UNCOVERING NORTHERN CYPRUS

Times Online, UK
September 14, 2007

Nick Redmayne is enthralled by the sights, cafe culture and people
of the less-visited Turkish sector Forestry watch station, near the
Persian palace remains of Vouni, western Kyrenia ranges

Picking up a tourist map in southern Cyprus one could be forgiven for
thinking that the Isle of Aphrodite lies in the realm of a contemporary
Middle Earth.

Substitute "Here be Dragons" for "Inaccessible due to Turkish
Occupation" and the myth would be complete.

Since 1974’s Turkish invasion North Cyprus has been in the shade of
its southerly neighbour, despite the Mediterranean sunshine.

Kofi Annan’s 2004 UN plan for reunification under a federal framework
failed after the south returned a resounding ‘no’ vote in twin
referendums. The goal of an undivided island was effectively kicked
into touch for the foreseeable future. In the same year, Greek
controlled Cyprus joined the EU, whilst the singular existence of
the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) effectively black balled
Turkey’s application to be the first secular Muslim state in the so
far Christian club of Europe.

However, these days despite international political isolation the
reality for apolitical tourists dispels the myth of dragons. Since
April 2003 the north/south border has been open and now five crossing
points exist across the island. The Cypriot capital Lefkosa (also known
as Nicosia) has a tourist attraction in its own right, Ledra Palace
gate, which lies beneath the fortress-like walls of the eponymous
one-time top hotel, now a UN barracks.

Here a steady trickle of Greek and Turkish Cypriots together with
curious EU nationals cross to "the dark side", whichever side that
may be, in a mundane process that belies diplomatic deadlock. Indeed
rumours that the world’s only remaining divided capital holds a
peculiar, if not healthy fascination for former East German visitors,
nostalgic for the days of the Berlin Wall, have more than a ring of
truth – dark tourism indeed.

In the context of North Cyprus, Lefkosa isn’t marketed as a tourist
destination. The city lies on the flat, featureless Mesaoria plain,
and away from any cooling sea breezes can claim the island’s highest
summer temperatures and levels of humidity. This superlative aside, the
city also excels in an immediate concentrated dose of the otherness
that permeates North Cyprus and highlights the rebel republic’s
enduring exoticism, an attribute long-since eschewed by the south.

During my recent visit I heeded the advice of others and upon
penetrating the old town’s substantial 16th Century Venetian walls,
utilised eight storeys of 1960s concrete, the Saray Hotel, to get the
best city view. With one’s back to the huge Turkish and TRNC flags of
painted stones, provocatively flown above the slopes of the Kyrenia
Mountains, the Green Line of division traces a twister-like path of
corruption across the city.

Scarred carcasses of buildings, some in partial collapse, others
pockmarked by gunfire abut wasteland sutured by barbed wire and grey
metal sheeting.

Perhaps more surprising is the other visual line of demarcation
formed by Greek Nicosia’s high-rise development, for better or worse
an indicator of the North’s relative economic as well as political
isolation.

Emerging once more at ground level, the immediacy of street life
quickly displaces thoughts of sentry posts and watchtowers. Walking
from the Saray through the cafe tables to Ataturk Square and the
landmark Venetian Column, the honey-coloured stone and fine facades
of the British-built Post Office and other government buildings seem
almost too fine to be functional. Taking a quick orientation using
thoughtfully placed street maps, heading south soon brings Rustem’s
bookshop into view. Lefkosa’s premier emporium for the written word,
Rustem’s is a proper bookshop.

In a mildly untidy antiquarian manner Turkish and foreign-language
titles are stuffed on shelves of all levels – it smells of books. I’m
sure JK Rowling is here somewhere, indeed Dumbledore himself would
not be out of place. A conversation is in full flow between a young
man halfway up an unhealthy-looking ladder and a woman at the counter,
no doubt bemoaning the effects of online retailing on high street book
sales. So then, a magical place for a happy half hour rustling about,
after which I buy my exit with a local guidebook. Leaving, I spy a pile
of turgid-looking English-language titles protesting the reality of the
Armenian holocaust, just a little too much – and the spell is broken.

