When I came in Cappadocia at bus stand and asked for ticket to Urfa I got quite surprising reply „Don’t go there it is not save“… Well I had know that Turks don’t really like Kurds but even that this surprised me. So why it is not safe? “There is lot of demonstrations and this part of country is not safe for tourists”. That made me smile. After short chat I have find out that the guys even haven’t ever been in this part of country. So how can he know that it is so unsafe?
True is that if I ever said to somebody in Turkey that I plan go to Kurdistan they looked at me that I got mad. They even tried to convince me that I shouldn’t go there. For example once when I mentioned that I want go to Turkish Kurdistan a guy immediately replayed: “There is not Kurdistan, you are in Turkey”. Well than I am not sure who is mad… Anyway I didn’t really care of their advices and next day I left for Urfa.
That something is different was obvious already when I came for the bus. All the tourists were going to Istanbul or some other part of Turkey only I was going to Kurdish part of Turkey. In few days I have realised that Kurdistan is not really touristic spot. There are basically no tourists at all. I did not meet single foreigner for almost next 14 days… BTW I love that.
For all my days I have spent in Kurdistan I did not find anything why people should be scared to come here. My experience was other way around. I really enjoyed my time in Kurdistan. People, nature, atmosphere simply everything. So friendly people I didn’t meet in many places I had chance to visit in my life. People are very friendly, helpful and also I have received regular invitations to join them for barbecue which often followed by invitations to their homes (what I accepted once and would never regret it). From my experience Kurds are nice and warm people and what I liked more than ever “They are proud who they are”. Basically each time when I got question “Where are you from?” than after my reply nobody forgot to remind that they are Kurds.
Of course not everything is perfect here even local people told me that some parts of mountains are not very safe because of PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) fighters, but obviously things are getting better and better…
