The Cool Cats Of Van..
Trip Start
May 02, 2006
1
41
113
Trip End
Mar 02, 2007
Van,
Turkey
Thursday, August 17, 2006
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 the world.. woohoo for you) and Van Castle. Another obscure claim to fame is that it's home to a unique breed of white fluffy cats with one blue and one yellow eye. Aptly, these cats are named Van cats, there's originality for you. Lastly on the highlight package is Akdamar Island and the Armenian church that resides on it.
So, with all that in mind we decided to see all the above with some Italian friends we met on the bus from Erzurum to Dogubayazit
01 The Cool Cats Of Van..
. We cut a deal with the nephew of our hotel owner to see all of the above in a day which was good for us and good for him or so we thought.Our tour starts with a visit to Van university to see the cats that are being held there so as to work out what the genetics are that cause the two different eyes. Apparently there's only a 100 left with the peculiar eyes so they're trying to splice the genetic code so they can save the species from extinction. We were led to believe that we were going to meet with university staff and discuss the cats with them to see what was being done etc. But as it turned out, our visit consisted of simply driving us to a shed on campus in the middle of nowhere where the cats live and not being able to talk to anyone. Fortunately the cats came out and wanted a scratch through some chicken wire so all was not lost but still a disappointing start to the day.
Stop 2 was Van Castle which was the biggest joke going. The guy gets us there, points up a cliff and says, 'go in that way, it's free'. He then says that he has to run some errands for his sisters wedding and he'll pick us up in an hour which is about an hour to short to see what the actual place has to offer which in reality wasn't much. It's just a bunch of crumbled down rocks on top of a hill with human faeces all over them and a horrible piss smell
02 Too Cute..
. We really loved that place NOT, but we got in for free which was good for the budget and worth a laugh for us all.Stop 3 was Akdamar Island. This was the one we were really looking forward to and should've saved the day. Photos of it are plastered all over Turkey and it is certainly one of the premier sites to see. The guy had told us that they had just spent 2.5 million on it and had finished the work 2 months previously. Given the state of the region and the dearth of tourists in the east we were fairly excited as it would meant not many people would've seen it in it's restored state. Well, guess what, they hadn't finished as you can see by the ladders all over the place and we weren't allowed inside. It was all pretty enough and it will be more than spectacular when it's finished but we were expecting a little more due to this guy filling us up with BS. To say we were pissed off was an under statement. This guy was definitely going to cop a Cole verbal broadside when payment time came for taking us on the worst tour on earth.
So that was Van. The town itself is a fairly interesting place. It seems to be where all the displaced Kurdish villagers have ended up and there's a virtual plague of homeless children orphaned over the years of civil unrest between the Kurds and Turkish Army
03 Kittens Were Kept In Isolation..
. Quite sad really and our first real taste of true poverty since the Romany in rural Romania. The friendliness of them however cannot be denied, almost everyone wanted to stop and have a chat or a cup of tea with us. Truly amazing hospitality given the state of the region.We spent a lovely couple of days with Andreas and Laura in Van despite the botched tour and it was sad to go our separate ways. Hi to you both back in Milano.
Next pod, Hasankeyf - Turkey.
Love,
Nath and Kat.
