Dogu express, the train that covers 1310 km from Ankara to Kars and takes 26 hours, leaves from platform 1. The diesel engine (electrification is slow…), in livery red, rolled in an hour before the scheduled departure at 17:55.

I shared the 4-berth couchette with 3 Turkish women (the photo of the eldest on the steps of a wagon) – they made themselves completely at home: 3 generations, 3 large suitcases, bags, drinks, food…Not very communicative – they were just self-contained. They left me a top bunk; no problem, except that it was quite hot – I kept opening the window, they kept closing it.

Spent all my waking hours in the restaurant car, where views were better as available on both sides of the carriage. And the views are definitely spectacular. The train gets very busy in winter, for the views of the mountains covered in snow.

Met Miguel, the Portuguese (cyclist) who lives in Bern, and was doing a 2 week circular trip overland by train/ferry from Bern. If you thought I was mad…:)) Then there was Tom from Wales (who lives in Toulouse) – one has enough time to really get to know one’s travel companions on this journey. (Tom and I landed in the same hotel in Kars.) There was also an Australian family, mum Suzanne, dad Simon, and “the boys”, Oscar and Max (in their 20’s). The boys were visiting parents who are on a posting in Ankara. They’d booked the Lonely Planet recommended guide, Celil Ersozoglu, to take them to Ani, the Cildir Lake and Seitan Kalesi (the Devil’s Castle) and kindly agreed to let Tom and me join them. Had a super day. Ani, a UNESCO site, is in a magnificent setting. The canyons surrounding it, the double walls around the fortified town…

We drove around Lake Cildir which is famous in these parts for freezing over so much that they have sleigh rides on it, that cars do sliding arabesques on it, that people fish for carp through the holes in the ice… At present, it is cold and windblown, but no ice – climate change?

The road to Devil’s Castle is a single track one with a metal fence (broken in places) along a deep canyon below. The mountains around look barren, inhospitable, magnificent. When the castle comes into view, it is breathtaking in its proud isolation. The car can only get to within about a mile of it – then we walked.

Should anyone come this way, there are better hotels than the Hotel Kent Ani. It was cheap as chips – c £85 for 5 nights, B&B (so I don’t mind leaving a day early). My room was small, facing the back, on the 2nd floor. Smelt strongly of cigarette smoke and pigeon shit. Flecks of soot on the linen when I opened the window – smearing into black streaks… but I was very tired.

And in the morning, the pigeons were cooing on the windowsill, LOUDLY – competing with the muezzin in the minaret nearby. The hotel is virtually empty, so I asked if I could move. The boy who showed me the new room, opened the door as if it were a palace and said “beautiful”? The room is exactly the same, but it is on the 4th floor and thus above the roosting pigeons and the soot. The loo seat is broken and shifting – showed the reception guy the google trans about the toilet seat. He sighed: “problem…”

Breakfast is fun too – lots of olives, tahini, chai, several (very salty) cheeses… but the fruit is plastic :))

I shall start my journey to Armenia tomorrow. The 3 boys, Tom, Oscar, Max left yesterday – a dolmus to another town, a bus to the border, cross on foot, get another bus or taxi…

Georgia tomorrow.