After spending two nights in Gaziantep, I ventured further east. I took a bus and headed to Şanlıurfa, where I spent three nights.
Along the way, I was interrogated by police. There are check points on strategic locations in highways, and while I've already had experience with these check points in the past, where the police would enter the bus and check the IDs or passports of the passengers, and then walk away, this time, the police was more curious about me. A single male, foreigner, travelling in southeastern Turkey. This must be interesting. So he asked some questions, and since he didn't really speak English, and I didn't really speak Turkish, we resulted to typing on each other's mobile phones, as the process had to be assisted by Google Translate. Anyway, a few minutes later, he was satisfied, and I continued my journey.
When I arrived, I quickly found my guesthouse, and dropped my bags, and explored the Old Town.
I went where everyone seemed to be heading, to the Balıklıgöl. This is known as the Pool of Abraham, and according to the legend, this is where Nimrod threw Abraham into a fire. The Balıklıgöl complex is fairly large, with mosques, pilgrimage caves, and pools with swimming carp.
It started to rain, so I immediately took shelter in the mosque. Thankfully it wasn't prayer time, and so I was able to stay dry and wait it out for a few minutes, while exploring the interior of the mosque.
The courtyards are made of marble, and as they were wet from the rain, it was glistening and slightly slippery. People of all ages and sizes were just hanging out all over the place, from the groups of men, to the youngsters playing, all the way to the women doing their errands.
Of course, there are the pools. These pools are inhabited by carp, which are considered to be sacred. One is not allowed to catch these carp, but instead, people are encouraged to feed them. The pools are definitely popular - I saw plenty of visitors checking out its banks, and taking photos.
Later on, I went up to the top of the hill, overlooking the city. Şanlıurfa is rather massive, and the castle hill is a good viewpoint to see the lay of the land.
The next day, as I was on my way to explore a few other attractions, I passed by a series of rock caves, seen in the photos above. I was told that it was a necropolis, but I wasn't too sure whether they used to be a graveyard or just cave structures, which is rather common in this part of the country.
Şanlıurfa was an interesting place, but it requires one to scratch more beneath the surface. It's probably not the easiest destination for first-time travellers: case in point, I don't think I found a restaurant that had a written menu at all. But in any case, there are interesting things to discover, you just have to be patient.
