Home » Turkey » Relgious tones, and sad going homes

Well, after our rest in Goreme, we finally managed to pull ourselves away, and plunge into Turkeys least visited region, South-East Anatolia, aka Kurdestan. The area is overwhelmingly Kurdish, with a couple of noticable Arab pockets, as you'll see. Turkish is spoken rarely here, as with English.
<br/>

Relgious tones, and sad going homes

Conor_purcell
2005-11-18 14:00:56

Displayed times (last time: )

rise from the Tigris river. Few of these caves are now inhabited, and the town faces extinction if the Turkish government go ahead with plans to build a dam nearby for Hydro-Electric purposes. While we were there, a protest was taking place over 4 days. We were accompanied by Omer, a Turk we had met on the bus to Batman (!!!), where we were staying. Omer epitomised the kind of hospitality we generally found across south-east Turkey (expect the vermin who grabbed my girlfriends backside in Urfa!). He got us a discount in a classy hotel. He paid for our dinners, our entrance to Hasankeyf castle, he took us on a picnic, and shared his water-pipe with us. I swear, I complemented the guy on his sandals, and he immediately offered them to me. We had to fight to buy him an ice-cream. But Omer could afford it, the son of a prominent politician, dentist and media tycoon. While we were in Batman, there were
The sun is just too bright here too take decent pictures - that dark building to the right is the famous church.

PKK riots, and the situation in the region looks to be heading backwards rather than forwards. But we didn't notice anything, and before long, we were off to Lake Van.

Lake Van dominates the map of south-east Turkey, and perched on an island about half-way along the southern coast is a 1000 year-old+ Armenian church, isolated from the mainland to protect it from infidel invaders. Well, it survived, barely, although when we visited, the scaffolding kind of blew the image. Still, the views were great. We camped in a site across from the small harbour, and once again, found ourselves fighting the insects, with little success. Numerous bites appeared the next morning. We also had to fight off the attentions of Ibrahim, the campsite owner, who, upon learning about Charlene's Arab blood, took an instant shine to us, and promised to drive us up to Dogubayazit, and then drop Charlen back to Van airport for her flight home. We were horrified - we had two days left together, and we wanted to spend them alone. On top of this, Ibrahim was a strange one - he took a picture of Charlene on his phone, and was suggesting on taking her to the airport alone. Paranoia maybe, but there was no way we were going along with his plan.

So, the time eventually came when I had to say goodbye to my beloved girlfriend for 4 months - we will next meet in Mumbai on Dec. 28th if all goes to plan. While she was off to University in Rome, I was making a beeline for Iran, with one nights stop at the border town of Dogubayazit. The town sits in a plain ringed by brown mountains, and of course, Mr Ararat, the supposed resting place of Noahs Ark. This topped off the religious feel of this blog. I camped beneath the Ishak Pasa Palace (see picture), looking over the plain, and savoured my last night (and my last beers) in Turkey. In 3 and a half weeks, we only got a taste of the country, but no matter - with Turkey sitting at the cross-roads of many an overland trail, I know this wasn't my last visit.

So today I crossed the border into Iran. With no girlfriend, no night-clubs, and no beer even, what'll I do for fun? Stay tuned.

Conor.