Into the Mesopotamian Lowlands

Midyat, Turkey, Sunday October 18

Greetings from a mid-size industrial city in SE Turkey where I have just come back from a three-day break from pedalling. More on that later, but first let me bring you up to date on the five days of riding it took to get here from Van.

I left Van early on a sunny day, although there was a definite haziness to the sky. I rode along the lakeshore all the way to the ferry dock for Akdamar Island. I waited around for the required number of tourists (all Turks, except for me) to gather and then we put-putted over to the small rocky island, looking like one of the Cyclades transported magically from the Aegean to eastern Anatolia. The entire region of Van was a major centre of Armenian culture for many centuries until 1915, and the island of Akdamar boasts the most famous single Armenian monument in Turkey, a spectacular church perched atop a ridge, visible from the mainland for many kilometres around. Restored two years ago, the church boasts even more stone carving than I had seen on churches in Armenia itself, with several bands of bas-relief showing a variety of saints and biblical stories. They looked particularly striking in the strong sunlight, and with fresh snow on the high peaks of the Taurus Mountains to the south. I sat and sketched and listened to choral music on the iPod and spent a wonderful hour and a half absorbing the historical and artistic richness of the island.

Leaving the island, I could have taken a long detour out onto a mountainous peninsula to see a second Armenian church at Altintas, but with the afternoon drawing on, I chose instead to have a pleasant lakeside lunch and then cut across the isthmus of the peninsula on the main road. Little did I suspect that there was a 550-metre climb ahead, over a spur of the Taurus Mountains. As I descended from the pass, the stream I was following suddenly turned south and I realized that it was flowing towards the Tigris river and ancient Mesopotamia; the watershed between Lake Van and the Tigris basin is only a few kilometres inland from Lake Van. I camped at dusk in a dusty field, not far from an encampment of horse-breeding nomads.

The next day I rode, largely inland and out of sight of the lake, to the city of Tatvan, the western terminus of the lake ferries from Van. I climbed up onto the volcanic dam that created Lake Van, had a relaxed lunch and then started a steep drop down the Bitlis River canyon. I passed through Bitlis, a historic old city founded by one of Alexander the Great's officers and dominated by an ancient castle. I admired a few pieces of fine Seljuk architecture, and then escaped the crowded chaos of the city centre. I had a wonderful moment as I left town. I had chatted briefly with a mailman before I left the kebab shop where I had bought a takeaway doner kebab for dinner. As I pushed my way through the thronged street, a young man came up to me, grabbed my handlebars and demanded money for the privilege of being allowed to go on my way. I had picked up a handy stick beside the road on the way out of Van, and so I pulled it out to convince the lout of the wisdom of letting me proceed unhindered. The youth turned away and started walking quickly back up the street I had descended. Unknown to him, his path led him right past the mail delivery truck in which my mailman friend was sitting, stuck in traffic. As my would-be extortionist came level with the truck, the mailman hopped out of the cab, grabbed the guy in a headlock and delivered a couple of stinging slaps to the head. A few passersby, who had seen the entire episode, cheered as the young man ran away, his ears, and head, presumably ringing. I flashed my rescuer a grateful smile and a thumbs up.

Leaving Bitlis, the road continued its steep descent of the canyon, but the pleasure of the downhill was cancelled by the enormous road construction project that blighted the valley for the next 50 kilometres. It also made it hard to find a campsite. Eventually I spotted something on the other side of the river, and ended up pitching my tent next to a centuries-old caravansaray that is now used as a horse stable by the family whose house sits atop the roof. It was much warmer at this low altitude, and I sat outside the tent gazing at the stars, refreshing my knowledge of the constellations, before retreating to the tent for some guitar. It had been a good day.

On October 13th, I sped downhill along the river, turned away from the main road to Diyarbakir, and made my way to the small junction city of Kurtalan, from where I hoped to make my way by back roads to the historic town of Hasankeyf. I changed my mind after being advised that the bridge shown on Google Maps didn't really exist and that the Turkish military police, the jandarma, probably wouldn't let me go along this route anyway. The jandarma and the army were particularly thick on the ground in this area, and I have the impression that the area south-east of Bitlis was (and maybe still is) a hotbed of PKK militancy. Certainly the Bitlis River canyon would be a perfect spot to ambush Turkish military convoys. At any rate, I turned east towards the town of Batman (really, that's the name!) and camped about 20 km short of the city, in a landscape utterly transformed since leaving Lake Van. At an elevation of only 700 metres above sea level, I had left the volcanic highlands of eastern Turkey and Armenia definitively behind me and entered Mesopotamia, the once-fertile but now parched lands drained by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The sky was hazy with desert dust, and the temperature rose to levels I hadn't felt since Iran. The terrain was now a brown, rolling plateau, bereft of high mountains and less interesting to look at, although easier for cycling. İ was excited, though, as İ really was entering one of the great cradles of ancient civilization, a place even older than the Silk Road itself.

