Istanbul to Armenia by train. (Terry)

 

The Istanbul to Ankara high speed train is up and running at last.  For the past two years, you had to get a bus from Istanbul to Eskisehir (see earlier blog for more info on this wonderful small city.) and then catch the train on to Ankara.  One way, Ankara to Istanbul, business class, is TL113.  More space than flying business class and easier boarding experience. 
 

The YHT (Yuksek Hizli Tren) stops 35 km from Istanbul. It’s still called “Istanbul” but not if your hotel is around Taksim Square.   It’s an outer suburb by a long way.

You get to Ankara to nearly the middle of the city, opposite Genclik Park.  A new station is under construction.  The way the Turks build, it could be ready next week!  They blocked off the underground passage to the other side of the tracks (pity, it was where our hotel was) and the next day they already had lines of concrete trucks and a concrete pump truck pouring the foundations for the new station.

Genclik Park

From Ankara station, you catch the Dogu Express.  Dogu simply means East because that’s where it goes.  It’s not an express, it stops all the way along the line, even at crossings where an informal drop point has grown up over the years and cars gather to retrieve passengers or put them on.

The trip takes 27 hours and a sleeper cabin is highly recommended.  It leaves Ankara at 18:00 each night and arrives in Kars around 21:00 the next night.  It leaves Kars around 07:45 in the a.m. and arrives back in Ankara around 10:am the next day.  Although it is only about 900km direct from Ankara to Kars, the journey is about 1400 because you follow a) the rivers and b) go between towns as the train is a service train, not a sightseer’s train like the Canadian ones.

The Sleeper bunks

The one way fare to Kars is only TL 79.25, or about $40 Australian dollars.  The sleeper cabins have a fridge, a wash basin, power point and a cupboard.  Beds are premade so when you pull your bunk down, it’s ready to get into.  Toilets are clean - forward toilet in each of the sleepers is Western, aft is Turkish-style.

The best all-round view is in the dining car, usually two up from where they put the foreigners.  Beer is same price as in bars around Istanbul and Ankara, about $4.50 for a 500ml bottle of Efes (good stuff, see my Beer Tour of the World in our blog).  Food is basic Turkish and the range does diminish over time.  Certainly on the way back your options reduce.  Still, it’s good quality and enough on the plate to keep you happy.  The old chef doesn’t speak any English at all but you can draw what you want and out it comes.

You will find the dining car is where the Turks will want to talk to you.  These Turks tend to be less exposed to westerners as many come from the far east where there is little interaction as the few tourists who do visit sit in big buses and stay in their groups.  Many of them will be curious as to why you are bothering to go out there.

The landscape of the Taurus Mountains is quite spectacular, and the train follows rivers most of the way.  A large SD card in your camera is advisable.  Circular Polarising filter necessary to snap out of the windows.

Following a river gorge - the headwaters of the Euphrates River are here!

In Kars, we stayed in the Hotel Temel.  Very basic, no aircon in the rooms but designed to stay cool.  Showers hot but no curtains so the water goes everywhere (we figured it was their problem, not ours – if they didn’t want water all over the floor, they would have put curtains up, eh?)  Beds were good, linen sharp and inviting.  The hotel staff are unfailingly polite, and the owner (big boss the others call him) presents every day in his suit and tie.  Breakfast was simple Turkish cold meat and fruits and cheeses.  We were waiting for a taxi to the train station when we left and the boss arrived for work and took us instead.

 

We wandered around Kars a bit to see the old sites - the castle is quite spectacular and you can drive up there despite what Lonely Planet says.  There are a few other sights to see also and the new museum, quite a ways out on the edge of town, is worth a look.  It’s about 2.5kms from the main drag.  We walked it. 

Kars from the Castle

Restaurants are all over – alcohol service is rare.  A specialty of Kars is Goose, but because it costs TL60, it is not always ready and waiting.  If you really want it, perhaps pick your favourite restaurant (the first two in Lonely Planet are OK) and ask the day before.  Goose flocks are all over so we were careful walking past the stone farm fences in case there were some we didn’t see – they are cranky sods.  There are also very large woolly Anatolian Sheep Dogs.  Good luck trying to steal a sheep when these guys are watching them.  They’re usually quite placid but that’s only when they don’t own the territory you meet on.  If they own it, they get all proprietorial and put on quite a threatening display, followed by a very nasty bite if you are a bit slow on the uptake.

