Blogs from Diyarbakir, Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey, Middle East

After breakfast back down beside the Tigris, we loaded up the trusty Fiat and hit the road again. After passing through the town of Batman (had to stop and take a photo of the sign), we continued on to the city of Diyarbakır. This place has a bit of a tough reputation, as the centre of the Kurdish resistance, and there have been riots and uprisings there from time to time. No sign of that today though. As usual, we made our way to the old part of the city, which is invariably the most interesting part. Diyarbakır has very impressive city walls, built of basalt and in fairly good condition. We parked the car and were pleased when Omer said he would accompany us today. Eva who we had met on the homestay had returned ... read more

June 18 to June 21 After our amazing experiences in Urfa and Harran we set out on a convoluted journey to Mt. Nemrut. It took us 4 sweltering hot buses to get to our hotel near the summit and luckily at 2150 meters above sea level the relentless heat cooled off a bit and we were able to stop sweating. Right away when we got to our hotel we put our bags in our room and caught a ride to the start of the trail where we hiked a short 30 minutes to the summit. The views from atop Mt.Nemrut were breathtaking and the rocky mountains and river cut valleys were spectacular. But the real star of the show, and perhaps some of the most recognisable sights in Turkey, were the massive, 2 thousand year old ... read more

Waking up early is no longer a problem; thus it seems that a semblance of normalcy has been restored to this summer. The bus to the airport took a little over an hour, as we were slowed by the fact that our driver got a ticket for speeding AND using the apparently illegal far right lane on the highway. I say that we were slowed, but in truth we only lost a good five minutes, as it seems that in Turkey driving tickets only necessitate a quick exchange of paper and information -- it would be nice if this one thing held true back west. Nevertheless I arrived at the airport with only an hour to spare, and was thanklessly greeted by a monstrous Pegasus Airlines check-in line that screamed "you shall not leave this city". ... read more

Although I haven't written in about a month I have been working and playing like crazy. I believe the last time I wrote I was in Antep staying with 4 Muslim university students and getting a better picture of what life is like for religious women trying to lead a public life in this country so devoted to secularism. After spending almost a week with them I decided I wanted to skip all of the touristic sights and instead went straight to my friend's village in Mardin on the Syrian border. I spent a little over a week with a wonderful family getting to know what village life was like in the Kurdish region of Turkey. The family I stayed with consists of a matriarch and patriarch, their three daughters, one son, his wife and their ... read more

I decided to take the trip to South East Turkey during the Bayram holiday that precludes the end of Ramazan in the Muslim calendar, and was to be held from the 14th december to the 18th in 2008. I was currently studying in Turkiye at this time, but unlike my fellow Turkish students I was not going to be visiting family during the weeks celebrations, so i headed off on my own expedition. The trip started with me getting a 24 hour train journey from Turkey's capital city Ankara to the South Eastern Anatolian city of Diyabakir. The train left very early in the morning, and had started its journey in Istanbul the previous night. Very few passengers were boarding the train in Ankara and i noticed that it was pretty much alredy full with ... read more

Greetings to my loyal following. The past few weeks have found me extremely lazy and/or too busy to sit down and blog. Now that I finally find time to do so I don't have any pictures with me (left them all in Istanbul), so this will be a boring blog without pictures (which means Beybora won't be reading it). Since I last blogged I have: Been to Cappadocia Cappadocia was awesome: Goreme, with deserted valleys full of phallic towers with houses and churches carved into them, trudging through knee-deep snow all day long, occassionally taking refuge in a cave (which, I may add, are surprisingly warm). Ihlara Valley, in striking contrast to the plain and barren surroundnig countryside, the walls of which are full of deserted monasteries with vandalized awe-inspiring frescoes and paintings. Those monks really ... read more