Reminiscence from Anatolia- Part Thirty Two: Final countdown begins.

Bitlis was the highest altitude reached during the journey from Ziyaret to Van… thereafter the bus started descending… first to Tatvan… and then meandering along Lake Van to Van

Lake Van is the largest lake in Turkey… a saline lake… it has seen three different historical era…

The first under the Armenians, when it was an important center of Armenian empire… remnants of that era survive even today at Akdamar Island… a small island in the southern parts of the lake. The second and third under the Byzantine and Seljuks… when it was a mere eastern outpost of the empire…

Little more than a century ago, Van had a sizeable Armenian population, which migrated during the Armenian genocide era… Van and further north was the epicenter of the Armenian genocide… and little did I realize that after leaving the trails of Turk-Kurd hotspots in south East… I am headed towards another historical fault-line of Turkey’s national history… the Armenian genocide.

Today, Van is the largest city in eastern Turkey… has a sizeable military presence… purported for the Iranian and Armenian border, but actually comes in handy to be deployed in the Kurdish areas at a short notice. The city is a Turkish majority… amidst a largely Kurdish dominated hinterlands.

The bus from Bitlis to Van first goes to Tatvan… from where one can take ferries to Van… many of the travelers whom I met during my travels, spoke highly of this ferry journey… it starts in the wee hours of night and reaches Van in early morning hour, and the sunrise… as watched from the ferry is incredibly beautiful. However... the ferry journey takes almost 4 hours as against a 2 hours journey by bus.

Lake Van is famous for its incredible beauty… and Lake Van monster, which is a serpent like monster (somewhat like a dragon) which is believed to be residing in the depths of the lake. Thousands of people have claimed to have seen it, and recently a person also captured it on video… however, the video was proved to be a hoax… and an apparent attempt by the tourism lobby of the region to make Van a tourist hotspot.

From Tatvan… the bus snakes along the southern edges of Lake Van… passes through a place called Givech… which is the place from where one can get ferries to Akdamar Island… that houses an old Armenian monastery. I wanted to visit Akdamar… and therefore thought of getting down at Givech… but it was dark… almost 7 pm… and the bus driver wasn’t sure if I would be able to find any accommodation in the vicinity. I was told that there are a couple of restaurants which provide a place to sleep… but I didn’t want to take any risk… and more over I was dead tired. And then I argued that I am headed towards more interesting Armenian ruins… the Ani ruins… and therefore I may pass off Akdamar.

I reached Van at around 9 pm… checked my notes… somebody had suggested me a hotel called Hotel Aslan… the streets of Van were desolate… I checked a roadside temperature display… it was -2 degrees … I could feel the chill… I had to find the hotel at the earliest.

It took me some while and some help to find Hotel Aslan… a joint popular with locals but doesn’t see much of foreigners… the owner was initially skeptical about giving me a room… but then relented when he realized that I had no other place to go. However, he charged 30 Lira for a small room… not worth its price.

I had an unfinished business… I had to get some dinner… and book a flight back to Istanbul… from Kars.

My plans for next 2-3 days were more or less finalized… the day next, I wanted to leave Van and reach Dogubayazit… see the famed castle of Dogu… leave for Kars… rest there for a night… use the day next to explore the nearby Ani ruins… and the day next fly back to Istanbul to catch the flight back.

I realized that I am in the last phase of my incredible journey.

To my luck, I found a small tour agency open… I approached him and was lucky enough to find a seat in the evening flight from Kars to Istanbul… my flight back to Kabul was late in night and so the schedule suited me fine.

The next step was getting some food for my famished soul… the day had been long… and all along this tiring journey… I didn’t eat because of the fear of travel sickness… the journey was bumpy and I wasn’t feeling well all along it. Thus naturally, I was waiting for the first opportunity to gobble up as much as I can.

Van… I realized… is an expensive city… a Doner cost me 3 Lira… some rice another 4 Lira… But I couldn’t help myself… and after a sumptuous dinner, I was ready to crash on my bed.

The girl at the counter of the restaurant smiled at me… and asked as to where I came from… guessing “Pakistan”… I replied… “No… India”. She smiled back… “Shahrukh Khan”… Van, apparently, has a size-able Pakistani student population studying professional courses… they have introduced a wee bit of south Asian pop culture- especially Bollywood- in Van.

I went back to the hotel… it was really a pity that I could not see Akdamar Island… after coming this close… I wondered that if I was able to gather a wee bit of courage… I would had alighted at Givech and spent a night in a camping site over there… to see Akdamar in the morning. And then may be I could have left Van for Dogu. But then convinced myself that I was not feeling well… and it was not worth taking too much of a risk in such freezing cold climes.

In the middle of the night, somebody knocked my room four five times… asking for Mustafa… I was scared, given the shady nature of the hotel… I didn’t open the door… in the morning I asked the owner… he laughed and confessed that a person staying on the fourth floor… just above me… missed the floor… thought that my floor was the fourth… and was frantically searching for his room.

I smiled back… paid my bill and asked for directions to the Dolmus stand for Dogu.