My last two days into Midyat were easier cycling than usual, and richer in historical and cultural interest than I had become used to. The first day was a short 50-kilometre jaunt into Hasankeyf, a gorgeous old village on the banks of the mighty Tigris River. The ride there was pretty, particularly the last 10 kilometres as I dropped into the Tigris valley, lined on the far bank by steep cliffs pitted with man-made caves; the entire area is rich in troglodyte dwellings.

Hasankeyf itself was spectacular, a somewhat modern village near the waterline, below a huge ruined upper city which constitutes one of southeast Turkey's premier attractions. The citadel and upper city are completely uninhabited now, but must have housed a far larger population centuries ago than currently reside in the new town. There are extensive graveyards and mosques (a couple of which must have been Byzantine churches a millenium ago), and many hundreds of stone-built houses. Most of the houses have excavated underground sections, visible now that the soft limestone has weathered away to expose them. I sat atop the highest part of the citadel, watching the afternoon shadows lengthen across this deserted Escher-esque city, photographing and sketching and feeling much happier about being in eastern Turkey. The combination of huge abandoned cityscape and troglodytic houses was like a happy cross between Monemvasia or Mystras (both of which I was lucky enough to visit in Greece last summer) and Turkey's Cappadocia. If you ever find yourself in Turkey, you should make room in your itinerary for Hasankeyf before a planned irrigation dam completely submerges the new town and much of the old town, a fate already inflicted on many historic sites in the Euphrates valley further west. That evening I chatted with a Kurdish film-maker now based in the Netherlands about the situation of Kurds in Turkey and in his native Syria. He felt that the Kurds in Syria were far worse off than their ethnic brethren in Turkey, Iraq or Iran.

The next morning I was away from my cheap motel by 7:30, an almost unheard-of early departure, and rode back out of the Tigris valley and up onto a picturesque limestone plateau, the Tur Abdin, a historic hotbed of Syriac Orthodox Christianity. I got most of the way to Midyat, and then turned east to explore a few of the historic villages and churches that dot the plateau. I was glad that I did, as I loved the atmosphere of the area. It felt very timeless and Levantine, with old vineyards and olive groves carved painstakingly out of the rocky landscape, the removed chunks of limestone piled into ancient stone walls between fields. There was essentially no motorized transport, with donkeys and horses filling the gap picturesquely. The grape harvest was in full swing, and I was given bunches of grapes to munch on.

Atop the limestone ridges were ancient villages, full of fine stonework, some of which must have been Ottoman and others older, definitely Byzantine and maybe even Roman. I visited three Syrian Orthodox churches: Mor Yakob, Mor Kyriakos and Mor Izozoal. The first was founded in 419, and parts of the stonework in the early basilica-style church seem to date back to that time. I loved the atmosphere of tranquility in the surrounding monastery, and the Aramaic (the language used by Jesus, as well as by the Achaemenid Persian empire as its official language and by Parthian Silk Road traders as a lingua franca during the Roman period) inscriptions. The Aramaic script is interesting, a sort of pointy Arabic strangely similar to Manchu and ancient Mongol. The surrounding village of Baristepe is partly Christian and partly Muslim, with a priest still in residence at the church. Mor Kyriakos, in contrast, is locked up and guarded with a high wall topped with barbed wire. Almost no Christian families still live in the surrounding village of Baglarbasi, most having fled during the Kurdish-Turkish conflict in the 1990s. Mor Izozoal was locked too, but a local Christian family act as caretakers and opened the doors for me. The church has been extensively, and expensively, restored recently, and not as much original architecture is left as at Mor Yakob. I pedalled into Midyat in late afternoon happy with my church-architecture detour, and noted a number of church steeples poking out of the crowded old part of town. The Lonely Planet says that another monastery, Mor Hananyo, south of nearby Mardin, which İ will be visiting in a couple of days, was for many centuries the headquarters of the Syriac Orthodox church, and it seems that the church still puts a fair amount of resources into preserving these historic outposts.

