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TRAVEL BLOG ENTRY
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As some of you may know, we intended to visit Greece before Turkey. However, we couldn't be bothered eating peanutbutter and bread for a month and so decided that Greece would have to wait for another trip...and hotter weather.
After deciding our new budget, we arrived at Rome airport to be told that, despite having paid a travel agent for plane tickets to Istanbul via Athens, we would have to buy them again. Sweet. We still haven't heard from the travel agent.
Olympic Airways may try to convince you on its website that it is now cutting edge but, well, its not. We flew from Athens to Istanbul in a 30 seater with 2 propellers. Needless to say, Pete didn't (read couldn't) talk to me for the entire flight - although it wouldn't have mattered if he had, because you couldn't hear above the roar of the engines.
Finally, we arrived in Turkey, the only country to span 2 continents. And so began our new diet of kebaps (which is turkish for about a million different dishes so we weren't complaining).
Istanbul was fantastic. We spent a lot of our time socialising with the crew at the AWESOME Bahaus Hostel in the Sultanhammet. We were also able to stroll through the incredible Grand Bazaar (while palming off the hustlers), visit the nightlife at Taksim (amazing), tour the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Palace, eat fresh fish from the local fish market, visit some Nagile (turkish waterpipe) cafes and drink up as many cups of delicious freshly squeezed orange juice as possible. We walked along and across the Bosphorous river that cuts Istanbul in two and divides Europe and Asia.
From Istanbul we headed down to Gallipoli. It was a moving and enlightening experience that we will never forget. We left honoured to have signed our names in the guest book at Lone Pine.
The ancient city of Troy was our next stop. It really would have lived up to its reputation amongst backpackers as "ruins of ruins" had it not been for our phenomenal tour guide, Mustafa.
From there we racked up a few hundred more bus miles on the way to Celcuk, to visit the ancient city of Ephesus. These ruins were much more impressive and, as Christians, we really enjoyed seeing the place where St John lived and St Paul visited before being imprisoned and exiled for ruining the business of the goldsmiths who made statues to the Roman god, Artemis. We suddenly realised, midmorning, that it was Good Friday (as Turkey is 98% Muslim, we had no reminders!)....and appreciated our trip all the more.
On returning to Celcuk, we experienced a Turkish haman (bath)....where you lie on a hot marble slab until a big hairy guy comes to exfoliate your body and give you a seriously deep (bordering on painful) soap massage. DO IT if you ever get the chance!
previous travel blog entry
BJ says:
You timed your trip to Turkey very well - Good Friday, just before ANZAC day ... but you can have that Turkish haman - big hairy guy giving you a soap massage ... sounds like prison story!