23. - 26.9. Southeastern Anatolia

We were not quite sure if it was a good idea to travel along the border to Syria. Would it be safe enough? The Turkish people we asked told us that there would not be any problems for us on the Turkish side of the border. As Germans we would not be bothered. In the 1990s there had been lots of trouble with the Kurdish population and the PKK. Then tourists were advised not to visit that region, but since then things have changed. The Turkish government seems to do a lot to make the region flourish, building dams on the Euphrates, building roads and trying to preserve the regional historic culture.

For this region I decided to better observe the clothing rules of not showing too much skin. We didn't see any woman wearing a short skirt or showing her legs, even young schoolgirls were wearing black stockings.

There are lots of interesting places in this land of Euphrates and Tigris, many places that we know from the bible. So we visited Tarsus, where St.Paul was born as Saulus. And accidently when we came to the church named after him there was just at that time a catholic service held by German people from Bonn.

In Gaziantep we visited the world's greatest Mosaic Museum, where mosaics from the antique city of Zeugma are exhibited. One day later we visited the archaeological site where people are still working on finding and preserving new old mosaics. 

Along the road we now and then passed traffic controls, but the officers were always very friendly and never wanted to see any of our papers when they recognized us as Germans, one of them even gave us two apples.

In some cities there are Syrian quarters and signs in Syrian writing. But we didn't see any riots. We didn't go right next to the Syrian border. We were told that the refugees are living all over the country, in different cities.