Turkey is Posted

Some of the Turkey entries are long (sorry). There are 14 entries for Turkey.. I guess we had a lot to say. It starts with Olympos, Turkey 08/18 - In case you don't want to read the entries in reverse order, you can start with that one.

Istanbul, Turkey – 09/02

(Michelle) Sunday – Tonight we leave Turkey. I will be sad to leave as I have really enjoyed the city of Istanbul. TJ went to another museum today, but I stayed in to organize pictures on the computer. I did go out for one last walk around in the evening though – on the hunt for one last Pide.
The competition for the tourist dollar is fierce here in Sultanahmet. You cannot walk by a store or restaurant without hearing at least “Yes, Please” and usually more like a polite plea to look at the menu or a question of “Where are you from” to get you engaged in conversation (thus making it harder to walk away from the restaurant or carpet shop).
The strangest thing I saw being sold on the street was a toy I remember from childhood… I think it was called a Spirograph, somebody tell me if I am wrong – I am attaching a picture. The guy in this picture was selling his Spirograph on someone else’s turf and they came after him moments after I shot the picture. He was a quick runner, but he lost all his Spirograph supplies on the tram tracks.
I mentioned the prayer call we heard in Goreme before. It is stranger here in Istanbul because instead of one mosque, it seems like every mosque shouts out the prayer call… it is almost like they are competing with each other for getting their prayer calls out there. I don’t know how you could tell which one you should be listening to…
We will also miss the stray kitties here that we have been petting. There are many stray cats here, just like in Greece. I even have a photo of TJ petting a kitty who was hanging out inside the Ayasofya. That will go nicely in the “TJ pets cats around the world” photo album.
We had to leave for the airport around 10 pm, so we spent our last evening hanging out with the two guys who worked at the hostel. They were so funny. I teased them a little about how boys act toward each other here. It is nice, but I was thrown off the first time I saw two friends meet up on a bus who hugged and kissed each other. I have seen many men walking arm and arm, but it is just a cultural norm here and it is not a sign of their sexual preference.

(TJ) I spent my last day at the Dolambache palace which is where the last sultans of the Ottoman Empire lived up until the end of WWI. There were a couple of tours that you could take at the palace I opted for the Harem tour (family quarters). The exterior grounds are very nice, the palace sits right on the water and there are gates to the water that are palace guards watch over. The Harem itself consists mainly of apartments for the Sultan, Sultans Mother and the 6-8 concubines and their children. The apartments themselves I did not think were all that nice. The sultans quarters were nice enough along with some the state rooms. I did not think that it had the grandeur of say Versailles or the Winter Palace (a.k.a. Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, Russia) however. Another interesting historical item about the palace was that Ataturk lived there when he was ruling Turkey and he died there. They have kept his room intact along with his personal bathroom and treatment room, since I believe he had stomach cancer.

Istanbul, Turkey – 09/01

(Michelle) On Saturday, we went to check out some more old mosaics from another Church. The Church itself is not impressive, like the Ayasofya, but the mosaics at this church were really amazing. I don’t remember the name of the church, but it was near the old city walls west of Sultanahment. We took the city bus out there and even though we told the bus driver where we were going and he confirmed we were on the right bus, he still decided to skip our stop anyway. So we had to get off at the next stop and walk about 2 kilometers back to the area where the Church is located. Although frustrating at first (and hot), it was an interesting walk through a very run down area of Istanbul.
After that, we went to a modern suburban mall in a totally different area from where the church was, as we were on the hunt for some track suits to wear on the trains in Russia. We didn’t have much luck, but it was an interesting place to see how the average middle class Turkish person shops (not the touristy shops at the Grand Bazaar or the upper class shopping in Taksim). The funniest thing we saw at the mall a very modern looking music store that still sold current popular music on Casette tapes. I can’t remember the last time I have seen that, and we have not seen this in any other country we have been to, only in Turkey.

(TJ) I don’t remember much about this day other than I did not see the mosaics because it cost too much money and we didn’t have enough cash for both of us to go in. Since our bus over shot where we needed to get off we walked along the old city wall for a couple of miles. The area of the wall we were walking had not been restored what so ever, so certain portions looked as if they might fall over at any minute - I guess it is over 2000 years old. Also I’m pretty sure that I had mashed potatoes from KFC for supper at the mall food court and the bathrooms were really hard to find.

