Blogs from Dogubeyazit, Eastern Anatolia, Turkey, Middle East

MAKU to DOGUBAZIT, TURKEY. 16 September, 2016 23 Kms SubT. Kms 2813.37 kms . Road Condition: ok Weather: MILD 27c cloudy. Time in Saddle: 55 mins Av Speed: av. 24.8 kph. Av Cadence. 71 RpmElevation: 150 m up; 0 m downCalories burned : > 1000 Today at breakfast we were told that the town we were to cycle to overnight had a terrorist issue with the PPK, the Kurdish Revolutionary Army, killing 7 policeman. Mid morning the Turkish Airforce retaliated bombing the village of the terrorists 15 kms from town. So the cycling after Iran was curtailed. Hence the short distance. We are hoteling rather than camping And tomorrow we will be bused to Kars, our next official rest day, one day early. We are restricted to the hotel building here in Dogubazit, which is 6 ... read more

It may seem a tad unseemly to update agaın so soon after yesterdays' extravaganza of an entry but sınce I've fınally arrıved at the base or Ararat, ın the town delıghtfully monıca'd Dogubeyazıt. I havn' the vaguest ıdea how to pronounce ıt.It almost certaınly ısn't how ıt's spelt. It's at 1600m and has a populatıon accordıng to ıts notıceboard of 73000. So bıggısh and seemıngly mostly kıds wantıng 'money money money' And quıte shouty wıth ıt. However, much more ımportantly ıt sıts at the base of the magnıfıcent and dormant 5160m Mt. Ararat here known as Agrı Dagı. Classıc volcano form, snowcapped and wıth a 2ndry volcano sıttıng lıke a lımpet on ıts south eastern rıdge. Very pretty. Thınk Etna wıthout fumerole and add 2000m. The weather's a bıt of an ıssue. Tendıng to be cool ... read more

Once the sun rose I found that Kars is actually quite a nice little city. Kars the city is much more well-to-do than I had imagined from knowing a bit about its history. Was Soviet Russian not too long ago, etc. I figured a downright dreary sort of place, but it was nothing like that. The apartment buildings, while rather uniform in structure (thank you Russia), were decked out in wild colors. I think this might have something to do with the Armenian influence, but a more astute student of history could perhaps fill me in. The standard of living seems to be quite high based on the products available in the home appliance stores (large LCD TVs, etc.). I figured Kars would be much more a sleepy city. I mean it is still a city ... read more

From Goreme we headed East towards the Iranian border. It took 2 long days of driving to get to Lake Van. In the morning at Lake Van we went to visit an Armenian church that was on an island in the middle of the lake followed by another long drive to the frontier town of Dogubeyazit. The mid-day heat is quite intense by our standards. We passed a sign at 10:30am that read 40 degrees C. I'm sure by mid-afternoon it was pushing 45. With the windows down on the truck trying to get air, it felt like someone was blowing a hair dryer in our faces. It's amazing how vast these countries are. Even a short driving day is 6-7 hours. In Dogubeyazit we visited Ishak palace in the evening light and then headed back ... read more

To quickly summarize our last days in Turkey, we can say that it was great and that it was not without pain that we left this country. Ani Ani was once the capital of a medieval Armenia kingdom covering todays Armenia and eastern parts of Turkey. At the beginning of the 11th century, Ani is believed to have had a population of over 100,000 making it a respectable rival of Constantinople and Baghdad. Today, of course, only ruins are left. For more history background and the dispute between Turks and Armenia for this site, you can refer to wikipedia! We arrived at around 9 in the morning at the site and were the first people of the day. There aren't that much people anyway and the site is huge, so we found that we had the ... read more