I rather liked Midyat at first; nobody threw stones at me, and for the first time in Turkey, I had the feeling of being in a modernizing country connected to the rest of the world. Lots of locals chatted with me in a variety of European languages (German, French, Dutch) picked up while working abroad. The whole city had a more relaxed, civilized air than I had encountered further east, with less of an edge of tension, volatility and wildness.

I left my bicycle and most of my luggage in the hotel on October 16th and headed off on a little excursion to the south and east of town. Being an incurable country-bagger, I saw the opportunity to add an interesting entry stamp to my passport: Iraq. Now, before you, gentle readers, start hyperventilating or writing me off as a deranged lunatic, I should add that I only visited the relatively stable, calm and safe Kurdish autonomous area in the north. Backpackers have been making their way here for several years now, and Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet, made a much-publicized visit a few years ago.

It was remarkably easy and straightforward to get from Midyat to the town of Dohuk: a couple of minibuses to the town of Cizre in Turkey, then a shared taxi to the border post, where I got stamped out of Turkey and into Iraq within an hour, unlike the trucks (laden with bags of concrete and other construction supplies) stuck in a ten-kilometre-long queue on both sides of the border. I spent a tedious while both at the border and in the nearby town of Zakho waiting for other passengers to share the cost of a taxi to Dohuk, but I was still in Dohuk before two o'clock, six hours after leaving Midyat.

So what is this corner of Iraq, only 65 km northwest of violent, volatile Mosul, like? The answer is....kind of dull, strangely enough. The main street and the bazaar are crowded with (predominantly male) shoppers, and the town itself is an overgrown village that has grown explosively since the end of the first Iraq war in 1991, and so is lacking in historic buildings although it is in the Tigris valley. I spent my time eating (much tastier, cheaper food than in Turkey), wandering the streets watching the older men, clad in traditional Kurdish overalls, cummerbund and kefiyeh headscarf, about their shopping, and relaxing at my hotel, catching up on rest and sleep after a long stretch of cycling since Yerevan with few rest days.

Quite a few people speak English or German from time spent abroad, or from working with American forces, and I have had some interesting discussions. I spent an hour drinking tea on a street famous for the trade in birds (ptarmigans, according to an older gentleman with impeccable English, although I suspect they may be another species) and guns (I saw a lot of pistols changing hands for a hundred dollars or so a pop). I watched lots of tennis on TV, and read lots of Shakespeare. Iraq may seem a strange place to come to unwind, but it did the trick for me. I would love to go back to Iraq someday when it's possible to visit the historic monuments further south, but that day looks pretty far in the future at the moment. İronically, on my way back through Turkey to Midyat, İ passed the site of a PKK bombing earlier in the day. Makes me wonder which side of the border is actually more secure!

My initial liking for Midyat has been dimmed; when İ got back from İraq, İ took a stroll through the old part of town, full of pretty stonework, but had to abandon it as İ was followed by a mob of feral children baying for money and throwing stones (for once, the girls were worse behaved than the boys). One thing that puzzles me about Turkey is that Turks are supposedly crazy about family and children, but then so many parents let their children run wild in Dickensian street mobs without any supervision or discipline. Out here in the east of Turkey, there are an awful lot of kids not going to school from a very young age, hanging around on the street begging for money and cigarettes. It strikes me that by allowing parents not to send 7-year-olds to school, the Turkish government is storing up problems for the future. A large group of uneducated, undisciplined young people with no prospects of employment in a modern economy would be a perfect recruiting ground for the next generation of PKK fighters.

So now the final leg of the bicycle journey begins; after spending a lot of time getting to the southern border of Turkey, I will now head more or less directly west along the border, diverting to see historic sites along the way, to Gaziantep, before diverting south to Antakya (ancient Antioch, the third-largest city in the Roman Empire and an endpoint of the early Silk Road) and north to Cilician Armenia and Marco Polo's starting point at Ayas. Within two weeks or so, my eight-month-long traverse of the Silk Road should be over!

Peace and (Iraqi) tailwinds.

Riding Day No.