Istanbul, Turkey – 08/31

(Michelle) Friday night we went out in Taksim again. Our “Time Out Istanbul” has been very helpful to us, not only with food but other items we wouldn’t have found in a standard guidebook. I really should have read “Time Out Chicago” more often. It pointed us to the free book exchange run by an American woman who has lived in Istanbul for 25 years. Two hours a night she opens her doors as a hobby for those of us who would like to trade one for one on books. She actually gave us more than one for one, maybe because she liked our travel story and we had stopped in to talk to her twice in one week. She has a very nice collection and this is by far the best book exchange we have been to.
The Time Out also told us which bar has the cheapest beer in Taksim. Also very helpful! So we went to our cheap bar, which was down this sort of bizarre side street with decent people watching.
We met a French couple that we spoke to for a while, they were very nice and it turns out that the guy is a professional street performer. He performed for the bar in exchange for a beer. He has a video on youtube I think, so I will have to find it and link it in here.

(TJ) The street performance was really good. He had some glass balls that he could roll over his whole body, then juggle them and not have them drop, pretty impressive. God knows how many hours you would have to practice to do some of the moves he was doing. He even said later on that he was leaving some of the harder moves out since he had a few beers already.

Istanbul, Turkey – 08/29 – 08/30

(Michelle) I don’t really remember what I did Wednesday, so instead I will list the foods I tried off the “Time Out Istanbul” top 20 cheap eats list:
1) Already mentioned Midye Dolma and Midye Tava
2) Balik Ekmegi – A fresh fish sandwich served waterside, usually comes with an IGA like generic soda that does not taste good. (see the photo of the fish booths by the water)
3) Simit – It is kind of like a mix between a bagel and a pretzel, if you get the wrong kind it can be a little dry
4) Gozleme – It’s like a pancake, I tried one at a bus stop and it sucked, but I gave it another try at a restaurant and it was really good.
5) Doner Kebap – I don’t think I have to explain this one
6) Sut Misir – These stands we saw everywhere, it is corn on the cob, but it is not as sweet as we have it back home, so I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would. (see photo of the Sur Misir stand)
7) Lahmacun – A really thin version of a Pide. Not as good as Pide. Pide rocks. Pide is not on the cheap eats list, probably because it wasn’t usually that cheap. Pide is just Turkish style pizza, but it is really good. I was totally addicted to it.

TJ left me on Wednesday to go Galipoli, so I am at Big Apple Hostel all by my lonesome! Good thing that I made new friends everyday at breakfast.
On Thursday I went to the Asia side of Istanbul to walk around (Istanbul is split by the Europe side west of the Bosphorus, which is where Sultanahmet and Taksim are and the Asia side on the east of the Bosphorus). There are very few tourists here, so a little more interesting to people watch.

(TJ) I parted ways with Michelle to do some site seeing at the Gallipoli battlefields. This was the site of an ill fated expedition that the British tried to pursue during WWI to capture the Dardanelles strait and then Istanbul as a means to get supplies to Russia. The leading warrior behind the campaign was then Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill. Most of the men involved in the campaign were ANZAC troops (Australia and New Zealand). The campaign failed due to stiff Turkish resistance led by Ataturk and also some terrible terrain, the front line was at most 300 yards from the shore where they had landed and most of the gains were made on the first day of the landings. It was the epitome of pointless death, of marching directly in to machine guns and against heavily fortified positions. The beachhead was ultimately evacuated and the campaign was given up. The sites were interesting, at some locations you can see the locations of trenches and there are also numerous cemeteries for British, Anzac and Turkish troops. I saw at one the cemeteries that there was a Aubin who died with the Australians, apparently we died all over the place for King and Country. The town that I stayed in was completely dead, as apparently there are only a few people who visit outside of the yearly ANZAC day celebration each year. So I was very surprised to get up in the morning to see a full military band and Turkish politicians speaking on a stage that was set up right in front of the hotel that I was staying at. Apparently it was a Turkish holiday for the armed forces and they did the flag raising, band playing, speeches etc. all starting at 7:30 am. Not knowing that this was going to happen, I walked over to the window to see what the hell all this noise was about. The window I was looking out was about the same height as the Turkish flag and all the dignitaries were facing the window and flag. I hope that I did not ruin their celebration by my bright white skin outshining the flag and burning their eyes. I retreated quickly after my eyes had adjusted and my brain figured out what was going on. Later in the morning I barely made it out of town, as my intended bus never slowed down as it cruised through town past me. Fortunately after some terse words with the people who sold me the ticket I was able to get onto another bus that later caught up with my original bus that had not stopped for me in the first place and I made it back to Istanbul.

