Mardin

Not once we mentioned about extraordinary hospitality of Turkish people. In this case: of Kurdish people as the thing happened while we were trying to leave Diyarbakir. As always we set off in the morning and headed to the place where from we could get some ride to our next destination. It was not far away from the place where we slept so we got there on foot. Unfortunately it was not one of these amazing places just created for hitch-hiking…it was actually still middle of the city, with heavy traffic but without a proper side-space and definitely not isolated from the civilization which doesn’t help, as you look more like somebody waiting for dolmus rather than a hitch-hiker. Not much time passed until the first helper appeared explaining us that hitch-hiking there is impossible. We knew he wasn’t right. Of course it’s possible it can just take longer than usual. We were trying to remain polite so we shared the duties – I was hitch-hiking, Chris was talking to the locals. But what is actually impossible – is encouraging local people that they can be wrong and you can be right. That’s why in no time we ended up in some dolmus which were going to the bus station without even paying a fee since because of our guest status we were not allowed to! We were thinking: all right, we’ll get there, take a walk to the ring road and then hitch-hike! Perfect plan as the bus station was not far away from amazing hitch-hiking place. And once again, before we even had a chance of trying…we were sat down in another dolmus going strait to Mardin! 

We surely could run away hoping that our host will not chase us but was there any point? We could only thank and find ourselves in new situation. We have no advice what you should do when somebody offers paying for your ticket. But if you decide to budget travel in Turkey it is very likely that one day somebody will buy a ticket for you although you will try to refuse it many times. Just appreciate that and don’t take advantage on people’s hospitality.

Mardin is far more attractive than Diyarbakir and in our opinion is one of the best places in whole Turkey. Old town is like open-air musem with astonishing architecture including several mosques, churches, madrasses. What is more all the buildings in the Old Town are inhabited so you can easily enjoy Mardin daily life while walking among pupils, fairs, shops with natural soap and groceries – not like in Europe where high rates of rent kills life in the downtowns.

After visiting Mardin troublefree we moved to Sanli Urfa meet with our next host - Dogan.

In the evening we had a stroll around old town of Sanli Urfa (or simply Urfa) to see the Pool of Sacred Fish (Balikligolu in Turkish). But the main city-discovering was booked for the next day :-)