowadays. It's amazing what the Roman-catholic faith prompted people to accomplish.

The Iskenderum Korfezi, a bay in the Mediterranian See, is less poetic than the name would make believe: instead of a nice sandy beach with palmtrees we descend into an industrial area with oil refineries, oil storagetanks, transshipment-companies for coal and hundreds of tanklorries. A pleasant sight, but not really.

a car full of cotton

A few dozen of kilometres further the picture resembles our desired surroundings a little more: hills, orange-orchards, picturesque villages. Under the cool roof of an enormous figtree we drink some tea and eat two oranges we 'found'.

In Payas we start looking for an old caravanserai, the pride of the village. A caravanserai can be compared with a medieval inn: boarding for people as well as camels. When we arrive there we see a group of men standing and talking to each other. They are immediately very curious at our arrival. Most of them are dressed in the traditional Turkish clothes, except for a deviant that's dressed in an official three-piece suite. A big Mercedes is waiting for him. He turns out to be an alderman of the region. We ask whether we can spend the night somewhere around here, the alderman arranges a room for us in the caravanserai. We like the idea, allthough we haven't got a clue where exactly we will sleep.
The official name of the caravanserai is Sokullu Mehmet Pasa Caravanseray. The complex dates from 1.574 AD, as an incription above a gate indicates. Sokullu Mehmet Pasa, a minister of the Ottoman sultan Yavuz Selim, ordered the construction of the complex. He donated the building as "a lasting monument in a transistory world".

Guard Sefir gives us the grand tour of the giant complex. It's even bigger then we could assume from the outside and consists of a caravanserai, mosque, restaurant, covered bazaar, bathhouse (hamam), school (medressa) and a prison. The major part looks exactly like the day it was built, at some spots there is some concrete people used to restore the place. It's not a polished monument suited to attract a lot of tourists, it's too run down and filty for that.
In the garden of the mosque grows a 1.300-year-old olive tree, which still bears fruit. The severely bent tree is magnificent.

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After drinking our tea we get shown our overnight stay: one of the former shops in the bazaar. The guard gets some massagetables from the hamam and places them in the shop. We put our matrasses and sleeping bag on top. The bicycles are stored here as well.
They let us use the hamam that's still in perfect shape. The guard's boss shows us the hamam and explains its functions. The bathhouse contains about six rooms, some of them massagerooms. All rooms are made of granite and marble. We are allowed to use the big bathhall; all around it are small wooden cubicles. In the centre of the hall is a huge round stone fountain that's filled with cold water, in which we can bathe ourselves. The boss lingers a long time when we are ready to undress ourselves. It's clear he expects to see a peepshow, but Peter chases him away before anything is revealed.
Moments later we're sitting in the big round tub. Sultan Peter and Princess Karin. The Turks are fantastic. Turkish and Islamic culture is great. This bathhouse is phenomenal and it feels very special to be here.

Between iron-, lentil-, bulgur- and flourfactories we cycle to Antakya the next day. This road lacks the usual tea-stands. To replace the teastands we're invited at a gasstation to drink tea. The boss entertains us as long as his time permits. When he has to leave a co-worker gets the order to pour tea and talk to us. What a great people.

That night we arrive at our last major town in Turkey: Antakya, the biblical Antioch. Here one can admire the Peter-cave, a small church hewn out of rocks about 2.000 years ago. Two centuries ago Peter, Paul and Barabas walked here. At the back of the cave people hew a corridor that goes all along the mountainslope. This tunnel was meant as an escape-route for the persued Christians.
In the most beautiful bazaar so far during this trip we spend our last Turkish Lira on prayerbeads, a salvar (oldfashioned Turkish wide knickerbockers), a pendant against the evil eye and a jar filled with honey and nuts. We visit the Archeologic Mosaic-museum with fantasticly restored mosaics from the first century AD.

Then it's over. After almost two months we leave Turkey. Too soon, because there is a lot we haven't seen yet. A good reason to return one day…