The half-sunken entrance to the ancient Buyuk Hammam (Great Baths)
is just round the corner, its semi-subterranean entrance a measure of
the 14th century street level. I poke my head inside and am greeted
faintly by a very large man with a thick black moustache befitting
his stature. He launches unstoppably into an eclectic menu of
vaguely unsettling and most definitely sweaty hammam-type offerings:
"Everything for £15, no extras". I’m not a little relieved. "Can I
have a look?"; "Look? £1.50 Tamam OK?" Time to move on, it’s been 40
to 44 deg C for the last few days and I don’t feel the need to buy
a look in a steam bath when I’ve been living in one.

Lunch seems a more welcome prospect and as a bona fide commercial
traveller I feel it’s time to visit a travellers’ inn – fortunately
Lefkosa has an outstanding example in the Buyuk Han (Great Inn).

Originally built in the 16th century and seeing service as British
prison, even then overcrowding was a problem, the Han has lately
been restored to encompass within its walls a tranquil courtyard of
calm. Upper and lower cloistered rooms are now populated by art,
craft and curio shops, and at the centre of things there’s even a
scaled down traveller-sized mosque.

In one corner the family that runs the Sedirhan cafe has shifted food
prep al fresco. A woman of generous smiles is rolling out a sheet of
fresh pasta, almost a metre across, on a cool marble tabletop. Her
mother and daughters appear and the sheet is cut into squares,
everyone joins in to pinch them around morsels of spiced meat –
et voila, Turkish ravioli or more properly manti is on the menu. I
order some immediately.

Having carb-loaded with manti and seen the sun drop from overhead
I’m ready for a stroll down nearby Arista Street, through the market
traders, to get a close-up of the Green Line. No, I’m not von Berlin,
just naturally intrigued. For the tourist, the impact of partition
is under whelming, there’s no build up, no suspense, just grey metal
sheets stencilled with soldier caricatures making it clear that
further progress is prohibited.

Beyond the oily soil demarking an area favoured by ad hoc motor-repair
garages, the crumbling skeleton of an Armenian church lies close
to the divide, sealed off for reasons of imminent collapse as much
as anything.

>From the Greek side, the bell tower of a Catholic church looks down
imperiously on the decay.

Continuing, the Green Line enters the shady streets of grand houses
of Arabahmet. UN funded redevelopment has visited the district but
has not resulted in a sterile gentrification, and balconied upper
floors broadcast sounds of daily life; television, families living,
pots and pans clanging across to the divide.

Surprisingly a sunshine-bright cubist mural lights up the side of
the Cultural Centre – an award-winning commission from the British
Council, executed by American artist Farad Nargol O’Neill to which
both Turkish and Greek Cypriot youth contributed. Soon, I’m on the
Venetian ramparts and to my left a children’s playground occupies
the last bastion jutting into Nicosia. Through the slides and swings,
a simple wire fence is the only barrier. Below the alphabet changes
and traffic surges round the city walls. Greek and Greek Cypriot
flags fly opposite those of Turkey and TRNC.

A visit to Lefkosa/Nicosia certainly highlights a north/south boundary
but also marks a meeting of East and West. Whilst the past economic
depravations of division have without doubt prevented the TRNC to
progress in the manner of the south, in Lefkoþa, aspects both physical
and cultural have been maintained, where elsewhere they are now lost
for good. As money has started to filter in to the north, one can
only hope that this lesson is not overlooked in the race to catch up.

Later, a Turkish Cypriot taxi driver bemoaned the distance between
the island’s communities, "The old ones, my father, he speaks Greek
but me and this generation, no". Crossing the line in Cyprus is not
hard and it’s not a case of taking sides, rather an opportunity to
learn from another’s differing perspective and that’s an enduring
benefit of travel.

Need to know

Nick Redmayne is the updater of Bradt’s North Cyprus guidebook. He
travelled to Cyprus with Sun Express airlines. For more information
contact North Cyprus Tourist Centre 020 7631 1930.

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