Van

An account of the peak of my time in the east,
the beautiful and glorious city of Van,
is to come...

What happened after the east

After spending the day in Urfa, I had only one goal: eat some Urfa kebap at Iftar. I met a man who was a Malatyalı tour guide in Urfa for the first time, also with my goal. We quickly found a good place. It was an old Ottoman home that had been converted into a fancy restaurant. The two of us were shown to a private air conditioned room where we sat down at an Ottoman-style table as a feast was laid out in front of us. The food was of course, excellent, but I ate way too much. When I was done I wanted nothing more than to sleep. The exhaustion from the heat and the hiking all that day as well as the huge meal, had hit me. We split the bill. It was the most expensive meal I had on my whole trip, costing 17 TL (~12 bucks). My new friend owed me 2 lira after we paid which I said I didn't need but he insisted on finding change. We walked outside where a bus had just stopped. The driver made change and my friend handed me the 2. Just then I noticed that the bus was going to the Otogar, which was where I needed to go to catch a bus to Ankara. So I handed the driver one of the liras and said goodbye to my friend. I dreaded my arrival at the bus station just wondering how long it would be that I would have to wait for a bus. Two hours? Three? I decided to expect to wait 3 hours. I was not feeling good. My trip to the east was ending, I was feeling drained, and I didn't know my plans for the rest of my time in Turkey.

When I got to the bus station, to my joy I saw a bus that was leaving just 20 minutes later. I bought a ticket and boarded. The first thing I noticed was that the bus was considerably older than any of the buses I had been riding between all the cities. I also noticed a sign hanging near the driver's seat that read "Maaşallah". I thought that's stupid and pointless and won't keep this bus going. I was in a bad mood. My anger was directed toward religion and I am pretty sure it was because I had abandoned fasting for Ramadan. Sure it was nice to try it for a couple of days, but I almost collapsed from exhaustion and dehydration earlier that day and broken the fast to chug a bottle of water. I had seen tired and angry people. I saw a verbal fight erupt on one of the city buses in Van the day before. I heard people swearing in the street. Ramadan came at a cost and it was the happy society of energetic people I had seen just days earlier. I thought about how steadfast people all over the world are with their religious practices and how they all think they are right. And I thought about how people can be convinced to do anything no matter how illogical. Even now as I recall being in that mood, I can sense it surfacing. Maasallah! Maasallah! Yes, that's it... pray for continuity of the bus's functionality!

The bus broke down the following morning about 120 km short of Ankara. We were stranded for one and a half hours or maybe two. It was the start of a terrible day.

The bus breaking down did do two good things for me. First, it gave me a chance to use the bathroom. The bus hadn't stopped once since the hour stop for breakfast at 3:30 in the morning. Don't get me started on the Ramadan thing again. I used the bathroom and my mood got slightly better. The other nice thing about the bus breaking down was that I no longer had to endure my seat getting kicked by the loud little boy sitting behind me. When our rescue bus came, I sat toward the back and closed my eyes. Thank Allah I thought. Then it happened. That same little boy... of all the places his mom decided to sit on the whole Allah-condemned bus was right behind me. The kicking soon commenced. I meditated until the whole world disappeared.

In Ankara I had a terrible time. I was trying to get to the place where I had left my luggage. I needed to call my friends so I went to an internet café. The microphone didn't work. I went to a different internet cafe and again it wasn't working well enough to make a phone call. I decided to walk to the bus stop where I needed to go and then figure things out. Instead I got lost. I walked and walked. It was hot and I felt frustrated and tired. How had I so successfully navigated my way all across the east of Turkey but couldn't seem to handle Ankara. Just then I realized something that gave me great joy. I was standing in front of Kuğulu Park. I had not seen the park since the first time I came to Ankara to surprise my friend Bürin. I stood in the park for a few minutes.I decided to take a trip down a seemingly old memory and so I walked the street of Tunalı again looking in the shops and thinking about getting some ice cream. Then I came to a point that looked familiar. It was the start of Kennedy Caddesi where Bürin lives, but I had only seen it in Winter. The whole place just looked so vibrant now. I walked down her street and came to the door where the great surprise had happened nearly two years ago. I sat there for 10 minutes or so and then walked over to ring the doorbell. I paused. I didn't want to bother anybody. Then someone else was entering the apartment and held the door for me. I hesitated and explained my hesistation. The woman let me use her phone and I called Burin. She was home and so I came up. I flopped down on her couch and just breathed for a minute. I was so stressed out. I hadn't wanted to bother her, I needed to call my friends with the luggage, I was exhausted, and my mind was in several different places. But I was so happy and relieved to see Bürin. She made coffee and we had baklava. We talked and I wanted to be nowhere else. We called Ro from the computer and for the first time in 6 years, the three of us talked where we could all see each other. So Bürin saved the day. In the evening we ordered a pizza and then had an apple. Later, I left after a heart-felt goodbye.

I picked up my luggage from Ayhan-Teyze's. She and Muhtar asked me to stay the night. I would have loved to, really. A part of me was quite tempted to say yes, but I has a rendezvous planned with Hazal in Istanbul early the next morning. I left and felt into a thought-filled sleep on the night ride to Istanbul. The great trip was over. It was time now to relax and see some friends and then leave.

Şanlıurfa

I totally skipped over my amazing time Van, but I will have to insert that later. With time to upload just a couple pictures I have chosen the most recent ones. In this picture I am at the site of Balıklı Göl in Şanlıurfa. If I had a car I could drive to Syria or the Euphrates river in probably 20 minutes. And shown here is the main part of the Balıklı Göl (fishy lake). Very fishy but not very lakey in my opinion.The weather here is at least 30 degrees. I tried to fast like everyone else, but the really devoted ones here are not tourists hiking everywhere in the heat with a backpack. So a tthis internet café, I chugged a bottle of water. Still holding off eating til I get some Urfa Kebap at İftar.

My first impressions of Urfa:

1 - very diverse. so far I have seen tourists here from Germany, East Asia, and Syria. Also there is a large Kurdish population living here.

2 - gorgeous. The city has an enchanting old feel. Buildings made of stones instead of concrete, old looking streets and religious structures.

3 - very friendly. But that is true for every place I have been in this country so far.

Ağrı

My goodness I love this city. The streets are wide, the people are all very social, and the city has a magical kind of old feel to it. Every now and again, a horse drawn cart passes by on the road. After walking the streets for 20 minutes slowly building a map of the city in my head, my thoughts were interrupted by a gentleman asking if I was a tourist. I responded in Turkish and he offered me a seat next to him in the dooryard of a tea cafe. He ordered us each a tea and we talked for a while. Turns out he owns the tea place. Every time one of his friends walked by, he would say something like "Look! this guy's an American!". Then he would attempt to speak some English and introduce me to his friend. After a while he asked what I wanted to do in Ağrı. I told him that I would like to see the mountain. He immediately waled me over to a bus that would take me there. An hour or so later, I was there.

Mt. Ararat.

Known to the Turks as Ağrı Dağı, the 5100 meter high dormant volcano dwarfs the surrounding peaks.

To tell you the truth, I am still there now. And I feel guilty as hell inside this internet café when I could be out in the sun having a nice time looking at the mountain and taking a few more pictures. Also it is getting to be time for lunch and I could use some pide.

Just a note before I go. This is as far east I will be going. The truth is that I really can't go any more to the east than this. This same mountain dominates the skyline of Yerevan, Armenia. From this point onward it will be a slow trek back to İstanbul.