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monastery , where Syriac friars keep on studying despite the war in Syria and the long lasting one between Turkey and PKK . As well as monks , Mardin people seem to live on a happy isle lost in the uncertain sea .
Main roads are wide and flowing in Turkey , with a rough asphalt made by thick gravel which has incredible grip . After 150,000 kilometres our Ténéré 660 ’ s engine seemed tired during its last trip , the heat this time took it almost to collapse , dilated gaskets , enhanced the oil pressure , cutting off oxygen for combustion . On these roads , wide with desert all around it wa shard not to ride at full throttle . Fully loaded we seemed like a bullet shot from a gun toward the barren , rocky , infinity .
The happy murmuring of the engine was now a sodomite shout of an aching beast , which swung at every dip in the road at a speed of 140 kilometres per hour . When slowing down , the exhaust exploded sound like a gunshot , worrying the few people we met in this land of everpresent extremist assaults .
I could feel every single shot of the six thousand revolutions per minute and every shot seemed to be the last . It sounded like next would be the death of the bike , but it only needed to run to stay cool and alive . We were instead overcome by the heat forced into the helmet which in turn forced us to close the helmet visors to take cover from glowing air , we were descending to an altitude of five hundred metres .
After only 130 kilometres , we stopped for the night in Hasankeyf , along the Tigris River , staring at the skyline of the ancient settlement , it would soon vanish due to the Ilısu dam whose works were almost completed .
This dam ’ s story is controversial . Beyond its unquestionable usefulness , many opponents of the project say that the flooding of
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