Istanbul, Turkey – 08/28

(Michelle) Today we went to the two biggest tourist attractions in Sultanahmet, the Ayasofya and the Blue Mosque. We have been in a fair number of churches now from recent (La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona) to Gothic cathedrals (like Notre Dam) but none other have been as awe inspiring to me as the Ayasofya. It is just so big and even with the massive scaffolding in some parts, still totally beautiful. This church has been through some struggles to survive, it had to be rebuilt 3 times in ancient history, the final version still standing was completed sometime in the 7th century AD. Then it was converted from a Christian Church to a mosque in the 15th century, but Ataturk (the “father” of modern Turkey) turned it into a museum in the 1930s. The second floor had some stunning mosaic art that was tiled over when it was turned into a mosque, but is now in the process of being restored.
The Blue Mosque, which is literally right across from the Ayasofya, was built in the 1600s. Perhaps the converted Ayasofya was not the exact vision that the Sultan at the time, Ahmet I, had in mind for a mosque, and so the Blue Mosque was created. This mosque is still used for worship, so proper respectful attire is required. You also take off your shoes upon entering. I liked the feel of the plush carpet beneath my toes. This place definitely rivals the Ayasofya in size and beauty, but purely because of the age of the Ayasofya, I think it is a bit more of an architectural wonder.

(TJ) The Aysofya is an amazing site and I think probably one of the 7 wonders of the world. It’s amazing that they could build something this size way back when with just bricks and mortar. Also very cool to see some of the mosaics that were covered over when it was converted to a Mosque and then uncovered again in the 1930’s. Both the Ayasofya and the Blue Mosque are beautiful at night; there is nice park between the two structures that has fountains and gardens, nice place to chill out in the evening, which we did a couple of times.

Istanbul, Turkey – 08/27

(Michelle) So we get to the U.S. embassy shortly after it opens. There are tons of people waiting in line there, but it turns out that there is a different line for U.S. passport holders than for everyone else and nobody waiting is a U.S. citizen. We tell them that we were sent here to get some sort of paper from them that we need to get a Chinese visa. We were shocked to realize that the “paper” is just a notarized statement that we are who our passport says we are. It is not like the guy here looks us up in a computer or anything, we literally hand him our passport put our right hand up and state that we are who we say we are, he then stamps a piece of paper and we pay $30 each. What a load of crap. If I am the kind of person who would use a fake passport, this process is not going to deter me from using it, so it is really just a way for the local US embassy to make $30 for no reason. This is something special for getting visas in Istanbul I think. I doubt we will see this anywhere else.
We then head back up to the Chinese embassy where we are promptly rejected at the door. Even though I had phoned them before and they just said come to the embassy, they now say they do not take applications themselves and that we must use a visa service agency. They gave us the business card of a company they recommend. That company happens to be in the Taksim area, so we head back down there and by mid-afternoon we have given them $120 U.S. each (still a lot cheaper than that Chinese Travel Agency at least), our passports, the notarized statement, a passport sized photo and a printout of a bank statement where we had x’d out the account numbers (China requires proof of sufficient funds to get into their country). We will have our visas and passports back by Friday.
Now that we know this timeline, we can finally book a ticket to get to Russia. This turned out to be the easiest thing to do by far. I had been looking up prices for flights online earlier, so I knew roughly what we would be expected to pay. After we left the visa service company, we happened to walk by an office for a Russian Airline and decided as a long shot to just walk in and ask what their price was. It turned out to be ¾ of the price of what we were seeing online and she could reserve the price for us for a Sunday night departure without us paying for the ticket until Friday afternoon when we were sure we had our passports back. Why can’t everything be this easy?? J
That night we met up with the first person we have contacted through couchsurfing.com – Digdem. She met us for a drink at a bar in Taksim (In Chicago terms, Taksim would sort of be like the Lincoln Park area of Istanbul). We had such a great time with her: she is our age, very intelligent and hard working, but very open and friendly at the same time. We talked about life in Istanbul, religion, politics (their presidential elections were the next day) and family. I am sad that we could not spend more time together, but you never know when you will see someone again!

