Conflicting Kurdistan

Yes, I know: there is no officially recognized country by the name of "Kurdistan" - but hey: travel to South-Eastern Anatolia and talk to some locals!
So, here's my personal Kurdistan Experience:

From the West, the part of Turkey with high kurdish population roughly start east of the Malatya - Adana Highway going all the way up to Erzurum until the Turkish/Georgian border. Having travelled from Elbistan to Batman via the towns of Golbasi, Adiyaman, Katha, Siverek and Diyarbakir I experienced people as being friendly and supportive until west of the Firat river. The town of Siverek proved to be OK for me, whereas I had some strange encounters wıth some locals. Leaving Siverek in good mood, my first strange encounter that day was wıth a shepherd who asked me to stop and take a foto of him. For sure he wanted a copy of it. But as I went digital and this was not a polaroid camera, I couldn't provide one ınstantly. I offered him to send it to his (email-) address. Now, as he didn't have any and assuming that he probably couldn't neither read nor write, he simple demanded to hand him the camera! I refused and carried on. Not feeling threatend and being friendly to people on the road greeting them, I had my second encounter that day and worst yet with people since I left home! 3 teenage shepherds, with 2 big dogs, where the oldest had probably already reached adult age, forcibly stopped me. The usual conversation started, but after a few sentences they asked for money and started groping my bags! I told them to stop it and about the JANDARMA-post behind us, which made them laugh. I refused to give them any money another time, managed to break free and cycling away. When I turned my head, I saw the eldest hurling a stone in my direction - which hit my arm. Nothing serious happend actually, but the impact on me was more than just a stain on my sleeve...

Continuing on to Diyarbakir I didn't feel much at ease now - in fact I found the atmosphere quite hostile. Made my way into town, having been helped to find a good hotel, when some children started the usual tourist-hassle on me. Not a problem, they are just kids. Later on, when I had a look around town with Omar, who I met nearby the tourist office they found me again at the grand mosque and the hassle started all over. Some adults have been there as well, obviously witnessing the hassle, but they just smiled and said "you know, we like children" and continued questioning me the usual boring questions as a welcome Entertainment to them. (Not talking about the parrot-syndrome others wrote about - like yelling "hello" and "what's your name" and being astonished when it (me) answers...) In fact, I felt like an attraction myself - but without the amount of respect I was used from Western Turkey.

Stayed in Diyarbakir one night and decided to go to Erzurum by bus to find out about my Iranvisa-application and to digest. The staff at the Iranian consulate in Erzurum didn't know anything about it and couldn't call Ankara as Ankara didn't have service hours on saturday. I decided to not chicken out and give it another try, so I caught the bus back to Diyarbakir. Had a warm wellcome by the Police, security personell and the rest of the busstation staff at 5 o'clock in the morning. After discussing issues with the police I decided to cycle to Batman and on to lake Van. Although it was raining a bit I hit the road hoping it to get better. But it didn't. It got worse. Having been caught by heavy rain. I continued to the town of Bismil as petrolstation staff on the way told me I could't stop a bus on the road (whereas the next day I found out that a lot of people just did that...)
In the town of Bismil people were very helpful to get me to Batman, but in retrospect it was kinda weird. Everybody told me the big busses which could take my bike as well wouldn't stop in this town - which, you probably guessed it, was not true - as I found out the next day! In fact, the buscompany actually had an office in that town just 50m away from where the guys told me it wouldn't be possible to get on a big bus to Batman from here!

One guy walked me to the Minibus depot where we managed to get me a ride on a minibus. It turned out to be a ripoff - even considering that me and the bike occupied 2 passenger seats. But I didn't care - I was cold, soaking wet and freezing, the passengers inside the bus had been very friendly and supportive and this busride itself turned out to be an experience itself...
Arriving in Batman the minibus dropped me off not far from a hotel. As I just crossed the street I had an encounter with two teenage boys - probably 15 yo. who saw me, turned 'round and without greeting or any other question started bugging me with "tourist, para, tourist, para" (tourist, money, tourist, money). The hotel was nice but too expensive - found another one. The staff was friendly and trustworthy, but the place was pretty fucked.

I really had enough and as it was still raining the next day and I was about to develop a cold on top of it all, I decided to skip Lake Van, get on a bus back to Diyarbakir and another one to Erzurum again to go to Georgia from there.

As a summary:
I felt the hospitality in these places to be rather traditional, meaning some kind of "standard behavior" - in contrast to Western Turkey where it was mostly warmhearted, me being even worse than an attraction like an animal in a zoo. Also the people have a strange relation to their kids. As they are everything to them, almost everything is being tolerated. I wouldn't want to know what would happen if I would act as respectless to them as quite a few did towards me.
In general, I found the atmosphere quite hostile. I don't carry any weapons, not even pepper spray, which I would consider know. The thing is, what can you do as a single individual when being forced to stop by several people and no help in sight? This is a country still with archaic customs, so, if I had a stick and would seriously hurt one of them and get away, I don't know what they would do. Actually, I could easily imagine that (clan)-pride overrides common sense and that they would not hesitate to restore it by all means...

My advice [especially to fellow cycle tourers]:
even if some people seem to manage to travel [alone] through these areas by bike and seemed to have enjoyed it, and knowing that every experience is individually different, be very, very careful! (South-) Eastern Turkey is a completely different story!

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