Lake Van
This was to be a nice leisurely day, touring the north (and supposedly more beautiful) shore of the lake, ending up in Dogubuyazit after lunch for a chill out before the Iranian border.
The hotel staff base me farewell- it's the Dinç not the Cinç by the way!
It was a beautiful day and the Ahlat Seljuk cemetery was magnificent, and I was the only person visiting.
The guardian of the cemetery had an MZ motorcycle so we had a bit of a chat about that. He then invited me to have breakfast with him and his mate - I accepted çay (see what I did there, Johan) but declined anything more.
Both chaps were interested that I was Irish and told me about this Irish boxer who had had a bit of a dust up in Istanbul
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OLVeOWrVYe0
I came up on a slow moving truck which I
beeped only to discover it was an armoured car.
It was Getting progressively colder and higher, and I reached 2200m on the way to Dogubayazit. I was careful to Fill up at 109m and that turned out to be a good thing, again.
There was a group of young kids on the main road who spread out across it and forced me to stop, but having heard of stone-throwing incidents in the area I was not about to hang around.
I was already thinking of how I would spend my afternoon since my destination was only 40kms away. Then I noticed a lot of boulders across the road, and some rather ragtag old soldiers barring the way. A local delivery van pulled up alongside and there was lots of shouting and gesticulating. What was clear was that we weren't going to get through - and I had no wish to be caught up in military operations against PKK.
Once I got the map out the guys relaxed and shook hands and showed me how to get the 40 Kms to Dogubuyazit. Basically it involved a 300km circuit which was 3 1/2 sides of a square (!)
So much for my early day. But I found my hotel which was superb and empty, other than the first tourist I had met since leaving Greece which was remarkable.
This was Gøran who was driving his 1930 Ford Model A around the world. We decided to join forces for the border crossing the next day.
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