(TJ) This was fun I start the day on about 45 minutes of sleep since we need to head out at the crack of dawn to beat traffic to head up to the US consulate. The US consulate here looks like a castle on a hill; no one is doing any damage to this building with out a full scale assault. That being said it was a pleasant surprise once we got inside to see they actually had a queuing system that worked and chairs for people to sit on while they waited like civilized people. Most other countries have not figured this out at their embassies and consulates and it’s more of a pushing, shoving and cutting game for lines. The even better surprise was that we did not have to wait in line at all since we were U.S. passport holders, this good feeling did not last however as we had to hand over $30 to get a piece of paper that says I am who I am. This was a battle getting all of this paper work together for this Chinese visa but it was the only way. It was almost as big of a battle as convincing Michelle that the Chinese government did not need to know our account numbers for our checking accounts and we could just XXX the stuff out. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t learned anything from her hero, Jack Bauer, the Chinese are not to be trusted.

It was fun going out in Taksim with our new couch surfing friend Didgem. Taksim however is nothing like Lincoln Park, its more like Times Square in New York where there are so many people out and about at night it can be difficult to walk. Despite difficulty walking through the crowds, I really liked the area, tons of shopping, restaurants and some interesting architecture and people watching.

(Michelle) TJ is right, it is not like Lincoln Park visually, but I was comparing it to that as a place to “go out” where there are long stretches (Lincoln Ave.) of bars that you can go to all sort of clumped together. There are nowhere close to the number of people walking around Lincoln Park as there are in Taksim.

Istanbul, Turkey – 08/26

(Michelle) On Sunday morning, we went to the Grand Bizaar which is a crazy maze of an indoor medieval shopping mall. We got lost several times.
In the afternoon we took care of some errands to get ready for Monday (where we will go round 2 on the Chinese visa attempt). TJ also had to prep for his Fantasy Football draft… You can leave the U.S., but you can’t leave the FF league or you will lose your spot forever. Unfortunately for TJ, his draft starts at 1am Turkish time and we have to get up at 6am to start our search for the visa.
I will post here a nice picture of the Bosphorus river taken from Topkapi palace.

(TJ) The Grand Bizarre is huge and you could find just about any knock off clothing item that you wanted there, except for track suits. It’s so big that Michelle got lost several times and I had to lead us back to where we needed to be. Interesting thing to see but you get the feeling the sellers are just licking their lips at all of the tourists who come through the doors. I cut the day short so that I could diligently prepare for my fantasy draft. Every thing goes fine coming up to the draft: my internet connection is good, my Google chat is set up, I’ve talked to the hotel staff and said that I have a very important meeting that starts at 1am and will take 4 hours and they are fine with that. Every thing is fine until about 10 minutes before the draft when I can’t chat with DeCorte anymore. Turns out the two resident computer genius’ (Hofer and Petko) in the league have knocked out DeCorte’s internet connection while trying to hook up their computers to the wireless. So I end up having to call DeCorte thru Skype to get updates every couple rounds and make quick decisions till 4am, painful. The lesson is never trust Hofer or Petko around a computer even if they say that they are professionals. If you guys are reading this I blame this incident on the Spawn having an awful year and Steven Jackson and the Rams as a whole, probably more Steven Jackson and the Rams.

Istanbul, Turkey – 08/25

(Michelle) We started out Saturday by checking out the Basilica Cistern. This is a giant underground water supply created by the Emperor Justinianus in the 6th century A.D. It is an interesting site for sure… Underground columns with about a foot deep of water, some gold fish and two Medusa heads. Since there is no other real “art” down here other than a few unusual columns and the Medusa heads, there is much speculation, but no actual facts, as to what the Medusa heads here were all about, especially since they both are underneath columns that support the cistern and one is head is upside down and one head is on it’s side. I remember my brother making me watch some old movie on tv when I was little about Medusa and her crazy snake hair. It scared me for a while. Fortunately, I am not so scared of her anymore.
We then headed over to the Topkapi palace museum, which was the home to the Sultans from the mid 1400s to the mid 1800s (when they moved to the Dolmabahce Palace). I figured it to be similar to other castle type tours we have been on, but there was a surprise in here that I was not expecting. As I was going through the exhibits, looking at jewels and weapons and other such fancy palace museum items, I got to an exhibit that looked like a skull and the bones of an arm. What the $%#& is this? I had to read the card like 3 times to make sure I read it right, but right here amongst all the other museum items is an item claiming to be the skull and right arm of John the Baptist. I did not see that coming. I looked it up later and there does appear to be some controversy here, since the Topkapi is not the only place claiming to have the skull and right arm of John the Baptist, and this is one of those things that I don’t think anyone will ever be able to prove. Unfortunately, John was hanging out in one of the rooms at Topeki that they strictly enforced the no photograph rule, so you will just have to imagine what his skull and right arm look like now after a couple thousand years.
Check this photo of one of the reading rooms at the palace. When you were Sultan, sometimes you needed a place to put your Sultan hat when you were chilling out in private. This room comes with fully built into the wall Sultan hat holders.

