Visiting Noah's Ark

This is what they say are the remains to the ark of prophet Noah. Behind me is Iran. That's the border right there and I'm in eastern Turkey close to the city called Doğubeyazıt and in this video we'll explore this fascinating ancient part of the world. So it's 2 30 p.m and I am on the very eastern end of Turkey and I'm trying to hitchhike to this city called Gürbülek because there are no buses going there. Let's see if this works out. So I found some sweet guys who are giving me a ride to the city and then they just stopped on the side because we're right next to Mount Ararat which is the biggest mountain in Turkey and the most famous one for sure because they looked all sweet. I'm not entirely sure what's going on but looks like we're stopping for fruits here. Do you know what this fruit is? The people in the car they're just Kurdish and they brought me to this place and we had a lot of watermelons. They forced me to eat watermelons and other fruits and now the guy in front of me is showing me where they grow their fruits. What's your name? I just came to the border and I was expecting a little bit of a small town here with people selling contraband stuff from Iran but that doesn't seem to be the case because all I have behind me is the border crossing and nothing else there and I can't really film there. The cops told me not to. So I was trying to hitchhike back and I couldn't really find a ride because there's not a lot of cars at the border so I just found a taxi because it's getting late and I want to get to Ishak Pasha Palace. With me is Salim. I met him at the border. He's from Doğubeyazit. Okay so right now I'm in Ishak Pasha Palace which is probably one of the most important architectural sites in this whole region. It's a very very interesting place because it looks like Ottoman architecture but it's also got a lot of Middle Eastern or especially Iranian influences on it and that's very evident in the arches and the domes that you see here. You don't really see that in any other Ottoman palace at least that I've been to. So the construction of this palace was started around 1685 by the Kurdish chiefs that ruled this area and it was finished around 100 years later by another Kurdish chief and an Ottoman general named Ishak Pasha after whom this palace was named. It was used for a fort for a long time after that. During World War I even the Russians used this as a military fort and because of that it suffered a lot of damage from gunfire during the war and then even after the war up until 1937 this place was still used as a military fort. Right now it's more of a museum but it's definitely worth the visit. So obviously the interior architecture of the palace is very cool and very unique but the best view for me is not from inside but from outside the palace where you can see the whole palace against the backdrop of this empty wide landscape of the Middle East and it looks especially cool during sunset time. We go to the side whose importance is of biblical proportions but for that I gotta head over 30 kilometers southeast of the city that way. So right now I'm at the visitor center of the Noah's Ark National Park in eastern Turkey right next to Iran and this place right in front of me is what a lot of people believe are the remains of prophet Noah's Ark. So let me tell you the full story. In 1959 a Turkish army officer was on an air force reconnaissance mission for NATO in this part of Turkey and he noticed this structure that looked very interesting and looked like a ship and for a long time people had sort of believed that the resting point of Noah's Ark was somewhere in this region and that's because Christians have traditionally said that the resting place of Noah's Ark is somewhere in the mountains of Ararat according to the bible and this place isn't too far from Mount Ararat that we saw at the start of the video. So a lot of people started doing expeditions here in the 60s and the 70s to confirm whether this was indeed what they believed was Noah's Ark. But then in the 80s this guy came along named David Fasol who sort of changed the game. He was a US merchant's marine officer and a salvage expert and he came out on an expedition here so he brought a radar to look at what's inside it and he said he found an iron structure that's about the same size as Noah's Ark was supposed to be in the bible. He also claimed that the locals around this region call one of the peaks of these mountains to be Al Judi. He linked that to Mount Judi which according to the Quran is also supposed to be the resting place of Noah's Ark. Even more interestingly David Fasol famously found these stones which were these huge upright stones with holes in them that kind of look like drogues which are anchors used in ancient ships and a lot of these stones had been found in the as well and these were basically stones used as anchors to sort of keep a ship or an ark stable during a large storm. So after he went on that expedition he wrote a book called The Ark of Noah in 1989 which was pretty popular and it started a lot more expeditions into this area for people trying to confirm whether this is indeed Noah's Ark or even a ship. So Turkey turned this place into Noah's Ark National Park and a lot of people believe this is indeed the Ark of Prophet Noah but that's not what everyone believes. That's not what a lot of geologists believe. That's not even what a lot of creationists or religious people believe. They just think it's a scam and this is probably not a ship and that even if this was a ship this can't be the Ark of Prophet Noah because it's supposed to be somewhere else according to religious scriptures. Now what do I believe about all of this? From the little research that I have seen I'm gonna go with the geologists who think that this is just a structure that happens to look like a ship and is a very interesting structure and the landscape around here is pretty cool so this place is definitely worth a visit but to me I don't think this is Noah's Ark. If you think otherwise and if I don't know anything feel free to correct me in the comments but to me that's probably not a ship. So I'm at the visitor center with Ahmed. Ahmed and Mehmet. I think we're about to head back now. Okay so the view on the way down from this site is actually even better than the views on the way up. It's pretty beautiful. So if you like this video don't forget to hit the like button. If you want to support the channel or if you just want to see more videos from me from Turkey, the Middle East and the rest of the world feel free to subscribe to my channel. If you want to follow my adventures in real time feel free to follow me on Instagram at Nadir on the Go. That's where I post all real-time updates as my stories while I'm traveling. I'll catch you guys on the next one most probably from somewhere else in Turkey.