Day 7 - Dogubeyazit (April 29, 2009)

We made our way downstairs for breakfast at the hotel and ended up sitting with the guy we met the previous night while locked out of our room. He had driven up from Hakkari (province that borders Iraq) and had to drive back there that day.

After breakfast, we had tea with Bayram again. He gave us a CD of pictures and a brochure so that we would not forget him. He also gave us his son's number and said we should call him when we got back to Istanbul. After tea, Bayram took us to the roof of the hotel to show us where his brother's company was and to show us the view. Additionally, he made our bus reservation for us to Dogubeyazit and suggested a good hotel for us to find. I am sure they receive kickbacks from each other for recommending it (he was pretty adamant about us making sure to drop his name), but I was ok to stay at a hotel that was in the same price range as this one. Also, he did do us a favor by not charging us when we wanted to check into the room at 5am and sleep after our bus ride all night from Diyarbakir. I know in the US they definitely would have charged us. He also told the domus driver to stop at the Muradiye falls (a place I really wanted to see even though I did not tell Bayram I had wanted to see it). He had mentioned that it was important to take care of his guests and that he knew we would enjoy stopping to see the falls (as they are famous in Eastern Turkey). I was very happy about this!

Speaking of the bus ride (which was pretty much a dolmus in this case), I do not know how or why I always am able to do this, but I always seem to find an interesting person to talk to in Turkey...even if I can't speak the language!

The van we rode in was quite small. I suppose the route between Van and Dogubeyazit isn't that popular. As a result, only two people could sit in a row together. Because I was traveling with two girls, it seemed natural that they should sit together so one of them would not be forced to sit next to a sketchy character. This meant I was the third wheel out and that I would be sitting next to a stranger.

It just so happens that my stranger was a very nice guy. I had another opportunity to practice my Turkish skills. It turns out that this guy was actually an Iranian nation from Tebriz. He spoke Turkish and Persian. The Turkish-English dictionary got a lot of work during this bus ride. :) He was in Istanbul selling fabric and took a flight to Van and then a bus from Van to Dogubeyazit (where an Iranian border crossing exists). From there he would head home. I think one of the coolest parts of this conversation was that he actually let me see his passport. It was green with the Arabic script on it. The most interesting part was on the passport where it said, "Holders of this passport are forbidden from entering the occupied lands of Palestine." So basically, Iran has forbidden their citizens from going to Israel. He got to look at my passport too. I even showed him the Israeli stamp, which surprised him! Another cool thing he did was teach me the Persian alphabet. I have it written down with me still (I should really study that thing so I can learn to read Persian/Arabic). He didnt seem to mind showing me all of the letters and writing their sounds in latin script next to it. When we stopped at a gas station, he picked up a bag of potato chips, which he shared with me for the rest of the way. Apparently the sharing culture I discussed in previous blog entries also extends to Iran. We Americans should really get on board with this!

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. It consisted mostly of me trying to converse with the guy on the bus and flipping back and forth through the English-Turkish dictionary. I was pretty excited because in order to get to Dogubeyazit, we had to go over some highlands that involved seeing snow. Those of you that know me well know just how excited I get about the snow! :)

We arrived in Dogubeyazit in the early afternoon. We found the hotel that Bayram recommended to us and decided that the price was good enough for us to stay there. From our room, we had a beautiful view of Mt. Ararat. As soon as we got to the hotel, I realized that I stupidly left my camera in the van and prayed that it was still there. I basically had a miniature freak out. Luckily for me (and for all of you who are enjoying my pictures), it came back safe and sound. The driver of the van brought it back as soon as I had made it to the place to pick up my camera.

Upon putting our stuff down in the hotel, we moved on to see the Ishak Paşa palace. Earlier when we went to Mardin, I described Emily's obsession with getting to see the Saffron Monastery. Well as obsessed as she was with that, I was equally obsessed with seeing this place. When we realized we had an extra day on our trip to spend, I begged and pleaded for Sonya and Emily to let me take a detour to this place. I am not sure what my fascination was with this place. Truthfully, I had seen it in some post cards and travel books advertising Eastern Turkey and I fell in love with the pictures. I was determined to see it for myself. That is the main reason why I wanted to see it so badly. The added bonus was of course that it was at the foot of Mt. Ararat and right on the Azerbaijani/Iranian border. :)

We spoke to a taxi cab driver and he agreed to take us to Ishak Paşa Sarayi (Ishak Paşa Palace) and wait for us while we toured the place. The ride to the palace was a three mile drive that took us on a main 4 lane road with lights in the center. The road had a yellow sign labelled Iran, indicating that it was the road to Iran. More interestingly, that 4 lane main thoroughfare was actually the ancient silk road. I imagined hundreds of people on caravans coming through this place, bringing spices and silk from the far east on their way to Istanbul and Europe. What a cool road!