(TJ) The Basilica Cistern is really amazing due to it size and its age. The lighting doesn’t hurt either, giving it a slightly creepy feeling. You feel like you’re on some movie set or at some ride or exhibit at Disney World but its real. Actually it was a movie set for the James Bond movie from Russia with Love. Topkapi palace had some interesting architecture and some great views of the Bosporus. As Michelle talked about, the best thing at the palace was treasury where they had crowns swords, boxes, and goblets, all of which were highly gilded in precious metals and stones. They also had some interesting curiosity such as John the Baptist skull which is always good for holy wars and such. I thought they would have had more of this palace open, but they were renovating many portions of and they also have a screwy ticketing system that we didn’t really understand.

Istanbul, Turkey – 08/24

(Michelle) The first order of business in Turkey was to obtain a visa to enter China. We heard it is really difficult to get it in Russia, so Turkey is our last chance (you may recall from our Budapest entry that we did make a weak attempt there, but that did not work out for us). Our first thought was to try a travel agency or visa support agency as opposed to going to the embassy ourselves, due to our language issue of not speaking Turkish or Chinese. We found a Chinese travel agency and they said they could do it for $225 each but we also had to go to the U.S. embassy to get some special form. This seemed odd to us, as everything I have read about getting visas has indicated that it is between you and that country’s embassy and the U.S. embassy has nothing to do with it. Whatever, fine, so she explains to us really high level how we can get to the U.S. embassy. We take a tram to a bus stop and then we got the bus the girl mentioned, but I thought I should try to confirm it with somebody on the bus, since she only gave us the bus number and not the direction or the stop we should get off at. I look up the word for U.S. Embassy in Turkish and show it to the bus money collector (in almost every bus we have been in outside of the U.S. and Western Europe, there are two people on every bus, the driver and the money collector) in hopes he can confirm we are going the right direction. Two middle school aged kids say in English that they can translate (cute!) and they tell us that the collector says we need to get off and get on bus number XYZ. Ok, we get off and then we look in our guidebook again. Lonely Planet usually marks on a map where the Embassy is, and as we look at this map, it doesn’t feel like we are headed in the right direction if we take XYZ. So we get on this mini bus headed in the direction we think we need to go. A girl on our minibus has been living in L.A. for 7 years and is very friendly and chatty with us. She finally asks us what we are planning to do in the Taksim area (which is where this minibus is headed), so we tell her we are looking for the U.S. Embassy. She says that the U.S. Embassy used to be in the Taksim area but it moved many years ago (how about an update on that one, Lonely Planet!) out to this other place. Her and another girl speak to each other in Turkish and then hand us a piece of paper. They wrote on it exactly what we need to show the bus stop guy (Taksim has a huge bus stop area) to determine the correct bus and the name of the stop we need to get off at. That was so nice!!
Finally we are on the right bus (we learned later that all of the buses we had been on or were told to go on except the minibus to Taksim could have been the right bus, but we didn’t realize that until much later). It turns out that the embassy moved from being in the heart of the city to roughly the distance of Evanston from downtown Chicago and the main road up there along the water is only two lanes. Istanbul has by far the worst traffic I have ever seen in my life. We must have passed by at least 2 car accidents which brought the two lanes down to one (for both directions of traffic). So while it was a lovely ride north along the Bosphorus, it was also real hot, long, standing room only bus ride.
We get off the bus at the stop we were told to get off at and then realized that we didn’t know where we should go from there. After scanning the area for a few minutes, Eagle Eye TJ spots an American flag off in the hills. We could tell why they moved the embassy way out here once we saw it… they created a FORT to protect this place. So we stroll over to the entrance to learn that the embassy is open to the public Monday-Thursday, but not on Friday. It is Friday today. Awesome…. As we walked away feeling somewhat defeated (4 hours after we started the hunt for the visa) we started discussing the price from the travel agency, $225 was a lot higher than what I remembered seeing online and maybe we don’t really need this piece of paper from the U.S. embassy. Perhaps we should just go to the Chinese embassy ourselves. The security guard at the U.S. embassy was able to give us directions there. So about another 30 minutes further north on a different bus we arrive at the Chinese embassy to realize that they closed about 45 minutes before we got there.
At this point, we were starving and needed to eat before heading out of “Evanston”. In the Sultanahmet area, where our hostel is, every restaurant, hotel receptionist and carpet salesman speaks English, but up here, tourists don’t come by too often and there was no English menu, no English speaking waitress, no pictures on the menu and our Lingo translator does not have Turkish in it. For the first time on our trip, we had to blindly pick something to eat having absolutely no idea what we were ordering. It actually went ok. We ordered Midye Dolma and Midye Tava. This turned out to be fried Muscles and stuffed Muscles. Later on we read in “Time Out Istanbul” that Midye Dolma and Midye Tava were among the top 20 cheap eats on street stands. I’m glad we tried them in a restaurant instead of on a street stand.

