http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Middle East , Turkey , Eastern Anatolia en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:53:17 BST Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:53:17 BST Pazar Sunday the 29th of JuneOtel Famly located n one of the nnumerable suburbs of Istanbul505 AMWatchng the sun rse. It's turnng the eastern part of the sky a mx of purple peach and teal. The moon s stll out a thn slver crescent and I can just see the twnklng lght of what may be Istanbulproper from the balcony of my room. I woke up at 200 AM today and stared at the wa http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/blog-299726.html First full day back in Turkey. After settling into the hotel I head to the Post Office to send off a couple of postcards.I join a queue when the old man behind the counter screams at me HAVE A SEAT'Shit' I think Erzurum is not gonna be a friendly place. When my turn comes I go up to the counter and buy two stamps. The old guy screams WHERE FROMAfter replying and sticking the stamps t http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Erzurum/blog-285435.html Wersquore heading into Iran now where internet access may not be easy and we really wanted to complete our record of the Turkey tour but don't know when we'll be able to publish this.Up Up and Away Cappadocia was our last port of call on the West Turkey ldquotourist trailrdquo. What an amazing place topped off with our Hot Air Balloon ride a 50th Birthday Present for Terry from folks back http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Van/blog-274448.html The weekend started as all weekends should on a Wednesday. ocuklar Bayram305 Children's Holiday meant no classes wooohoooo I found a dirt cheap plane ticket and landed around noon in Kars setting of Orhan Pamuk's novel Kar Snow which I still haven't read the Englishtranslation of it that I found in 304stanbul in paperback cost more than the plane ticket to Kars. Anywa http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Kars/blog-270934.html 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.AniAni 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 100000 making it a respectable rival of Constantinople and Baghdad. http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Dogubeyazit/blog-198911.html Turkish is in fact a very easy language to learn... Really no joke Just look at the pictures and you will understand why. It is just half the fun if you don't have some French or SwissGerman skills however. Do you recognize the words Starting tomorrow this all won't help us anymore. Farsi or Persian is very different and we will need to learn some basic words quicklyTurkey was wonderful. http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Dogubeyazit/blog-194136.html Last day 305n Istanbul was...tired.My physical situation was the worst and also my temper...so I went out to look for a photocopy305ng place and let me tell u what..there's NONEThey have paper ones but I cant copy from a book WTFso w305th my bad temper and under the hot weather....I dec305ded to go underground to the Basilica Cistern.....Very cool and n305ce a l305ttle expe http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Erzurum/blog-192035.html A Van fa freddo. 16 gradi in piena estate per me sono davvero pochi e ci si mette pure la pioggia. Ma qui siamo in alta quota 1700mt. ed il paesaggio ricorda vagamente le Alpi quello che pero' alle Alpi manca e' il Lago di Van una vasta distesa di acqua alcalina azzurrissima che giace placida ai piedi delle montagne.Approfittiamo di una giornata di sole per salire su una piccola barca e raggiu http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Van/blog-191886.html More about that later... This last one and a half week has been spent travelling around Eastern Turkey. First stop after Annamur was Kizkalesi which means Maiden's Castle in Turkish... It turned out to be Turkish package holiday territory... But the castle on an island just of the coast was beautiful... Still as I don't like crowds that much I headed of the next day to Antakya which I found to be http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Van/blog-191358.html http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Dogubeyazit/blog-170226.html Snow TripnbspMiddle East raquonbspTurkey raquonbspErzurum By cosimovagaOctober 22nd 2005cosimo http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Erzurum/blog-170220.html Erzerum just didn't want to let us go We finally received our visas for Iran yesterday and in bouyant moods packed our bags oiled our bike chains and said some fond farewells to Abdurrahman and his boys who had lookd after us for the better part of a month. It was with genuine sentimentality and a tinge of regret that I clasped his and his sons' hands in farewell.We rode to the otogar where we http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Dogubeyazit/blog-138259.html God what can 304 say about Erzerum Cold snowing constantly in the middle of nowhere. We