Doğu Ekspresi; Part 1

Assalamualaikum!

There was a night when we was sitting in our dorm’s canteen, scrolling and wandering around about those places –far, far away in the eastern part of the Turkey. In the country border within Armenia, witnessing thousand years of enormous history. Standing tall; a ruin of mosque that also used to be a church. One of the coldest place; where lies a completely freezing lake surrounded by snowy mountains. 

How do we go there? Is there any city bus available? Can we live there? How does people stand in -20C everynight; could they even sleep? 

It was only matter of days as we struggled –and succeeded- to buy tickets for Doğu Ekspresi, a special train that would bring us all the way to the city with those amazing places; Kars. 

Doğu Ekspresi is one of the famous and special train, especially in winter season. Stretched out all the way from Ankara to Kars, it brings people in 24-hours-trip full of snowy rails and mountains. This train available in three different kind of seat; yataklı, örtülü and pulman. Yataklı wagon lets us to have one special compartment for two people, occupied with our own bed, table, sink, mini-bar refrigerator, and all those things that you can also find in a standard hotel room. The örtülü wagon is a compartment with 4 people inside, and the pulman wagon is for the standard train seats. It also has one special dining wagon, so that people can sit together and enjoy their meals while seeing the beautiful scenery outside. 

Samsun to Ankara is indeed a far and costly trip, so we decided to start our journey from Sivas. Headed from Samsun at 8 pm, we had 6 hours trip to Sivas by bus before heading to the station and boarded the Doğu Ekspresi train at 5 am in the morning on the next day. 

For only 23.5 TL each, the 14-hours trip from Sivas to Kars was a very memorable moment for me. Welcomed by a beautiful sunrise at around 7.30 am, and followed with an unexceptionally-all-white lands and mountains hours later. Frozen lakes were literally everywhere. I could see nothing but snow. Masyaa Allah. Well, again, as a tropical human being, this scenery is totally remarkable. And the funniest part was; you didn't need to stay cold as the heater inside the train was working perfectly :p 

We reached Kars at almost 8 pm. The temperature was almost -14C. I took a taxi and went straight away to a governmental girls dormitory (KYK). I am now staying in a governmental dormitory in Samsun, thus it allows me to stay in any governmental dormitory in the other cities. The dormitory was a bit far, but thankfully the registration process was okay. I got a room with another two Turkish girl. They were very kind and friendly! Thanks for the warm welcome, chitchats and tea :)

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