Travelogue - Part 8: Istanbul

Istanbul

Once we'd arrived at our new hotel, we decided to use the rest of the afternoon to look around Istanbul a bit, before meeting our new group in the evening. We decided to go to what was called the Blue Mosque, which we'd been told about, and really was impossible to miss! It was just as impressive inside as out, although mini-shots like these don't really do it justice:

After that, we wandered around a bit more. There was one random little section of street with multi-coloured houses which caught our eye (and reminded me of La Boca in Buenos Aires):

Temporary Insanity (or complete absence of brain, at the very least)

It was shortly after we'd left the Blue Mosque, and were wandering through a strip of shops, that I suddenly realised I didn't have my camera with me. Given that I'd never left my camera anywhere in my life, this was very unusual, not to mention somewhat disturbing! I hurried back to the mosque, and found that I had indeed left it on a bench when I was putting my shoes back on. *phew* It was later on that I recalled seeing something blue on the bench as well when I was grabbing my camera. This is relevant, because it was a little while afterwards that I noticed something extremely obvious that I'd missed: I wasn't wearing my entire backpack! Yes, that flash of blue I'd noticed was most likely the backpack that hadn't left either my back or my hotel room for three consecutive world trips. Saying a quick "see you back at the hotel" to my travel buddy and running back to the mosque, I discovered that it had been put away into lost property, and after signing a piece of paper that (presumably) said I'd gotten it back, I headed back to the hotel, feeling somewhat relieved and more than a little bemused. I knew that I was extremely tired from the recent trip, capped off by the overnight train, but I hadn't realised I was -that- out of it. The dazed feeling I instantly became aware of when I lay down to try and sleep after I'd gotten some lunch put it all into perspective, though!

Journey's Beginning

Unfortunately I never actually managed to get any sleep, but I did get enough rest to feel (and appear) sufficiently human for our group meeting that evening. It turned out that there were 14 of us plus the tour guide (whom we'd already met on the overnight train, as previously mentioned). They all seemed nice enough, and once we'd gone through all the necessary details, we headed off to dinner at a rather nice restaurant not that far away and had fun getting to know one another a little. Fortunately, everyone else was tired as well, which meant that they were happy to go straight back to the hotel after dinner instead of doing something else (I would've felt like a bit of a piker if I'd had to say no to doing something else on the first night!).

The next morning, we went on a little tour of Istanbul for several hours. It was on foot, and we (re)visited the Blue Mosque, as well as going to a couple of other smaller ones. We saw the university, which had really lovely grounds (unfortunately the gates and walls made it rather hard to take any actual photos), and a few other bits and pieces. After that, we had the afternoon to ourselves to see whatever we wanted. I decided that my first priority was to find some good Turkish Delight, and, after quizzing our leader, we headed off to find the shop she'd recommended. It had just about every flavour you could imagine; from the traditional rose, to nuts, fruits, and mint. We both bought some boxes for later, and then had a bit of a browse around some shops, keeping an eye out for an All-seeing Eye charm that my travel buddy had seen used as a keyring at the hotel in Goreme, and really liked. While we didn't have any luck finding anything even close to it, we did enjoy having a browse through everything that was on offer.

After lunch, we had a wander through a park, as the Topkapi Palace museum was closed, despite us being told it was open that day (they'd mixed two attractions up). As this was the first park I'd seen since leaving Melbourne, I was glad to have a chance to wander through it, along with all the local families. It was a nice little bit of very green serenity, made even nicer because it reminded me of home a bit:

There was a rather cool fountain, too, which was nice to look at, and also gave me an idea for a fun perspective shot or two:

I also got a chance at some point during the afternoon to see a few things I'd missed when I went back to the hotel early. This is the German Fountain, which was apparently constructed to commemorate the second anniversary of German emperor Wilhelm II's visit to Istanbul in 1898. They built the pieces in Germany and transported them to Istanbul, where they put it all together. History aside, it looked rather nice:

I've seen obelisks like this in a number of different countries now. This one was originally raised in Egypt by Thutmosis III in honour of the sun god Amon Ra back in the 16th century BC, and was brought to Istanbul in 390 AD as a decoration for the hippodrome:

There were plenty of other things to see in Istanbul, but that was all we had time for that day, and we were going to have more time to see things at the end of the tour. The next day, we headed off to Bursa, which I'll tell you all about in my next instalment.

