Turkey is meant to be the most secular Islamic country in the middle east, but there are signs of it becoming less stable and more observant.

This military vehicle which looks almost like a tank was outside a police station, on my way from my hotel to the city centre.

There were two new mosques on this 2km or so street.   Both look almost finished, I’m guess there is some kind of rendering over the concrete face not yet completed.    This looks like your average novelty box of crayola type mosque, not like some of the more outlandish buildings I saw in Morocco.

This hastily painted over graffiti was close to my hotel and the waterfall.  You can see there is mention of the PKK, the extreme Kurdish groups that did some bomb attacks recently.

I’m not sure how stable Tarsus and much of Turkey is currently, I checked all the news before I cam here, and I didn’t want to go to Istanbul or Ankara which have had fatal bombing in recent times.   So far as as far as I have Google searched there is never been a terrorist attack in Tarsus.

Part of the reason for doing this trip now (April 2016) is things could turn out very different if the always unstable middle east charges tides this direction.   I wanted to see these place while I can.

I feel that peace between the Kurds and Turks can only happen through Christ.

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