That evening we saw a light show outside the Blue Mosque that had something to do with the Whirling Dervishes – you can make out a green laser whirling dervish on top of the Blue Mosque in the photo…

(TJ) More fun on Istanbul roads and public transit, interspersed with slaps to the face at the intended destinations. GOOD TIMES!

Istanbul, Turkey – 08/23

(Michelle) How many of you are singing the “Istanbul was Constantinople” song in your head as you read this entry… I know that at least my brother is.
We took the morning bus out of Goreme to Istanbul. The bus left so early that we were the only people on the street at sunrise, just us and the pack of dogs that rushed us from around a corner. I almost fell over from the sheer force of several of them leaping on me, but fortunately they were just hungry for love and not human flesh. It was supposed to be about an 11 hour bus ride, but Istanbul traffic added an extra 3 hours. The terrain is quite different here than what we saw along the southern coast, as now we are headed back northwest from the middle of the country. There are a lot of flat open yellow plains, which may look dull from the picture, but were interesting to me in just how long these yellow plains stretched.
Now that we have had two full days of driving through Turkey on a bus, we have driven through a lot of small towns. I would be curious to find out more about the social structures in these areas. From the bus view, you would see a group of 4 or 5 men sitting in front of a shop and then down the street you would see 2 or 3 women sitting in front of a house. Never did I see men and women sitting together in any of these towns at any time of day.
We checked into the Big Apple Hostel in the popular tourist area of Sultanahmet. While I don’t have enough good things to say about the staff at our hostel, our first two nights there were not so comfortable. We had booked a four person room that it turns out we were to share with another couple who arrived just before us. There were two bunk beds in the room and they took the two bottom bunks. While perhaps they were not thinking about it or only thinking about it selfishly, TJ and I think the proper bunk bed etiquette if you are with another person is to share one set of bunks (one top and one bottom). There are numerous reasons for this that I won’t go into. Of course, when we are done with this trip we may have no other use for these opinions, unless I write a book about etiquette in shared sleeping environments (see blog entry for train ride leaving Romania on 8/11). These were really tall bunk beds and the only tiny fan in the room didn’t really provide any air for the upper bunks. It is really hot in Istanbul in August.

(TJ) This was the longest bus ride ever topped of with 3 hours in Istanbul Traffic which is absolutely terrible. For a city of its size the road system is utter chaos and crap, not to mention that they only just started to build a subway system in the last 10 years. For a city of 12 million people and not to mention one of the oldest in the world it is pretty unreal that they are just now getting around to improving things for the commuters. On the bus ride we had plenty of time to observe the Turkish country side and small towns. One of things that I saw in every town as Michelle also mentioned was that people were just sitting around in front of stores. What are they doing? They don’t seem to be working at all - are there this many people unemployed in these towns? I guess I probably will not find out the answer, just seemed strange to me.

Goreme (Cappadocia), Turkey – 08/22

(TJ) The second day we took an all day “green tour” trip to see some of the sites around the area, more huge cave monasteries, cities where many people still live in the cliffs and one old city completely underground (Nevsehir Derinkuyu Yeralti Sehri) that they say could have held 10,000 people.