We entered the complex and it was absolutely incredible. Construction began on the palace in 1685. It was considered the second administrative palace only to Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The guidebook said it was very important to art history and probably the best example of a Turkic palace during the time period it was built (1600-1800). The palace itself was built over a hill, allowing an observer to see all of Doğubeyazit below.

The palace itself contained a beautiful courtyard on the main floor, a harem, kitchen, dungeon, and mosque inside. There was a second floor which was unfortunately blocked off from touring. The complex itself was massive.

Despite the large complex, we unexpectedly ran into Jessica, Perri, and other members of the Duke study abroad program. Although I had asked Jessica where her program was taking her on spring break, she had said she didn't know. Apparently, their program had them doing our trip, but reverse. They started in Trabzon and went to Kars and then they were going to Van. We exchanged some stories about the trip. Jessica told us that she was miserable and wanted out because she didn't know the other kids and felt like kind of an outsider. Any student that had registered for Boğaziçi through the Duke program was required to go on this trip. We told her we would call her that night to hang out...but we never did.

The reason we never did is far more interesting. Two younger guys were speaking to Sonya and I walked up and said hello. These two guys were Metin and Saffet. Metin seemed to be in his early 30s while Saffet to be close to our age. They took an interest in us and began asking us about our trip, where had been, why we were in Turkey, etc. They then invited us to have a tea with them, which we accepted. We told the taxi driver that we would know longer need his services, but he made us pay 2/3 of the price. We lied to him and said we had decided to walk back...but I think he knew we were really finding another ride. Oh well.

Before we went to tea, Metin and Saffet told us they knew a cool place to get a great view of Ishak Paşa.We rode the van further up the mountain that grew behind the palace. Then we exited the van and were lead up the pathway to a beautiful rocky outcropping. The ledge was very narrow, allowing only one person at a time. The view was breathtaking (see pictures). It provided the perfect postcard picture for the palace. All I could say was "this is THE picture." Of course THE picture turned into several...but what can ya do?

After gazing at the scenery, we climbed back down and got back into their van. They drove us to the town and we met a third friend of theirs, a Kurdish carpet dealer. I thought to myself...wow this is just as bad as the guys in Istanbul. In Istanbul, carpet dealers try to lure you into their shop and spend 45 minutes turning their store inside out to sell you a carpet. It is often a bad situation because you want to see the carpets but the whole ordeal takes up a lot of time. After two or three of these episodes, you have basically wasted a good day of sightseeing. I made a comment to Metin, indicating that I understood what was going on, but he claimed that it was not like that. Either way, one cup of tea became two which became three. I thought to myself, while we're here, we might as well see what they've got right?

These carpets were slightly different than the ones you would find in Istanbul because they were made by Kurds instead of Turks. The concept was the same but the designs were slightly different. They were neat. Another significant difference was the price. A beautiful silk carpet, which I wanted very badly was only 300TL ($200). The same carpet in Istanbul would probably have cost 1000 TL. I remembered what Uncle Barry said to me before I left. "If you see anything cool. Buy it." So that's exactly what I did. After finding a reasonably priced carpet, I began to haggle the price down. It was originally 120 TL. I explained that I was a studnt and didn't have a lot of money (you have to give these salesmen the same spiel every time). Eventually, I got him to agree to sell me 2 carpets for 80 TL a piece. I decided to keep one for myself and to give one to Uncle Barry and Aunt Leslie since Barry had done so much to help me with my Air France debacle. The least I could do was get him a nice souvenir! Sonya and Em both ended up buying one too. Metin and Saffet claimed that we should not feel pressured to buy and that they did not bring us to the carpet place to sell us a carpet. The guy who sold us the carpet invited us to join him for dinner that evening.

While talking to Metin and Saffet, they told us that there was a hot spring in Diyadin (a small town about 45 minutes away from Doğubeyazit. Upon seeing our interest, they offered to take us there so we could enjoy it. I was ecstatic! I had never been to a hot spring before and had always wanted to go to one. In fact, I had been reading about the springs near Bursa and was hoping to have the opportunity to visit those while I was in Turkey.

