Arriving to Van after few days in Mardin and Şanlıurfa is like time travel. Van is modern city, muslim veils are not fashionable here just as they are not in Istanbul a in the evening you are more likely to meet girls wearing four earings in on ear and with spiky hair or in khaki cargo pants and shiny t-shirt. (But walk away from the main street and turn two corners and Turks sits on low stools, play backgammon nad there is no woman in sight.)
There is suprisingly lot of übercool cafés here and they would stay übercool even when transplanted to Prague. In front of United Colors of Beneton the pavement glows in cool blue, traffic lights have LEDs, not classich bulbs. On the main street there are "Christmas lights", only the Christmas trees mutated into tulips. Pavement edges are progressively striped in black and red and not white and yellow as in the rest of Turkey. On top if they are extraordinarily high even by Turkish standards. They have Carrefour in the suburbs, just next to Toys Aras (sic). Traffic at the roundabouts revolves around following mounments:
- concrete Van cat with kitten,
- golden samovar,
- huge phallic gearstick,
- corrugated iron fence.
On the road from Diyarbakır to Van was no army/police checkpoint this time. On my last trip – in 2002 – there were five or six. In city itself there are CCTV cameras on every corner though. These weren't here before.
And what to do in Van when you have been there before? Almost the same things as first time. It's long ago and Akdamar Island with its Armenian church can one see more than once. Last time it was more atmospheric though. In those six years it has been somewhat repaired. I liked it better back then. But it's still worth it. And one cannot miss the evening stroll along Rock of Van.
Church on the Akdamar Island, lake Van, eastern Turkey.Tomorrow I leave for Doğubeyazıt and than to Iran!