[On the Road] Doğubeyazit trip journal

    I can't tell if the man behind me is drunk or crazy. He wakes up, asks me the time and falls back asleep. This goes on every half hour for the entire ride. He calls for tea and when the response is “yok,” he grumbles and stands, walking to the bus's refrigerator to grab a water. He drops the water into the rear entrance and stumbles down the steps after it, appearing a minute later to ask me the time. I don't have a watch and I don't speak much Turkish, but that doesn't seem to matter. Maybe I just don't understand him.

    2 p.m.

    The ride has been full of cattle and sheep, small villages and military bases. The mountains around us keep changing color. When we get near Doğubeyazıt, we start seeing donkeys. I look at every mountain and think “Is that one Ararat?”

    6 p.m.

    A group of children greeted us as we stepped off the bus, asking to polish our shoes. I don't have any shoes that can be polished, but they keep asking. They tried to help us find a hotel, asked us where we are from. I was more annoyed than usual, not making eye contact or responding, pretending that I don't speak English. Maybe the man on the bus tested my patience, or it could be that I had just woken up from a nap. Either way, my first whiff of Doğubeyazıt is shoe polish.

    10 p.m.

    At a rug shop after dinner, we were invited to see where the rugs are made. In a spacious attic are 12 unfinished rugs; the women sit on the floor and weave the thread through strings. Back at the hotel, now, we chatted with some French tourists. We might meet them for a drink later. Tourist season is starting. We're not alone in these cities anymore.

    Sunday, May 10, 2 a.m.

    Doğubeyazıt isn't very lively at night, but we found a nice place to smoke nargile and have a drink, listening to some traditional music. Tomorrow we're waking up early to go to İshak Paşa Palace and the Iranian border.

    7 a.m.

    I woke up with the sun, took a shower and headed out onto the streets. My friends are still asleep, but my favorite thing about new cities is exploring early in the morning, long shadows on the streets, watching people make bread, eating a fresh pastry. On the walk, I saw two boys on the side of the street, one in a dumpster tossing out food. Out flies a full cucumber, bouncing down the sidewalk, the other boy giving chase to it. I walked up and down the street looking for a pastry. I turned back to go into a shop I'd passed and saw the two boys at the window, staring at a cake. I found a large pastry filled with cheese, just out of the oven, and bought a second one for the boys. They took it into their filthy hands with a nod of thanks and split it apart. In an hour, I'll eat a second breakfast on the third floor of the hotel. I don't know how we got here.

    6 p.m.

    Back on the bus. Does every Turkish commercial use the same voice? I like the one with the talking ball of cheese that looks like an albino brain.

    We went to the Iranian border after breakfast. The hotel manager called a dolmuş. We hopped on and waited at another stop for 12 men to cram inside, some standing, all of us pushed in tight. We learned that they go to Iran every day for work. With the help of a friendly Kurd, we made it to the Iranian side of the border, catching a glimpse of Khomeini on a billboard behind us. We came for some sort of thrill, standing on the border of a country demonized in America. Maybe part of the reason I travel is to come back with stories about how the world isn't as dangerous as everyone told me it was; that people reciprocate kindness everywhere. They didn't let us into Iran. We'd have to go to Erzurum and get a visa first.

    The view from İshak Paşa Palace is unbelievable. Scattered clouds fell over the landscape. On a porch in the palace I sat down and breathed it in. The palace is interesting, but it's the setting that I'll never forget.