Monday, November 1, 2010

The journey of the adventurous souls...


Aleppo of Syria..


Copper Market of Gaziantep..

He insisted we tried it. And so he found us a shop. I went along with whatever plans he had in his mind. After all, he went there once and this was our fşrst. When we entered the shop, i saw an *usta*… an expert doing something with a dough… his movement and the way the dough was dealt with was the exact replica of the way the Malaysian usta preparing the indian dish *roti canai*…an almost identical in structure with katmer of kayseri…salty..to be eaten with curry or dhall gravy… but this dish… was sweet…filled with loads of grounded pistachio also called katmer..but is eaten for breakfast for those in the city of GAZİANTEP!... Delicious??? İndeed!!

A normal person would question the logic our plan. 2 days and one night in 2 cities …

We left our home in İstanbul at 4am for a flight at 6am…The strong wind and the gush of strong wind literally made us trembled badly as we entered the airport… sleepiness engulfed us..baddin was grumpy…temper ran high… but friday…2 days ago.. that was when our adventure began… an adventurous journey of two cities… Gaziantep in Turkey and Aleppo (Halep) in Syria…

We checked in our bags in Ravanda Hotel in Antep the moment we touched down…..we then found a car with a chauffeur to drive us to the city of Aleppo (Halep)…Baddin, Hatice and my beloved was snoring all the way to almost the border…i couldnt sleep a wink fearing that the driver would drive us somewhere else (Allah forbids)… We were lucky though..our driver was a very polite and helpful person…we had a few problems at the immigration since my passport is of the Malaysian passport while the rest are of the turkish passports… i needed the visa etc..etc… anyway… to cut the story short… as the driver skillfully drove in between trucks to get us out of the border into Syria, i was strongly reminded how wonderfully systematic the system is between Malaysia and Singapore borders..Turkey and Syria…? Pure headache….!! But it was interesting really for this was my first time for my beloved to cross a country’s border on land…

Comparing the Aleppo city to the outskirt living of Syria… i saw a big contrast in the way of living…dirt was everywhere… houses small and incomplete… Contrastive to the city where it was obvious the gap between the poor and the rich is very big indeed… The people there…physically, they are not much difference from the turks…that is until they open their mouth that is… the food, despite the names, they are basically almost the same… what captured my attention is the fact that everything is preserved in the sense that the government only allow buildings to be made of stones….that in itself created a special atmosphere to be living in the city itself….one note though.. NEVER EVER go there on friday coz Fridays are off days and almost all shops are closed! Hahahah.But we did discover the back alleys… the ghost shopping area (all shops r closed)…the zakaria mosque..etc…it felt wonderful to be there…so serene when u drink something and look at the old castle…. İ really wished we had another dayto discover more of the places…

Gaziantep? Ah… that is the food heaven indeed! All the food we tasted was totally delicious… we spent a day in antep and our tummy was… we were eating non stop!!! The Çağdas restaurant which is famous in antep were full all the time..the hot baklava? İt is truly the reason to be there coz antep baklava is none to be found in İstanbul.. food is heaven there…if u go to the right place…and did i mention how delicious antep’s baklava is??? shopping? Yup… we did visit a few places.. the old castle.. a few museums..the copper market… a few mosques …the kids wanted to visit the zoo..but time was not on our side….

We had basically utilised our time fully in these two cities…enjoying ourselves with the food and the view… It would have been perfect if we could spend 2 days in Aleppo and 2 days in Antep for a full view of the city.. but with the limited time we had… and all the back alleys we had walked in and discover the locals along the way… i think the journey was an awesome experience…hopefully to be repeated in the near future…

I am glad we did what we did… I am glad my beloved had fulfilled his promise to bring us to Gaziantep… We enjoyed ourselves tremendously..and i hope slowly, we can visit all the cities in turkey one day…so that my kids can say…”yes..i know that place. I have been there!” ..to antep..i would go back again for it’s baklava and katmer for sure!!

Photos coming up in my facebook… :0)


Thank You for hopping by. Hope to see you again soon... :0)

2 Comments:

Blogger Alinlai said...

perghhh really like your journey...but at the moment, have to KIV ;)

November 2, 2010 at 3:55 AM  
Blogger Mulan said...

wallaaa.... seronok nya...!!

November 10, 2010 at 8:35 AM  

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