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Van Slideshow
Travel Blogs from Van, Turkey
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Plenty of çay but no cats
This is a top pick! ... out soap!). Cats - cats with white fur and one green eye and one blue eye. But wait - there's more! They like swimming!!! Van Kalesi - huge ruin of the old fortress. We arrived pretty early from our shocker bus ride. But we got cake and tea ...
The Cool Cats Of Van..
This is a top pick! Greetings from deep, dark, Eastern Turkey. Yes, we're in Van. Van is one of the places that everyone you bump into tells you just have to visit. So of course we hated it for one reason or another. Van's main claim to fame is Van Lake (3rd biggest in ...
So close, we can smell it!
This is a top pick! ... islam to read which will keep me busy during those long bus journeys. Might help me understand the culture gap a little better! Turkey has been great this time. East Turkey has good cheap food, friendly people and is without tourists. I had to dress ...
Relics of Van
This is a top pick! ... There was also a tomb that a Muslim Holy Man was buried in. We eventually found it but it was all locked up. Basically, here in Turkey, any tomb or cave, the locals shit in, so we could only think that the reason for it being closed, was to stop it being ...
Sick as a dog
... reveal small snippets of landscape at a time before all of a sudden revealing the vast expanse of water that is the 74 mile wide Van Lake. The water was eeeriy calm and the differing shades of blue in the lake was most majestic. Never the les, I felt ...
RO: Van to Sahgeldi: Van to Patnos Sect. 1
1st trip: Section 1 of Van to Patnos. Just trying to approximate the true land travel route. ...
Van Again
... name of the university. But the campus seemed a lot like other university campuses I have seen in Turkey. A vast space punctuated by randomly placed buildings of no particular, distinguishing, unifying style, the large intervening spaces ...
Good Bye Iran. Hello Turkish Candy Smugglers.
... called Orumiyeh where I should be able to find a bus to Van (that is if the bus station is open there) which is a town in Turkey. After saying goodbye to the guys, I jumped into a taxi with a very nice and young couple from New Zealand (Miles and Fran) ...
Removing my glasses
Falco had been uttering the two month rule as a pivotal point in most long term travellers experiences, one in which you remove your rose-tinted spectacles and come to see life at its lived. This afternoon may have been the day the light hit my eyes, not ...
Forcing my own conclusions
... conclusion. I guessed it had to do with drugs as they were checking each car carefully. If the drug runners could get through Turkey, they would have no more borders to worry about as Europe is wide open. 10 minutes after we passed through ...
Van: Some Trouble
... noting a visit by space aliens. I had a little trouble finding my way to the proper otogar to continue on from Van. Sometimes the directions in the Lonely Planet guide books are less than adequate. And, being a former technical illustrator and writer, ...
Van
... trendy cafes, restaurants, and higher end clothing shops it was hard to believe we were still in this part of Turkey. We spent 3 days in Van - 2 for sight seeing and 1 to just relax. It's a sizable city with a population of over ...
Van & Haek "Amazing"
Having said farewell to my friend Maria, she flew to Istanbul to meet her husband and I to Van. It was here that I met Haek, an Armenian musician playing the duduck and who had just completed some concerts in Ankara and Istanbul. Before heading back to ...
Vangölu Express & Lake Van
Traveled from İstanbul to Van, a small cıty ın Turkey's southeast, on the VanGölu Express traın. Thıs was my fırst major trıp by traın and I must admıt- I'm not a terrıbly bıg fan of 'slow travel'. The tourıst agency ın İstanbul quoted the ...
Van: The Pearl of the East
... carry it! On our way out of Van we stopped at the University to see the famous swimming cat of Turkey, the Van cat...a white cat which often has two different colored eyes because of interbreeding. There is a special breeding program underway ...
How did I end up at a Kurdish Wedding?!?
... when there was a huge language barrier. I kept trying to talk about my boyfriend, even getting out Barika's photos, but in Turkey, 'boyfriend' has little meaning except to show that you are 'loose' (in hindsight!). He then wanted me to drink beer with ...
hotel in the middle of the city FAB
... of life, ventured through the bazaars. Had dinner with an Armenian man and his wife - very nice people. Two days in Van with Nick - so time to chill and catch up with sleep after our climb. Try the Simit Sarayi (I had filo pastry ...
Van Castle over 1 mile long!!!
Yes you need to walk to the castle from the hotel - why? People stop and natter to practice their English, it gives you time to take in the local shops and sights, and the exercise will do you good. The castle is huge 850 BC approximately, some of ...
"You've got to admit, it's getting better..."
Merhaba from Van, Turkey! It's amazing how the weather can change your impression of a city. While the "sights" of Erzerum were still nonexistent, the sunshine and warm weather put us both in better moods. The city itself is not worth noting, but ...
Waiting in Van
Spent a few days in van waiting for the weekly train to Tehran and resorted my stuff. Watched Turkey v Belgium with some locals in a tea bar and found quite a few Turkish Kurds supporting Belgium (anyone but Turkey). Had to be careful here ...
Entree en Turquıe
... quelques ralentissements et controle de nos passeports et la sensation toujours etrange d etre environnes par des gens en armes, nous arrivons a Van a l aide de deux minibusq ui nous rappelent au prix de l essence en Turquie. On sortira de Van en mimibus ...
45 Hours Later
... . You're welcome" they continued to tell me where they went to school pointing down the road and asking whether I liked Van and Turkey and where my wife had gone. They chatted for a while stopping to regularly ask one another what a ...
The Kurds and Eastern Turkey
... it. Besides meeting lots of very friendly people, we've also seen some amazing natural and man-made sites. At Van lake, the largest lake in Turkey, we went to the Armenian church located on an island and also saw the Van cat, a species specific ...
Lamb, bulgar wheat and EFES beer
... lunch we travel on the local ferry (opposite site) to Aktamar Island, where we visit and learn about the small but perfectly engraved church (see photo). Lake Van is beautiful, blue blue water, pretty flowers growing around it, calm and very ...
Van Cats on Akdamar Island
... Sacha Baron Cohen's (the guy who did Ali G) Kazakhstanie caracture. So maybe I should have said more Turkmen than Turkish!?! Van town itself wasn't anything like the dust bowls of Tatvan and Dogubayazit (where I am now), modern and prosporous, the ...
Van
The drive from Hasankeyf to Van went through beautiful low green mountains -- some dotted with colorful wildflowers -- and alongside Lake Van (a big clear saltwater lake, ringed by mountains). The trip took all day, though, and I only felt like ...
Van - the Queenstown of Turkey
... about another two hours. Finally the city of Van came into view, bringing the nine hour journey to end. Van is known as the resort town of Eastern Turkey – you can swim in the lake in summer and ski in the mountains around the lake in winter ...
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