The trail starts in the upper left at Istanbul, and then the green line is the first half of my trip to southeast Turkey (from Saturday to Tuesday or so). It goes in this order: İstanbul, Ankara, Gazientep, Şanlıurfa, Mardin, Diyarbakir, Mt Nemrut, Adiyaman, and then Gazientep again. From Gazientep, the blue line shows the second half of my trip back to western Turkey (from Wednesday to Friday). It goes from Gazientep, to Ankara, İzmir, Selçuk, Denizli, Pamukkale, and then back to İstanbul. Kind of confusing? Well yeah... this was a jam-packed trip!
I took probably something like 500-600 pictures, and after going through all of them, I was able to reduce it to a little over half of that. You can view the entire collection in my online photo galleries, which will be linked to at the end of this post. I also got a lot of requests to see more pictures that have me and other people in them, so you'll definitely be able to find some of those here and in the galleries!
Saturday, April 26th
The trip started out in Istanbul on Saturday afternoon. We all gathered into a van, and set out.
The first stop was Ankara, which was several hours away. I have a friend named Kağan (Kaahn) here in Istanbul, and his family lives in Ankara, so we went to his family's house to eat dinner that night.
It was delicious, and his family lived in a beautiful apartment with a great view of the city. We ended up spending several hours there, and had a great time. After that, we left Ankara, and spent the night in the van on the way to our next destination.
Sunday, April 27th
Early in the morning, we arrived in the city of Gazientep. There, we picked up another passenger (our number increased to about 16 then), and headed to a lake to hang out for a while, and then for Şanlıurfa, another city. When we arrived in the city, we ate lunch, and then wandered around. We found these two nice little kids who were willing to lead us around and show us some of the sights. Among other things, we climbed to the top of this castle, where we had a great view of the entire city.
After seeing some more sights, we jumped back in the van and headed for the next city: Mardin. We didn't end up arriving until very late at night, like 11:30 PM. Instead of staying in the van that night, we stayed in an Öğretmen Evi (Teacher's House), which was more or less a hotel, but apparently, teachers who might be traveling around Turkey get to stay there for free. We had a late night dinner...
... and then went to bed.
Monday, April 28th
We woke up on Monday morning, ready for another day of adventure! We spent most of the first part of the day wandering around the city of Mardin. Much of the city is located on the top of a big hill, and if you go to the top, you can see another great view:
We continued to walk around Mardin, visited a couple of mosques...
... saw a few other sights in Mardin, and then got back in the van. Next stop: Tigris River!
After hanging out there for a while, some Turks wanted to take pictures with me and a few other other exchange students. This wasn't very unusual for me at least - whenever I leave Istanbul, it seems like everyone wants pictures with me, because they haven't seen many foreigners, especially black ones. I'm pretty sure they were just curious... so we took pictures with them, and then back in the van! We headed to a city called Diyarbakir, where we had dinner, and then got back in the van for an overnight ride to our next destination.
Tuesday, April 29th
I woke up pretty cranky that morning, because that had been the second night that we spent sleeping in a van. And it was early - like 5:30 AM - when people were waking up. Why so early? Well, we had planned to go to this mountain called Mount Nemrut to watch the sunrise. We didn't quite arrive in time to see the sun rising, but we still got there pretty early! After getting to the top, we saw the main attraction: some stone statues that some ancient culture had placed there a long time ago:
Tuesday, April 29th
I woke up pretty cranky that morning, because that had been the second night that we spent sleeping in a van. And it was early - like 5:30 AM - when people were waking up. Why so early? Well, we had planned to go to this mountain called Mount Nemrut to watch the sunrise. We didn't quite arrive in time to see the sun rising, but we still got there pretty early! After getting to the top, we saw the main attraction: some stone statues that some ancient culture had placed there a long time ago:
It was pretty cool to see these statues, and I was a little bit less cranky after we actually made it to the top (it was cold up there though!). We then went back down the mountain, and headed to a city called Adiyaman. After getting some breakfast, we went to visit an old church, and then some of us went to an internet cafe, which was filled with little kids playing video games.
