We woke up on our second day in Van. Elif got on the bus that morning and headed to her family's house near Kars. It was just me, Em, and Sonya. For the first time, we were without Elif to help us with Turkish.
We tried to ask the hotel staff how to get to the Hoşap Castle. We took Em's guidebook out and showed it to them and pointed. Unfortunately, no one at the desk could speak enough English (or even do enough pointing) to help us! They told us to wait and fetched Bayram (this was in fact THE Bayram of the Hotel Bayram). The owner of the hotel was a very gifted man who could speak several languages including English, Turkish, Kurdish, Persian, Russian, and Italian. Additionally, he could speak backwards! He even demonstrated it for us! I imagine the language skills were good for business. We were able to explain to him what we were looking for and he was able to help us. However, as Turkish and Kurdish custom dictates, we were obligated to sit with him in his office for some tea. He was actually very interesting to speak to. He told us about his son in Istanbul and asked us about who we are and what were studying.
Armed with Em's guidebook, we continued our adventure. We knew this was going to be interesting without Elif to help us.
We took a dolmuş southeast of Van to a place called Hoşap Castle. The castle was built in 1643 by a local Kurdish chieftain. Apparently, the chieftain was so pleased with the castle that he chopped off both of the builder's hands so that it would be impossible for him to build another castle like this one. Unfortunately, we arrived out of season and only got to see the castle from the outside. During summer, one can go inside and see the thousands of rooms that used to exist. We climbed to the top of the hill and took some neat pictures.
We then walked around the base of the hill and had the opportunity to see some of the village life. The children looked at us strangely. I imagine they are not used to seeing many foreigners...especially at this time of the year. We walked back to the main part of the village, which consisted of only 4 buildings of business and began waiting for a dolmuş to come.
I spoke to a guy and told him that we were waiting for a dolmuş and he said he would help us. Apparently, the dolmuş service is less frequent on that particular road out of the high season. A few minutes later the guy beckoned for us to follow him to a car.
The car was much nicer than any of the cars we had seen around the area. I don't remember the make or the model, but it seemed like an acura or something similar. It was very normal for an American car, but in eastern Turkey less than 30 miles from the Iranian border, it was downright strange. Furthermore, the two guys were wearing suits...also strange. We reluctantly entered the car and began talking to them. It turns out that they were both Kurdish who had just entered the country in their car from Iran! Apparently, one guy was an Iranian Kurd and the other was an Iraqi Kurd. We weren't sure what to talk about with the limited Turkish we had (luckily for us they both spoke Turkish) but we tried. The bulk of the car ride was spent using what little Turkish we knew (with the help of our handy-dandy Turkish-English dictionary) to teach us some words in Kurdish. They loved the fact that we made a concerted effort to speak in Kurdish! When we would try to say things they would smile. They took us all the way to çavuştepe, which is where we were trying to go next. It was right on their way. When they dropped us off, not only would they not take any money, they tried to pay for our museum tickets too! We explained to them that we had Muze Karts and that it wasn't necessary. We then hugged them and said "zor spas" (Thank you very much) in Kurdish and left them.
çavuştepe was once the site of a major palace in ancient Urartia. Although not much of it is left now, there was still quite a bit to see. There were two fortress ruins. In the open ruins you could see sort of what the different rooms were for. Luckily, when we arrived we were the only ones there. The caretaker of the place happened to be an expert in ancient Urartia and spoke some English. He had been to Los Angeles on conventions about the ancient civilization. He gave us a personal tour telling us all about the ruins and what each place was used for. It was really fantastic. The most amazing part was that this guy had actually taught himself how to cuniform (the type of writing used by many ancient civlizations including the Urartians). He translated some of the inscriptions on the base of the ruins for us. Of course the tour ended, as all tours end, in a place where something can be sold. In this case, they happened to be hand-carved things out of stone. In addition to studying ancient Urartia, our tour guide was an expert at hand-making things out of solid stone. Uncle Barry advised me before I went to Turkey that if I ever saw anything really cool that I should just buy it. This was the first instance in which I saw something truly cool enough to buy. So I did!
