Fethiye to Antalya on the Pamukkale bus service 45TL 3 hours plus 30 minutes Lokanta stop. Great service including in seat TV, films, music, Internet. Ice cream, snacks and drinks included in ticket price.
Antalya otogar to airport by taxi 20 min cost 45TL or there is a bus service too 55 min Flights from Antalya to Diyarbakir by Sun Express £65 return. We took the early evening flight. The car hire guy was there to meet us with a free upgrade to the small car we had booked online, Peugeot 301Diesel with a few hundred km on the clock and it turned out to be a great bonus the roads are good where we traveled.We added Sat Nav but only used it once.
Diyarbakir was one of our favourite places to visit. We felt very safe and welcome. There was a military helicopter over the city most times ! Most tourists were Arab we think and yes maybe we did stick out a bit! There is lots to see lots to visit everyone will research their interests but the two Biggie's for us was the Basalt City Walls and Kahvalti in Hasan Paşa Hanı, not to be missed. Yes there are parts of the city you don't want to visit but research and we found all was good.
Our itinerary included two nights in Sanliurfa. Visits to Harran, Attaturk Barrage easy from Sanliurfa too! Then E90 motorway to Eski Mardin! The terrain is virtually flat it was Bulgar harvest time.
Eski Mardin is a great place built on a hill 1084mtr. We stayed three nights and found it a good centre to see the area. Good hotels some very good restaurants. From here we visited Bayaz Su, Midyat and Hasankeyf all worth the effort Hasankeyf is very old but is under threat of bring flooded by a new barrage / dam, now is the time to see it before its too late. Batman and its petrol industry is just along the road, no we didn't go! We did visit Nusaybin to visit a Kurdish friend and family its a real border city half in Syria and Turkey. The family were just wonderful. Not a touristic area!
This is the basics of our trip we researched well and did the things we wanted to do ! It gave us a great feel of the East Of Turkey !
Everything was easy friendly and yes we felt safe and very welcome everywhere! As a male I would have been uncomfortable wearing shorts at anytime and my wife only excluded wearing very short sleeved tops.
Yes ! It's a Kurdish area the people we met were friendly and inquisitive about us and why would we visit ! language wasn't a big problem.
Hotels were booked through Booking.com hotelelruha.com was a great hotel in a great location for Sanliurfa. erdoba.com.tr is where we stayed in Eski Mardin a great hotel in the perfect location, we made some alterations without problems or costs. Sunexpress.com can be booked online we booked ours with Lama Travel Fethiye for our convenience! Economycarrentals.collm was used for the car hire good prces trouble free. Wikitravel.org/en/Diyarbakir was a good research guide for all places to visit,as was turkeytravelplanner.com
Is the area beautifull ? Well yes! But in a very different way, not much greenery no mountains in fact its so flat you can see to the end of the earth! History from before he bible, Mesopotamia ! Euphrates ! Tigris ! Christian Churches ! Syriac ! Mosques ! plus other religions ! A few different languages too ! East Turkey is huge but this for us was a great taster.
What did we return with ? Dibek Coffee ! Blue sugar Almonds, photos and a lifetime of memories !