I don't know what it is about shopping malls. Before I get to them I'm always full of enthusiasm, convinced that I'll find just what I'm looking for, but no sooner have I crossed the threshold than extreme lethargy seizes hold of me and all I can think about is escape. It had always been like that back in Bristol and, surprise, surprise, Kayseri proved no different. It didn't help, I suppose, that whoever designed the mall had chosen to use such high-gloss floor tiles that I could feel my feet slipping from under me at every step. Fear of falling over combined with profound boredom ensured that I took a quick turn round the shops, noting Mothercare, Burger King and the multiplex cinema, before hotfooting it back to the town center.
In Kayseri Parkı the rest of the world might as well not have existed, but elsewhere in the city politics filled the air. Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül being a local man, the authorities were enthusiastically endorsing his presidential candidacy. Banners wishing him luck were hanging from the age-old granite walls that ring the inner city, while others reading "We are smiling, we are proud" were strung out over the roads.
In search of a more "authentic" shopping experience, I ducked through the walls and headed for the market. Unfortunately this was not a great deal more inspiring than the mall, and my expectations were scraping rock bottom by the time I found myself walking into Kayseri's Kapalı Çarşı (Covered Bazaar).
The Kapalı Çarşı stands in a prime location just inside the city walls. In 1835 the British geologist William Hamilton arrived in Kayseri, planning to climb Mt Erciyes. In an account of his adventures he left a vivid description of the bazaar as it was in the early 19th century when Armenian merchants competed to sell "quincaillerie (hardware), snuff-boxes, glass beads, shells from the Red Sea…scissors, paper, cards and bad Russian and German padlocks…yellow berries and gall nuts…also madder and a blue dye made from the lees of wine." I harbor considerable affection for the bazaar but, even so, as I browsed the shopping aisles, I could almost have wished for a spot of quincaillerie and a few bad German padlocks to break up the monotony of cheap T-shirts with broken English slogans and footwear that would never grace the catwalks.
I roamed the market for an hour or so (which is longer than Kayseri Parkı had managed to detain me), then caught the bus back to Göreme in time to turn on the news and discover that not everyone was smiling and proud of Mr. Gül after all. While I had been frittering the day away on trivia, the world of Turkish politics had flipped over from certainty to uncertainty, and so it looks set to continue from now until late summer.
Pat Yale lives in a restored cave-house in Göreme in Cappadocia.
