The Road from Ganziantep to Sanliurfa

At around 4pm today I set off in a car with a customer on the main highway from Gaziantep to Sanliurfa. A journey of some 120Km.



The road is one of those not quite wide enough to be 3 lanes with plenty of hardshoulder. Its a bit rough and undulating and badly sign posted. The drivers are maniacs. Double over taking is common. How we didn't hit anyone I really don't know.



To make matters worse, its full of slow old trucks. Mostly fuel tankers at least 30 years old. Reminiscent of the scenes in the Mad Max movies, all held together with odd bolts and lights hanging off. For some reason I would guess that 1 in 10 vehicles on this road were tankers. Stranger still, every mile or so sometimes a lot less was a 2 pump petrol station. My travelling companion guessed that some of tankers contained smuggled fuel and these were their outlets... I really don't know, but it was mighty odd.

We passed through some pretty poor looking areas. Run down shacks and houses hewn into the rock face. Very interesting and not something you see in good old England.