Almost stripped searched at the Border… Another new country today - This time it was Jordan. It was noticeable as soon as we got to the Border how much more affluent and westernised Jordan was as a country in comparison to all the other countries we had visited so far - Including Turkey. The streets were clean, the trees were neatly trimmed and the border guards for more alert and organised. At the border we were all asked to step off the truck to enable to guards to ‘search’ the truck - or in the case get on walk in briefly and walk back off again. We had to remove all of our backpacks from the holdall and put them through an x-ray machine (I did say that they were more organised) - Mind you we ... read more

Sunset camel ride over the ruins It was a rude awakening this morning to quickly pack up my things and hustle along to get on my sunset camel ride tour of the ruins. Trying to change your clothes in a pitch black tent surrounded by 24 of your fellow passengers was never going to be an enjoyable experience - not to mention an extremely un-coordinated one. Yes!! My top was inside out & back to front. But I quickly put on as many layers as I could to beat the morning cold and made my way to the spot for my camel ride. Is it me? But I don’t understand why I always seem to end up with donkey….or in this case - the dumb arse camel. I spent most of my ride hanging onto my ... read more

It finally feels like I am in the Middle East We are leaving Turkey behind today as continue travelling south towards Syria. I’d been in Turkey for a total of only two weeks and in that time I had barely touched the surface. It is a country with so many contrasts - in the city you have all the affluence that you could expect in a modern city but as we continued to travel around the coastline, we also caught the glimpses of what I would expect the real Turkey to be like - one that has more of a rural, conservative feel that is not felt so much in Istanbul (more specifically the Istanbul that is predominantly viewed by tourists). My image of Turkey is one of a country on the verge of joining ... read more

No sleep and a very long drive. Not a good combination!! There was little or no sleep for most of the group last night as we spent the last few hours of our time in Olympos at the local ‘Bull Bar’. It seemed as though only minutes passed from the time my head hit the pillow to when my alarm went off in the morning, forcing me to get up and start packing my things to leave. The fact that I probably had only an hours sleep probably wasn’t going to be a good thing - but leaving at 5am to spend the whole of the next day driving - wasn’t going to be very good for my personality either. Cappadocia was one of those places that I was eagerly anticipating when I pictured my holiday ... read more

Camping again….but it has finally started to warm up. Kas is a tiny little seaside resort off the Western Mediterranean Coast of Turkey. This was going to be our midway stop between the town of Selcuk and Olympos. We arrived there sometime in the late afternoon, leaving us with some sun to enjoy the pebble beach by our campsite. I haven’t mentioned this previously - but the weather in Turkey hasn’t been entirely favourable to us - ranging from very cold, rainy & wet to smatterings of sunshine since the start of the tour. It doesn’t help that I had only packed for extremely hot weather and have spent most of my time thus far wearing the only long sleeve cardigan every day for the last week & a half (Yes - I have made some ... read more