We stopped at a town called Batman, proof we're not making it up:
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| From Hasankeyf, Turkey |
And on the long drive from Batman to Tatvan on Lake Van we were off-loaded onto another minibus going to Tatven – our bus was empty save for us, the minibus was crammed with fresh vegetables and a huge bag of peppers threatened to land on Djalma's head for most of the trip. We stopped after sun-down at a road-side restaurant, surprisingly full despite the remote location and tucked into a good canteen dinner. We kept a careful eye on the driver who I didn't trust one bit to make sure he didn't drive ff with our bags but he didn't try anythign dodgy except for dropping us off at a junction telling us in Turkish that he wasn't going to Tatvan. He gestured for us to get out of the minibus and got our bags and put them on the side of the orad and tried to flag down a lift to take us there. We were furious and after a long argument in Turkish and English (neither of us had any idea what the other was saying only what was meant) Djalma took back 15 of the 60 lira we originally paid to go to Tatvan and told him to go, the dude was not happy but neither were we - being left goodness knows where in the dark and having paid a lot of money.
We hitched a lift with a friendly doctor who restored our faith in humanity, it turned out that we weren't far out of town at all, a long walk but less than ten minutes in a car. We found a cheap hotel after some searching and after an hour in a nearby internet cafe we went to bed.
The next day we got up early, too early in fact – we couldn't find any restaurant serving breakfast (still Ramazan) and the shops didn't open until 10am. We waited until then, bought food for a picnic and a loaf of bread for breakfast which we ate with a tomato walking along the road out of town to Mt Nemrut №2. We walked along trying to thumb down passing car (hoping for a lorry) and ended up with a friendly Kurd who was going all the way to the top, a nice piece of luck as it was a good 15km to the top following the road.
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| From Nemrut Dagi, Tatvan, Turkey |
The views on the way up were stunning, from the outside Mt Nemrut looked like any other of the surrounding hills but the views out across the fields to Lake Van were stunning, patchworks of green and gold. When we eventually got to the top and the entrance to the crater of the inactive volcano (not sure whether it was dormant or extinct) the road looked down over a huge area with five different lakes, one was blue and skin tinglingly cold and another smaller, green and thermally heated, the three other were so far away that we didn't see much of them. Our friendly Kurd drove us down to the thermally heated green pool first and then across to the cold blue lake which was huge and stunningly beautiful.
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| From Nemrut Dagi, Tatvan, Turkey |
We both swam in the Lake, it was another hot Summer's day and Djalma didn't need more of an excuse to get out of his clothes and go for a dip, I think that man is part Mermaid, I worked my self up to it and we both jumped in together probably flashing the Kurd because I hadn't bothered with my bikini under my sarong, oops. We dried off, put our clothes back on and left with the Kurd, stopping to take pictures on the way out. I thought of Susanna looking back through the pictures – Sus you have to go there if you make it to Turkey!
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| From Nemrut Dagi, Tatvan, Turkey |
We said goodbye to our Kurd near our hotel and decided to walk down along the Lake front in the town to have our picnic there instead. We sat on a step near a cafe and were soon given a small table and stools by the friendly proprietor and polished off the bread, cheese, ham, tomato and crisps trying to fend off three very persistent wasps. We walked alongside the edge of the Lake to a big cafe where we chilled out and decided to leave the following day on the ferry.
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| From Nemrut Dagi, Tatvan, Turkey |
Unfortunately for us the following day came round, we went to the small harbour running the last part of the way, only to find that there were no ferries to Van that day. The no schedule thing was a bastard and so we decided to try and hitch a lift along the road that ran to Van instead.
The rush to get a ferry we weren't sure was even going, gone, we walked back through the houses getting a loaf of freshly baked bread to eat along the way. It was quite a contrast to the centre of town, small roughly built houses with chickens scratching in the vegatble gardens and small vineyards behind the houses, after a good hour of walking in what Djalma thought was the right direction we managed to hitch a lift from a minibus! They drove us round the houses more, collecting people from their homes and along the road – no bus-stops where people waited together and when we were going back through town they even stopped lorries to try and get us a lift to Van. They ended up dropping us off at the edge of town where we got a lift in a smart 4x4 with three guys heading in the same direction as us.
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| From Van, Turkey |
The scenery was stunningly gorgeous, the road followed the Lake at all times and went through green hills and past fields with hardly a building in sight. It was lush looking out of the window but we were cramped in the back with a big smelly dude who washed his hands in the strong cologne that is usually offered in restaurants on the way out and even sprayed it in the air for the rest of us to enjoy – it was vile and nearly choked us – what a douche. It was a relief to say goodbye at the bottom of Van a good three hours later.
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