Eastern Turkey

Right now we're in a village called Kemaliye, located in a remote, isolated valley in eastern Turkey and there's not a foreigner in town besides us. Most of the Turkish "tourists" here are people in town to visit family. This is an amazing place. And we're not even supposed to be here! Our train ticket said "Final destination Erzurum", and Erzurum, near the Armenian, Georgian and Iranian borders, was where we were heading. But, when a really friendly 65-year old man named Hilmi invites you to get off the train 5 hours early and take an hour-long mini-bus ride over the mountains on a dirt and gravel road to visit his hometown with him, you simply do not say "no".