We didn't feel like we were leaving Diyarbakir, more like escaping from it. We were glad to get out and return to normality. The flight to Izmir made us realize how large Turkey is - the flight was over 2 hours. Izmir seemed like a different country - it had a modern airport, the streets had no donkeys or men in baggy trousers and it felt safer! We had hired a car for next part of trip. Our initial route took us north, through Izmir. We only saw 2 accidents an...

We left Mardin for Diyarbakir - this proved to be a staccato start. Firstly, we couldn't get down the hill from our hotel as Mardin was gridlocked due to the road works - only the donkeys were getting through. We then found the bus, went 2 miles and were told to swop to another one (here a full bus is far more important than timetables). Finally we started, we only went half a mile and were stopped by the police who checked every body on the bus. It was a se...

Our next stop was Mardin. We had a late start and caught what we thought was a through bus to Mardin. However we were asked to get off the bus in a little town which we later realised was right by the Syrian border. There was another bus waiting for us - this was full of dark skinned people - Kurds. Into new territories! Mardin is a very pretty town, perched on a hill overlooking the Mesopotamian plain. Unfortunately the local authority has decided to d...

We had a short minibus journey (2 hours) to our next stop, Sanliurfa. This proved to be not so quick as we had an unexpected change of buses after 40 minutes which added another half an hour. The route took us along Lake Ataturk and over the Euphrates - we did not see anything of the dam though. Once in Urfa, we set off to see the town's claim to fame, Ibrahim's (Abraham) birthplace and where he was saved from being burnt alive by King Nimrod when God turn...

We left Gaziantep early so we could get up to Nemrut Dagi (Mount Nimrod) today. This involved a taxi ride to the bus station, quickly on to a minibus (no time even to grab breakfast), change minibuses after 2 ½ hours for another 40 minute ride to Khata (where we were staying). We checked in to our hotel and organised another minibus to take us on a tour to the mountain. Everybody was starving at this point, so it was into the kebab shop for lunch. The to...