thought that the university would provide a little nightlife or culture at least but there was none of either to be found anywhere. We found a 'bar' and thought 'you little Anzac back in a land of beer' Worst bar experience ever No one in there except creepy Turkish dudes and awful Turkish po http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Erzurum/blog-127602.html Variazione del programma.Lasciare Mardin stato un pochino piu' complesso del previsto. Sembrava non ci fosse il bus ma alla fine tenaci lo abbiamo trovato Siamo quindi arrivati alla piccola stazione degli autobus grazie ad un non troppo economico taxi che letteralmente venuto a salvarci vista la quantita' impressionante di acqua che scendeva dal cielo e che lungo la strada in discesa aveva http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Dogubeyazit/blog-98800.html VERY TENCHIUDialoghi semiseri tra un Italiano mafioso e terroristi curdiIl mondo un libroe chi non viaggiane legge solo una pagina.Sant'AgostinoCos lasciata Ankara dopo cinque ore di pullman arrivo in Cappadocia e pi precisamente aGOREMEPiccolo villaggio di 2000 anime si trova proprio al centro dell'area che racchiude la maggior parte dei siti pi importanti.E' domenica e in giro pr http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Van/blog-94614.html I haven't really had any plans for the past week so I thought I might use my internet time to open up a discussion on the finer points in life. Fortunately this part of the world is or has been replete with three of the four points of discussion. The fourth work is unfortunately a little scarce all over Turkey. In short if you want to avoid it come here. I left you guys in Trabzon with a b http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Dogubeyazit/blog-93226.html Det r en jttebra id. Jessica vill ha lite mer semester och erbjuder sig att haka p min resa norrut. Nu r hennes id om att haka p en aning komplicerad. Det innebr inte alls att hon tar en billig charter till Turkiet och fljer med till Istanbul och genom Balkan kanske till en i Kroatien. Nej att haka p innebr att J tar en flygstol till Bourdeaux i sdra Frankrike p tv timmar och lat http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Erzurum/blog-85017.html I could give a blow by blow account of where I've been and what I've done but apart from being a huge undertaking I think I would probably bore you to tears and give myself a case of RSI as well as being subjected to hours of passive smoking in these internet cafes where although the sign says no smoking incessant chain smoking is the norm.But this is what the intinerary reads asGoreme http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Tatvan/blog-81081.html Sadly we had to say goodbye to Iran and crossed over 305nto the mounta305ns of Essendere Turkey. The scenery changed almost 305mmed305ately and so dramat305cally the dry desert was gone and we were surrounded by green f305elds mounta305ns w305ldflowers and rush305ng streams.Arr305v305ng 305n Van 305n the early even305ng we checked 305nto a local pla http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Van/blog-79645.html So we stayed in Van longer than planned trying to make sure our bikes were in full working order before we crossed to Iran. With only 21 days on our visa we did not want to have to make any unsheduled stops. Thanks to Bush Blair the ldquowar on terrorrdquo it is also impossible to use foreign cards in the numerous ATMs in Iran or to cash travellers cheques in fact all international banki http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/blog-73754.html HelloLivin the high life.I am have been staying in the shadow of Mt Ararat for the past two days. What an impressive sight it is. Over 5000 metres high. Powerful and wrapped in much history it is.The last night in Yusufeli mountain river valley we walked down to the river and the partycelebrationdance following a turkish wedding was gettin down What a sight that was. Half the town show http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Dogubeyazit/blog-64241.html Finally we are back in colder climes mountain streams rush by snowy mountains appear round every bend and the air is clean and clear well until the next truck thunders past us blasting its horn again. We are back in Turkey but things here are a bit different the people and the customs all seem a lot more European oh yes thats because this area is Kurdistan as we are reminded by almost e http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Van/blog-57725.html So we finally managed to escape Istanbul mid March albeit visaless and continue our Turkish travels after two somewhat frustrating weeks. We aren't complaining really well not too loudly anyway as Istanbul should be high on everyone's list of places to spend a little quality visa limbo time but if I ever run into that Mr B again.....With visa worries temporarily forgotten we set off for a http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Eastern-Anatolia/Dogubeyazit/blog-56828.html