We were able to find a dolmuş back into town by flagging one down pretty easily. We then began walking around Van, looking for the dolmuş station (we had to go to a different one) to go to the university in Van (I can't remember the name of it). The reason we wanted to go here was because we wanted to see the famous Van cats. The city of Van is famous for its white cats because they have two different eye colors: one blue and one brown. Unfortunately, because they were so rare, people began taking them in as pets and they cannot be found on the streets anymore. The only place is the Kedi evi, which literally means cat house on this university.
On our way to find the dolmuş, we ran into our Iraqi Kurdish friend who had taken us to çavuştepe! We were very surprised to see him again because Van is not exactly a small town with a population of over 300,000 people. He broke conversation with the person he was speaking to and lead us to the dolmuş that we needed to take. He even paid for all of our transit to the kedi evi and would not take no for an answer.
After a bit of a walk to where the dolmuş dropped us off, we finally made it to the kedi evi. Interestingly, the thing was a two story house that was completely inhabited by the cats. The fence surrounding it was tall, but I think I could have climbed it. I would have done so if it weren't for the security cameras installed all around the place. These people really take their cats seriously! Unfortunately, the house was closed and the cats were far enough away from the fence that they were difficult to see. Close to the house, however, was the college's school of veterinary medicine.
We went into the building to ask if anyone perhaps could open the kedi evi for us to see. Unfortunately, no one could. As a result of this adventure, we did make a new friend. Cihan was a student at the veterinary school who had just gotten off of class for the day. He offered to take us back to Van and show us Van Caslte (one of the last big things we would have a chance to see and one of the biggest things on my list).
Cihan took us to the castle and began showing us around. A little kid, who could only speak Turkish wanted to give us a tour and charge for it. We said no, but he was persistent and began giving the tour anyway. Cihan translated for us so that we could have information about the old castle. It was built on a massive rock, allowing us to see all of Van, the surrounding mountains, and beautiful view of Lake Van. After we climbed around the castle, we saw an old abandoned minaret. We got the chance to climb to the top, which was really cool for me because in most mosques you are not permitted to do so. It was old and ruined, but provided the best view possible. Cihan rewarded the young kid for his persistence and gave him some money. As soon as he offered the boy money, we told him that we could give it instead. The kid understood and seemed to think that this was a good idea for both Cihan and us to give him money. Cihan refused to let us though.
He then invited us to his home. We went and met his two roommates. They turned the TV to the only English channel they had (with Turkish subtitles) for us to watch. They offered us food but we weren't too hungry. We did end up playing batak (a Turkish card game taught to me by Umut and Altug). Cihan could not believe I knew how to play it! He was so surprised. I showed Em and Sonya my hand so they could learn how to play. However, they had a fourth friend come over and that friend ended up teaching Em and Sonya how to play another card game. After Cihan and I won in batak (yes we are awesome), we went to a cafe to play backgammon (I had boasted to him that I was pretty decent after playing so much with Umut). Unfortunately, I still got my ass kicked...but at least it was fun for everyone else to watch! All in all it was a lot of fun and it was neat to be hanging out with Turkish college students again (after we had been travelling for almost a week). It was certainly a nice change of pace for the trip.
Upon returning to our hotel room, we discovered that we could not open the door. No matter how hard we tried, there was a problem with the door. The person from across the way heard us trying to open the door. At first he tried to help, but it was a lost cause. We eventually had to call and ask the hotel staff to help us, which took them a while too because they basically had to unscrew the entire doorknob for us to get in our room. In the meantime the other guy was curious about us and invited us into his room. With the little Turkish we knew, talking to him was like playing a game of charades. We would use our hands for the words we didn't know. Sonya and Em got mad at me because he was saying how good my Turkish was and how theirs wasn't that good. It was actually kind of funny to see Em get worked up about it...but I love her to death.
Finally, after a long and exhausting day we were able to go back to our room and go to sleep.
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