Let’s go east !
Naz is our Turkish Mercedes Sprinter Motorhome.
We bought her in 2021 with over 700,000km on her 2006 old lady clock. It’s been interesting, challenging and emotional to say the least, but mostly it’s been fabulous. Be sure to follow all our adventures and hopefully more to come.
7.9.21
Last night we slept in a lay by 102 km outside of Erzurum on the Bingol road after deciding to head east after the Black sea Coast, rather than head home to Fethiye. It was certainly a noisy place to be and at 6.30am a huge lorry that was parked across the back of us started his engine, woke us up and kept the engine running for 10 minutes. Cheers mate.
Today we were headed towards Ishak Paşa Sarayı on the recommendation of 2 friends.
We set off at 9.30am, back along the road towards Erzurum and saw the magnificent scenery that we couldn’t see in the dark last night.
We even saw a stray cow
The scenery changes all the time, it’s amazing. A few interesting sights along the way.
On the hill we could see Pasinler castle.
The area around Pasinler had fields and fields of sunflowers, many being harvested.
It’s a weird feeling being nearer to Armenia than home in Fethiye.
We recognised the Armenian architecture style from our trip to Ani a couple of years ago. We had to stop and take photos.
Shortly after, we saw the Doğu Express crawling along on its way from Kars to Erzurum. Anyone who hasn’t done the Ankara to Kars train trip should do it, we absolutely loved all 25 hours of it.
More scenery photos, just couldn’t stop saying wow!
By 1pm we were starving and pulled off into the little town of Yoncalı and raided the bakery. I didn’t see any uncovered women and definitely haven’t got the right clothes for this trip. It’s 27 degrees but I don’t think shorts will be acceptable here. Once we had decided to head east I did buy a cotton pashmina and hope that with knee length dresses will be ok.
The next stretch of the journey was very flat and quite barren apart from occasional clumps of trees.
We were pulled over for routine checks twice by the Jandarma. The second time was in a concrete bay. They looked at Johns I.D card and commented on his date of birth and said he looked a lot younger. I laughed and they asked me if I knew Turkish, yes. They were still talking about it and told John he looked great they asked where we were going and wished us a good journey. How lovely 😍
Eventually we saw signs for Ishak Paşa Sarayi, and after passing through Doğubayazıt we saw it up on the mountain.
Twice now we’ve turned off into small towns and on both occasions there are people everywhere in the middle of the streets. They see a big van coming and just expect us to swerve around them. It’s crazy!
It’s a fabulous place, we absolutely loved it. Thank you Sam and Paul for suggesting it.
The views outside were fantastic.
We also saw Mount Ararat, snow tipped and covered in clouds.
John said he was more than happy to drive the 2 and 1/2 hours onwards to Lake Van.
Naz was up to her old overheating tricks. She’s been using lots of water, we bought her some coolant earlier. She only does it on hills, a bit like me yesterday walking up to Sumela Monastery in Trabzon,in a cagoule.
Suddenly there was a strange thud. We looked at each other in disbelief. FFS Naz, now what?
We pulled over on the side of the mountain. John investigated.
A hose pipe had split at each end. After scrabbling around in his grey bag John found jubilee clips and a piece of orange plastic hose, he cut off the split bits with a kitchen knife and rejoined them. Another small pipe wasn’t happy either and that got cut and rejoined too.
John is a squirrel, he collects all sorts of tat that might be useful, on this occasion he saved us.
I always fear that he’ll go first and I’ll be left with all the tat to clear out. At least that’s a few less bits now.
Naz chugged along happily after this, we wonder if maybe there was an air lock. We will take her in tomorrow and get the thermostat checked and get some sparkly new hoses. The handbrake needs adjusting too, and during the cold weather up in Üzungöl we discovered the dashboard heater doesn’t work. They may as well keep her for the day while we explore Van.
We got our first glimpse of Lake Van as the sun was setting.
We saw a layby right next to the lake and decided to stop here overnight. There was a very basic looking lokanta too and a hose to fill Nazs water tank.
The lokanta owner came out to see us, with his 3 sons. The young lads helped John with the water while Haydar and I chatted over çay. It’s probably the longest Turkish conversation I’ve ever had as the water only trickled from the hose.
We asked what food they had and opted for the lamb saç kavurma, tiny cubes of lamb with chilis and peppers and seasoning cooked on a curved pan, a bit like a wok, without the sides.
It was absolutely delicious. 2 of their friends came in and joined the 3 lads and Haydar around our table. We sat chatting for a long while after, such a lovely family and great practice for me.
Haydars answer to everything is sıkıntı yok, not a problem. Do I need to wear a scarf and long clothes in Van? Will the garages need to order parts? Is Diyarbakır safe? John’s scared to go to Hatay as it’s so close to Syria. Shall we pay you now or in the morning? ”sıkıkntı yok”
When we left, Haydar jumped into the van with John and I sat in the back with the dogs and we moved Naz to beside the lake. Haydar said goodnight and we swapped numbers so he can contact a good mechanic and we can contact him if we need anything in the night.
What a fabulous first impression of eastern hospitality, we are assured by Haydar that the people in the east are the best. Relax he kept saying, everything is sıkıntı yok!
Good night from fabulous Lake Van.
