“This isn't Turkey,” the young waiter adamantly declared as he was packing up the kabobs for me to take back to the hotel. “This is Kurdistan!” He was friendly enough, but he obviously wantd to make it absolutely clear to me where his allegiance lay. An older man who worked at the restaurant motioned to me as if the young waiter was crazy. The older man used two fingers to point to his eyes, then his ears, then his arms, and finally his legs – as if to say, in a universal unspoken language, that we're all the same, so we all should live together in peace. As I took the kabobs and started to leave, the young waiter, ignoring the older man, repeated emphatically: “This is Kurdistan! Forget Turkey!” (The kabobs - chicken and spicy ground lamb - were delicious by the way.)
Diyarbakir, the unofficial capital of the Kurdish part of Turkey and the center of the Kurdish resistance movement, wasn't on our original itinerary. We had thought about it but then dismissed it due to lingering concerns about safety in the region. For the same reason, Eden and I skipped Diyarbarkir when we traveled in Eastern Turkey in 1999. It certainly didn't help that some Kurds we met back then had recommended that we not go - since it might be "tense", "maybe a bit rough for tourists." For this trip, I planned instead a leisurely week-long driving tour of the historic sites of northwestern Turkey. But when Eden looked at my planned itinerary, she said: “I'm just not excited about this.” So my wife wanted some excitement in her life – it wasn't enough to travel around the world for a year with two young children. I knew what was coming next. “So, we're taking the children to Diyarbakir?” I asked. “It can't hurt to look into plane tickets,” she responded.
Well, it all worked out. We had a great time, the kids loved it (the weather was cool and clear, the hotel had cartoons on TV, and there was plenty of delicious grilled meat to eat), and we didn't encounter any clashes between Kurdish protesters and the Turkish authorities (fortunately, we missed those by several days).
The main attraction for tourists is undoubtedly the dark basalt old city walls. The massive walls were built in the 4th century in the late Roman period, and then restored by Islamic rulers during medieval times. The walls extend for nearly six kilometers around old Diyarbakir - apparently, only the Great Wall of China is longer. There are some fabulous inscriptions and much of the wall borders on attractive parklands and open space. There are numerous bastions and towers that are still standing, and you can walk atop parts of the wall for a fantastic view in all directions. The Ottomans used one of the bastions as a prison - it's now a (very quiet) tourist shop and cafe.
Inside the city walls, old Diyarbakir boasts a number of historic mosques, churches and mansions and a distinctive architectural style that features alternating black and white bands of stone. As in Urfa, the narrow, twisting alleyways and graceful courtyards are great for aimless wandering (and picture taking), and the lively open-air markets are full of color (and delicious pistachio pastries). And interestingly enough, we found a traditional Kurdish restaurant in a charming old building that was formerly a Jewish home.
All in all, Diyarbakir was well worth the visit. Perhaps it's a bit rough around the edges, and while it's not as pretty as Urfa, it has a long and rich history and plenty of character. Even though the terrifying times that gripped the region (and all of Turkey for that matter) in the 1990s are over, the city still has a bad reputation: Some people we met in Urfa were worried that we'd be targeted by young boys for harassment and stone throwing in Diyarbakir, and when we told our hotel owner in Istanbul where we'd just come from, he exclaimed with a confounded look on his face, "Why would you ever want to go there?!" But sometimes you need to see a place for yourself, and things often are very different than how they are portrayed from the outside. We didn't just endure Diyarbakir - we truly enjoyed it. Ok, so here it is in writing: my wife was right about coming here and here's a nod to her adventurous spirit.
“This isn't Turkey,” the young waiter adamantly declared as he was packing up the kabobs for me to take back to the hotel. “This is Kurdistan!” He was friendly enough, but he obviously wantd to make it absolutely clear to me where his allegiance lay. An older man who worked at the restaurant motioned to me as if the young waiter was crazy. The older man used two fingers to point to his eyes, then his ears, then his arms, and finally his legs – as if to say, in a universal unspoken language, that we're all the same, so we all should live together in peace. As I took the kabobs and started to leave, the young waiter, ignoring the older man, repeated emphatically: “This is Kurdistan! Forget Turkey!” (The kabobs - chicken and spicy ground lamb - were delicious by the way.)
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