Date

Distance From Bushehr

Daily Distance

Final Elevation

Vertical Metres

Cycling Time

Average Speed

Maximum Speed

Daily Destination

69	10/11	6237.3	101.2	1787	1072	6:20	16.0	44.7	near Tonsonlu
70	10/12	6334.4	97.1	1065	712	5:58	16.3	50.7	near Narlidere
71	10/13	6435.8	101.4	707	969	6:13	16.3	66.0	Besiri
72	10/14	6487.5	51.7	438	604	3:19	15.6	55.2	Hasankeyf
73	10/15	6567.1	79.6	891	1247	5:50	13.6	51.7	Midyat

Gravy Train in Dogbiscuit

Van, Saturday October 10 (16,000 km from Xian)

I am at the end of a delightfully relaxed day off from cycling, the first after 11 days of hard work to get here from Yerevan, and now it's time to put some of the events of that long stretch onto the page. I'm fairly sleepy, so this may be shorter than usual.

I left Yerevan for the last time a week ago Tuesday (September 29th). It had rained heavily the night before in the city, and all that precipitation fell as snow on all the surrounding mountains. It felt distinctly wintry as I rolled out of town, with the twin peaks of Ararat huge and in my face, and an entire line of other lower peaks looking very, very alarmingly white. If this is Armenia in September, I hate to imagine January! I passed early morning protestors outside the parliament building, making their unhappiness known about the rapprochement with Turkey. After an easy ride along the flat agricultural land as far as Metsamor, I turned uphill through grim lava fields dotted with grim post-Soviet apocalyptic towns and villages. I followed the Turkish border all day, and ended up camped less than a kilometre from the nearest Russian-manned Armenian border guard tower. It was irksome to think that a week later I would be only a few kilometres away on the Turkish side, but that I had a 500-kilometre detour because of the closed border.

It was a cold night in the tent, with lots of frost on the fly in the morning. I had an easier day of riding, with sunny weather and flatter country in the morning. A big flock of migrating storks, maybe 150 of them, passed overhead, headed for warmer wintering grounds. I zipped along as far as the regional centre of Gyumri. Founded by the Russians in the early 19th century as Alexandropol, it was the largest city in Armenia until the Soviet period. Lots of Russian belle-epoque architecture, although much of it is still in ruins, 21 years after a disastrous earthquake and even more disastrous botched reconstruction effort. In the afternoon, I headed north towards the Georgian border. My map didn't give me much warning of what was coming; I had anticipated a straightforward up-and-down mountain pass, but instead the road climbed to a high plateau and stayed there until the border. The high-altitude grassland reminded me of Mongolia and Tibet, and looked very pretty under the warm sunshine. I kept climbing as I got closer to the border, and I didn't cross the frontier until after sunset. The Georgian border guards were all busy shovelling vast piles of snow onto sun-warmed asphalt to melt it. I made it 500 metres into Georgia before camping beside a pretty lake.

It was perhaps the coldest night of the trip so far, but I managed to keep warm on my Li-Lo air mattress by piling most of my clothes on top of it as insulation against the cold ground. I awoke to strange bird calls in the morning, and stuck my head out to see a small group of cranes beside the lake: magic! I bumped downhill slowly along an appalling dirt track to the dismally poor town of Ninotsminda, through villages of subsistence Armenian farmers. This part of Georgia is ethnically Armenian, and seems to be neglected by the Tbilisi government. I got onto pavement after that and zipped into Akhalkalaki, where I had lunch to avoid a torrential downpour. From that point, I chose the road less travelled and bumped along a very primitive dirt road across more steppe. In the geographical middle of nowhere, I ran across an unexpected sight: an OSCE tractor-trailer carrying an ecology/sustainable energy roadshow explaining biogas, solar panels, solar water-heaters and reforestation to bemused local peasants. I rolled on into a grassland almost devoid of human habitation, until suddenly I found myself on the edge of the void. Below me was a 500-metre-deep canyon, on the opposite wall of which was a honeycomb of caves, the famous monastery of Vardzia. I took an hour to pick my way down a steep, switchbacked goat-track of a jeep road to a small guesthouse where I was very happy to sleep inside in a warm bed.

The next morning, I rode over to the caves and poked around. They reminded me strongly of the Buddhist cave monasteries at Bezeklik which I had seen seven years ago at the very beginning of this Silk Road odyssey. There was little to see in most of the caves, but the setting, clinging to the lower wall of the canyon, was spectacular. Only one church is still in operation, and a family was having a young child blessed that morning; the singing of the priest echoed perfectly around the cave. I rode away happy to have absorbed a bit of culture after three days of hard riding. The rest of the day was easy, a coast downstream through desert canyons and forested hillsides to the regional capital of Akhaltsikhe. I had a peek at the Rabati, the old citadel above town, which sports a mosque, a synagogue and two flavours of church (Armenian and Georgian). I had my beard trimmed in a barbershop (rather too severely, as I looked unshaven rather than bearded afterwards; in fact I looked remarkably like a blond clone of the barber), and talked to an English-speaking local. He said that Akhaltsikhe was once a majority Armenian town, but that over the past 20 years most of the Armenians have left for greener pastures in Russia or Armenia.

