Halide Bilginer

Halide at Chevaliers Castle

Halide Bilginer, a member of the BT sales staff travelled around Syria, Jordan and Lebanon in December 2010. She shared with us some interesting highlights about the places and events that happened during her trip.

View Halide’s Travels in a larger map

Cormac, Deniz, and Halide

Halide travelled with two friends, Deniz Bal from Istanbul and Cormac Bracken from Ireland. They took a bus from Kaş to Antalya and then on to Antakya(Antioch). The Antakya (ancient Antioch) “Archaeological Museum, built in 1938, displays Antioch’s Roman mosaics as well as other archaeological finds from Hittite to Byzantine times.”

Aleppo

Their first, out of country, destination was Aleppo, Syria, “the largest city in Syria and the largest in the Levant…“, where they stayed for six days with friends. Halide said it was a relief that she and Deniz did not need a visa anywhere to visit these three countries although her Irish companion did and he spent a lot of money re-entering the countries each time. She said that everywhere they went, people were helpful and friendly. Many of the people they met spoke English but was surprised how she could understand some simple Arabic conversations because of the same words in Turkish. She also noted that there were many Turkish tourists.

Neither of the women wore a headscarf except when visiting a mosque and never felt anxiety about this from the Arabic men. While in Aleppo they a stayed with a French woman friend of theirs. Her flatmate is an American woman whom they met on the early part of their trip. A couple of weeks later when they returned, they discovered that in those two weeks, the American woman had converted to Islam and felt she must be covered while around the young Irishman even though that was not the case during their earlier stay.

Hamah water wheels

They continued south from there to Hama and visited the sites for a day and overnight. Hama has “the great norias (waterwheels). Originating in Byzantine times, the oldest surviving wheels date from the 13th century. The norias, which all have given names, were used to raise water from the river into aqueducts.” They then visited the ancient site of Palmyra for a day and night, where there are “several temples dedicated to Aramean, Babylonian and Mesopotamian deities. The ancient ruins are a World Heritage Site.”

They then moved on to Homs (Hims), a city in western Syria. While in Homs, they were sitting in front of a pastry shop trying to decide upon a place to stay. The pensions and hotels they had looked at previously were far from suitable and they becoming frustrated. A man who works in the shop came out and asked them if he could help. He took them around and found a nice hotel for them to stay at local prices, he bought them a meal, and he took them to the bus station to barter with the ticket counter personnel so they gave Halide and her friends good and not inflated prices. He even took Cormac to the local police station to translate for him because he was having some visa problems and with the help of the local police got them sorted out. It seems that people from the US or the UK need to buy a visa every time they enter Syria. Countries with a Syrian embassy such as the US and UK must obtain a visa in advance and they cannot purchase multiple entry visas. Visas are expensive, e.g. 50 US Dollars for many European nationalites. It is only countries without a Syrian embassy that even have the possibility to buy on the border.

While in Homs they saw the Crac des Chevaliers, “a Crusader castle in Syria and one of the most important preserved medieval military castles in the world…Krak des Chevaliers was the headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller during the Crusades.”

Beirut skyline

They then took a bus and travelled to Beirut, Lebanon and stayed there for three days. Beirut is “the capital and largest city of Lebanon with a population ranging from some 1 million to over 2 million as of 2007. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon’s coastline with the Mediterranean sea, it serves as the country’s largest and main seaport…”

From Beirut they took a shared taxi to Amman, the capital of Jordan where they stayed for two days. While there they decided they wanted to swim in The Dead Sea which was a one day trip by bus which they shared with three others. The Dead Sea is “a salt lake and 422 metres (1,385 ft) below sea level, the lowest elevation on the Earth’s surface on dry land“.

Halide at Petra

They went to Petra for one day, “a historical and archaeological city in the Jordanian governorate of Ma’an that is known for its rock cut architecture and water conduits system“, and visited Wadi Musa or Valley of Moses.

They visited Mount Nebo which is near Madaba which they visited next, on to Karak where they visited the Kerak Castle of the Crusaders where, “after the Battle of Hattin in 1187, Saladin(Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn) besieged Karak again and finally captured it in 1189…His chivalrous behavior was noted by Christian chroniclers, especially in the accounts of the siege of Kerak in Moab…” They also visited the Dana Nature Reserve.

One of Halide’s favourite spots was the Wadi Rum desert valley where they stayed in large nomad tents. Wadi Rum “is a valley cut into the sandstone and granite rock in south Jordan at 60 km to the east of Aqaba. It is the largest wadi in Jordan…The name Rum most likely comes from an Aramaic root meaning ‘high’ or ‘elevated’…wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley.”

Port of Aqaba

Next on to Aqaba, “a coastal town in the far south of Jordan…Aqaba is strategically important to Jordan as it is the country’s only seaport.”
Finally they took a bus back to Amman for an overnight stay.

From Amman they took another taxi to Damascus where they spent six days, including New Year’s Eve, with friends. Damascus is the capital of Syria and its second largest city.

From Damascus they travelled back to Aleppo where they stayed for two nights and then returned to Turkey, in a shared taxi, to Gaziantep “amongst the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.”

Konya dervishes

They proceeded on to Konya for one night and next to Cappodocia for six days hiking aorund.

Halide finally arrived back in Kaş on January 22, weary but far more experienced in the ways of her neighbours on the south east of Turkey.

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