After being dropped off we bought some baklava and headed into the centre – a good long walk with our backpacks. We stopped off and got a kebab before finding the cheapest hotel recommended in LP.
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| From Van, Turkey |
We decided to walk the 5km to the old fortress near the Lake and climbed up the edge nearest the Lake to take pictures of the surrounding countryside and of Lake Van. It was beautiful, the countryside was dotted with cattle, sheep, the odd small mosque and further back, the city of Van.
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| From Van, Turkey |
The sun setting over the Lake was beautiful too and we found a spot where there weren't too many wasps and watched until we couldn't see it any longer.
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| From Van, Turkey |
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| From Van, Turkey |
The fortress was bathed in warm light from the sunset and was one of the loveliest ruins I've seen. The fortress which was being reconstructed was only partially finished and the end near the Lake hadn't been worked on at all and looked much better than the end which had been. We climbed down and walked the 5km back into town, stupidly turning down a lift, our wobbly legs took us to Kebabistan and we tucked into... kebabs! Before wobbling back to our hotel absolutely shattered.
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| From Van, Turkey |
The next morning we left our bags with the hotel, ate breakfast in an expensive café serving delicious food and got a minibus before midday to Bahçesary.
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| From Bahçesaray, Turkey |
Bahçesary is a small town deep in the mountains and takes hours to get to either by car or the single daily minibus. I read most of the way there but looked out of the window long enough to be impressed by the mountains and just how remote the village was. LP recommended a visit here because of the remoteness and the friendliness of the villagers. No doubt they were friendly but after a walk down by the fresh river flowing through the village we sat in a small café/restaurant feeling hungry. We walked through the village and were befriended by a teenage boy who took us up to the school, a short walk out of the village where tourists who made it this far usually stayed – the village was small enough not to have a guest house or a hotel.
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| From Bahçesaray, Turkey |
After a long talk when one of the new teachers told us that there were no rooms and basically to catch the last bus going back to Van, another teacher came out saying there was one room left and we heaved a sigh of relief and agreed – it was easily the best room we had stayed in and probably would stay in the whole trip. It took a good deal of resolve to stay though – the new teachers, who also stayed in the school (and paid through the nose for the pleasure) told us to go down to bridge and see the river when we asked what we could do/see in the village and then continued to advise us to get the last bus to Van.
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| From Bahçesaray, Turkey |
With our room secured we walked back into the 'centre' to explore a bit more, some old armed men in combats were strolling about guns slung over their shoulders were a bit of an oddity, we walked around and across many of the little bridges connecting the sides of the river, Djalma decided to do some press-ups by the waters edge and we gathered quite a following of not-so-shy children shouting hello, but shy enough to run when I turned around to look them in the eye.
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| From Bahçesaray, Turkey |
The teenage boy found us again and took us to a small group of men to introduce us, it felt less like an introduction and more like a display of tourist oddities to the locals and wasn't all that comfortable, trying to find some beer I was pelted in the rear end by a stone thrown by one of the small boys following us, I wasn't quick enough turning around to see who did it though and glared at all of them, saying goodbye to the boy who had shown us the school we went back to the café/restaurant just in time for sun-down and ate the food they brought out – it was the same deal as in Midyat, a fixed menu and all good food. We walked back up to our huge room and to bed.
The next morning we said goodbye and got the 9.30am minibus back to Van, thankfully it didn't have far to drive round collecting everyone because the village was so small and we made it back in under two hours.
We had breakfast in the small expensive café again – the food was too good, the pastries especially light, to go somewhere else before leaving the city. The city was heaving with people out shopping for food for the last day of Ramazan and getting a bottle of water from a small supermarket was painful in the crush of bodies none of them encumbered with the English reserve to try and keep out of the way of others. We walked to the bus station and waited for the next bus to Muradiye Waterfalls on the way to Dogubayazit.
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| From Van, Turkey |
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