Instead of taking the bus around the lake, going from Tatvan to the city of Van, we decided to take the slower but far more scenic ferry across. In doing this, we were unique: these days no one rides the ferry. Only cargo gets transported that way. We ended up walking around on this huge, empty ferry, wondering if we were on board the Flying Dutchman or some other famous ghost ship. We stumbled upon empty saloon after empty saloon, all looking forlornly abandoned.

A more thorough search revealed that there was indeed a captain steering the ship, and a few truck drivers huddling in a nearby prayer room. Still, it felt like we’d chartered our own ship for the crossing.

Not bad for a six dollar, five-hour ride.

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Not worrying about reservations has worked out quite well for us. Every country we’ve been to has a similar tourist industry set-up. There are always at least a dozen (often more) touts waiting for tourists, like ourselves, at the bus or train stations. They were more than happy to drive us to a hotel that had rooms within our price range. That is pretty standard practice in SE Asia and India. We’d become used to such treatment, often cringing when we arrived at our destination. It’s always such a tout-driven circus.

We’re in eastern Turkey now and have left the circus behind. Tourism is handled decidedly different here. Rather than only acting on their own behalf, small guesthouses (the type we like to stay in) work on a referral basis. The proprietor of our guesthouse in Urfa referred us to our place in Hasankeyf, who then referred us to our place in Tatvan. It gives the hotel hunt a personal touch and ended up leading us to an incredibly opportunity: a night spent in a traditional Kurdish village outside Tatvan.

Mr. Mehmet, seen in the photo above, is a veteran tour guide who opens his home to travelers. His village, which is an hour drive from Tatvan, is nestled into the base of Nemrut, the region’s extinct volcano. We unfortunately never caught the name of the place, but it’s home to roughly 200 villagers, so it’s pretty sizable. No one spoke a lick of English but were quick to dispense a wave and a smile, making us feel warmly welcomed.

We arrived in late morning and had a day to kill. There was no internet. There was no television. Just acres of farmland, sheep and (randomly) a plethora of turtles. The day’s plan was to trek to the top of Nemrut, but the wind was howling. Walking at a 45 degree angle is tough on the ankles, so we spent the day walking around the hills above the village (as Martin wrote about here).

Making cheese

The evening was spent with Camile, Mehmet’s wife, who showed us how she makes cheese from sheep’s milk. Fresh sheep-milk cheese, d-lish! We ate dinner with the family, not understanding a word of what was spoken but enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. Bedtime was promptly after dinner, followed by a bright and early 5:30am wake-up when the women began banging around in the kitchen. This is life in the Turkish countryside and for a day we were apart of it.

We’ve stayed in nearly all types of accommodation on this trip. For the most part they were found without making reservations because we prefer to make decisions on the spot. Our home-stay at Mr. Mehmet’s was by far the coolest. Rather than seeing what the inside of a hotel room looks like (we’re very used to seeing that), we got to see how a traditional Kurdish family lives. It wasn’t on my to-do list for this trip, but it’s on there now and *bam* checked off, just like that!

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Turkey is great. In fact, it is our new favorite destination. The one thing that hasn’t worked out for us is the trekking. We’re here way too early. In just two months from now, the weather will be much warmer and drier, the skies will be fair and all the interesting destinations open for business.

Like the other day, when we decided to try a light trek. Nemrut Dagi (not to be confused to the other Nemrut Dagi west of here), 3,050 meters/10,006ft – a nice little volcano on the shore of Lake Van. The trek itself wouldn’t be much to brag about, as there is a road all the way up to the caldera. We felt that it would be a nice leg-stretcher at least, and probably present some nice photo opportunities.

Well at the mountain, we realized that we could hardly walk upright because of the wind. It was literally blowing so hard that the snot was forced back into the back of my nose, choking me. While that may sound like a lot of fun, it didn’t inspire us to go on. Instead, we found shelter in this dilapidated Byzantine church, where we had a picnic of bread and cheese. After that, we found a spot with no wind where we whiled the afternoon away, petting turtles, hanging out with shepherds and taking a nap.

One of Many Moving Rocks on the Mountain

Next time, Nemrut Dagi.

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