Day 86 (Turkey): rest day in Diyarbakir

It was a late start and a slow day. Just as it should be on a day off. I was briefly toying with the idea of taking a bus to Sanliurfa, but then decided against it - sleeping in and just having a day off seemed like a good idea.

So I wandered around town only to find out that I must have left my USB stick in an internet cafe the night before. It does seem that the heat is turning my brain to mush. Forgot my wallet in a gas station toilet and then my USB stick in an internet cafe. I did recover it at the end of the day though - again being very lucky.

Here are a few observations about this area. Whomever I talked to so far - they all were adamant that this is not really Turkey, but all referred to this area as Kurdistan. The fact that the Turkish team made the quarter finals of the Euro 2008 is not really anything people get excited about as they really don’t seem to feel any allegiance to Turkey. People I meet are all enthralled with Abdullah Öcalan (former head of the PKK - depending on your point of view a terrorist organization or an organization fighting for the freedom of the Kurdish people; I am careful in my choice of words here as I have no intention to take sides) for one thing and appalled by the fact that he is in held in prison in and by Turkey (this goes to show that many people look at this as a foreign entity almost). One quick example: “How do you like Turkey?” The obvious answer - so as not to offend anyone - is that it is a good place and that I was treated very kindly. Which is true. This is met by: “No, Turkey is no good. You are in Kurdistan and it is very nice.” You eventually get used to these kinds of things.

There is a slight change of plan for the trip - I will not be heading to Georgia and Azerbaijan after all. The infection that I was suffering from in February and March and the delay I had in getting the spare parts to Ankara makes it necessary to take the short cut to Iran, meaning that I will be heading over the border from Turkey into Iran.