Travelogue - Menus and Signs

Unfortunately it's a bit hard to sound enthusiastic about places you've been to when you're sick (although I'm almost better now!), so as a bit of a filler, here's something I was planning on putting up a bit later. Yes, it's the "funny menus and signs I saw on my trip" post. (You'll have to excuse the quality with some of these: they were taken in a hurry!) Here we go:

                          (Quick! Buy the poor things!)

(Cloaks for entering a mosque, as it turned out.)

(Not sure -what- to say about this one.)

(Or this one, either.)

("My day's been going too well. I'd like some Doom just to balance things out, please.")

(Brings a whole new meaning to playing with your food!)

(Written by a scientist, perhaps??)

(Because we'll have none of this ill-mannered food at -our- restaurant.)

(Sadly, the Outside Meatball wasn't available when we were there, for comparison.)

           (You're either Family or you're Sundry, apparently.)

("Lamp" and "Bedwin" (Bedouin) are the important ones here.)

(Hopefully they really did mean "soup"!)

Travelogue - Part 7: Cappadocia, Istanbul, and Journey's End

Cappadocia

Cappadocia is famous for its natural rock tower formations, dubbed "fairy chimneys". The thing that makes it especially interesting is that people have actually hollowed them out and used them as houses, even to this day. Naturally, the first thing we did was stop at a good vantage point so we could have a look:

After that, we drove into the town, which is called Goreme, and had a bit of a walk around. It didn't take that long, as the town wasn't that large, but it had a nice feel to it, and more than one bar! We finished up at a bar called Fatboy's (which ended up being a predictable location for our tour leader! ;) ), and decided to stay on for dinner after we'd had a drink. After dinner, we made the somewhat questionable decision to play Risk (which I'd never played before). It was fun, but in a funny way more than anything else, as fatigue and a decent amount of alcohol turned the game mostly into a shambles. Those of us that were still in the game after a while decided to give the win to our tour leader (who was winning), and call it a night. :)

The next morning, we went for a walk to the Valley of Love, with our tour leader refusing to say why it was called that until we got there. It was a nice, relatively short walk, and we got to see a lot more of the towers up close. This shot of two stand-out ones explains how the valley got its name (some things just don't change no matter where you go, apparently):

*Ahem* Moving right along, we walked through the valley a bit more, and were then left to our own devices by our leader, who pointed out the direction of the Open Air Museum for us. We decided to go there, seeing as we were close-ish anyway, although ended up discovering that it was further away than we'd been led to believe. This was not made any better when we asked someone else for directions, and were told 300-400 metres, which turned out to be more like 1km! This, and other experiences with distances led us to believe that perhaps there was perhaps a certain amount of underestimation applied in Turkey, in general!

The museum was good when we finally got there. It was basically a number of older houses and churches that had been hollowed out of rock formations. There was some beautiful artwork, although funnily enough, some of the places had what looked more like kids' drawings! The best guess was that it was outline sketching for work in progress that was never finished.

Need a table and seats? No need to build them, just carve them out!

After the museum, we stopped in briefly at another church we'd seen on the way up, which once again had some very impressive artwork:

 

Quad Biking

The next major activity was later in the afternoon, and one that I'd definitely been looking forward to: quad biking! I'd never done it before, but figured it was going to be fun. We'd all decided to do it, and after getting our helmets and choosing our bikes, we were given a very quick, mostly comprehensible driving tutorial, which, roughly translated, consisted of "this is the accelerator, these are the brakes, and this is how you switch it off". Emboldened by our now-advanced knowledge, we headed straight out into the streets of Goreme, and on into the countryside.

My biggest problem to start with was the accelerator, which was actually fairly sensitive, but I got the hang of it and the other basics after a few minutes. My next problem was going up hills, as I had no idea just exactly how much of an angle the bike could go at without tipping over, esp. given that the paths we were going on weren't exactly even! It turned out that the answer was "lots", and I got used to it after a while.

It was a lot of fun riding through the countryside, with the occasional stop to take photos of either the chimneys or the views in the distance. The only nervous bit for me was when my travelling buddy didn't show up for quite a while, which had me wondering if she was okay. As it turned out she'd tipped her bike over after going into the side of the path and then hitting a large rock, but was fortunately largely unhurt, outside of some bruises and maybe a scratch or two.