The ride the next day, as I left the Caucasus republics behind for good, was unexpectedly tough, as I climbed the most vertical metres of any day this year so far (2600 metres). I rode uphill from Akhaltsikhe, through bucolic scenes of the fall harvest, to the border; again, the Georgians have a rutted dirt track leading to their international frontier. On the Turkish side, I set my clock back, resigned myself to not understanding anything anyone says to me, and resumed the climb. The road soared high above the river valley, passing through reforested zones that were a riot of fall colours. The Turkish government seems to be doing more to reforest its denuded hillsides than either the Georgians or (especially) the Armenians. No sooner had I climbed 500 metres from the border than I had to give most of the altitude back. I screamed downhill, past the town of Posof, then spent the afternoon sweating my way up to a 2500-metre pass. I made my way downhill across a hilly steppe, past thousands of people harvesting hay, and camped in an already-cut field.

The ride into Kars the next day was relatively easy and unremarkable. The forests of the previous day were a distant memory, and the landscape consisted of endless rounded hills and farmers harvesting hay. The town of Kars was an interesting place to spend the night. Held by the Russians for a few decades from 1886 to 1920, the town has a bit of a Russian feel, but the Ottoman castle above the town, and the beautiful Armenian church below it, give it an atmosphere all its own.

The ride the next morning to Ani, the former capital of Armenia, now located just inside the borders of Turkey, on the western side of the river that forms the frontier. The ride was easy, and I got there by noon. This gave me enough time to really enjoy the city and its impressive, atmospheric ruins. I had a picnic lunch beside the oldest building in the city, the Zoroastrian fire temple, and played some guitar in the warm sunshine. The snow that had blanketed the nearby hills the previous week had all melted, and we were back in summer. Finally, I bestirred myself and trotted around the huge site; Ani was once home to nearly 100,000 people, making it one of the largest Silk Road cities during its 11th-century heyday, and now it consists of huge extents of unexcavated ruins, dotted with immense standing ruins of churches. I particularly liked the huge Cathedral, the circular Church of King Gagik (very similar in architecture to Zvartnots), the Church of the Redeemer (half in perfect condition, half completely collapsed following a lightning strike 50 years ago) and the perfectly-situated Church of Tigran Horents. The stonework was, of course, intricate and endlessly fascinating, and there was an air of great antiquity and history to the city that I loved. On my way out, I met a Dutch couple in their overland vehicle with whom I exchanged some stories from the road; they have been exploring Africa over the past two decades, and are now trying to tear themselves away from Africa towards Central Asia.

That evening, I thought I had picked a perfect, hidden campsite, but what I didn't realize was that I was actually very close to a large Kurdish village that was just out of sight around a hill. I was spotted, and a steady stream of visitors came to check me out. The last group were three young men, somewhere between 18 and 25, who were the most annoying, offensive visitors imaginable. They showed up as I was cooking and stayed for an hour and a half, methodically asking me to give them everything they could see, asking me to have sex with them, and then demanding 5 lira ($3.50) so that they would leave. I eventually did offer them a used tea bag, but they didn't find this as hilarious as I did. I had to chase them away physically, and then, long after dark, I decided to move my tent in case they went home, got drunk and came back looking for trouble. It was a tedious process, but at least I got a secure night's sleep.

That was the start of the Kurdish Problem. I had been warned that the Kurdish areas of southeastern Turkey are notoriously unfriendly to cyclists, but I had assumed that the problem was with vicious sheepdogs. This is (so far) not the case; Georgian dogs gave me far more problems. The real issue is the humans, or more particularly the males under the age of 25. For four days I have rarely passed a group of non-adults without them coming running after me demanding money (or pens, or candies, but "Hello! Money!" is the universal greeting for cyclists in these parts. The kids try to block the road (trying to run them over generally gets them out of the way), try to hit me as I pass, and then pelt me with rocks. Having rocks thrown at me is not something I like; it enraged me in Pakistan in 1998 and in Tibet in 2001, and it does the same now. What angers me even more, though, is the indulgent attitude of adult Kurds, who stand around watching the kids beg and throw rocks and do nothing, except to protect them from angry Canadian cyclists. I even had a Kurdish grandfather throw a rock at me after I chased his rock-throwing son into the ditch. One man explained to me that the Almighty would smite the kids for their bad deeds; I lacked the Turkish to reply that clearly fear of supernatural retribution wasn't having the slightest deterrent effect, and that a few well-aimed slaps to the head might be more effective.

