The pasha with a (somewhat obscured) view of the ark...

After leaving Van - the big city - we landed on the border to Iran in Dogubayazit - a heavily militarized village 5 km away from the Iranian border. Some of you might be asking yourselves WHY...After some of the military checks we were more or less asking ourselves a similar question.

The town was a mix of Kurds, Turks, Truck drivers, military personnel, and chadar-wearing women (for those of you new to this term, it refers to the woman who are usually covered from head to toe with a black cloth - drapped at the waist somewhat - either leaving just the eyes, or at the most, the eyes and nose uncovered.) The streets were bad and the ones that were paved were worse. We did not hold out hope of finding decent accommodations. After checking around we happened on the Ararat Hotel across from the 'Otogar' (bus station). With our expectations being low, we were overly happy with the our room - a simple 'triple' (one very small double or 'matramonial' bed and a single, which comes in handy as a raised platform for luggage, etc.) with shower, toilet and sink, as well as blankets in red white and blue (vaguely resembling something from a Ralph Lauren collection or the US flag...) and a view of one fifth of Mt. Ararat, all for the price of 24,000,000 turkish Lira (around $17).

After checking in at the hotel, Thomas thought it might be fun to check out a meterorite crater, supposedly the second largest in the world, that just happened to lie 4 km from the border to Iran. As we drove, the line of trucks to cross the border started to lengthen and the lights of the border check point began to glow brighter...We stopped and asked some very cautious soldiers where the crater was - the pointed straight at the border. We drove on. Finally, there was a sign for the crater - the road it pointed to followed the border. We took it. As we drove along the gravel road, military look out posts loomed in the foreground. I asked Thomas if he really thought that it was necessary at this point in our still relatively young lives to see this particular crater at this place and time. The guard towers began to get bigger and the road turned to the right (the direction of the border). Thomas slowed the car down and stated that he felt it was not necessary to see the crater, especially since we strongly both believe that the author of the Lonely Planet guide who wrote about it also did not actually drive out there him/herself to find and view the crater, or else he/she would have mentioned that the road was 4 km from the border road tracing the border and not the seemingly safe distance of 'about 4 km before the border'. At least we can now say that we 'saw Iran' on our trip!

In our drives around the city and countryside, we were 'loomed over' by Mt. Ararat (Great Ararat) and its smaller twin (Little Ararat), comprising the two edges of the (warning: biblical legend) resting place of Noah's ark (no, not the 'largest water park in the world' right in the heart of that lovely resort area of Wisconsin, otherwise known as Wisconsin Dells.) It is truly a 'great' mountain. Rising up from the plains (already at about 2000m/6000ft) around it to a height of 5137m/15,411ft. Often it's snow-covered peaks were covered by clouds, so we were only able to see the mountain in its entirety for a few hours during the second morning of our stay there.

In the early evening, we drove to the Ishak Pasa Sarayi, started in 1685 by the father (a Kurdish chieftain) and finished in 1784 by the son. It is a palace with a harem and two large courtyards (even a library) pearched on a mountain overlooking the plains and the mountains beyond (just missing out on a view of Mt. Ararat because of the positiong of a neighboring mountain ridge). The architecture is said to be a combination of Seljuk, Ottoman, Persian, Georgian and Armenian styles. (Maybe I should have gotten a degree in archictecture before the trip!) In any case, it was beautiful - the relief carvings above the doorways, the intricate layout of the rooms, the large courtyards, the mosque incorporated into the palace design (this was particularly beautiful with its fading painted dome and the white cast of the walls, divided into two sections by columns holding up a second balcony) and the view, which by dusk, had taken on various shades of reds, oranges, pinks, blues, purples. The clouds looked as if they were lined with a brillant light gold as the sun retreated behind some clouds. As it reappeared, a half circle of sky above it turned a shade of light cranberry, deepening as the half circle grew, surrounded by night blue clouds. And then it was time to make our way back down the mountain.