(Michelle) Our guide on the green tour was an entertaining guy who was relatively bored with his job so he made a lot of silly comments to try to make it fun. The green tour is not named such because it is especially environmentally friendly, it is named arbitrarily because there are apparently only two “tours” you can take in Goreme, the Red tour and the Green tour.
On this tour, we saw more of the eye gouged art, so we asked our guide about it. The guide told us that the reason the eyes were scratched out was because of the decorative beliefs of Muslim people (not so much Christian hatred or vandalism). Because Muslim art generally does not include living beings, the best way to make the art “not living” is to get rid of the eyes. I was aware from our Muslim friends about this particular art restriction (no living beings), but as to whether or not this is what is behind the scratching out of the eyes, I would not be totally surprised if our guide was yanking our chain. It seems to me that the better way to take care of this issue is how we see it later in the Ayasofya – where you just tile over the Christian art altogether. Although that might have been too big of a project for a little cave dwelling. Either way, taking out the eyes possibly gets rid of that eerie feeling that someone is watching you, but they still look like living (although somewhat zombified) beings even without their eyes if you ask me.
While on the green tour, we made friends with a nice couple from Perth, Tom and Jane. We ended up going out double date style that night to a really nice Turkish restaurant, drinking wine and raki. It was such a nice time and they were really great people. That is the first night since we left that we have spent that kind of money on a meal, an extra special treat. I don’t have any pictures of the green tour day because they accidentally got deleted. :(

Goreme (Cappadocia), Turkey – 08/21

(TJ) After another long bus trip we arrived in Cappadocia and its strange landscapes. The region is known mainly for cave dwellings and a few underground cities. We stayed at a hostel that was built right in to a cave. The first day we went to the open air museum which houses the remains of many old churches/monasteries founded by Christians generally between 11th and 13th century AD, they still have some early Christian art (some very primitive, I could of done better) on some of the better preserved chapels.

(Michelle) Upon entering Goreme, we jokingly thought that the idea for the landscape of the original Star Wars movie must have come from here, and we heard later that that may actually be the case. We kept one eye open for the sand people just to be safe. In the open air museum cave churches, along with the primitive art (see photo of TJ above in front of the art he thinks he can beat), there was some unbelievably beautiful cave art as well. The funny part though was that for every person painted on the walls, the eyes were scratched out. We surmised that maybe once Christianity wasn’t so popular anymore in this region, somebody decided that would be a funny way to vandalize the Christian art.
From the pool on the roof of our cave hostel, we were introduced for the first time to the prayer call. Goreme is a small enough town that there is only one mosque announcing the prayer call over the town’s P.A. system. It is definitely loud enough to stop you in your tracks the first time you hear it. We looked around, but we didn’t see much reaction from the locals, although I am not sure what reaction to even expect.

Olympos, Turkey – 08/19 – 08/20

(TJ) The one excursion that we did do was to go to the Chimera’s flames of Olympos. Basically we took a mini bus at night through dark mountain roads and the bus then left us at the base of a big hill where we had to pay a toll that was surprisingly not listed in the excursions price and then proceed to hike up a dark trail. Once at the top the there are flames that are shooting out of the side of the mountain, think instant barbeque with girl scout fuel. It was rather surreal, like a hell on earth. We spent 15 minutes with the flames and then had to scurry back down the dark trail so the buses would not leave us behind.

(Michelle) This might be the worst “tour” I have ever signed up for, which is unfortunate because the destination had great potential. The Chimera flames are some sort of natural occurring phenomenon where on the side of this somewhat smooth rock mountain these flames just naturally occur from under a few openings in the rock. TJ of course spent his whole time up there trying to figure out the hoax. Our bus driver did not speak English, which is of course fine since we are in Turkey, but he just disappeared amongst the drivers of the 50 other buses there before we could even attempt to ask what time to be back on the bus. We had read that it would be one of those places where you bring a bottle of wine or a couple of beers up and hang out by the flames for a while. In the end, TJ and I were the only ones carrying any liqour up there, there were hundreds of people, so no place to really hang out, and we are at the top for 15 minutes before I was worried we would be left behind (which was the correct assumption because the bus left a couple minutes after we got back down the mountain). And just for fun, the new batteries we bought for our flashlights turned out to be used… they all of the sudden didn’t work after about half way up the dark mountain.
We bought a ticket for an overnight bus the next night to Cappadocia, so we spend most of Monday just sweating in the heat/humidity and hanging out in the hammocks at the treehouse resort until about 5pm when our bus left.
(See this wiki entry for more on Chimera’s flames: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimaera_(geography)

Olympos, Turkey – 08/18 “Bayram’s Treehouse of Horrors”

