Malatya, Bingol, Erzurum

I left Malatya in the sunshine, no wind, and what looked like a pretty day ahead. After foiling a few more radar traps and predatory policemen, I headed out on what looked like a nice highway. Malatya sits on the edge of a range of hills above a broad valley, and the hills and valley are lovely with green fields above and below the town.

As I headed east, the road started rising into hills, which were more arid, and I was to spend most of the day riding from hills to valleys and back into hills. The roads weren't bad at first, but they gradually became more broken and patched. The hills and fields, however, remained green and lovely.

Almost immediately after leaving Malatya, I started seeing Jandarma cars, and trucks both on patrol, and stopped by the roadside at junctions. There were also Jandarma armored vehicles, both small four-wheeled scout-type cars, and the larger eight-wheeled infantry carriers. At one point, I noticed that the Jandarma had two cars pulled over and were talking with people by the cars. I have no idea what was going on. So I started paying attention to the military presence and their bases.

The small towns through which the road took me were worn and dusty. Many buildings are made of concrete block, and some have never been plastered over, so they look unfinished, even though they are occupied. Not all buildings are painted, and so the villages all look as though they are unfinished. Even the most prosperous looking and grandiose buildings and homes have trash strewn about in front of them. This is curious because I frequently see garbage trucks picking up waste from bins and bags along the streets, and men and women sweeping streets and picking up trash. It is as if there are two segments of this society: those who have pride and want a clean and neat(er) environment, and those who just throw trash out or discard it when they are through with the object.

The streets are crowded with cars, trucks, and pedestrians. I have learned that it is best to stay to the left, close to the center island (almost all towns divide the traffic flows with an island or barriers in the middle of the street, probably to keep people from killing each other by head-on collisions) and to maintain a slow, even speed with my foot ready on the rear brake pedal. Pedestrians are playing "Frogger" trying to cross the streets, and people in vehicles are stopping to chat with each other, or double parking while they have lunch, and so on. If you stay to the left, you can kind of keep moving.

All of the military bases and posts I saw had taken some defensive postures. Entrances had posts with sandbags, and caltrops and vehicle barriers in place. All were manned. Every post was fenced, some double fenced, with barbed wire and concertina wire on top. Almost all had tall sentry towers in the center of the compound, and fortified fighting positions at the corners. The larger posts had fields of fire cleared outside their wire, and internal fortified fighting positions, towers, and armored vehicles deployed near their fighting positions. I also noticed that at all the very large positions, such as the one at Bingol, there were physical fitness obstacle courses near the main gates in clear view of the highway. I surmise that this is so the population can see that the army is physically fit and ready to fight if need be.

In Bingol, I got turned around a bit, which took me through the middle of one of the bases. The soldiers gave me the eye. I finally turned myself around, rode back through the base, and stopped for gas. Hilarity ensued. I was invited to spend the next month on the couch in the office, I was warned it was very dangerous, that there were Kurds everywhere, had to drink some tea, and almost could not get away from them.

I rode out of Bingol on highway 950, which started out, as they always do, being a nice looking highway heading north through some hills. It turns out that 950 is under major reconstruction, so I rode on bad roads most of the way to Erzurum. There were some nice spots of pavement though, and it was great to just ride along, high in these green rolling hills, spotted with sheep, goats, and cattle.

You can see that my blue skies had turned to gray. The humidity had shot up, and it was more than warm in the riding suit. As I was standing there drinking some water after taking these photos, a small Jandarma armored scout car drove up to about where the truck is in the middle picture, turned around, tooted its horn at me, and drove off the way it had come.

I rode on to Erzurum, got caught up in its one way streets, tried to find a hotel, and finally wound up at the Davilar Hotel. They let me park right in front of the hotel, and as I was unloading, three Turkish bikers rode up on BMW's and parked there too. They told me that 950 north was under heavy construction, and no good for motorcycles.

Right outside the door to my room was the large stain on the carpet.

I thought I was in the middle of a crime scene! I finally figured out it was probably just some mahogany stain that they used on the interior trim.

The room's air conditioning was this window. I ate at the hotel, and the food was tasty. It was after this meal, though, that my intestinal tract started its current problems. The hotel was on the top floor, so I took a few pictures. There is a ski-jumping facility here, and from a distance it is quite impressive. The closer one gets though, the clearer it becomes that there is a lot of deferred maintenance that must be done before it becomes usable again.