CRAZY JOURNEY: DAY 150 - MAKU TO SANLIURFA, TURKEY

The Hummer finally arrives on Turkish soil

We checked out of our prison like accommodation in Maku early and headed to the Turkish border which was only about 50ks away. The place was chaotic and it became obvious very quickly that this would be another classic ordeal. The Iranian side was relatively painless since an official took us aside and sped things along because we were tourists. The Turkish side was a different monster though and it was every man for himself. Dave had to spend ages tussling with all the Turkish and Iranian truckers to get the vehicle documents sorted. These guys are skipping experts and any position in a line must be guarded with your life!

Dave with the incredibly skillful queue skipping truckers

Problems arose when the Turkish official refused to stamp the Carnet because we had a Car and not a Truck or Bus. This was just ridiculous and nothing more than an obvious attempt to force money from us but after a heated shouting match with Dave and refusing to leave he finally let in when enough of a scene was made!

Escaping all this madness we were on the road after a few hours and began heading South West with the aim of getting as close to the Syrian border as possible that night. Just after entering Turkey we passed the magnificent snow capped Mt.Ararat, which actually reminded us all of Tokyo’s Mt. Fuji.

Mt. Ararat in the distance

Filling up on petrol for the first time we were blown away by its price in Turkey. It cost €1.80 per litre which is by far the most expensive we have come across on Crazyjourney so far. We thought we had been totally shafted in the petrol station but we eventually realised that they were all set at the same price.

We were driving really close to the unstable Kurdistan Province where violence has been erupting between the Turkish military and PKK rebels so there were a ridiculous amount of road blocks for passport and baggage checks. This became really annoying after a while as we were trying to get as close to the Syrian border as possible that night.

Incredible Eastern Turkish Scenery

Today’s drive through South East Turkey was one of the more scenically enjoyable on the trip so far. The road skirted Lake Van and took us through picturesque farmland under snow capped hills. We stopped for our first genuine Turkish kebab at Ercis before pushing on all the way to Sanliurfa in Southern Turkey that night. With the roads surprisingly worse than in Iran, we had a very close call near Sanliurfa when a stupid oncoming driver was overtaking when he shouldn’t have been, forcing us to swerve right off the road! This was right up there with the worst of it from India, China and the Road Train in Australia!

DAY 150 ROUTEMAP

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