Falling off the tourist trail

So how do you manage to fall off the tourist trail? Well, hitching seems a sure way of doing it and this is exactly how I left Cappadocia. I had arrived by taxi (which is a long story for itself) and now I wanted to get out of Cappadocia for free. The plan was to hitch all the way to Adana in the South and then take whatever bus I could get to either Sanliurfa or Diyarbakir. There wasn't much traffic on the main road and it took me about an hour, a fair bit of walking and two rides to cover the 55km to Nigde. My last ride dropped me at the Nigde bus station and looking at the time I was contemplating taking a bus from there to Adana. This turned out an excellent choice because otherwise I would not have met Sinan, a sports teacher who was attending a course at Nigde university and who was on his way home to Adana. He was very keen on practising his English and so we spent the best part of the three hour ride conversing.

Nigde bus terminal where I met Sinan

Cruising South to Adana through tree-less landscape on a brand new motorway

Arriving in Adana, Sinan helped me sort out my onward bus ticket, which was going to be my first overnight bus. The departure time was midnight and I had at least five hours left to do... well, what do you do at a bus terminal? When I asked that to Sinan he decided to invite me to his home for the evening. And what an awesome evening it was! I was served plenty of delicious home-made Turkish food which his wife and mother-in-law had prepared, I showed him my “photo collection” (before leaving home I looked through the like last 10 years of my life and picked some photos to help me make conversations with locals on the road, photos that tell about me, my family, friends, hobbies and my jobs), we went on a night cruise through the city and stopped for some künefe, a hot-served Turkish desert made with cheese, and chilled out in front of his huge flatscreen TV before he gave me a ride back to the bus terminal. The hospitality of Sinan and his family were truly overwhelming, and the least I could do was leave my e-mail address behind in case he ever makes it to Germany.

My decision to go to Diyarbakir took me even further of the tourist trail. Like Antalya, Konya and Adana, it is another of these gigantic boom-towns (it is more than 10km from the bus terminal on the outskirts to the city centre, and there is nothing but apartment buildings along the way), but this one is situated in the Kurdish dominated area of Turkey. Diyarbakir has been inhabited for more than two millennia, but barley attracts any foreign tourists. I figure that is due to the tensions between Kurds and Turkish military that have led to clashes here in the past, and even fatalities. I have seen some heavily protected military bases here and the odd armoured vehicle on the road, but other than that it is just a normal place like any other. Being one of the very few tourists here I got a fair bit of attention on the old streets in the city centre and also in Mardin, a town 80km south that I visited on a day trip. So many people wanted to know where I am from and what my name is, and all but one encounters were very pleasant and friendly, like people asking me to take photos of them, offering me to dry my trousers in front of a heater after a heavy downpour or giving me bananas for free on a small local market. Okay, if you wander off the main streets you are likely to attract some kids that can accumulate into big groups. It is actually fun as long as they just ask for your name, but when they start asking for money, well... In those situations I just walked into a direction that promised a few adults around, and the first elder would usually tell them to bugger off – which always worked. The only time I got really concerned was whilst watching some locals perform a dance in a side street. All of the sudden I found myself surrounded by a horde of teens, and they did not seem very pleased when I didn't recognise the name Abdulla Öcalan (the imprisoned PKK leader) at first. After a short while I realised what and who they were on about. I made a prison cross bar gesture with my fingers and the atmosphere changed instantaneously. At the end they all shook my hand goodbye whilst saying “we are Kurdish” and then buggered off.

Diyarbakir's old mighty city wall...

...and a view from the city wall

This black and white design is typical for many of the mosques in Diyarbakir

Mahmoud and a life-time supply of tobacco

One of the entrance gates to the old city of Diyarbakir

From what I read I understand that the situation regarding the recognition of the Kurdish people as a minority has improved over the last years. And frankly, looking at the economical situation here people have enough to worry about as it is.

Formerly a palace entrance, now entrance to a Mardin school

Mardin in late afternoon sun

Two well behaved Mardin kids