Sanay life and a huge chunk of history
14.9.21
Is it weird that I’m enjoying living at the sanay? I’ve only ever lived in cities and imagine this is what living in a small village would be like, but with oil, grease and grinders.
First stop the mosque. I’m sure you all want to know the toilet situation. Let’s just say we only use our van loo for number 1s. A handy hint learnt from Tread the Globes Chris & Maryanne. Pouring pee down convenient drains is straightforward. https://www.youtube.com/c/TREADtheglobe
So the mosque toilets.. The middle one has a lock so if you’re really lucky you get that one. They’re of course squat toilets and even they are oily. The bottom third of the doors are covered in cigarette burns. My mind boggles as to how they juggle the squat and the fag. The middle one even has someones name expertly burnt into it. A real masterpiece of skill.
The hand washing is outside where people sit on low concrete stools to wash their feet. This means the taps are very low. I’ve perfected a sideways knee bend motion to avoid flashing my popo (bottom) at the guys in the garage opposite.
Next to the mosque is a store with very limited groceries and next to that is a Turkish pide, (pizza) and toastie shop, they also make that lovely pide bread.
We’ve met all the various street dogs now. The puppy is sure we’re his humans and guards our van all night.
Ömer continued to dismantle our engine. He called John over.. Remember our new clutch from Burdur 13 days ago? Yep.. In bits. I asked how, user error!! And poor Chinese quality. John obviously has struggled with Naz not running right, so I can sort of understand.
We decided to get our bumper fixed by the guys a few garages down who shout “çay çay” to us everytime we walk by, the filler is done, looking good. We’ve not stopped for çay yet as we usually have a toilet roll with us when we go by!
Yesterday I went along to the tap the other way to get drinking water, the tap wasn’t working, so the guy in the end garage called me over. He filled my container from his tap and gave me a large oily capped bottle from his freezer too. He then called his lad to carry it back for me.
Today we both went along, tap still broken, and filled up again from their tap and were invited to drink çay, with unlimited refills! They have no work at all, I felt sad for them.
We’ve been invited to his mums house for dinner tomorrow but being terribly British we will probably make excuses not to go.
At 2pm Murat from Nemrut tours arrived. We picked up a young Turkish lady, Busra and her mum in town on the way. They were lovely.
Our first stop were some pillars high up the mountain.
Next was a Roman bridge. It was similar, but not as attractive as the Armenian one in Malabadi near Batman, but had gorgeous scenery around it. I absolutely love Armenian architecture and would love to visit Armenia. And Iran, and Albania, and Macedonia and and and…
Next stop after a drink at the bridge cafe was a photo shoot 😂
Next was Yeni Kale. Closed by the government a few years ago because of risk of collapse. We saw it from the front and back.
Another favourite photo. We’re thinking of trading Naz in for our next travels.
Our first glimpse of Nemrut.
It really was getting exciting now, we’ve wanted to visit for so long. We parked up and then there’s a 600 metre walk to the top. It doesn’t sound far but it was hard going, obviously steep, lots of steps and a bit low on oxygen.
First we went to the East Terrace.
Then to the Western Terrace where we took lots of photos, chatted and sat waiting for the sunset. It was truly magical. I was worried as it’s one of those places you feel like you’ve already seen from so many photos, but it’s incredible to be there in person.
Amazing.
We walked back down and it was a relief to get back in Murats van. Apparently it was 18 degrees, but it felt really cold.
On the way to Nemrut Murat drove so nicely. On the way home he was like a lunatic. John did say to him I know you do this journey twice a day but please slow down as you’re on your phone and the bends are sharp.
A few minutes later we almost hit a young lad with a huge cow. The journey down the bends got faster, I swear he was showing off. If it wasn’t for his kind offer of accommodation and if we need anything just shout we’d be mentioning it on their review page.
The dogs were pleased to see us, it had been 6 hours, but we know they’d have been sleeping.
Curt rang me, he did 3 viewings on my UK house and was reporting back. Also there is a very dodgy floorboard in one bedroom, on the verge of collapse, the shed needs removing and they’ve had an issue with mice. All of this has been reported to the absolutely useless Pink Street agency who have not replied to them or let me know. They got a scathing email from me last night.
Ömer knocked on the van around 8.30 pm and said we would go together tomorrow at 6 am to Gaziantep to take the engine head. I laughed and translated to John that Ömer was making a joke.
Ömer rarely smiles, he’s a very quiet man, he did find the John Cleese video car clip funny though.
Ömer then put Google translate on and it said we will go to Gaziantep together tomorrow at 6 am.
Oh.. Ok.. Not a joke.
We made dinner, washed up and went to bed, setting our alarms for 5.30 am.
Eeeek.
