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<map lat='37.31959484683626' lng='40.7332706451416' zoom='13' view='0' float='right' />

Mardin is a city in Turkey .

Contents

Hitchhiking out

Northeast towards Midyat, Hasankeyf, Batman

The road heading northeast starts at a junction between the old city (Eski Mardin) and the Yenişehir suburb (literally “new city”, the newer suburb of the city lying on the plain), just at where the steep hill towards the old city starts/ends, opposite the big-box type market named Migros. Note the junction of the road leading to Şırnak by its sign (which is nearer to the old city than the junction of the road to Midyat) not to take the wrong road, as the junctions lie very close to each other.

It’s no problem to attract a ride here, as in the rest of Southeastern Anatolia. Drivers seeing you walking towards the exit of the city stop by even when you’re not actually thumbing.

North towards Diyarbakır

From the park in the new city (Yenisehir), just walk in direction Diyabakır. There'll be a huge crossing after a few 100 meters. Walk a little further until you find a nice place to htich.

South towards Kızıltepe; South-East towards Nusaybin, Cizre, Iraq; West to Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep etc.

From the new town (Yenişehir) you can walk to the junction with road D950 towards Kiziltepe. Reference is the clock tower (Saat Kulesi), which is being rebuilt now so it's not there, but on the maps it's there: 37°19′31.13″N 40°43′01.52″E.

Kiziltepe is rather unpleasant but here on the "Silk Road" you will find plenty of vehicles and trucks heading East to Cizre and Iraq, as well as to the West: Şanlıurfa, Gaziantep and all the Mediterranean coast. The highway is D400.

From Kızıltepe going west we found it very hard: waiting for 1h+ and highway is separated in lanes with a concrete barrier without really any place to stop. A solution might be to walk further west until you reach a traffic light, then, while cars are stopped at the light forming a long queue, flash a sign with your destination until some driver waves to invite you in. The cars are waiting at the lights for ~1 minute so it's enough time to quickly get in. We got a lift to Urfa using this strategy.

Sleeping

Başak Hotel at the main street of old city has open-air beds on the rooftop available for 15 TL/person a night. Correction (September 2018): no more open-air beds and rooftop is empty, the owner was hesitant but in the end didn't let us sleep there even with tent/mat or whatever. He did offer a double room for 50 TL discounted from 100 TL (no air-conditioning) and we couldn't bargain it any lower so we found a Couchsurfing instead. Still it seems Başak is the cheapest hotel option if you want to be in the middle of the old Mardin and not waste your time getting anywhere else, and the worker was quite accommodating to low budget trying to make us an offer.

There is an abandoned palace where you can sleep for free on the flood, very quite place. Its next to şahmeran pansiyon (30 TL dormitory), go same way as if you go to the pansiyon, when you see the entrance of şahmeran continu up on the left, there its the end of the street and you can enter in the ruines of the palace.


WikiPedia:Mardin