Turkey: Kurdistan, riding along the borders of Iraq and Syria with ...

[17/12/17]
Today I entered Turkish Kurdistan, having bid farewell to Iran. Back in Tabriz they told me I should not come here as it's too dangerous - the sky rains bombs instead of water and such. However, so far weather was good.

There is quite a lot of military personnel and vehicles around here. Those vihicles patrol cities, just like any civilian cars and nobody pays any attention to them. The roads between settlements are full of police checkpoints, or rather bristling with weapons military fortresses, always on alert.

^Hakkari

For the night I stopped in Hakkari, from where it's only 40km to the border with Iraq and 150km to Mosul. My route lies along the border with Iraq and Syria.

[18/12/17]
Pressing on to the coast... Today on the road I had my passport checked many times by the police and twice they thoroughly searched my luggage. Both times it was an awfully close call, as they almost found my weed stash...

The second time they weren't satisfied by all this and had me detained on their post for about 2 hours while they were checking my passport in their cutting-edge database (by sending the photo of the document to someone via whatsapp). Then they had to admit I ain't no terrorist and hitched me a ride with two kurdish men who apparently drive even faster than iranians.

^{Syrian border}

While in Iran they have speed limits of 110 kmph and actually are going aroung 130 kmph, here in Kurdistan they don't seem to have any limits at all and are going with the maximum speed their vehicle can manage. In our case that was around 170 kmph. We even shared a few joints in the car so yeah, it was an exciting ride with wasted kurds along the syrian border.

They were heading to Diyarbakir, to where I initially didn't plan to go, but in the end decided to stick with them until this city as there was not much difference for me exactly where to go.

I definitely didn't regret that, Diyarbakir turned out to be an old city with plenty of historical places and quite authentic city in general.

More photos:

^{This is what you initially see in Kurdistan, crossing through Serow}

^{These hills are the territory of Iraq. That border, unlike syrian, didn't have any visible walls or guards which is strange}

^{An old bridge across river Tigris}

^{St. George cathedral in historical part of Diyarbakir}

^{The region is filled with such spectacular mountains}

^{These 3 brothers are syrian refugees, playing in a mosque yard in Diyarbakir}

^{Have some chai and a puff of this narghile, o wayfarer}

To be continued...

Previous post: Iran: Tabriz and Kandovan village

Check out my travel blog:
Iran: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20
Tajikistan: 7, 8, 9, 10
Kyrgyzstan: 4, 5, 6
Kazakhstan: 1, 2, 3

Turkey: Kurdistan, riding along the borders of Iraq and Syria with wasted kurds at 170 kmph