Not the type to pick a fight with for sure

A lot of Turkish cheese is quite mild but in Kars they sell Kasa Eski (eski means old in Turkish) in any one of maybe 20 or 30 specialty shops with cheeses, village butter (don’t tell your cardiologist about this stuff) honey, nuts, dried fruits etc.  Kars is famous for its honey and you can actually do “The Honey Walk” if hiking is your bent.  The shops are a feature of Kars, as are the specialty shops way down west in Datca where they sell almonds and olive oil, or in Elmali where they are famous for apples (and where they make darn good cider also)

 

The abandoned city of Ani.

 The ruined city of Ani

The city of Ani was fought over for thousands of years.  It was eventually abandoned in the 1700s.  It lies about 40km east of Kars.  There is no real tourist industry in Kars so you will need to negotiate with a taxi driver for a trip out there.  There is one guy who has a deal with the hotels – when you are checking in, they ring him and he will talk to you about a trip to Kars.  He speaks good English.  HOWEVER, despite him saying he himself will be there in the a.m., this is not necessarily the case.  See my review of Kars on Trip Adviser (surprised they published it).  If you do get a taxi from the train, see what he will do.  You MUST specify a 3-hour wait, not two.  The site is very spread out.  They will try to wriggle down to two, two and a half but insist on 3.  Should cost you around 120TL maximum for the two of you, or $60 Australian. Less if they try and cram more people in.

The Church of the Illustrator - you literally cannot see this until you are on it.

There are numerous buildings on the site, quite spread out.  The Church of the Illustrator is out over by the river and down a slope – you cannot see it until you are almost on it and it is quite large.  The fence around the bottom is the Turkish border with Armenia.  It is the point beyond which you cannot pass, although the actual border is a little further out – the Turks have military bases in this “no man’s land”

 

 

Guard tower on the border - war was not that long ago.

 

 

 The Old Silk Road crossed here

One of the most striking points of interest is the ruins of a bridge that crossed the river once upon a time.  On the far side, you can see a track leading to what would have been the on-ramp.  This is where all the caravans on the Old Silk Road crossed over for hundreds of years, on up into the city of Ani for shelter, rest and food.  It is worth taking a moment to sit and consider the trade that walked this way. For those who have watched numerous documentaries on the Old Silk Road, the Taklimakan Desert, Tamerlane and the Trans-Siberian Railway, this single spot affords a powerful reflection on trade between very distant cultures. It is down by where the Nunnery was, or the Church of the Virgins.
 

The Church of the Virgins

There are three more churches within driving distance.  Just going to one of them added another $20 Australian to the bill and despite them all saying they know where they are, our guy was on the blower phoning a friend for directions. 

For the biblical minded, you are not very far from Mt Ararat when you are in Kars.  You can climb Mt Ararat but is costs a very large dollar and takes about 3 days.  Permits, guides etc. (you are not permitted to climb without a guide) will set you back around Australian $1,500., big money in the scheme of things.

 

The Cathedral of Ani

 

The family that occupies the land on which the ancient monastery buildings stand (see Lonely Planet) has daughters with reddish hair and freckles. (Where the church is, not the monastery building.  If you go out there, even the girls warn you about next door’s dogs!)  Yes, the Celts invaded here around 300BC from areas around Germany and set up camp.  (They were referred to as the Galatians so dig out your St Paul).  It is not uncommon to see Celtic features in the East of Turkey, as Galatia was centred on Ankara and points east – lots of red and ginger hair, ginger beards, freckles and fair skin.  The church on their land dates from 870AD.  They use it to store hay.  They have a hay cutter with a sort of blower on one end.  They feed hay in the blunt end and it gets blown out in small bits into the church.  They’ve blocked up the windows so it just fills up and doesn’t blow back out.  Better use for it than just letting it sit there for 1,200 years doing nothing.

Block up all the windows and pour chaff in.

Red hair and freckles on the Armenian border with Turkey

 

We booked our return when we booked our out-ticket to make sure we could get back – it is usually full days in advance and we had to wait a week for a spot.

The land is rich and fertile, with large herds of cattle, complete with cowboys and cowgirls, sheep, goats, geese, and many horses.  Kids use their horses to get around on.  It is a major wheat growing area, and they also grow a vast range of vegetables to boot.  Plenty of water, rich brown dirt but unfortunately heavy snow in winter so they lay up large supplies of hay.

 You might have a tractor but you still pitch by fork.

 

Bee farmer's collection of hives - magnificent honey in this whole area.