(TJ) From Rhodes we took a ferry to the coast of Turkey (Marmaris) we then boarded a bus and then another bus to take us to Olympos. The buses in Turkey are interesting because they stop to pick up everyone walking along the road and then they drop them of at times in the middle of nowhere (along the same main road). I’m still mystified as to how people know when a certain bus is going to show up, how much it will cost etc. It would drive me crazy to wait around and hope that a certain bus is coming down the road. The buses also stop every hour or so at a designated bus stop for 10-15 minutes so that it takes forever to get from one place to another.
Enough about the buses, the resort area of Olympos is sort of an alternative beach resort, most “hotels” you stay in there are what they call tree houses. I however was highly disappointed to find out that I would not be staying in a tree house, ala Swiss family Robinson, only a shack on stilts, and a very hot one at that. There is not actually a whole lot to do once you get there. There is a beach that is very rocky and not comfortable and to get there you have to pay a toll since you walk through some old ruins. Most people just lie around and read, play backgammon or talk.

(Michelle) The ferry ride from Greece to Turkey was an organizational nightmare. It is a popular day trip for tourists from Rhodes to go to Marmaris, since it is only an hour ferry ride, so there were loads of people trying to get on this ferry. There were no marked signs as to which line you wait to check into if you already have tickets (which we did) and also there were also different lines if you were going round trip or one way (I of course unknowingly waited in the round trip line first). The tour group operators also added to the confusion by trying to butt in each of their tour groups ahead of other people patiently waiting. Needless to say, the ferry left like an hour and a half later than scheduled. The buses in the direction of Olympos leave every hour or so, and we just missed one, so we are now about 2 hours behind schedule. Because of this and the other things TJ described about the actual bus ride, we arrived to the Olympos area after dark. I was somewhat concerned because the main bus drops you off on the side of the highway (there isn’t actually a town there or anything) and I wasn’t certain there would still be a separate mini-bus down to the actual Olympos area since it was so late. Fortunately there was still one left.
Even after all that, I will say that the last couple hours of the bus trip to Olympos along the southern coast of Turkey was a very scenic route. Mountains, ocean cliffs, random weird greenhouses that we didn’t understand, mosques, forests… It is really not a bad little bus ride. The part of the coast that we were driving along juts out and in so much that it created like 40 little alcoves with mini beaches. You would see like 2 or 3 cars parked on the side of the road above and then 5-10 people at each little alcove beach.
After checking in, we immediately looked for food. We were supposed to get free dinner at the treehouse place, but we got there so late, we didn’t think they would let us, so we instead walked down to the only street vendor we saw on the way in. We don’t speak Turkish, so TJ tried to use the international language of pointing to the exact sandwich he wanted. We aren’t sure why, but there was still a question from the vendor that we didn’t understand and he would not let it go, whatever it was. While he was trying to repeatedly ask us, he managed to drop the sandwich on the ground. We still did not know what the issue was, so TJ tried to ask him again for the sandwich by pointing to a different one. The man then tried to hand him the one from the ground. TJ obviously didn’t want the one from the ground. The vendor looked upset with us and we couldn’t figure out what we had done wrong, so we just had to walk away.
At about 10pm, still antsy from sitting on the bus all day, we went for a walk to check out the beach (you don’t have to pay the toll if you go at night). It is about a 20 minute walk from where all the tree houses are, but it is through all these ruins and it is a really dark and some what tricky path, especially since the batteries on both of our little flashlights were dying. So it was kind of a creepy walk. Since there were little cliffs behind the rocky beach, there are no hotels or restaurants or anything on the beach, so at night there are people just sitting out there with guitars and or little radios just hanging out in the total darkness. If we would have had a guitar (and knew how to play it) or a radio and some beach chairs, I could have hung out there for a long time.
I was playing with the camera on the beach: it was too dark to take any pictures of the beach or water or anything, so I pointed the camera to the sky. I took a shot right when TJ said he saw a shooting star. I doubt that is what I got on this picture, but you be the judge!

(TJ) It’s a nice area, but if we went to the same area again with more money, I think that we would hop on one of the famous “Blue Cruises” where it takes three days to get from Marmaris to Olympos, but you stop in some nice towns to swim, eat and drink along the route.

Itin update - Cambodia

We are currently in Phuket Thailand and we will be leaving on the 15th to meet up with Laura D in Phnom Penh. We have written up Turkey and will post it as soon as we have wireless access again.