Later on, it was back to Gazientep, where people started parting ways. A couple of people left for Syria, a few left to see other parts of Turkey, and the rest of us stayed in Gazientep for the night and had dinner. The next morning, some of us (me included) would take a plane to head back to the west of Turkey, while others would be going elsewhere.
Wednesday, April 30th
This might have been my favorite day of the entire trip. By this time, we were down to a group of four people, and while I had had a blast with the big group of 16, it was also nice to be in a smaller group. Anyway, we woke up, hopped on a plane, took a cab, and by noon, we had arrived in our next destination: Selçuk. There, we checked into a cozy little hostel called the Kiwi Pension, and then set off for some sightseeing.
First stop: the ruins at Ephesus, which you can find out more about here. These were the first ruins that I had really seen in my life, and they were pretty amazing. Here is a picture of my American travel companions there; from left to right, that's Brian, Sevgi, and Andrea.
Later on, it was back to Gazientep, where people started parting ways. A couple of people left for Syria, a few left to see other parts of Turkey, and the rest of us stayed in Gazientep for the night and had dinner. The next morning, some of us (me included) would take a plane to head back to the west of Turkey, while others would be going elsewhere.
Wednesday, April 30th
This might have been my favorite day of the entire trip. By this time, we were down to a group of four people, and while I had had a blast with the big group of 16, it was also nice to be in a smaller group. Anyway, we woke up, hopped on a plane, took a cab, and by noon, we had arrived in our next destination: Selçuk. There, we checked into a cozy little hostel called the Kiwi Pension, and then set off for some sightseeing.
First stop: the ruins at Ephesus, which you can find out more about here. These were the first ruins that I had really seen in my life, and they were pretty amazing. Here is a picture of my American travel companions there; from left to right, that's Brian, Sevgi, and Andrea.
After spending an hour or two there, we had some lunch, and then headed for our second major destination for that day: the ruins of the church of St. John. I personally liked this the most out of everything that I saw on the trip!
The evening was approaching, and we decided that it would be nice to find a good place to watch the sunset. We asked around, and were eventually pointed in the direction of a great place to see it. The location was basically this field in the mountains:
After dinner, it was back to the hostel for some sleep!
Thursday, May 1st
After waking up in the cozy Kiwi Pension, it was time to go to our final major destination. Brian had to go straight back to Istanbul to meet with a friend that was coming to visit him, but Andrea, Sevgi, and I took a bus to Pamukkale, which was a few hours away. This place is known for these odd rock formations that have springs pouring down them. It's hard to describe... but maybe you can get a better idea by looking at the pictures:
Thursday, May 1st
After waking up in the cozy Kiwi Pension, it was time to go to our final major destination. Brian had to go straight back to Istanbul to meet with a friend that was coming to visit him, but Andrea, Sevgi, and I took a bus to Pamukkale, which was a few hours away. This place is known for these odd rock formations that have springs pouring down them. It's hard to describe... but maybe you can get a better idea by looking at the pictures:
From far away, it looks like it could be snow, but it's not! Anyway, we climbed to the top, climbed back down, and then headed for the train station, where we would go on an 18-hour overnight train ride back to Istanbul. Luckily, we had beds, but unluckily, the electricity in our car went out during the night, which meant no light or heat! Andrea and I spent a good amount of the night reading and chatting in the restaurant-car, which still had electricity.
Friday, May 2nd
After a few hours of uncomfortable sleep, we were finally back in Istanbul. I have to say, this was probably the most fun I've ever had on a trip! This post is already getting pretty long, but trust me, it would be a LOT longer if I told you about everything that I did. Instead, I'll just link you to the full photo galleries, which document almost everything that I did:
Saturday
Sunday
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
OK, take care everyone!
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