In 1982 I spent three months travelling in Turkey with a British friend of mine, Martin Dent. We backpacked around a country that hadn’t changed much in a century, or even millennia. It was like travelling in time. All around us we saw modes of life that hadn’t altered for ages. One of my fondest memories was visiting the extraordinary site of Nemrud Dagh (post coming soon). I had had a teacher at Simon Fraser University, Richard Sullivan, who had excavated at Nemrud with Theresa Goell, who was a fascinating, though controversial  figure. From my studies with Sullivan I knew that the real or ‘authentic’ way to get to Nemrud was via the ancient processional route from Arsemeia, and that began at Eski or ‘Old Kahta’ (also known to day as ‘Yenikale’ [New Castle] or ‘Kocahisar’ or ‘Old Castle, which I know is confusing but there’s an explanation; Arsemeia is known as Eski Kale, which also means ‘Old Castle’). At any rate, when Martin and I arrived in Eski Kahta when the sun was setting and casting a rich light on the medieval castle. We found no accommodation except for a storage pen with a dirt floor; a place where animals would have usually been kept. I think we may have been charged 75 cents each for the night. I know, since both Martin and I kept immaculate financial records, that our entire trip average was $4.70 CDN per day, all inclusive. That ancient building is still there, and is the first image in this Eski Kahta slideshow. We slept there that night. Luckily we were well prepared with bedrolls and sleeping bags. The next day we set out to find the ancient route and find it we did, hiking up the beginnings of the Kahta River, which flows to the Cendere and onwards into the Euphrates. I don’t know how we did it. I could never do that today. It was at least 15 miles and I think we were carrying our packs as well, climbing the mountain at the end of it. Some peasants gave us tea and some food on the way up. It was a remarkable day. This current trip, 33 years later, was in some ways to find the old Turkey I’d seen decades before. And believe me, that’s not easy. In the intervening decades Turkey has modernized at a terrific rate. Imagine my surprise when I went again to Eski Kahta and found it virtually unchanged, with the house and shed Martin and I stayed in completely intact, and still with its dirt floor (see the picture of the house with two arches; our ‘room’ was on the lower right). Luckily, however, there was a fellow running a kind of pension out of his house which was quite comfortable and reasonable at 30 TL a night. The porch of the house gave a magnificent view of the Mamluke castle of Eski Kahta. So much of old Turkey is gone, but in the east you can still find fragments, and Eski Kahta is one of them. In the slideshow many of the pictures are just of the incomparable spring morning landscape, lush with new grass, and the Kahta River flowing fresh and cold. I took these pictures the morning I went to Arsemeia and, later, Nemrud Dagh.