Leaving Turkey

I have to say that I was somewhat sad to finally be leaving Istanbul; I had finally started to get the hang of things and know my way around, and it had become fairly comfortable with a small group of friends, familiar restaurants, and that comfortable starbucks;). Before Leaving I decided it was time to finally buy my first souvenier and upon Adam's suggestion, picked up a set of onyx worry beads from the grand bazaar. I have to admit that the beads have already proven their worth in distracting my mind when necessary.

Adam and I also took advantage of one more turkish bath on my last day in town, one that I'm sorry to say was both more expensive than and not as good as the first. The wash was quick but still resulted in a good shedding of rolls of dead skin. The massage only lasted about 5 minutes, and during my masseur's unnecessary preoccupation with my left leg, I swear I heard my left knee cap cracking against the marble. As you can see, the masseurs were just as happy about the experience as Adam and I.

My experience in turkey, the places I saw, the people I met, the food I ate, were amazing and I can safely say that it is a place I plan to visit again in the future.

The Kanyon Mall

I've been looking for a few things that I figured would be easier to find in Turkey than Africa and so Adam suggested checking out the new Kanyon Mall. I have to admit that I think this is the most interesting and unique mall I have ever seen; elegantly designed to be both in and outdoors, with gurgling fountains and frosted glass walkways, and chock full of great restaurants, clothes store, the biggest grocery store I've seen since leaving the US, and a myriad of other shops to cover just about everything one might need. Swank.

Back to Istanbul (again)

I have to admit, I wasn't too sure how I was going to like being back in Istanbul. Don't get me wrong, I loved being here the first time through, but after 10 days or however long it was, the pollution, noise, and chaos had started to get to me and I wasn't so sure about going back to all of that. I was however, anxious to get back to a place that I felt I knew relatively well and thus wouldn't feel too obligated to make the rounds of tourist attractions and so could do a little catching up, reflection, figuring, and resting before heading off to east africa on Sept 14.

Much to my surprise I met two different American couples in the airport before the flight and then on the flight over to Istanbul: one in their early 30's having quit their jobs and decided to see the world and traveling indefinately before age set in, and the other in their early 20's taking a break for a few months of travel after finishing school. It's always great to bump into and spend a bit of time getting to know like minded travelers and it's been nice to get to know these couple's a bit over the last few days rather than the more common 'meet for a day head out tomorrow' kind of encounter.

Back in Istanbul I'm staying in a great locatation near the Gallata tower, in the World House Hostel just a short distance from Taksim and the heart of Istanbul as well as the old city. I've found a few small cafe's where I plan to spend the bulk of my time over the next couple of weeks as I sift through things.

The Hamam

Well...Adam and I finally managed to make it to a Turkish bath (hamam), and what a bath it was...

I guess at a basic level it was similar to a child being bathed by his mother: one small helpless individual in a new place being cleaned, via splashing water, by another large odd looking individual speaking in a strange tongue, only in this case 'mom' was a big, sweaty, incredibly hairy turkish man, the place: a hot marble room, and the tongue turkish.

Adam and I arrived at the Haman not really knowning what lay in store. With some hand gesturing we gathered that we needed to go change into towels, after which we were ushered into a room with a large marble 'table' in the middle, at a balmy 115+ fahrenheit. Inside this room was a small sauna (at 130 fahrenheit) which we decided to check out for a few mins, but I wasn't able to last long at that temperature. After waiting on the host marble slab for 15-20 mins our big turkish bathers came and took us into another, slightly cooler room, where the fun began.

They started by dousing us with copious amounts of warm water and rubbing us down with some kind of 'exfoliating glove', not unlike sandpaper. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of dead skin that literally came of in big rolls from my neck, back, arms, legs, etc. Every now and then they would throw in a hard slap on the back for good measure. After a bit more rinsing they lathered up the palmolive soap bar for the washing: he jerked my arms, lifted my legs, flipped me on to my stomach, and generously dug his nails deep into my scalp to make sure no dirt possibly remained.

Then it was time for the 'massage', which turned out not to be so much a massage in the traditional sense as it was a beating. After a bit more arm jerking to make sure I was good and loose, he put me onto my back, crossed my arms over my chest and applied the full force of his 300+ pound heft...my back has never cracked so loudly or completely. But he was just getting started. He flipped me on to my stomach and started pounding away at my back to the point that my adam's apple was actually being smashed into the marble slab. Next he moved to the legs and solicited several winces as he burried his thumbs deeb in my ham strings and calves, all the while my knee caps close to shattering against the marble from the force. A few more bowls of water over the head and down the back and we were done, left to haul our bruised, albeit clean, bodies into a cold shower.

