20km/12mi north of Iskenderun is Payas (Yakacik), a beautifully situated little town on a bay north of the promontory of Ras Payas. Its name comes from Arabic bayas (white) - no doubt a reference to the snow-covered peaks of the Amanus. It occupies the site of ancient Baiae, on the Issicus Sinus, a bathing resort much frequented by the Romans; there are remains of baths on the beach. In the Middle Ages it was an important commercial town, but at the end of the 18th century it fell into the hands of a Turkoman chieftain named Küçük Ali (d. 1808), under whose rule it was ruined and depopulated.
Küçük Ali levied tribute on passing caravans and robbed travelers; in 1801 he held the Dutch Consul in Aleppo prisoner for eight months, releasing him only on payment of a ransom of 17,500 piastres. After his death his son Dada Bey persisted in the same practices, but was finally betrayed to the authorities and beheaded at Adana in 1817.
First comes a complex of buildings - a han (caravanserai), a bazaar, a mosque, a medrese and a bath-house - erected in 1574 by Sokollu Mehmet Pasa, one of the most celebrated Grand Viziers of the Ottoman period, during the town's heyday in the reign of Sultan Selim II, son of Süleiman the Great. The han has a large courtyard surrounded by pointed-arched arcading. In front of it is the bazaar, a single-aisled building with a barrel-vaulted roof and a dome. To the south is the mosque, also with a large arcaded court, to the north the bath-house (ruined), with a domed camken (apodyterium) linking the sogukluk (tepidarium) and the domed harara (caldarium).
To the west of this complex, 800m/0.5mi from the sea, is a large medieval castle (14th century) on a polygonal plan. From the interior it is possible to climb up on to the massive walls and towers (fine views).
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