Blogs from Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey, Middle East

We set up camp in a 'hotel' near Mount Nemrut. Hotel in quotes as it's actually a bit of a dive, but hey, thems the knocks when you wanna see something amazing. It's freezing and I'm given a 'heater' for my room. It works, but there are alarming sparks from the back when the switch is turned on and off. The handle to the bathroom comes off in my hand, there's no light bulb in the main ceiling light and at some point the door has had a fist through it and has been patched up. Room 101 is scrawled on the door in felt tip pen. The communal room where we are to eat has a door at each end that may as well not be there, a blast of cold coming in every time ... read more

As we drive eastwards, away from the region of Cappadocia, we start to see an even more mountainous area emerge. The roads wind along narrow, twisting valleys between the mountains following the contours as we go. I've got the lucky front seat next to the driver (we swap seats in the bus every journey to make sure no-one ends up stuck at the back feeling sick the whole time). I start to see that all these mountains have terraces cut into the sides but they are not deep enough to grow crops. Instead they have been planted with tiny new trees. It's an incredible amount of work to have completed and I learn that it's to help prevent erosion. It must also be doing something towards balancing carbon emissions. We have a few stops at roadside ... read more

Getting off the bus at what is laughably called the Erzurum Otogar - it's a new building surrounded by fields next to a motorway that's as close to Erzurum as Nottingham Forest are to winning the Premier League, we were faced with a challenge. How to get into town ? Nobody spoke English, the taxi office was deserted, and despite my earlier comments re Turkish words the bus timetable made as much sense as I will once I manage to find those first elusive beers after a few alcohol free weeks. Luckily we spotted a battered old bright yellow Renault 12 taxi with an equally old driver lurking in the car park. We ran over and bagged him before anybody else could. He switched on the meter, when was the last time we were in a ... read more

Hasankeyf, Southeastern-Anatolia, Turkey 17th June, 2014 “The birds they sing at the break of day Start again I seem to hear them say Don't dwell on what has passed away Or what is yet to be” Leonard Cohen Today I swam in the Tigris river. Refreshing and fast moving. Today wars seem to often revolve around oil. Tomorrow they seem set to revolve around water. The Middle East endures with a multitude of ideological, ethnic, religious and pan-national tensions, conflicts and associations. The politics of water already plays a major role in relations between Iraq, Syria and Turkey. In 1990, Turkey started construction of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (also known as GAP) to dam sections of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers north of the Syrian/Turkey border. Syria and Iraq, otherwise often in dispute themselves, formed an ... read more

Gaziantep, Southern Anatolia, Turkey June 9th 2014 “Only the truth of who you are, if realized, will set you free.” Eckhart Tolle I had been struggling with 'being' in Turkey after almost a year in India. This was due to a combination of many things, including the relative jump in living expenses. But I think too it was about not feeling at home with the flood of western tourists in Istanbul and Kapadokya (the places I had so far been in other than a stint on a farm). My arrogance leads me to think I can somehow be above 'tourism' and be an authentic 'traveler' and find the 'real' Turkey. Well, I should laugh at myself (and I do). But in any case, I started to travel eastwards on a quest.... to find places and people ... read more