Yesterday we said a temporary farewell to Istanbul. We will be back in a couple of weeks when we finish our tour. The fun part of this tour is that we take public transit as much as possible. So in many ways, this is the trip that I would have done had I had time before I left to figure out all the logistics and details of navigating the Turkish bus system. Since I didn’t have that time, we ended up taking a tour to simplify things.
So our departure yesterday morning was to catch the ferry from Istanbul across the Sea of Marmara to Bursa. The ferry was a fast jet boat so it only took a few hours. We spent the remainder of the day wandering around Bursa enjoying some of the attractions.
We stopped by the Ulu Cami mosque which is noted for its 20 domes and the fountain in the middle of the prayer area inside. It seems that stopping at every mosque is a requirement – kind of like visiting the church in every town in Europe. Unfortunately they all pretty much look the same and they all blur together after a while.
Ulu Cami mosque
Ulu Cami mosque – fountain inside
Ulu Cami mosque – prayer niche indicating the direction to Mecca
We stopped by a small shop and saw a demonstration of a shadow puppet play. These are very famous in this region and there are traditional stories told with the puppets and characters. It was a lot of fun to watch.
Shadow puppet play
We then wandered up the hill past the old walls to get a view over the city.
Old gate
View of the mountains that surround the city
Ulu Cami mosque from the hill
As Bursa was the first capital of the Ottoman Turkey in the thirteenth century it has many examples of buildings in the Ottoman style.
In the late afternoon we went to a cafe to hear some music. The songs they played must have been well known as the crowd that gathered to listen all knew the words and were singing along.
Here is a short video: MVI_1179
Afterwards we headed out into the residential area of the city where we joined the local community at a Dervish lodge. These community centers were originally outlawed when Turkey was formed as a modern country in the 1920s as they were seen as neuclei of decent against the government. They are now open again and starting to flourish. In this case the lodge aims to educate people about Islam and the teachings of Mevlana who was a mystic in the thirteenth century from southern Turkey. One of the practices he promoted was whirling as a was of getting closer to Allah. Because this was a true Dervish ceremony we had to sit through the 1.5 hour Turkish sermon that preceded the actual whirling ceremony. They were kind enough to let us wait in a guest room though and even provided tea (lots and lots of tea!). When it was time for the Dervishes to do the whirling we were ushered into the main lodge to watch along with the rest of the community. Women were supposed to be upstairs and men downstairs (per good Muslim practice) but it was too crowded so we hunkered down on the floor where we could. It was incredible to watch them twirling around and around. Some were obviously in trances as their eyes were rolling back in their heads. Moving meditation and prayer. Unfortunately our guide couldn’t explain why there was one in purple in the centre.
Dervish lodge
Whirling Dervishes
Dervishes accompanied by a small orchestra and male singers chanting texts from the Quran
Whirling dervishes
I think the whirling dervishes has been the highlight so far on this tour for me. It was incredible to watch.
Today, day 3, we spent the entire day on a bus from Bursa going to the southern town of Selcuk. It took about 7 hours in total to get here. The bus did stop along the way so we could stretch our legs but it was a very long day of doing nothing. We didn’t have time to see anything when we arrived here today. We will go see Ephesus tomorrow morning which will be very interesting.