· Traveling south, we rise quickly into the forested mountains along twisting roads, until the snow we have seen above is right along the crags and road margins beside us. Snow! Two summits we reach and cross. More snow. Then the descent still south into increasingly rolling arid hills (many under grain cultivation) and deep fertile river valleys, on towards Erzurum.
· Further south we pass great herds of dark brown long-haired sheep tended by herders and their brightly saddled donkeys and horses. Yurt-like tent encampments are here and there along the valley near water.
· The Erzurum-Diyanbakir bus is smaller, about 20 passengers, the atmosphere more convivial, a little tribe of us, we the only ones from outside the region. Along the way we pick up herdsmen and women, taking them to the next encampment or town. Everyone (we’re likely all from some city or town) has good look at these unfamiliar faces and differently dressed and smelling strangers. The bus assistant is carefully attentive, ensuring seats and drop-offs where needed. We think we hear chickens clucking and a sheep kicking somewhere in the rear of the bus, but we aren’t sure.
· Rubbish. Everywhere. Especially of the plastic kind. I imagine a morning when enough Turks set out to market or work or backgammon and find themselves struggling through such great drifts of rubbish that enough will say: Enough! The roads and highways of Turkey are littered with plastic bottles and bags, many blowing across the nearest margins and fields, snagged on weeds and brush. Villages and cities everywhere seem to dump garbage over the nearest hillside or into the closest hollow. Garbage flows down from villages edges to the roadside, or from roadsides down along the margin, or gets piled at road or yard ends. One long-haul bus driver and assistant routinely tossed garbage out the window of the moving bus. Although litter cans dot the city sidewalks, it’s not unusual to see people drop plastic water bottles and fast food packaging where they stand. Turkey can build mega-hydro dams and flood massive valleys and whole villages, but it can’t yet reduce or manage its garbage.
· Another example of the attentive and quickly proffered kindliness we’ve received. As we approach Diyanbakir in the dark, a city of some 750,000 people although no one knows (and a dense warren of 2,000-and-more-year-old streets and laneways), the assistant wants to know where each person needs to disembark. We stymie him with our lack of Turkish, but then curious, concerned passengers jump in, excited exchanges ensue, what sounds like many suggestions and much advice. A man with some English clarifies the name of our hotel, then another burst of conversation up and down the bus. We can only speculate: ‘Take them to that bus stop.’ ‘No forget it, drop them at the otogar (bus depot) outside town.’ What kind of thing is that? We need to help get them right to their hotel.’ Eventually we are told (by the sincere looking fellow with some English) to follow another passenger when he gets off, which we do, following him (packs on our backs) across an intersection whirling with traffic, down another street, then hopping on a city bus with him, us asking about fare and him arranging with the driver that no fare is needed (or too much of a damn nuisance to even consider). Then our man, just before he jumps off the bus, arranges to hand us off to a another city bus passenger (clearly a stranger to him) who has agreed to show us where to get off for our hotel – which we does, getting of himself and leading the way a further half a block … at which point he smiles and vanishes, as have all the others as we shout back our thank-you’s in broken Turkish and Kurdish.
· Further south we pass great herds of dark brown long-haired sheep tended by herders and their brightly saddled donkeys and horses. Yurt-like tent encampments are here and there along the valley near water.
· The Erzurum-Diyanbakir bus is smaller, about 20 passengers, the atmosphere more convivial, a little tribe of us, we the only ones from outside the region. Along the way we pick up herdsmen and women, taking them to the next encampment or town. Everyone (we’re likely all from some city or town) has good look at these unfamiliar faces and differently dressed and smelling strangers. The bus assistant is carefully attentive, ensuring seats and drop-offs where needed. We think we hear chickens clucking and a sheep kicking somewhere in the rear of the bus, but we aren’t sure.
· Rubbish. Everywhere. Especially of the plastic kind. I imagine a morning when enough Turks set out to market or work or backgammon and find themselves struggling through such great drifts of rubbish that enough will say: Enough! The roads and highways of Turkey are littered with plastic bottles and bags, many blowing across the nearest margins and fields, snagged on weeds and brush. Villages and cities everywhere seem to dump garbage over the nearest hillside or into the closest hollow. Garbage flows down from villages edges to the roadside, or from roadsides down along the margin, or gets piled at road or yard ends. One long-haul bus driver and assistant routinely tossed garbage out the window of the moving bus. Although litter cans dot the city sidewalks, it’s not unusual to see people drop plastic water bottles and fast food packaging where they stand. Turkey can build mega-hydro dams and flood massive valleys and whole villages, but it can’t yet reduce or manage its garbage.
· Another example of the attentive and quickly proffered kindliness we’ve received. As we approach Diyanbakir in the dark, a city of some 750,000 people although no one knows (and a dense warren of 2,000-and-more-year-old streets and laneways), the assistant wants to know where each person needs to disembark. We stymie him with our lack of Turkish, but then curious, concerned passengers jump in, excited exchanges ensue, what sounds like many suggestions and much advice. A man with some English clarifies the name of our hotel, then another burst of conversation up and down the bus. We can only speculate: ‘Take them to that bus stop.’ ‘No forget it, drop them at the otogar (bus depot) outside town.’ What kind of thing is that? We need to help get them right to their hotel.’ Eventually we are told (by the sincere looking fellow with some English) to follow another passenger when he gets off, which we do, following him (packs on our backs) across an intersection whirling with traffic, down another street, then hopping on a city bus with him, us asking about fare and him arranging with the driver that no fare is needed (or too much of a damn nuisance to even consider). Then our man, just before he jumps off the bus, arranges to hand us off to a another city bus passenger (clearly a stranger to him) who has agreed to show us where to get off for our hotel – which we does, getting of himself and leading the way a further half a block … at which point he smiles and vanishes, as have all the others as we shout back our thank-you’s in broken Turkish and Kurdish.
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