Travelogue - Part 9: Bursa

Bursa


At this point, I'm realising that the odds of me actually getting my entire trip chronicled are probably somewhat small, esp. so close to Xmas. After this post, what I'm going to do instead is finish it all up with some "Highlights" posts, where I'll show you the things that stood out most for me in the rest of Turkey and Egypt. Stay tuned! Anyway, back to Bursa (sorry, only 1 photo for this one!).

After a multi-stage journey involving a taxi, a ferry, a tour bus and a local bus (which had pretty much the same amount of squash you'd expect from any other packed bus, even if it was a little warm), we arrived in Bursa, which looked like a really nice place. After settling in, we went to a place our leader had recommended, and tried something they were apparently very good at: an Iskender Kebab. It was basically thinly sliced lamb with a tomato-y sauce on top of pide (a kind of flat bread), with melted butter and yoghurt. It was absolutely delicious, and definitely one of the best things I ended up having in Turkey.

After lunch, we had a bit of an orientation walk before being left to our own devices until the evening. I'd decided that I'd like to see what a Turkish bath was like, esp. compared to the one I'd had in Syria, and headed off to a place with a couple of my tour group. It looked a lot nicer, with a gloriously hot pool for the Caldarium, and marble slabs where you lay down to get scrubbed and massaged. Despite the fact that one of the two scrub and massage attendants pointed at the one I had and made throat-cutting gestures, I seemed to have ended up with the more gentle one, judging by the grunts and exclamations coming from the tour group member next to me! The massage was better than the one I'd had last time, too. The only thing about the whole experience that had me a little worried was the thick wooden clogs we were given to wear around the (tiled) bath house. You definitely wouldn't have wanted to move around at any kind of speed!

After the bath, we headed back to the hotel for what sounded like a busy, good evening. We were going to a tea house to hear some local music, followed by dinner at a local's place, and finishing with a Whirling Dervish performance. When we got back, we met up with our guide for the evening, who was carrying a musical instrument case with him. We weren't quite sure what was in it. After a short tour of some local sites he took us to a tea house, where we were led into a tiny back room with wooden benches around the walls. It was clear from the way he greeted the people outside and the musicians in the back room that he knew them well already.

The people started playing, with one of them singing. The whole atmosphere was very easy and relaxed, and you really got the feeling that this was just a bunch of friends showing up to have fun together. We couldn't understand any of the words, but that didn't really matter as it still sounded nice, and the music that was being played had a very infectious beat to it. You couldn't help but start to keep time with it after a while. Every now and then a guy would step into the middle of the small floor and invite one of the girls in our group up to dance. It was really simple, but fun to watch, and do, by the looks of it. I started to wish that the guys'd get a chance at some point, too! I got my wish close to the end, and had a really great time dancing around with plenty of smiles, laughter, and some goofing off thrown in. When we left, I was on a high, with music running through my head, and wanting to dance some more!

Dinner was at our guide's house, and was delicious. A few of us needed to sit at a low table on the floor  away from our host and the rest of the group, but that was okay, because we ended up having our own entertainment in the form of our host's younger son who was 4 years old and definitely enjoyed running around and being paid attention to! We had to eat dinner somewhat quickly because we were running a bit behind time, and needed to get to the Dervish performance.

We'd been told that what we would be seeing was a proper, traditional Dervish dance instead of the less authentic touristy ones that you were more likely to see, which sounded good to me. When we got to the place we had what we were about to see explained to us, which was quite interesting. It's hard to describe the show itself, really, but it was good to watch, and it had a real feel to it. We couldn't really use flash, so about the only good shot I ended up getting was this one before the performance (too much blur otherwise, I figured!):

After the performance, we sat around with our guide, who'd been one of the musicians for the show and chatted for a while. We also tried to play his flutes, but only one of us managed to get a sound out of one them, and then couldn't again! All I succeeded in doing was getting slightly light-headed. :) All up, we'd had a great evening, and I was glad to get back to the hotel and collapse into a pleasantly exhausted sleep afterwards.