Buyuk Asur Van

... 305;st &#305;ndustry for a long t&#305;me to know whos what. But I somehow doubt &#305;t as maybe he could have heard thru the grapev&#305;ne as &#305;t &#305;s a small place. He happens to be the go-to guy for Iran&#305;an V&#305;sas. We chatted ab&#305;t and when he spotted a few 'Austral&#305;an' tour&#305;sts we sa&#305;d our goodbyes and I set off to the bus stat&#305;on. <br><br>Once at the bus stat&#305;on, the man beh&#305;nd the counter asked for my t&#305 ...

... the bible. But I think the swim off the island afterward was more memorable. Lake Van is another Dead Sea in the making &#8211; I think it has no outlet. So the water, clear and clean, tasted slightly salty and at the same time sweet, since there are higher than normal concentration of mineral in it, and my skin was slimy when wet. <br><br>We also found out that Aug. 30 is an important day in Turkey, it is their Victory Day, when ...

... objective of the following morning was to visit the Akdamar Island with another of the iconic sights of Turkey, the 10th century Akdamar Kilisesi (Church of the Holy Cross). I first wasted some time looking for a mini-bus stand at which the LP book indicated transportation could be found. But I couldn't find it. And no one I questioned seemed to have any firm knowledge either. So I did what I should have done in the first place, just go to the otogar and take a major ...

... to be told the bus left an hour earlier than it did yesterday. Everyone seemed to have a different story so we decided we'd head out to the station and figure it out there. When I returned to the hotel room James was looking a lighter shade of green and was literally doing shuttle runs to and from the bathroom at very regular intervals! He was so ill but insisted he'd be OK for the 8 hour bus trip! It must have been the kebab from last night &#8211; my inner ...

... sn't routýnely cleaned. I was on the top floor, whých only had my room and a large dorm. I saýd hý to the guys hangýng out and learned they were from Iran. They were extremely frýendly and ýt was a posýtýve, hopeful experýence to meet them as Obama attempts to navýgate a dýalogue wýth Ajawhateverhýsnameýs before Israel does somethýng sýlly. The followýng day I met Hyun, who was travelýng wýth her mother from Korea. We arranged to have a guýded tour of Van ...

... wall. I didnt know why there was so much military presence. Were we in Kurdish territory. If so, were they looking for Kurdish extremists. Was it because we were not too far (but yet not too close either) from the Iraqi border. Was this a common road for opium to cross through from Afghanistan - via Iran (apparently it is the season). I had no idea so I was forced to come up with my own conclusion. I guessed it had to do with drugs as they were ...

... that we found one company that still had a bus going to Van at 130 pm - less than an hour's wait for us. Perfect! We bought our tickets and headed for the bus. I was surprised to see that we were issued seats 1, 2 and 3. Did this mean that there would be no one else on the bus? When I got there, I realized that we were. I had never seen this before. However, we did notice about 6 older Turkish men loading the luggage compartment and the inside of the bus with candy ...

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... to about 17% I plugged it in. It was not charging, but I was continuing to read an email and listen to some jazz via iTunes and KPLU, when there was a little tick, and the screen went black. <br><br>I also left my dark glasses on the bus on the way to Van. Changing seats and whatnot to view the spectacular scenery--at least along the south shore. <br> <br>Anyway, all I did in Van was to walk down to and climb around the Castle. In ...