I have to say that it was one of the best experiences I had in Turkey, and would highly recommend it to anyone that has the opportunity. I'm hoping I can squeeze one in when I get back to Istanbul before heading to Africa. Unfortunately for all of us I wasn't able to take any pictures...

Shemales of Istanbul

Walking back to Adam's place of residence after dark on several occasions I noticed what looked like your garden variety prostitues on one street in particular. Upon consultation with Adam, I learned that these were in fact trans-sexuals. In itself, I guess this doesn't seem all that strange when considering how large of a city/society Istanbul is. It is a bit more strange however, when you consider that this is in the context of a predominantly muslim society. Adam and I are both curious to know how/why this practice of apparent trans-sexual prostitution seems to be culturally tolerated if not outrightly accepted by turks, especially when there don't appear to be any female prostitues. Eda, I will be curious to get your input.

Back in Istanbul

Its been a hectic last few days. Having spent a while traveling together it was time to leave Goreme and part ways with the folks I met on the blue cruise. We parted ways wednesday, with Kristen and Fernando heading west again to Pamukkale and then on to Greece, Andrew on his way to Syria and Kayley and I sharing a bus back to Istanbul with her continuing on to Switzerland/Germany.

Unfortunately, the Kebab I powered down before hopping on the bus back to Istanbul decided to make a second appearance several hours into the ride and resulted in several vomiting sessions on the bus in the wee hours of the morning. Lucky for all of us on board the elderly turkish man and his son sitting next to me had some spare plastic bags, so things didn't end up on the floor.

In any case, food poisoning and the inability to keep down any food/liquid has keep me fairly incapacitated for a couple of days, but I think I'm at the tail end now. I thought I'd make it out of Turkey without incident, but hopefully this will fortify my stomach a bit for the next country.

I did manage to visit the Topkapi Palace yesterday, but unfortunately some remnant lethary prevented me from taking any photos. I'll get back to that soon enough.

The next couple of days will be pretty laid back, but I am going to try and squeeze in a traditional turkish bath before heading out to meet my mom in Bulgaria.

Video: Open Air Museum

After a late night last night, and a sluggish start this morning we managed to drag ourselves to the Open Air Museum in Goreme as our last tourist stop before leaving. The Open Air Museum is a large collection of churches, chapels, monastery, convent built just outside of Goreme over the 11-13th centuries. Several of the churches contained incredible, bright frescos very well preserved due to the lack of light entering the church. Unfortunately many of the frescos have been damaged by vandals, and the eyes/mouth/faces scratched off by non-christians that settled in the area a a later date.

Photos: Open Air Museum

Sunset Over Goreme

After a relatively easy going day yesterday Fernando, Kristen, Kayley, Andrew and I hiked up to a hill behind our hostel to have some wine and watch the sunset over Goreme. The big jug-o-wine was more like vinegar, but the people were great and the sunset amazing.

Photos: Goreme Sunset

Video: Ihlara Valley, Selime Monastery and the Camel Palace

From the Underground City we headed to the Ihlara Valley, which houses more than 200 churches built into the rock walls. We hiked down into and through the valley for an hour to a spot where lunch was provided.

After lunch we had a quick ride over to the Selime Monastery, a huge monastery built into the side of a hill which was used as Theological college. The monastery housed a couple thousand monks, hospital, stables, kitchens, library, etc.

From Selime we headed to a Camel Palace on the old Silk Route through Turkey. It was a place where traders could get free room and board for upto 3 days while traveling through turkey.

Photos: Goreme

• Ihlara Valley
• Camel Palace

Video: Underground City

Yesterday was a whirlwind 10hr tour around Cappadocia. We started at 9am and headed to one of the many underground cities in this area that were built by the Hitties as places to hide during attacks from invaders. Of the hundred or so cities in this area we visited the largest one which is 8 stories deep and could house 2000 people for upto 6 months. It was amazing to see what they were able to construct with probably little more than hammer and chisel: winery, chapel, school, defense systems, places for animals, kitchens, wells, etc...they thought of everything.