Our final stop before heading back into town was a nice, high up viewpoint, with the sun starting to set. We were given some very nice cheese, bread, and red wine (which was much better than that cheap stuff we'd had back in Nigde!), and enjoyed the view for a while. One glass of wine didn't hurt my driving skill too much apparently as I had a great time riding back, and found myself wishing that I could do it again now that I was more used to it.

Before I go on, here are some photos of it all:

Driving on what were basically dirt paths for most of the ride meant that we were all covered in fine, light dust when we got back into town. The operators cleaned some of the worst of it off us with a high-pressure airgun, but it was still definitely wash time! We went back to the hotel and got cleaned up a bit, then headed off to a restaurant for what was unfortunately going to be our last proper dinner together. The food was really nice, and we sat on cushions in a covered outside area which had a really nice atmosphere. The highlight of the evening was the exchanging of our tacky gifts. Near the beginning of the trip, our leader had told us that everyone needed to buy another random group member a tacky gift for no more than $3 US along the way. I'd found mine: a really tacky pink watch with what can only be described as the Middle-Eastern version of Barbie on it, back in Damascus. The gift I was given can really only be properly explained with a photo!

We headed off to the bar afterwards, with all of us sporting our new accessories (if you ask me, I think I got the worst end of the deal :P ). Then it was back to the hotel and to bed, before our long overland haul to Istanbul, which included an overnight train.

Goreme to Istanbul

Our journey to Istanbul ended up involving 4 different kinds of transport. We started off by getting on to a bus in the early afternoon for a few hours, followed by a short journey on an underground railway, and then had a longish walk to get to the train station, where we boarded our overnight train after having dinner while we waited for it to arrive. Our cabin was cramped, but seemingly okay, and after we'd squeezed our luggage down under the seats/beds, we headed off to the bar car (naturally). We had a good time sitting around drinking and chatting, and were served by a guy who really seemed to be a salesman when it came to asking us if we wanted more drinks! (He also had a very memorable black pleather tie.) My travel buddy and I were also introduced to the tour leader for our next trip, who happened to be on the train with her own group. She seemed nice, but was clearly very tired, as were we!

I'd like to say that we all slept well on the train, but that just wouldn't be true. I slept okay, but was woken up in steady stages by the stops the train was making, finally fully coming to around an hour before we were arrived. Some of the others did much worse, being kept awake by the noise and by the stops, which had apparently been happening all through the night. It was therefore a somewhat bleary group of us that finally stumbled off the train and made our way out the station to the ferry terminal for the last leg of our trip. The ferry was quite late due to the festival following the end of Ramadan. When it arrived, there was a high school-style free-for-all push to get on!

The ferry crossing was short, and we ended up in the heart of Istanbul. Along the way, I snapped a shot of the train station, which looked nice, as well as a rather cute, funny boat:

We got off the ferry and walked up to a hotel which had a couple of day rooms for us to freshen up in before we went our separate ways. We had one last breakfast together, and said our goodbyes. I had my usual feeling that I was going to miss the people I'd been travelling with, despite the relatively short length of time we'd spent together (my standing record is 5 days!). After a quick freshen up, my travel buddy and I headed off to find our next hotel, which was also the starting place for our next tour. No rest for us, as the introductory meeting for it was that evening!

Travelogue - Part 6

Syria-Turkey Border Crossing

After Aleppo, it was time to leave Syria behind, and cross the border into Turkey. We'd been meant to take a bus across the border, but it turned out that wasn't available. The bus operators told us that they'd arrange for us to be taken across the border in taxis instead, for the same price, and it was here that I took my first steps into the dark, seamy world of the smuggler. The thing is that cigarettes are a lot cheaper in Syria than in Turkey, and therefore some people take any chance they can get to take as many of them across the border as they can. There are restrictions, of course, but that's done on a per person, rather than a per vehicle basis. When we reached the duty free store on the way through, we all handed our passports over to the taxi drivers and had a browse around, while waiting for them to do what they needed to do. A number of plastic bags were loaded into the taxis (1 for each of us), and the drivers were nice enough to give us each a can of soft drink for our trouble, which was actually exactly the thing I needed at the time (who would have thought that I'd sell my morals so cheaply??).

