After Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan and Iran , I feel relieved to arrive in Turkey. No need to wear a veil and no one to talk to me every twenty seconds in the streets. I am happy to become invisible and walk into the shopping street of Van. The modern showcases look so familiar, like those of any French stores. I celebrates my arrival by eating in Burger King and realize that I definitely don't like fast food anymore. Then I drank beers at a beer-pong party and I was amazed that men and women can meet, have fun, drink, dress short and wear too much make-up freely and with impunity. The bar turned into a smoke aquarium, the Turks smoke so much that I needed to go out to breathe.

 

My boyfriend Sebastian joined and people looked at me in a different way. They were no longer surprised or afraid: I was again  "part of  a normal couple". Then my friend Cyrielle arrived. The last time we met, she offered me a guidebook for Brazil in my tiny Parisian studio...That was before my departure in 2013. It was nice to meet again, to get news from France, from her, to see that after five years, we were still friends.

 

We standed up our three thumbs along the roads of Kurdistan. This region is divided between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. But for the Turks, the word Kurdistan is taboo, we had to say "the South-Eastearn region"... Otherwise, we received critics or even insults (such as the "fucking idiot, Kurdistan doesn't exist" written on my instragram free comments). However, for the Kurds, Kurdistan seemed to exist. We discovered its language, songs, dances and food specialties. Although traveling with the three of us, we were welcomed and hosted like old friends by Enes & Ika, Hasan, Mirmar, Derya, Berfin, Mohsen & Negar. It rained a lot so we spent many hours talking about their lives, our lives, life in general and we drank more and more  black tea.

 

Cyrielle asked one of our host about the bombing of Kurdistan by the Turkish government in 2015 and 2016. A shy answer preceded misty eyes. It was too much emotions, too many deaths. She prefered not to speak out for fear of reprisals. Cyrielle explained her that she was afraid to come to Kurdistan. Our new friend was surprised and laughed because "it is not dangerous at all anymore". And then she confessed that she was afraid to go to Paris after the 2015 terrorists attack and that she canceled her trip. Ironic.

 

In Kurdistan, there was the large Lake Van with snow-capped mountains, old towns with its maze of alleys, Armenian churches which are abandoned for a hundred years, cavehouses, small snow-capped mountains again. We could see Syria in the distance, from the heights of Mardin.

 

There were also mosques every two hundred meters and minarets screaming five times a day. It seemed to me that Turkey was much more Muslim than Iran and Uzbekistan where religion was more a matter of habit and politics. In Iran, women must wear the chadors or hijab in the street. But in South East Turkey there were just no or very few women outside! It was obvious when I took street pictures with all these men drinking tea.

 

Cyrielle left. With Sebastian, I reached the impressive Cappadocia, in the center of Turkey. We were hosted for free by Kadir in his luxurious cavehouse! We spent three whole days visiting the valleys, rocks, churches, cavehouses and underground cities. This region was just extraordinary!

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Arriving in Istanbul, my hitchhiking journey along the Silk Road came to its end. It took me five months from Beijing to cross China , Kazakhstan , Kyrgyzstan , Uzbekistan , Turkmenistan , Iran and Turkey. As the Turks do not celebrate Christmas, we found a group of travelers and foreigners to celebrate December 24th.

 

The Turkish ferry company Akgünler Denizcilik agreed to offer us tickets to Cyprus in exchange for some pictures! We left the gates of Europe to head south. Through the cars' windows we could watch the landscapes covered with snow and we were surprised by all the new buildings. Turkey looked like a  huge construction site!

 

When we arrived at the port of Tasucu, the ferry was delayed because of the weather, but we are hosted at the last minute by a couchsurfer and we embarked the next day for the island of Cyprus. We were getting closer to Africa to continue this hitchhiking world tour!