Video: Walk Through the Valley

Several folks from the Blue Cruise (Andrew, Fernando, Kristen, and Kayley) and I all left Olympos at the same time and headed to Goreme. We arrived in Goreme in central turkey a few days ago after a long, mostly sleepless overnight bus ride from Olympos. After deciding to stay at the 'Shoestring Cave Pension' (We are actually sleeping in a cave), we did some walking around town and then went for a 3+hr guided hike through the Pigeon Valley, Honey Valley, White Valley and Love Valley.

It was nice to get out and do some hiking after a few lethargic days. The rock formations were amazing, and a lot of the landscape reminded me of Utah/Arizona. Some of the unique formations are the fairy chimneys, and giant love sticks.

Chimaera

In the last post, I kinda forgot to mention what exactly Chimaera is. Up above the small beach town of Olympos, Chimaera is a hill which has a large number of naturally occurring flames, caused by some kind of methane based gas seeping out of the ground and bursting into flame due to the pressue loss (I believe). What's amazing is that these flames have been burning for a few thousand years apparently...never ending flames.

We did a night hike upto Chimaera while in Olympos and it was pretty amazing to see these natural flames all over the hill side. It was good to get a little exercise in the hike up the mountain, after being on the boat doing nothing for several days.

Video: Flames at Chimaera

• Take 1
• David Brent on the Flames of Chimaera

Video: View from the Boat

• Swimming
• Another View

Blue Cruise Days 1-4

I spent another day in Fethiye, walking along the water and taking it easy. I met up with Eda at the 'Lykia World' resort for some lunch and sea kayaking which was a lot of fun. Tuesday (July 4) I caught the boat for the cruise over to Olympos.

Day 1: The cruise was a great time, and finally gave me a chance to soak up some needed sun and enjoy as much clear, blue (albeit incredibly salty) water as I desired. The original plan called for stopping in the Blue Lagoon and Butterfly Valley (the primary spots I had been told were a must see) on the first day, unfortunately, due to some issues with the boat, or something of the sort, we didn't actually get rolling until after 2pm, which meant that we had to skip both of those and head straight for our over night spot in St Nicolaus bay. We spent the first evening sending messages back and forth to a neighboring boat, via bottle, and met them on their boat later that night for some socializing.

Day 2: Unfortunately, the cruise was so relaxing, that I have to confess I don't really remember much about the specific ports of call that we visited each day. Other than the fact that day 2 started at 5am with 4+ hours of motoring to our next spot, it (like the other days) is mainly recalled as being full of blue water swimming and jagged, rocky land. We did visit Kas on day 2 (I believe): a really nice small town, with great, friendly people, and good food.

Day 3: On day 3 we broke down...and were stuck in a small port for about 24 hours while the oil pump was replaced. Fortunately, we had such a great group of easy going, and relaxed people that we spent the day jumping off the boat and playing cards, before heading to the 'smugglers inn' at night to celebrate a fellow passengers birthday (fernando) with some dancing and mingling.

Day 4: On day 4 we visited and swam in the pirate's cave and around a few more bays before heading to shore around 2pm to catch the mini-bus to Olympos (turns out the cruise doesn't actually go all the way, as one might believe by the 'Fethiye to Olympos' title).

Photos: Blue Cruise

Downtime in Selcuk

Yesterday was a needed rest day. Having been on more than my fair share of buses since Monday, and going through a bit of 'ruins overload' I ended up spending the day hanging out with a canadian couple also staying at 'Jimmys Place' that I met the day before on the free ride to Ephesus.

We spent the day hopping from one eatery to the next consuming meatball sanwiches, tea, baklava, hummus, and copious amounts of water to help stave off the incessant heat (something that later caught up with me on my late night bus ride). During all of this consumption, they shared some of their travel stories with me. Sebastian spent 8 months in South East Asia several years ago and offered some helpful tips, including how to handle the use of the 'water gun' when no toilet paper is around. He also told me about a fascinating trip spent walking through the giant sand dunes of Tunisia for a 5 days, something that I have definately added to my list for some point in the future. He emphasized bringing my own sleeping bag for such a trip, as his friend got stuck sleeping in the 'blankets' they put between the camel and the cargo during the day!

After the leisurely day, I grabbed a late night bus to Fethiye and arrived at 3:30am, quite a bit earlier than the stated ETA of 6am...not a good thing. I'll spend the next day or so here before taking a 4 day/3 night cruise over to Olympos.

