Our Morning View

Looking over the ledge of our parking spot towards Tuzluca, as another hot day gets underway. I can see below a network of dirt lanes radiating out from the town.  Single story stone houses with cowpat and mud boundary walls. The walls are uneven, often broken and collapsed into piles of mud and rubble. Dotted amongst the farmland are military look out towers, clearly the government like keep this area under a close control. 

The D080 main highway takes us all the way to the city of Igdir.   Here we then turn off on to D975 to Doğubayazıt’s or ‘doggy biscuit’ as we like to call it. Our journey travels through a colourful landscape of red, orange and beige rock formations.  As we approach the village of Yayci, Craig shouts out “f*** me”.  There in front of us is the might Mount Ararat.

Mount Ararat

However, our attention on the snow capped mountain is distracted as the military posts intensifies. By the time we reach the final ascent to the town the amount of police and military barracks, check points and roadblocks is overwhelming. We can’t film much for fear of having our camera confiscated. Taking a picture of the general landscape becomes impossible as the roadside becomes a constant line of armed guards with huge concrete barriers and posters warning ‘no photo’s’. 

The final hill is steep, baron and remote with death defining drops. It feels bazaar as all of a sudden there are no armed police or military.  Progress is slow but steady. About half way up and we here an almighty bang. The motorhome shudders with the force and we jump out of skin. Craig immediately pulls over and we step outside to check. Our hearts are pounding. We look all around and everything looks fine. We kick the tyres, check the garage and even inspect Vin for gunshot wounds. Nothing. Perplexed, anxious and uncertain we climb back in Vin and carry on our journey. 

Further up the hill a small white van is pulled over and a young man is stood outside having a pee. As we approach he looks over towards us and it looks like he is playing with himself. As we get close he looks directly at me with a smirk, his look is haunting. Craig doesn’t see him, he is busy looking through the mirrors to see if the tyres are ok. Minutes later the van is at our side honking his horn. The man is smiling and signally for us to pull over. Craig wonders if its to do with the bang, maybe he see something wrong with our motorhome? I tell Craig I don’t like the looks of the guy and have a bad feeling. I tell him what I think I saw. We ignore and carry on.

The white van pulls sharply in front of us, speeds off then pulls in to the side of the road. We are still on a steep hill so by the time we reach the van the young man is outside and waving us over. We ignore and carry on. This constant honking, pulling over and harassment continues until we reach the top of the hill and then the van disappears. We never see the van or the young man, again. 

Quick shot before anyone sees me

On the outskirts of Doğubayazıt’s we pass through our eighth military check point.  The guards are friendly and polite despite their intimidating rifles, guns, barriers, sniffer dogs and bomb squad gear. Each time we handover over the passports and they realise we are from UK we are waved along. I guess we are considered low risk, phew.  I would hate to be searched and interrogated like some of the lorry drivers.

Mac suspects something is wrong

We pull over a fuel station to fill up with fuel but also have another good look around Vin.  Craig is able to lie on the floor and see the rear drivers side tyre has blown. Vin is twin wheeled and its the inside tyre thats gone, so not that easy to see.  In many ways we are lucky it hasn’t done more damage and ripped apart.  The tyre is like new as we only replaced them just before we set off, maybe that is the saving grace?  Now, where do we find a tyre place around here…Halfords? Unfortunately, the fuel station attendant doesn’t speak English, so we head off in to town.

The damage

We coast up and down the main ‘industrial’ highway looking for what could be a tyre place. It all looks rather dirty and dodgy to me and way outside my comfort zone. I innocently check out Copilot for the chance of a Mercedes dealer, Craig is not shocked when I report there is not in the nearby area. We do a U turn and coast back up dodgy dealer road. There are plenty grubby shacks all with piles of used tyres outside. “I don’t think these shacks will have any new tyres, do you? They all look used beyond repair” Craig looks at and replies “I would agree, but maybe thats our only choice”. After driving up and down the road 6 times and catching the attentions of everyone on the street, we finally pull over at the ‘Oto Lastik’ which looks the best of the busiest. 

Main Highway

I stay with Vin whilst Craig goes and finds a replacement tyre. A road legal tyre in these part of the world is not an easy task but after an hour Craig returns. One shack has a new tyre but its near as dam it £100 and thats after severe negotiation. Thats expensive for an unbranded Turkish tyre but we have no option and give him the nod. The process takes a couple of hours as the guy changing the tyre gets pulled in every direction. Cars with flat tyres just pull up and beckon an immediate attention, to which he tootles over and inflates? Craig watches their every move and so glad he did otherwise we’d have a destroyed wheel trim, no tyre valve and the wrong tyre pressure.

After what seems like a long and stressful day we head in to the hills and pull up at Murat Camping.  Its far from a campsite, it is a large dirt carpark with a cafe but it has an excellent view point. At 15tl (90p) it will do us fine. We crack open a few Efes beers and reflect on the day. Given everything that’s gone on from blow out, weird man and all the military check points, we feel pretty lucky. We are both unharmed and everyone and everything is in one piece. We can carry on with our journey and look back one day and laugh at today’s events!  

Our Bumble paid camping spot at Doğubayazıt GPS position N039.516857, E044.124909