Kale

Found myself in Van after a long day of traveling. Before that I was in Erciş. Tomorrow I will go to Malatya (I think). It's been incredible. There is so much more to tell, but so little time right now.

Hasankeyf and Tatvan

I have had the most amazing experience since Mardın. Özlem and I went to Hasankeyf, an ancient city largely composed of caves and historical constructions overlooking the Tigris river.
The next day we went to Tatvan, a largely Kurdish city on the west end of Van Lake. We went to the top of the nearby volcano, Nemrut, to catch the sunset. Curiously, the inspiration for the trip to Nemrut was a picture that has served as my laptop's desktop background for almost a year. It can be found here.
Our plans now include going to Van today and Adıyaman tomorrow. Essentially, we are criss-crossing the southeast of Turkey. In Adıyaman there is another mountain called Nemrut which has some remarkable giant statues on it and is supposedly the best place in the world to see the sunrise. Not sure if we will make it for sunrise but we will try to hike it regardless.

Checking in from the East

I have been traveling in the east part of Turkey for the last few days. I put a picture of me at an ancient monastery outside of Mardın. Right now I am in a city called Batman. My hotel overlooks the Tigris and there are cliffs dotted with caves all around. I will be in away from İstanbul for a few more days. My plans include Bitlis, Van, and Ankara. I will tell a bit more about this trip later. For now, I will say that I am well and very happy out here.

Where I've been and where I'm going

The map below shows red dots at where I live and where Bozcaada is. Pictures from that adventure below in the last post. As a result of that trip, I added the Çanakkale city-region to the map under "Where I've Been in Turkey" on the right. It is shown in a darker blue in the map below.This next map shows the trip to the East that Özlem and I are taking. To many Turkish people (and non-Turks for that matter), the east part of Turkey is not an ideal vacation spot. However, I, like some of my friends, consider the east part of Turkey to be a wonderful place to go. Özlem is one such friend and we have been talking about a trip to the East since we met. After not-much-planning (I prefer it that way), we decided to go to Diyarbakır and Mardın and other places. On the map, Purple is İstanbul, green is Diyarbakır and Mardın, darkish yellow represents the other cities we might visit on the trip (haven't decided yet), and light yellow are the cities which are sort of in the realm of not-unlikely-possibility.
The trip will last several days, and I doubt I will be online much if at all during that time. This is actually one of things that makes the trip fun. However, you can be sure I will take lots of pictures and tell you all about it upon my return.