Travels in the East

Back home now after our extended stay in Turkey, we arrived in Dalyan to attend a Turkish wedding of the son of very good Turkish friends. We enjoyed the experience very much going to the grooms party, the henna party (ladies only plus Roger!) and finally on the second day the actual wedding day. We then took off for our visit to the East – our first port of call was Gaziantep where we visited the museum of mosaics which had been rescued during the building of the Atturturk Dam, these were beautifully displayed in a purpose built museum, well worth a visit. Onwards by bus to Sanilurfa where we found a pension which was in a 300 yr old house with all the rooms arranged around the courtyard, complete with fountain. Our host also ran a travel agency and arranged a tour for us to Nemrut Dag, along with a German and a Canadian and our driver Yusuf we set off at 6 am, breakfast on the way cooked by our driver in a local kitchen (Cheese Pide) after an interesting and informative drive we arrived at noon at Nemrut Dag (2150 mtrs high). After a steep climb we came across the statues of Zeus, Antiochos, Herakles, amongst others, these were fantastic and with views to die for it was well worth the climb. We also visited the new Atturturk Dam after crossing both the Tigres and the Euphretes.

Second Day we toured around Urfa visiting Abrahams birthplace, the cave where Job learnt patience. The Citadel and Mosque where we visited the waters which are teeming with thousands of fish which are revered by all muslims are fed and looked after. Urfa is still very much an old Turkish city (we seemed to be the only European Visitors) we were made very welcome and helped by everyone to find our way around.

Our next move was to go from Urfa to Kizkalesi near Mersin an 8 hour bus trip – we have always been given cold water, tea, coffee and fruit drinks on all our bus trips but this one excelled with cake and biscuits also offered and finally all passengers were given an ice-cream! All this included in the fare 25 tkl.

I will skim over our next stop and go straight to Antalya where once again we found an old Turkish House Pension in the old city (the only place to be in Antalya as far as we could see) after a tour around we headed back to the Otocar for a bus to Ortaca, this was another long bus ride but not without its drama – a shredded tyre on a mountain road in the middle of nowhere, limped into a small town where we had a stop for repair and a meal, we still made the time up and got to Ortaca on time!

All in all a very interesting tour and well worth all the travelling (we now need to go back and see all the bits we missed).

We were then back in Dalyan to relax and enjoy the delights of the river, lake and sea.

Irene and Roger

Ok Steve – I hope this is not too long winded but I did promise a report!!