The second time I went to Turkey after exactly one year from the first time, it was because I felt I needed to finish that journey, discovering also the eastern side of the country, the more remote one, the one culturally and geographically closer to Asia than Europe, where sometimes I had to struggle in order to be understood, because english over there is not widely spoken. After having seen the cosmopolitan, modern, huge, international and sometimes intimidating size of Istanbul and the charming, quiet and colourful Safranbolu (the name comes from Saffron, since the city was an important trading place, especially for saffron trade), what was on my list this time was the capital city Ankara, the beautiful desertic area of Cappadocia, the very eastern city of Kars and the ancient ruin of Ani, on the border with Armenia.
Cappadocia was also the chance to meet other fellow travellers from Asia, chinese and irani people, that went travelling there starting from their hometown with different ways, someone hitching and someone biking. Some of those people despite the cold november cappadocian nights and despite the barking, wild and skinny dogs around, decided to camp in the nature and lit a fire. Free-camping is supposed to be forbidden in Turkey but apparently after having talked to them, I had the feeling that generally police-men are not very concerned about people sleeping in tents in the middle of nowhere.
The Dogu-train crossing Turkey from Kayseri to Kars was probably the longest train journey I had in all my life (1am to 8 pm). The experience is supposed to be once of a lifetime experience according to travel bloggers and other people who did the same route before. I have to say that the ride was overall pretty enjoyable and very much into "what locals do" since I haven't met any foreigner doing that route that night, maybe because of the off-season. I should have maybe booked myself a cabin in order to have a more comfortable experience but I forgot and ended up on a broken uncomfortable seat for all that exhausting journey.
The very same night I reached Kars and along with me came the first and only turkish literature nobel price, Orhan Pamuk. He was there in order to investigate on a series of young islamic girls suicides, reported on a book called "Snow" and when I was reading about his experience in the city, I tried to find my marking points too. I was hosted by a student from Mauritania called Sidi, that took me out with his student fellows for a sunday afternoon tea and it was somehow nice to be back into student life, even if it was only for an afternoon. The crew was very social and very international, most of the people were from Africa or Middle East and I think overall they felt pretty well welcomed in the country as foreign students.
Leaving Kars otherwise was not easy. This are the notes I took while still being there: "I am still here but I hope I will manage to leave soon. I am left with no cash and no internet on my phone in a very modest, dusty and overpacked bus station that does not take card and that is why I missed my first bus. In order to jump on the next and last one for the day, in about 3 hrs I have to relocate to another bus station out of town and in order to do that, I start to walk around in search of a taxi driver and after a while I found one who says he could do it for 100 liras, basically all I have left in my pocket. The taxi driver takes me accidentally to the station where I was first and I start to lose my temper, having to face the same folks that refused to take my card just half an hour before. It starts to snow and I am completely unprepared for that weather. I thought Turkey was a warm country but once you go east, everything is completely different. I jumped back on the same taxi and the man wants to charge me double now and since I have no cash with me, I decide I will pay for the petrol of his car. I get out of the car, talk to the man working at the petrol station and I suddendly find myself tanking a taxi in Kars, one of the most remote corner of eastern Turkey, and that feels unreal. Once the taxi is filled, the driver looks a bit more relaxed and somehow happy with the deal. He takes me to station number two, a bit more than 15 km out of town, without any other sort of misunderstandment, except from the fact that once I get there, I notice that I have just reached an abandoned empty building. The only thing I can spot from there, are a bunch of local people sitting in circle inside a very small house, around a fireplace. They say the bus isn't running from there anymore and I feel this nightmare is never gonna end. The place from where I am now supposed to catch my bus, it is another petrol station nearby and in order to reach it, I have to jump on another taxi and pay extra 150 liras. I have no cash left at all except from the last 100 liras I still have in my pocket and I try to make those folks understand my situation but all efforts seem useless. I gave them all my money and luckily they decide to take me to the actual bus stop and even call the bus company to tell them that there is one more bloody passenger to pick up and give them the address of the point where they will find me. I am then welcomed to another small room and offered a cup of tea. After sometime a man working there comes out and starts to talk to me and tells me to walk to the next petrol station, a bit further down the road, because once again the pick up point is not clearly the exact one. I am walking along a turkish highway under stormy snowy weather and suddendly three huge trucks carryng tanks pass me by, covered with a huge black plastic blanket, immense as the dark force of war. I start to wonder about how does it feel to be there on the spot, on the battle field, standing under the snow all by yourself, with your feet wet and see those ancestral monsters moving around and spitting fire with their baritonal voice. It must feel like something too big to understand for a human, something that also nature can not explain."
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