We went through the border crossing without incident, although we did all get our temperatures checked with a thermometer on the way (Swine Flu, of course). A short distance into Turkey, our newfound friends stopped the taxis for a minute or two, and the plastic bags were unloaded and given to some other people who were there to meet us. Apparently one of them got short-changed a bit because he didn't seem at all happy with the drivers, but no-one got shot, so it was all okay! After we'd gotten going again, that driver apparently pulled out some stuff he'd stashed out of sight. Oh well, you know what they say about honour among thieves/criminals. ;) We then drove through the countryside for a while, which was beautiful and green, and finally arrived at our next destination: Antakya, also known as Antioch.


Antioch

Antioch is quite small, although modern. The style of dress was a lot more relaxed than the countries we'd been to so far in a lot of cases, although the more conservative style we'd gotten used to was there as well. After getting settled in, we headed off to the main attraction: the mosaic museum, which had a lot of rather cool looking mosaics:

In addition to the mosaics, there was also a beautifully made sarcophagus:

For dinner, I got a chance to try my first-ever Doner Kebab, which was basically a normal chicken kebab, but with some stuff similar to Tabouli and a bit of chilli thrown in. It was quite nice, but almost a bit too hot for me (remembering that hot salami is about my limit!).

That was about it for Antioch (sadly, no hand grenade to be seen*), and the next day we headed off to Nigde.


Nigde (and how we drove our tour leader nuts)

After a full day's worth of travelling in the bus, we reached Nigde. After a brief orientation walk, some of us decided to try our luck with some cheap-ish bottles of red. The hotel we were staying at had a games room, and we had fun playing tabletop soccer and darts in the evening. The wine turned out to be a mistake, and very little of it got drunk! We were told later that you'd need to pay about 3 1/2 times what we did to get something decent (which worked out to much more than you'd pay for the equivalent quality; in Australia, at least). Nigde was mostly just a stop-over point, really, and the next day it was on to Cappadocia via Ihlara Gorge.

What's that you say? What about the part where we drove our tour leader nuts? Well, you see, the name "Nigde" is actually pronounced "knee-day" when you say it properly in Turkish, but a couple of us, who shall of course remain nameless, had fun deliberately mispronouncing it as "Nidge" in front of him every now and then throughout the rest of the tour. Can't imagine why he got so upset. ;)


Ihlara Gorge

On the way to Ihlara Gorge, we stopped in briefly at an old, now decaying monastery. It was relatively small, but very good to look around, with a number of small rooms, some very beautiful frescoes and a winding tunnel down to a couple of lower rooms.

On the way out, we saw a cute, tiny little turtle:

Just to put this into perspective(!):

After some more driving, we reached Ihlara Gorge. If anything sits in my mind as the most peaceful, relaxing part of the trip, this would be it. It was quiet, very green in places, with a lot of variety in the landscape in general, and had a river running through the middle of it. I love going for walks through that sort of thing in the first place, and given that it was the first time I'd been able to in a while, I really loved it. We also ducked into some small tombs along the way, some of which had impressive frescoes. The only downside to it was near the end of the walk when we were getting close to our lunch stop, and the sound of someone preaching over a loudspeaker in the distance cut through the peacefulness. It wasn't for that long, though.

After having a nice lunch next to the river, we were supposed to head on to Derinkuyu, an underground city that the people used to protect themselves in times of war, but our guide told us that another called Kaymakli would be much better, and we decided to go to that one instead.


Kaymakli

To be honest, the underground city, while impressive, and definitely a very impressive feat of engineering, didn't actually wow me all that much, or at least not visually anyway. Part of it was due to the harsh fluorescent lighting they'd used in places, which killed the atmosphere for me a bit. Also, we could only see so much of it as they hadn't gone through a number of levels, due to concerns about collapses. It was easy to be impressed when you sat back and thought about the scale of the thing, and how much work it must've taken to tunnel it all out, though. They had just about every sort of room they needed down there, even one for squashing grapes to make wine! Even so though, I can only imagine what it must've been like living down there for a few days, let alone a few weeks, or even several months. Claustrophobics wouldn't've stood a chance! It was very hard to take any sort of decent photos down there, esp. with other people around, but here are a couple (the sign you may not quite be able to read in the second one says "Stone Door"):

You wouldn't've wanted to be really tall, and it was quite nice to get back out into the open air again!

After a not-too long drive we reached Cappadocia, which I'm going to leave 'til next post, because quite a lot happened there.

*If you want to know what I'm blathering on about, you'll have to watch Monty Python and The Holy Grail. :)