From our base in Malatya we went up to the amazing Mt. Nemrut. There are a few places near Nemrut that you could use as a base, like Kahta or even Sanliurfa. The tours run from these places are a little expensive, and Malatya was recommended to us by a guy from South Korea we met in Goreme. The city of Malatya organizes and runs the tours, so there’s no hassle with negotiating prices or finding a reputable tour agency.

All you have to do is show up at the tourist office located behind the main government in a tea garden sometime before noon and you can go. There a friendly and funny Kurdish-Turkish man named Kemal will arrange your tour. On the day we went, there were no other travelers, so we had the bus and the hotel near the summit to ourselves. Normally they’d charge you more to go in such a small group, but because the price is fixed by the city, it’s the same no matter how many people go.

From Malatya it’s a bumpy, nauseating three hour ride to the top. If you go from Malatya they drive you up to the summit in time to see the sunset, then you spend the night at a hotel just a few kilometers down the road, and wake up to see the sunrise over Nemrut before heading back to Malatya. The total cost of the tour is 60 lira per person (about $40). That includes dinner and breakfast too, so it’s a really good deal.

The road up to the top is bumpy and rough, and you are riding in a mini-bus, so it’s not really cut out for such difficult terrain. There is a very large element of faith involved in taking the journey at all, as there are times when a mistake by the driver would lead to a terrifying plummet down steep, rocky slopes.

The summit itself is definitely worth the journey. From the top you can see the barren, rocky terrain for miles and miles in all directions. The main attraction are the large heads that once sat upon even larger statues of the gods and King Antiochus. There are two temples at the top, the eastern terrace and the western terrace. They back up against a false summit, a large pile of baseball-sized rocks that makes the summit look like a perfect rounded hill. Watching the golden light preceding the sunset on the weathered heads, high up in the mountains of eastern Turkey is a really incredible experience. It gets very cold up there as the sun dips down, as the summit is at 7,000 feet.

After retiring to the hotel for dinner and an early bedtime, we got up at 5:30 and drove back to the top to watch the sunrise. There was a little bit of rain when we went up, and the clouds concealed the sunrise a little bit but it was still enjoyable (and cold). It’s just amazing that such massive statues and the supporting temple structures are on top of such a remote and rugged mountain, making a visit very worthwhile.