Eastern Turkey a second look

We both came to Turkey for the first time in the 1970s, when it was a very different place. I suppose the changes that most strike me are the increase in traffic and the endless new apartment blocks. Oh, and the price increases, of course. I wonder, what do you notice most when you come back to Turkey these days?

What strikes me first of all is the big improvement in the overall prosperity of the country. Back in those days inflation was sometimes over 100 percent, and everyone really struggled to get by. I think the changes are most noticeable outside İstanbul and get more and more noticeable as you head east. There were hardly any hotels, for example, along the Mediterranean coast, the roads outside the cities were terrible and full of potholes, you had to seize the chance to fill up your tank as petrol stations were few and far between. I remember struggling to find food shops in some parts of eastern Turkey and being delighted to find a crumbly local cheese so full of goat hairs that no one would consider eating it today. In the east of the country there are now good hotels and the roads are excellent and the standard of living for most people has increased hugely. And yes, the prices have moved, but only from rock bottom to moderate.

In 1974, I entered Anatolia the conventional way via İpsala, Tekirdağ and İstanbul. You approached from the opposite direction in 1979 when civil war broke out in Lebanon, bringing your Arabic course there to an abrupt end. Presumably that’s how you came to write a guidebook to eastern Turkey, usually the less well known part of the country. Can you tell us a bit about what it was like to travel in eastern Turkey in those distant days?

Actually I came to write the guide to eastern Turkey because I had just written my first guidebook to Aegean and Mediterranean Turkey back in 1986, and was very curious to know what the rest of the country was like. I persuaded my brother to come with me on a month-long research trip to explore the place. We were both working full time in other professions at the time, so we took it as our annual leave. But yes, having first glimpsed the east back in 1979 when I crossed the Syrian border, my appetite had been whetted. I remember feeling it was a lot less scary than Syria. It seemed very peaceful, serene even. There were no hotels, so camping was the only option, but I had all the kit in the boot of my ancient Citroen, so that was fine. There were no tourists at all, but all the people were very friendly and regularly helped me fix the car. It was actually very easy, relaxed even, compared to the warzone of Lebanon.

I’ve always been a feet-on-the-ground, buildings-first type of guidebook writer. You’re obviously much more intrepid, and one of the most impressive features of your book is the account of your own climb up Mt. Ararat. For those who might be thinking of following in your footsteps, what are the main things to bear in mind?

For a start it’s really not that difficult, as you have to do it with a guide -- by law. So you have no worries about getting lost or about food and water, as the guides will look after all that. I wasn’t fit and hadn’t prepared myself physically, so I suffered a lot afterwards -- I think it took me about three weeks to return to normal. But that was my fault. I had never climbed a proper mountain or worn crampons before, and since I’m in my 50s, that was a bit stupid. My advice would be to make sure you get properly fit beforehand, then you’ll be fine. It’s tougher than Kilimanjaro, and although it’s not quite as high, you have the same issues with altitude sickness, but that has nothing to do with fitness. Some people are struck down by it, some aren’t -- I was lucky. But no special climbing skill is needed. I would say it’s more of a psychological stamina test, but a real once in a lifetime experience.

Your book covers some of central Anatolia and the Black Sea as well as what most people think of as the real eastern Turkey where, until quite recently, many areas were either off limits or tricky to get to. For someone keen to get off the Urfa-Mardin-Diyarbakır-Van-Doğubayazıt circuit of the Southeast, where would you particularly recommend and why?

As you say, some parts of central and eastern Turkey are better known than others, like Cappadocia, but in the central areas I think the Hittite sites of Boğazkale, Yazılıkaya and Alacahüyük are surprisingly under-visited considering they are not far from Ankara; yet they are really impressive, unlike anything else, and have this monumental quality like their contemporaries in the ancient Egypt of the pharaohs, which makes you realize what a strong people the Hittites must have been. The fabulous Zeugma mosaics at Gaziantep are also rarely visited yet are among the best mosaics in the world.

Likewise, for the northeast, putting aside Erzurum, Trabzon and Kars/Ani, which places do you find most exciting and why?

Definitely the remote ruined churches and monasteries in the Georgian valleys. Sümela is well known, of course, and well visited, but some of the others like İşhan, Dörtkilise, Haho and Vank are almost never visited, yet incredibly beautiful and in stunning settings in the mountains.

Your first guidebook to eastern Turkey came out in 1987, and you describe Turkey as your first love, but you also wrote the Bradt guide to Syria, where I believe you were the first foreigner to buy a property inside Old Damascus. Since visa requirements were lifted, Syria has become a very popular holiday destination for Turks. I wonder how that strikes you.

Yes, a lot of my Syrian friends now love going on holiday to Turkey and feel very comfortable there. I think there is a natural affinity between Turkey and Syria, as the northernmost Arab country, that goes back to Ottoman times and even earlier. You can see it all the time in the architecture, where the Diyarbakır Ulu Camii, for instance, has echoes of Damascus’ Umayyad Mosque, and Sinan even designed some buildings in Damascus. The modern boundaries are very arbitrary and political.

Keeping a guidebook up to date has always been tricky, so I’m wondering if you can remind us why, even in the age of the World Wide Web, we still need our travel advice in physical form.

I see a good guidebook as a travel companion, and the time when I most want it is in the middle of nowhere, miles away from the World Wide Web. I also want it to make me laugh, which I hope my book does in places, and the Web rarely does that.