South Eastern Anatolia

HOT HOT HOT!

So we departed Goreme - perhaps a few days later than anticipated, but this was certainly warranted - given both the amount of stuff we did, and also a few mild food poisoning episodes (not good when sharing a scooter in 35 degree heat!). 

Mt Nemrut

We had heard great things about the tri to Mt Nemrut - and this is why we had waiting until the Thursday - being the only day the tour left. With the usual Turkish shagging about, and hour or so late Korina and I crammed into a weazing minibus with 15 or so other tourists and off we went.

The first day of this tour was really quie dull - the mini bus couldn't drive very fast, we had a lot of distance to cover, and the air conditioning did work effectively. Probably the highlight was pulling up in a random town for a rubbery Turkish ice cream. It was very hot, yet something in its make up prevented the ice cream from melting - apparenly up to 36 hours un refridgerated...(suspicious!).

We pulled into the dusty little town that we were crashing in before Nemrut and checked into the expectedly run down hotel. Our room was ok, although there were some that had no air conditioning, or more amusingly, had the TV stuck on Turkish porn.

We arose at 3am the next morning to drive up to Nemut. The idea is generally to watch the sunrise or the sunset - we were doing the former. Unfortunately, when the sun did make an appearance, there was a sand storm on the horizon, which someone took the magic away from the place. The statues were fine, but probably not as great as anticipated.

Then it was another day's drive, looking at some frankly quite dull ruins along the way before heading to Urfa.

Urfa

Again, we had heard that Urfa was a great place, and a little different to everywhere else we'd been due to the Middle Eastern influence. Great parts of this region of Turkey were actually part of Syria. Until Ataturk had other ideas...

Suffice to say we stood out a lot. Many of the ladies seemed quite impressed by Korina - some because she was a westerner, and they loved everything western, and the more traditional because Korina had made the effort of covering herself up a bit. An amusing moment occured when the long cotton shirt Korina was wearing slipped off her shoulder a little bit - it didn't take long before an Arabic lady had put her hand on Korina's shoulder to remedy the situation!

You could tell the origin of all of the different people (well, ladies anyway) by the colour of their headscarfs. In addition to the relatively modern Turkish styles, there were a lot of Arabic, Syrian and Iranians getting about.

We enjoyed the main bazaar a lot - a bit like Istanbul in feel, with the exception that we were the only tourists. We came back quite often, and enjoyed several cups of Turkish tea with the locals - who were very keen to convince us how safe the area was.

We also headed out to Harran and checked out the beehive houses. The story goes that these were created from some of humanity's oldest civilisations. That may well be true, but other than those restored for the tourists, the enduring picture was of a poor, dusty little village on the Syrian border, with some of the most aggressive street kids we encountered in Turkey. Certainly bringing a selection of pens was a good call here - seemed to be most appreciated by the locals, a couple of who also played football against me and an Australian guy.

Mardin

It was at this point that we bailed on the - frankly quite disappointing - tour. From here, I had wanted to go on up to Van via Batman - for no other reason than the amusing name. However, the advice from the New Zealand and British consulates about Kurdish rebels warned Korina and me off - and added to the lack of an available hire car - and a lack of desire to sit in buses for a number of days, we hopped a bus to Mardin.

Well, this makes it sound a lot easier than it was. Basically we fought our way through the shambles at the Urfa Autogar before hopping on a somewhat suspect bus, that (very slowly) made it half way to Mardin before giving up in a haze of blue smoke. So we were standing about on the side of the road, in the middle of Kurdish rebel territory, wondering if a bus was going to turn up. This was not good!

Luckily there was a range of people on the bus who could scratch together a few words of English - and it was clear they were trying to help us. Eventually a replacement van turned up, and we pulled off the main road to Iraq and into Mardin. We were a little suspicious when the driver dropped off all the passengers before stopping with us and asking for a bribe to take us to the hotel. I think he was quite surprised to be told to go fuck himself!

As it happens, we were only 500M from the hotel - and other than the somewhat hair-raising trip to Mardin, the rest of the time was great. The people were friendly, we were staying at an amazing boutique hotel and the sandstorm kept down the temperatures quite a bit (which, when they start topping 40, get a bit overwhelming!).

The best thing about Mardin though were the people. At one point we were adopted by an 11 year old for an impromptu Turkish/English lesson. We bought him a coke and he insisted that we go through all the words in the back of our lonely planet. Although we were happy to oblige, we didn't expect him to follow us round for the next 2 hours! We went into an internet cafe, and I showed him a video of the All Blacks doing the haka. The kid was intrigued and seemed relatively impressed!

Unfortunately the end of our Mardin trip coincided with the mild food poisoning spreading from Korina to me - so it was certain to be a long trip across to Antep!

Gazantep

Luckily the bus didn't break down on the way back, but I was involved in a few close calls of the "rush to the toilet, by will e makeit" type. Korina was adopted again by some more Turkish people that wanted us to come stay at their place. Whilst we were keen, it was another 4 hours in the bus, and I was not in much of a state to be a house guest! We also were getting towards the end of the holiday, and didn't really have time, which really was unfortunate.

Antep turned out to be much more Western than many of the other cities in the East, and it was at this point that the Lonely Planet let us down. The accomodation recommendation was good, but in terms of things to do, really only 1 out of 4 was any good / open. Again we stayed at a cool little boutique place -- being a bit sick doesn't really go with staying in budget places if you ask me. By the end of our time in Antep I had started to feel better again though (which was good, given I was starting a new job in Australia in a few days time).

Basically, the castle was shut, the caravanserai had nothing in it, and the mosaic muesum was OK - particularly the gypsy girl (who may actually be Alexander the great!).

I guess the thing in Antep that I thought was excellent was an old tea house we went to - famous (apparently) for the volume the old guys therewithin are able to generate by slapping down backgammon pieces onto the board. What was less enjoyable was losing my 100-1 undefeated record at backgammon to Korina - she thrashed me 2-1 - and all of a sudden decided the game wasn't so bad afterall!

From there, it was pretty much the end of our holiday. A bus back to Urfa, and then a flight back to Istanbul (to stay again at the crazy lamp place) and I was able to confirm that our hotel had not nicked my bike - something which had been sitting in the back of my mind for the previous 2 weeks. Managed to get Korina to go to the historic imam across from the mosque (which I had been to earlier). I think she could see why it was better than the more touristy one we had been to in Goreme.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Korina again - something that is never easy, and made much harder by the fun that we had had together over the past 4 weeks. It's always a little ironic that it's when our relationship is at its best, that we then come into a situation where we must spend an extended time apart - much the same as when I had come to the UK.