They took us back to our hotel and we got a change of clothes and put our newly acquired carpets away. They did ask as a small favor for us to help them fill up his gas tank in his van. We were a bit surprised because generally Turkish people do not ask us for anything in return when they are hospitable. Truthfully, the van was not that nice and they probably did not have a lot of money. They weren't poor by Turkish standards, but probably not rich either. I didn't mind giving them money since they were showing us around and being very nice to us. Basically, we were paying for our own personalized tour of the area, which was fine by me! The older guy confessed to us that he was actually a mountain guide for Mt. Ararat and said that if we ever wanted to climb it with him, we could let him now and we could come along with a group he was leading. He said we would only have to pay for the equipment and nothing else...which was incredibly nice of him. I seriously considered taking him up on the offer. Climbing Ararat would be amazing! Perhaps one day I will...

We made our way away from town. None of us knew how far the place was. I don't know about the others, but after 30 minutes or so of driving, I was a little concerned. The fact that we had trusted several people on this trip so far and not been in danger had not escaped my notice. I wondered how many more times we could test fate before something bad happened. Luckily, we didn't test it enough as my slight apprehension turned out to be for nothing.

We drove through the town of Diyadin and made our way towards the springs. The landscape became much more rocky. Once upon a time, this area had been very geologically active. After another 5 or so minutes of driving, we came to a group of small buildings. In two or three different places near it, water was flowing out of the ground. As it met the cool, evening air, steam was given off of the openings. The water felt nice on cold hands. The opening and the area where the water was flowing had turned white. The minerals in the water had calcified on the rock. Additionally, the entire area smelled of sulfur. Our new friends obviously knew the attendant and told us that we could have one of the family rooms for an hour in a few minutes.

In the meantime we took a walk around the place, admiring the geological feature. It was actually a pretty cool thing. The sun was setting and it was quite cold outside. It couldnt have been more than 40 or 45 degrees.

Finally, we went inside the room. It was a pool the size of a small swimming pool. A white pipe from the geological feature siphoned water into the pool. The spring itself was scalding! Way above what I would have considered comfortable to swim in. When I hung my feet in the water, they felt like they were on fire! The room with the pool had no ceiling, allowing us to observe the starlit night. Although the facilities weren't exactly luxury accommodations, the atmosphere was nice.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, everyone had jumped in and began soaking in the spring except me. I was still lying shirtless on the side of the pool. Metin and Saffet began making funny of me, telling me that I should be able to do it if two girls can. As I slowly tried to submerge myself into the water, I would quickly jump out because it was so hot. So the first 40 minutes or so of us being there consisted of me alternating between getting cold outside of the pool, partially submerging my body until it felt like it was on fire (all of about 30 seconds) and repeating the process. After the 45 minute mark, I was able to swim a bit before jumping out in the same fashion. After about an hour and a half, we had had enough and got dressed and got back in the car towards Doğubeyazit.

The conversation in the car was especially interesting for me. Because these guys were Kurdish, I began asking them questions about their voting behavior and the DTP. I was curious if they voted for AKP, if they liked them, why they voted for the DTP, etc. I wish I had understood the issue more at the time. I think I could have asked more insightful and interesting questions...but at this point in my Turkish experience, I was still trying to learn about it. It turns out that they both vote for DTP simply because it is Kurdish. They knew very little about how the DTP stood on certain issues and whether they supported those stances (this could also be because they werent able to express themselves in English but I find this unlikely because I found their English to be quite good...especially by Eastern standards!).

We went back to town and made our way to the restaurant where we would meet the carpet dealer from the afternoon. We had a lovely meal (some sort of kebab if I remember correctly...but then again...weren't all of my meals?). After our meal, they invited us to dance. The dance was the exact same one we did in Urfa, so we all already knew the drill. It was a fun time and I think everyone enjoyed ourselves. It's always nice to make new friends.

I did notice when our new friend wanted to pay the bill, his wallet contained dollars and euros in addition to Turkish lira. He told us that all proceeds from the carpet sales went to a home for Kurdish women (I think he was trying to tell us it was for a good cause). However, the different foreign currencies in his wallet made me a bit skeptical. He did pay for our dinner though which was cool. So after only 1 day, we had hit the highlights of Doğubeyazit!