Diyarbikir, home of the PKK and Kurds galore!

Diyarbikir is, according to the Lonely Planet, "THE stronghold of Kurdish identity and tenacity". and yes, in the short 1.5 days that I've been here, pretty much everybody has proudly told me they are Kurdish. Yet when I finally found somebody who spoke English (ridiculously rare in turkey, even less in eastern turkey, and even LESS in Diyarbikir it seems) and I asked how they differed from the rest of the Turks, the only thing they could manage to tell me was that they "looked differently, dressed differently, spoke differently". It's definitely a topic I'd like to look more into, but I have a feeling I won't be able to tell the difference in such a short time and from simple observation.

The city itself, for me, isn't anything great to look at, but I've had a wonderful time anyway. Lindsay, Richard and I (matt was MIA with a cold) walked around looking at the few monuments listed in the book and then went directly to the cheese bazaar. Yes, you read that right. they have an entire bazaar dedicated STRICTLY to cheese. and just as you'd expect, it was sort of amazing.

Okay, it's maybe not as mysteriously beautiful as you might imagine and the entire place frankly stinks of ..er, well...CHEESE, but one of the store owners sat us down in his stall and fed us seemingly endless amounts of free cheese, olives, and tea. He even sent his son out to get us fresh, hot bread! We spent roughly 2 hours there struggling to converse, laughing at our lack of ability to communicate and generally enjoying ourselves. At the end a procession of men, presumably owners of the surrounding cheese stalls, marched up to us and very officially presented me with a white smock, plastered with the emblem of the cheese shop next door (ironically named "?op", when pronounced sounds like "shop"). I happily donned it and took a number of pictures in front of the shop (maybe I'll be in their next ad campaign??) and we were sent off with genuine smiles and another huge tub of free cheese. Now that's what I call hospitality! not a single lira was spent.

Experiences like this are what make backpacking so special for me. I'd so much rather meet nice people around the world and experience their culture rather than make sure I'm ticking off sites to see. My favorite memories on this trip so far have all been because of good people and good experiences, not the 30th beautiful mosque that I had to see.