For the final project of our Television Programming course, my friends and I needed to conduct an interview with a non-governmental organization. While we were discussing the project, a friend who was helping us suggested, “Let’s go to İnegöl, I’m already a member of a search and rescue association there.” So we made a plan and set off early in the morning on May 31, 2026.
It had been a long time more accurately, the first time in my twenties that I was leaving the city. When we arrived in İnegöl, we had no idea what awaited us. We had enough time before the meeting hour to explore Bursa a little. Because we arrived early, we were greeted by a quiet and peaceful town.
When we reached the meeting point at the foot of Oylat Mountain, the first real feeling I had was stepping out of a concrete pile and into natural beauty. Until that moment, I hadn’t expected anything different.
We made our first face-to-face contact with İNDAK (İnegöl Natural Disasters Search and Rescue Association). The reason I had said earlier that we didn’t know what awaited us was that, as the camera crew, we were going to join the adventure ourselves. Together, we began climbing Oylat Mountain.
During the climb, while dealing with the filming on one hand, we were also trying not to slip and tumble down the mountain on the other. In the process, we started to distance ourselves significantly from the artificial noises that push us away from reality. We learned about search and rescue, gathered detailed information about İnegöl and Oylat Mountain, and conducted our interview.
The most important thing I realized during this small adventure was this: Getting away from the constant flow of city traffic, breathing exhaust fumes, the construction sites still rising after demolitions from urban renewal, and the unnoticed noise of machinery and vehicles (and spending time only with the sounds of nature and the people around me) opened a new door in my mind.
The city continues to slowly imprison us the longer we stay inside it. Career building, the school journey, the intense pace, street-after-street advertisements, and the digital world gradually distance us from ourselves. They make us forget nature, silence, our inner voice, and the ability to think.
On the way back to Istanbul, I thought about it the whole journey: I needed to leave the city and clear my head in a quiet place at least once a week. In my quarter-century of life, I had never wanted so sincerely to go into the forest and be close to nature…
Now, at least once a week, I organize trips to Istanbul’s forests, the Black Sea coast, its lakes, and the farthest points I can find away from the city.
The farther I get from the noise, the more the noise in my mind slowly begins to fade.
Stay beautiful,
Metehan Alp Saral