The Train, and encounters in Kurdish Turkey

Needless to say the train was boring. The fold down beds stopped being interesting after about hour, I ran out of books and Magazines after about 12 hours, and nobody anywhere near me on the train spoke English or a version of Turkish which I could understand, and it was dark for 20 out of 34 hours.
All in all though, I would rather take it than bus for a journey of that length, at least I got a bed, a sink, a toilet and privacy, for about the same price.
34 hours on the train took me to an 8am arrival in Diyarbakir. I walked into the City Centre and was greeted by 20 metre high Black Basalt Walls of Byzantine origin.
Diyarbakir is considered to be the Capital of Kurdish culture in the region, and had an assortment of Byzantine, Islamic and Turkish history, all wrapped in a Kurdish setting.
I couldn't check into my hotel so I left my bag and went to explore the city, the Archaeological museum was closed, and apparently no longer exists in that location(thanks Lonely Planet). I then meandered back towards the main mosque, missed it but ended up on the 2nd largest complete wall in the world, which encircles the old city.
20 metres high, no railings, muddy/slippery footing in some areas, and public access you would think it would be at least monitored(apparently there are lots of muggings on the wall too). But no, so I walked all over the place, inside towers, to the top of parapets.
I then tried to see if I could see the Main Mosque so as not to miss it. As I was reading some plaques about the Mosque a guy who spoke French started giving me a tour. He toured me all around the old city, the Mosque and it's Medresa, a couple traditional homes and the home of a local famous poet. Turns out he was the former head of tourism for the region. He then led me to his friends Carpet shop for tea. Which inevitable led to carpets being laid out for me to look at.
It's incredibly hard to say no to such amazing carpets. I ended up buying a Kurdish Kilm, for 1/5 of the price I saw a similar one in Istanbul.
I then went down the valley to the Tigris River to get some sand. 2km down, 2km back up the hill, somebody could have told me there was no sand in the river. It did give me my first encounter with the poor of the region, walking down a road to the river the entire street stopped, the soccer game right down to the mothers preparing dinner, they all stopped to watch me.

The Resit(the tour guide) and I ended up going to the University for dinner, where I had some "traditional Kurdish food". It was pretty good, he introduced me to a few heads of department there and had a lengthy chat with the head of Architecture. It was a shame Resit ruined it by trying to sell me a tour I couldn't afford(in time or money), I said no a number of times, then he got depressed, which got me to thinking what kind of formerly prestigious tour guide needs to go to such lengths to get a client? He was kind of strange.

My introduction to the Kurds was fantastic despite the one hiccup. I made plans to take the bus to the Iraqi border in the morning, and I was going to need my sleep for such a grand adventure.