I've been pondering this for the past four unpleasant days of cycling, and it seems to me that, as in Tibet and northern Pakistan, this sort of behaviour seems to manifest itself in areas where the adult population feels marginalized in their own land by foreign overlords (Punjabis in Pakistan, Han Chinese in Tibet, Turks here), and where outsiders are consequently viewed with suspicion and hostility. As well, the native culture of the land is often damaged or destroyed by the actions of the foreign occupiers, leaving the young people feeling disaffected and alienated. (Think of native North American reservations in Canada in this context.) Either that, or the Kurds are merely innately evil schmucks! I certainly hope that the rock-throwing, which reached a climax in Dogubeyazit (aka "Dogbiscuit"), dies down as I head towards more prosperous, more Turkish parts of Turkey.

The cycling, aside from the hail of stones and the incessant begging, has been pretty good since Ani. I took a day to reach the outskirts of Igdir, coming down the Turkish-Armenian border only a few kilometres from my tracks a few days earlier. At one point, near Tuzluca, the Armenian and Turkish border towers were only 50 metres or so from each other, close enough to have conversations if the soldiers wanted to. This part of eastern Turkey has the feeling of an occupied country, with the military everywhere, in encampments, manning roadblocks and driving around in armoured personnel carriers. It's ostensibly aimed at protecting the border, but I think it's more to keep the Kurds and the PKK in line.

The ride from Igdir to Dogbiscuit was surprisingly easy, around the shoulder of Mt. Ararat (hidden in clouds, sadly). Dogbiscuit lived up to its name, a sprawl of concrete shanties across a plain, full of evil kids. Its only redeeming features are that it's close to the Iranian border (generations of overland travellers have passed through Dogubeyazit and mangled its name), and that it's overlooked by a pretty 17th-century palace (the Ishak Pasha Saray) and some 2700-year-old Urartu-era fortifications. It's ironic that my childhood nickname, Gravy Train, was a brand of dog food. Appropriate that I ended up in Dogubeyazit!

The last two days of riding saw a huge pass (2644 metres above sea level) and then a beautiful long downhill to salty Lake Van and its Armenian and Urartu-era ruins. I spent yesterday exploring the castle and Urartu-era inscriptions at the Rock of Van, and today looking at more Urartu ruins at Cavustepe. I had never heard of the Urartu civilization before, but it was pretty major and the forerunner of the Armenian state.

So now, after a day off from cycling, the road west starts; I hope to be in Antalya and Ayas, the twin endpoints of this odyssey, within three weeks. How quickly the end is coming!!

Peace and Tailwinds

Graydon

Riding Day No.	Date	Distance From Bushehr	Daily Distance	Final Elevation	Vertical Metres	Cycling Time	Average Speed	Maximum Speed	Daily Destination

58	9/29	5275.4	102.6	1461	1076	7:01	14.6	35.7	Anipemza
59	9/30	5372.2	96.8	2205	1884	7:00	13.9	56.4	Bavra, Georgia
60	10/1	5450.3	78.1	1220	531	6:24	12.2	34.4	Vardzia
61	10/2	5517.3	67.0	955	744	4:12	15.9	47.1	Akhaltsikhe
62	10/3	5592.6	75.3	2090	2603	7:04	10.6	55.8	Damal, Turkey
63	10/4	5695.7	103.1	1768	1307	6:40	15.5	51.3	Kars
64	10/5	5763.0	67.3	1601	753	4:48	14.0	47.1	Kozluca (near Ani)
65	10/6	5861.7	98.7	923	991	6:20	15.6	53.9	near Igdir
66	10/7	5947.3	85.6	1706	1486	6:05	14.1	48.6	Dogubeyazit
67	10/8	6060.0	112.7	1722	1486	7:14	15.6	49.9	NE corner of Lake Van
68	10/9	6136.1	76.1	1774	770	4:33	16.7	53.4	Van