A day in Kars

It was a slightly blustery morning that I landed in Kars, flying in from Ankara. Kars is practically on the border with Armenia. It later transpired that the Armenians consider this "Western Armenia" and the region has quite a Kurdish population. The Armenians hate the Kurds almost more than the Turks, as it is they who apparently prosecuted the genocide. An early example of outsourcing.

Anyway not having a clue what to do, I watched as other passengers started boarding taxis. Some boarded buses that would take the few-hour ride to Erzurum and various other parts of eastern Turkey. Finally, having had enough "fresh air", I somehow got somebody to get me a cab, that took a few minutes driving in from town. A quick, 15 minute ride and 20 New Turkish lira later, I was at the slightly rundown but decent Hotel Gungoren. This is the one with the hamam in the basement, an experience that I wrote about some time ago.

The place was a little town at best. I tried searching for the one or two bars where "veiled college girls let loose", according to the stupid guidebook. I don't know what *that* writer was smoking. The next day I did see some of these chai-baghs (I am Anglicizing, or at least Indicizing these words), and mostly it was men, young and old, sitting around drinking tea.

Anyway before this happened in the evening, I decided to go for my usual walk. I noted the famous cheese and dry-fruits shops; a nice street with beautiful autumnal foliage on trees and the ground and what appeared to be some classy schools; the mosque of the city, where the two praying men never left and I had to leave before I could complete my mission of wandering around. Then I stopped by one of the two recommended restaurants and had a bad meal. Tea at an outdoor chai-bagh. More tea at another little restaurant right by what seemed to be the main intersection in Kars - a sculpture, many youngsters loafing about, lots of people going by.

Finally I stepped into a kuruyemis - or dry fruit - shop. I bought some lokum or Turkish delights; and some other random stuff. They are currently serving as the culture-bed for futuristic germ warfare in a refrigerator... Then after even more circumspection, I stepped into a cheese shop and bought half a kilo of Kars cheese. It's wonderful to do all this not knowing any mutually intelligible languages. This is how, say, Japanese tourists must feel when abroad - and I dare say that it is adventurous. It is really fun to be a solo traveler with no language capabilities - definitely builds character.  Back to the cheese - it was to be a great hit at my office, where everyone brings something edible back from their travels, a practice I find most annoying as I barely bring myself back in one piece. Because of incidents like these:

At about 8 pm, I left my hotel to find a place to eat. I noticed cop cars and cops on the beat at practically every intersection. I am still not sure why, but suspect it has something to do with the location of Kars so close to the border. Or perhaps there was a curfew. I walked past a parked police jeep. Three burly cops eyed me with curiosity. One approached me and asked for passport. I said it was in my hotel and profferred my driver's license instead. The other two hung slightly back and practically giggled, while the one in front clearly was fooling around with an opportunity to test his authority, which I assume was newly invested in him. Youngsters. He made a show of looking at it, probably did not even read it, gave it back and waved me on. Some chest-swelling some looking over the shoulder at the other two with a smirk, some swaggering. Hehe.

Here is where the story gets interesting. So, after this brush, I coolly looked at each of them in turn, and using the universal gesture for eating - i.e. a shoveling action near the mouth - asked them where to eat, trying to get recommendations. They played along and pointed me to a nearby restaurant. It was not bad actually - buttery rice, meat and potatoes. Bet it beat the jailhouse grub, which is where I'd have headed if I had pushed it a little further.