Turkey

Turkey

Goose and I had arranged to meet up with a couple of other guys, George and Dave, who had ridden their bikes across Europe and were heading through Turkey and the Middle East to India. They had been waiting for us on the Turkish-Iranian border but, due to our various delays in Syria, had moved on into Iran. We still hoped to catch up with them and so our trip across East Turkey was a mad two-day dash.

I didn't expect it to be much more than blurred countryside and a sore bum. In fact it turned out to be a fascinating and beautiful journey. The landscape went from rolling green plains to rugged mountains on our first day then to bleak rock and snow-capped peaks and finally to the beautiful valley of Mt Ararat lit up like an oil painting in the evening sun and dotted with rainbows from distant showers. For two days the landscape changed constantly - one minute it was lush green with cascading waterfalls, the next it took on the appearance of a Dr Who set.

When the changing scenery wasn't keeping us occupied, we entertained ourselves by looking out for amusing signposts. There was one for 'Batman' - although no sign of Robin (groan) - one for 'Icle University' - as opposed to 'Big University (another groan) - and, our favourite, the 'Dogdu Hotel' - now you'd want to stay there wouldn't you!

Sanliurfa

Our first night was spent in a town called Sanliurfa famous for a cave where the prophet Abraham was born and its neatly designed park with pools full of Koi Carp. At this stage of the journey we were still in the lowlands and the early summer sun was baking hot.

The local children were keen to practice their limited English which extended to "Hello" and "What is your name?" followed by giggles of delight when we answered and they realised we understood what they had said.

We went on a mission for beer and found ourselves in a hotel lounge sipping the local brew and watching Turkish television. We sat for some time absorbed by a Turkish sitcom and trying, without too much difficulty, to follow the storyline before we realised that the set and the characters were vaguely familiar - this was the Turkish version of 'The Nanny'!

The next morning, after a two-hour delay to fix a small fuel leak, we finally hit the road and headed for the Iranian border. Because we had set off late, we didn't have time to make it into Iran and rode instead to Dogubeyazit, affectionately known as 'Dog Biscuit'.

The cold road to Iran

We hadn't been on the road long before we started to climb. The air got distinctly colder and damper and the stone took on a darker, more gloomy appearance. One strange little town we passed through was called Bitlis and was set into a hillside so steep that the houses looked like they were built on top of one another. The main street was cobbled and ran along the side of a river with houses looming above it on either side. The dark stone and damp air reminded me of northern England - similar to a small town in the Yorkshire Dales or the Lake District.

In this part of Turkey the people were more reserved and the countryside had a timeless, the-modern-world-hasn't-got-here-yet feel about it. At our first fuel stop, we were offered a cup of tea while they filled the tank and cleaned our headlights. At our lunch stop people politely welcomed us to their country and a teacher came over to tell us some of the local history. We had heard that the area was fairly inhospitable and that tensions ran high between the different communities but the people we met seemed pretty relaxed and friendly. The only indication of any political differences was a tendency, when introducing themselves, to point out whether they were Turkish, Kurdish or Armenian. There was also a strong military presence and one particularly beautiful stretch of road along the shore of Van Golu - Turkey's largest lake - was fenced off by a military base with large red notice boards warning you not to stop and take photographs. Just as a point of interest, apparently Van Golu is so deep that it has its very own 'Loch Ness' monster - but you can't take its photograph of course!

By the time we reached Van Golu, the air was chilly and crisp. The lake's alkaline water was an aquamarine blue and looked pretty cold against the snowy mountains on the opposite shore. Once past the lake we headed into 'Dr Who' territory until we were so high that there was snow on either side of the road! A short stop for a snowball fight and then we set off down into the rainbow-filled valley of Mt Ararat to Dog Biscuit. Mt Ararat - believed to be the place where Noah's Ark finally came to rest - makes a spectacular back drop to an otherwise rather uninteresting town. In fact we decided that Dog Biscuit would have been more appropriately named 'Dogdu'! But you couldn't fault the surrounding countryside. By the time we arrived at our hotel I had just begun to thaw out from our snowy ride - I had put on a couple of extra layers after lunch but was still not really equipped for that kind of cold. Goose, however, only had his 'Savannah Suit' on and was in need of a very hot shower.

The following morning we set off early and headed the 35km to the Iranian border, still hoping to catch up with George and Dave in Tehran.

Photographs

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