Sea-ing the Marmara: Bursa and Beyond
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2006
1
36
Trip End
Ongoing
Bursa, Turkey
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Sal was instantly down to go. There is a ferry that goes across the Marmara and lands near Bursa, but Sal dismissed that idea. He suggested we take his car instead of the bus or ferry. "It's a beautiful drive," he said. "I'll make some call. I have a friend who has a pension near Bursa, and maybe I can get one of my friends to be our guide."
I wanted to go to Bursa for several reasons. The first is because it was the first capital of the Ottoman Empire before the Ottoman army captured Constantinople, and before the Ottomans swept east to become the bane of Christian Europe. It is the burial place of the first Ottoman sultans and their royal families.
The second reason is because of the food. There is a very famous kebap called the Iskender Kebap that was originated in Bursa. Since it was invented, it has become an ever-present staple of Turkish cuisine, spawning a slew of Iskender Kebap restaurants and eateries. Regardless of the fact that I knew there would be no appreciable difference in the taste of a good Iskender Kebap in Istanbul and a good one in Bursa, I wanted to partake in the original. Sel, being somewhat of a food connoisseur and cook, was also excited about the prospect.
The third reason was because of Jem Sultan, the famous, romantic, mystical son of Mehmet the Conqueror, whose story I will relate shortly.
The fourth reason I wanted to see Bursa was simple. I had two and a half days free and I needed to get out of Istanbul for a weekend.
Sal picked me up at the park near my house in Tophane at 6 am Saturday morning. He had invited his friend Mehmet, who Sal had met while doing his military duty on the border of Turkish-Iranian border. "Mehmet is the money," said Sal, nudging his friend. "That's why I keep him around. But if he runs out of money, we'll drop him off somewhere."
Mehmet had just bought a brand new cd of popular Turkish Black Sea music, which we blared over the speakers of Sal's Honda as we tore out of Istanbul. The streets were completely empty at six in the morning, and we flew down the Interstate at over 140 km per hour, which makes you feel like you're on the Autobon in Istanbul's skinny, uneven roads.
Having only slept two hours the night before, I passed in and out of consciousness as we wound our way from Istanbul to Izmit, where Mehmet was living and working as an electrical engineer. Sal and Mehmet switched spots driving since Mehmet knew this stretch of road better. Due to our early start and subsequent lack of traffic, we made what is generally a three and a half hour trip to Bursa in about two and a half hours.
When we arrived, Sal thought we should first see the Yildirim Beyazid Camii, which is the mosque of Beyazit II, the brother of Jem Sultan, who was a rather prolific builder in Bursa. As we drove around trying to find the road leading up to the mosque, Sal missed a turn, backed up, and crashed the rear end of his car right into a light post. We heard a plastic shattering crunch, but Sal was nonplussed. "No problem," he said. "I'm used to this. It's not a big deal. Let's go see the mosque, then we can take a look at the damage."
We went up and looked around the mosque and the hospital erected next to it. Then we looked at Sal's tail light, which was broken, the paint around it dented and scraped. "Sorry Jared," said Sal. "We have to stay here until the police can come and write a report. Then my insurance will pay for this. If not, I have to. Sorry about this."
"No problem," I said. "I'm just worried about your car."
The police showed up about a half hour later, and they were none too happy. "You reported a crash!" cried the policeman. "A crash is between two cars. You just hit a pole. We were looking for an accident, maybe even people hurt. What is this? You can't even get insured for this. You can't leave the scene of a single car accident and still get me to write a report for you. I'll tell you what you should do. Take these pieces," he signaled to the broken pieces of the tail light, "back to Istanbul, place them around a pole there, call the police, and tell them you hit it." Such was the advice of the police.
After that we headed to the Emir Sultan Mosque and the Yesil (Green) Mosque, which were old mosques in old parts of Bursa. There were a lot of old wooden Ottoman era houses dotting the area, houses which have mostly burnt down in Istanbul. Then we went to the burial site of the Ottoman royal family. Most of the royal family before Mehmet the Conqueror is buried here, and this is also the site where Jem Sultan is buried.
Jem Sultan, who was only really a sultan for twenty days, was the second son of Mehmet the Conqueror. Fatih Sultan Mehmet, who Europeans called the Grand Turk, the Ottoman sultan who conquered Istanbul and ruled over the Ottoman Empire for thirty years. Cem and his brother Beyazit contended for the throne after Mehmet's death, with Beyazit seizing power first. Cem fled to Syria and then to Egypt, where he was taken under the wing of the Egyptian Mamulk sultan Kaitbey. Shortly thereafter Cem convinced Kaitbey and some powerful Turkish pashas who disliked Beyazit to lend men and money to a campaign to unseat Beyazit. The campaign failed and Cem fled to Rhodes, where he was taken captive by the Knights of Rhodes. Cem spent the rest of his life in exile in Christian Europe, where he spawned all sorts of romantic tales and helped to spawn the orientalist fad that swept Europe.
