11 August, Doğubayazit to Diyadin, 48km
Öğretmenevi 50TL
We are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in
Diyadin. We assume no tourists ever pass through this town of 20,600, 7km off
the main road, as we have been treated like celebrities all day: everyone
smiling and greeting us, people asking to have their photos taken with us, one
man inviting us to drink tea in his family home and then inviting us to spend
the night, families going out of their way to drive us to the nearby thermal
spring and back to our hotel, men buying us post-dinner Nescafe. We arrived
here after a pleasing ride on a road in perfect nick that took us through naked
hills, their true colours shining through: earth coloured red and aubergine,
green and grey, tan and brown. The Kurdish home we visited comprised three large
rooms – lounge, bedroom and kitchen, with, we assume, an outside bathroom. The
mattresses and bedding were piled almost ceiling high in the bedroom to make
space for our host, his wife and their five children: four girls and one boy. While
we consumed cinnamon tea and chocolate toffee sweets with dad and granddad,
mom, kids and cousins sat to one side watching. After a nap, we walked through
the town onto the road to the thermal spring not very optimistic about getting
a lift, but within minutes found ourselves bouncing around on the floor of a panel
van with the women of another proudly Kurdish family. All day I had been
fantasising about the hot spring in which we were to swim, only to find, as is
often the case in Turkey, that the reality was considerably less romantic than
my imaginings, but so quintessentially “Turkish” that I could not help but
enjoy it. Instead of a hot pool beneath a canopy of green trees, the spring
water has been diverted into separate buildings for men and women. These are
ugly and stand on a dusty, litter-strewn plain. In “my” building was a large
pool filled with hot mineral water, with semi-naked women and totally naked
children, both girls and boys, bathing and swimming and chatting and relaxing. And
there I joined them while Charl did his thing next door, and loved every
minute.
Between Doğubayazit and Diyadin
Between Doğubayazit and Diyadin
Between Doğubayazit and Diyadin
Between Doğubayazit and Diyadin
Kurdish family - lift to thermal pools