Turkey: Lake Van
On Lake Van 60F and clear
This is a spectacular lake the size of Connecticut and the largest in Turkey. The water is so full of calcium that one cannot drink it, though it is lovely for washing clothing without soap!
Yesterday we had a long boat ride to islands with 9th and 10th Century Armenian churches, those stone, forceful, almost angry looking, totally round buildings. In one there are still magnificent frescoes which escaped the Islamic iconoclasts. Faces looking terribly strong and unsympathetic with glaring eyes which follow one about. There are luxuious blue colors from crushed lapis. It was a world-class day of being a tourist!
This town is famous for its fluffy white cats each with one blue eye and one green eye. Also for it's Kilims and wrought silver jewelry made of a finer quality than sterling and lovely. There's also some enticing ancient and reproduction urartian (earliest Armenian) jewelry with fetching little stones and almost primitive pendants attached. Unique.
As our time in Eastern Turkey draws close to its end, I have so many conflicting impressions. the area is some richer than I thought with a more European-like infrastructure in places. Roads vary from pre-Interstate USA to almost-Interstate. One valley is prosperous with good farmhouses, the next rather wretched with houses of stone which look as thought they grew out of the earth. The people are largely minorities and always have been. The Laz on the coast and some ways inland from the Black Sea. The Kurds from Ardahan and Kars onwards - handsome and welcoming. The PKP - the illegal Kurdish group - seems to be absent and many places display Turkish flags as often as one sees the Fleur de Lys in Quebec.
What astounds me is the countryside. As I have written one minute it is Tirol; the next the high green plains of Nevada or Central Montana; the next volcanic scarred earth with massive obsidian strews; the next high peaks such as Ararat rising from the flat or rolling plains; and now Lake Van, the tidal inland sea.
Travelers should see this land. It cries for tourist money and again the people are nothing short of beguiling. We skirted the Georgian, then Armenian and then Iranian borders and there over the mountains is Iraqi Kurdistan - an area which badly seems to frighten the locals, as it does Ankara. Bush is so detested here that I am almost careful about admitting being American where in the recent past this was such a badge of glory in Turkey.
This is a spectacular lake the size of Connecticut and the largest in Turkey. The water is so full of calcium that one cannot drink it, though it is lovely for washing clothing without soap!
Yesterday we had a long boat ride to islands with 9th and 10th Century Armenian churches, those stone, forceful, almost angry looking, totally round buildings. In one there are still magnificent frescoes which escaped the Islamic iconoclasts. Faces looking terribly strong and unsympathetic with glaring eyes which follow one about. There are luxuious blue colors from crushed lapis. It was a world-class day of being a tourist!
This town is famous for its fluffy white cats each with one blue eye and one green eye. Also for it's Kilims and wrought silver jewelry made of a finer quality than sterling and lovely. There's also some enticing ancient and reproduction urartian (earliest Armenian) jewelry with fetching little stones and almost primitive pendants attached. Unique.
As our time in Eastern Turkey draws close to its end, I have so many conflicting impressions. the area is some richer than I thought with a more European-like infrastructure in places. Roads vary from pre-Interstate USA to almost-Interstate. One valley is prosperous with good farmhouses, the next rather wretched with houses of stone which look as thought they grew out of the earth. The people are largely minorities and always have been. The Laz on the coast and some ways inland from the Black Sea. The Kurds from Ardahan and Kars onwards - handsome and welcoming. The PKP - the illegal Kurdish group - seems to be absent and many places display Turkish flags as often as one sees the Fleur de Lys in Quebec.
What astounds me is the countryside. As I have written one minute it is Tirol; the next the high green plains of Nevada or Central Montana; the next volcanic scarred earth with massive obsidian strews; the next high peaks such as Ararat rising from the flat or rolling plains; and now Lake Van, the tidal inland sea.
Travelers should see this land. It cries for tourist money and again the people are nothing short of beguiling. We skirted the Georgian, then Armenian and then Iranian borders and there over the mountains is Iraqi Kurdistan - an area which badly seems to frighten the locals, as it does Ankara. Bush is so detested here that I am almost careful about admitting being American where in the recent past this was such a badge of glory in Turkey.
posted by ultimatetraveler at 8:05 AM
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