Video: Ephesus

I arrived in the small town of Selcuk after a quick three hours on the bus, and spent the evening wandering, reading, writing and making the aquaintance of two canadians (on a whirlwind tour through turkey and greece) and an american from california (taking the summer off from traveling and currently working at Jimmy's Hostel, the place I'm staying).

This morning I caught a free ride over to the ruins of Ephesus and met two more fellow travellors from canada doing a three week tour of Turkey. The ruins at Ephesus make up one of, if not the, best preserved/reconstructed representation of an old roman/greek city, with the best ruins at Ephesus being the temple and a theatre that seats twenty-five thousand.

According to the guide book, Ephesus was primarly made up of the temple, baths, fountains, theatres, and a big market...not a bad life for the Ephesians. Additionally, we came across the public toilets...you had to be pretty friendly wıth your neighbor. Unlike Bergama, Ephesus is very popular with the tourists which packed the place.

Photos: Ephesus

• Market at Ephesus
• Theatre at Ephesus

The Ruins at Bergama

Having caught up on a bit of sleep, a fellow American staying at the Athena Pension and I headed out to see the Acropolis Ruins at Bergama. 5 mins into a search for a taxi we ran into an enthusiastic local that took great care in explaining a short cut we could take to walk to the ruins, so we figured 'why not'. Unfortunately the short cut turned out to be a little less short than we realized and it ended up taking a little over an hour to hike up the hill in scorching heat (I have finally become accustomed to constantly being drenched and sticky).

There are quite a few ruins on a hill above the current town of Bergama which are pretty amazing. The most intersting of which is a Greek Theatre built into the side of the hill. Additionally there is some great white marble still standing as the remnants of a temple. Luckily these ruins aren't too popular and it was easy to get some great photos unspoiled by throngs of tourists.

After wandering the ruins for 2 1/2 hours we caught a taxi back to town, packed up and I hopped a bus to Ephesus.

Photos: Bergama

Video: The Road to Bergama

After Troy turned out to be a bit of a bust, I decided to hot stop out of there and head to Bergama, a place recommended for its ruins, by the hostel folks in Canakkale. I caught an early morning bus and 5 hours later was in Bergama. The buses here are incredibly comfortable and make long trips a piece of kosher cake. What I didn't realize is that the bus I got on didn't actually stop in the city, so when it came time to get off I was rather unceremoniously dumped on the side of a dirt road about 5 miles out of town! After failing to wave down a few Mini-buses, I started trekking. Luckily about 1 1/2 miles into my walk a kind Turkish man on a scooter took pity on me, pulled over 15 feet ahead and waved for me to hop on. He took me to the edge of the city, about 2 miles closer, and with a shake of my hand and a hearty smile told me to have a 'fine day' and was on his way.

I spent another 2 hours walking into the city center and stumbling around in search of a reasonably priced hostel, finally succumbing to solicitation by a taxi cab which took me to the Athena Pension. The Athena Pension turned out to be a really quaint restored Ottoman house with a great open court yard kinda place, a mother bird and four babies living in the raftors, and a great sign.

Having walked around all day, I decided the ruins would have to wait til morning. Instead, I took a stroll around downtown. I stumbled across a dirt street with a tea house that is apparently the place to be in Bergama, especially if you're a retired man. I met a retired biology teacher who now owns a carpet shop and spent a couple of hours chatting with him and watching some hearty turkish retirees drink tea and play of Dama (turkish checkers). I finished the evening off with some turkish meatballs and an amazing glass of 'mountain tea', before making it a fairly early night.

• The Place to be in Bergama

Troy

I finally left Istanbul and struck out on my own across the vast expanse of Turkey. My first stop was a town called Canakkale, just outside of which rest the remains of Troy. I took an overnight buy from Istanbul and arrived in Canakkale early Tuesday morning and after a quick nap hoped on a tour bus to Troy. I'm sorry to say that, as I had been warned, Troy turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. There is a giant wooden horse replica (apparently built specifically for tourists as it has windows), and a lot of scattered ruins. Interestingly, Troy has been rebuilt, largely from the ground up, 9 different times and it was pretty amazing to see a cross-section of the many different layers on top of each other. Troy was certainly much more interesting with the Tour guide, without whom it would have been a bunch of useless scattered ruins.

Photos: Troy