This insanely beautiful expanse of water is Lake Van – Turkey’s biggest lake. There are a few settlements around the lake, but most of its shores are untouched by civilization. You hardly see any boats out there, just the impossibly blue water, surrounded by snow-capped mountains. Pure magic. Instead of taking the bus around [...]
We don’t make hotel reservations. Rather, I should say that we don’t usually make reservations. I think we’ve made maybe two in the last year of travel. That’s just our style. If a guesthouse doesn’t have a room available, the one next door probably will. We weren’t picky to begin with; we’re especially not picky [...]
Turkey is great. In fact, it is our new favorite destination. The one thing that hasn’t worked out for us is the trekking. We’re here way too early. In just two months from now, the weather will be much warmer and drier, the skies will be fair and all the interesting destinations open for [...]
Hasankeyf wasn’t on our itinerary a week ago. We were in the southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey to check out Urfa and Van Lake, before heading further north. As Martin explained here, we got a last minute tip from a family staying in our guesthouse. They told us that the town was a bit of [...]
Most of the countries we’ve traveled through on this one-year trip have one thing in common: sad excuses for wine. While they certainly can be forgiven for this, the fact remains that we’ve missed wine on our diet. Beer is nice (as I’ve reported about in a number of posts), but good wine can really [...]
I’d heard about the existence of Hasankeyf before. I’d told myself that it was one of those places we’d just have to miss because there’s so much else to see in Turkey. Thankfully, we listened to advice from a nice Canadian family we encountered and spent a few days there. We loved it. There are [...]
If we were honest, we’d have to admit that the dig at Göbekli Tepe was what brought us to Turkey. Martin wrote up a great piece about the dig and it’s significance here. While I think he went into great detail describing the place, I think it’s also fun to see it on video. [...]
Göbekli Tepe is a world sensation. The site has been called the Garden of Eden, an archeological miracle and the missing link between hunter gatherer societies and agricultural societies. It is a mind-boggling twelve thousand years old – the oldest temple ever found. I suspect that in twenty years, the site will no longer need [...]
Martin’s advice on buying a Kurdish carpet was simple: You can’t win. That’s it. Just one rule; one that drove the proverbial nail in the coffin for a competitive girl like myself. I can’t win, huh? He explained further: men have been selling carpets here for thousands of years. They are Carpet Selling Supermen and [...]
Believe it or not: these carp were once the glowing coals of a fire set to roast the prophet Abraham alive. God Almighty understandably did not like to have his prophet roasted by infidels, so he created a spring underneath the fire. The result was an eruption that turned the coals into fish and flung [...]
A guy walked up to us on the street. He offered to take us to a place where they ‘sing without instruments’. Wary that he’d instead take us to his uncle’s carpet shop, he assured us that this certain pleasure was free of charge. What next transpired must be one of the most magical [...]
We decided to do the tried-and-true travel method of getting to know a new city: get lost. Today’s adventure was through the back streets of Diyarbakir’s old town. What we found was a confusing but surprisingly clean labyrinth of ancient culture and architecture. You can check them out in this screen or see them [...]
When planning our trip to Turkey we knew just a few things about the country. One: we wanted to go. Two: it’s the seat of civilization (translation: people have been here a long, long time). Because we are the type of travelers we are, seeing just Istanbul and the Aegean Coast wasn’t going to do [...]
Being ancient isn’t necessarily a sign of excellence. Some things that have been around since forever are kept alive for the sake of tradition and/or pity. So, when someone mentioned that England’s oldest pub was around the corner, I didn’t think it would be particularly nice. Perhaps one of those over-priced, touristy and gimmicky places [...]
We’re poor backpackers. I’ll just say that up front. We’ve been traveling for a year now, slowly bleeding money from our bank accounts. We’ve spent most of our time in SE Asia, India and Nepal, which means we’ve been able to stretch our money quite well – until now. For whatever reason (Martin and [...]
You know the saying, “to fly by the seat of your pants?” Well, that's been our philosophy for most of our adult lives – before and after meeting, falling in love and marrying. We're now taking that idea on an extended round-the-world trip. Follow us as we share the good, the bad and the downright nasty of life on the road.
