London/Turkey

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Wednesday 20th April & Thursday 21st April 2011

After a rather big night saying goodbye to my friends at O'Niells I was feeling a little under the weather but I managed to make it to the Cambodian Embassy at 10am and thankfully they had my visa and passport all ready to go. I made my way back to Lisa & Tim's via the supermarket to pick up food for my final night get together. I then double checked I had everything, emailed Mum my itinerary as requested and did my final pack - weighing in at approx 18kg!

My final night get together consisted of drinks & nibbles with Lisa, Tim, Braden, Jenna, Laura, Jo and Katie. We sat around chatting about our adventures over the past year and a half and made plans to see each other again very soon - there were no goodbyes just see you laters. I must admit that I did shed a little tear when Braden left and I shed lots of tears when Lisa and Tim went to bed as they have been my family since I left NZ, they have always been there for me no matter what! By the time everyone was gone or in bed it was midnight and because I needed to be up at 2am I decided not to go to bed at all, instead I got changed, did my final sort and then at 2am strapped my pack to my back and away I went. I got to the bus stop at 3:30am. I wasn't sure how long it was going to take to walk there with my pack on. I waited about 20 mins before the bus arrived, jumped on & headed to Luton Airport. It normally takes close to an hour but I guess at this time there is no traffic so I was there just after 3:30am, an hour early for checkin. I sat around and waited for the desk to open and when it finally did I put my pack through. With a sleeping bag and sleeping mat strapped to the side it looked huge and when I put it on the scale it was jumping between 19-22kg so I sneakily put a finger on it to lift it up so it sat at just under 20kg. I went through customs without any issues and got a few snacks for the journey before my gate was finally called - gate 18! As I sat around waiting to board, surrounded by Kiwis and Aussies going to Turkey for Anzac Day, it finally hit me that I was not just going on holiday, I was not coming back :-( The adventure ahead was going to be incredible and in a few hours I would be meeting up with Jess so I just stuck to that thought so I didn't burst into tears like a little child in the middle of the airport. As we boarded I overheard someone say the weather in Turkey had been miserable - cold and raining, not what I wanted to hear! Lets hope our night under the stars doesn't have the same fate. I promptly grabbed a window seat so that I could try to get some sleep - 3 hours sleep in 2 days was starting to take its toll. We landed at Istanbul airport at 12:30pm - a 4 hour flight with 2 hours time difference. I got through customs fine and being a Kiwi I didn't need a visa so breezed straight through passport control. My bag was in one piece and the sleeping bag and mat still attached so I threw it on my back (with a little difficulty given the weight) and off I went. As I came out into the arrivals airport there was a guy furiously waving signs with peoples names on them, mine being one of them. I was a little dubious about the transfer I had booked the day before as it was very cheap (only €10) and was a door to door service - a little too good to be true. But sure enough he was there along with all the other travellers and off we set. The airport I flew into was the furthest away from the city so it took a long time to get in and the traffic was just terrible, it was like peak hour traffic the whole time. Driving into the city was an experience to say the least, the driving was crazy. At one point we were in a 4 lane highway with at least 6 cars wide, everyone weaving in and out not really caring so much about the road rules, if there are even any! I would definitely not want to drive in Istanbul. 2 hours later I finally arrived at the Sultan Hostel & there waiting out the front in the bar was Jess!!! We gave each other a big hug as it had been a month earlier that we had seen each other for St Paddy's Day. I dropped my bags at her table and fell into the seat, exhausted! She introduced me to Naked Josh who was in our dorm room. The nickname simply because when they first met he was wearing the tiniest towel, he might as well have been naked. He was a young lad just off the plane for Aussie, his first travel out of oz, he seemed like a good sort. Jess took me to check in and showed me our room which was sadly located on the 2nd floor. I struggled with my pack but eventually made it, lucky we weren't on the top floor. In fact it was lucky we even had a bed at all as when Jess arrived they did not have our reservation and the hostel was full but given they had emailed me confirmation they managed to sort us out. Jess and I then went for a walk around the town and caught up on the goss from the past month or so before coming back to the hostel for a well deserved pint of beer - the turkish local being Efes which is actually rather nice, on average 5TL (Turkish Lira) so about £3. We then went for another wonder to change some money before finding a restaurant for dinner. After dinner we went back to the hostel where quite a few people had gathered, mainly Fanatics (another tour company) which was doing a number of Anzac Tours. It turns out Phil, who I met through my friend Nikki Attwood was running one of the tours so I had a good catch up with him and ended up spending most of the night with him and his crew, who are such a laugh. I tried my first Sheesha which I think was apple flavour. I wasn't sure what to expect and at first it was a little strange and went straight to my head but after a few more puffs it was fine (don't worry mum it's nothing dodgy). Later on, after the bar had closed, Jess and I went up to the roof with Phil and his crew for more drinks and a strawberry flavoured Sheesha. I preferred the apple flavour! At about 2am I decided it was time for bed so off I went. I was on the top bunk so it was a little tricky getting up there but I made it eventually. I was in a 10 bed dorm which was full so there was limited space on the floor for bags so my huge pack sat on the end of my bed which was a little awkward to sleep but ok.


Friday 22nd April 2011

I was awake at 8am despite only going to bed at 2am. With the amount of people in our room sadly the hot water didn't last long. I got myself sorted and off I went with Jess for a sightseeing day out. We wondered around town seeing all the main attractions like the Blue Mosque, the University, the New Mosque, the Grand Bazaar and Topkapi Palace. On our travels we met the strawberry man - a nice local man wheeling a cart full of strawberries around. Jess got half a kg of strawberries for only
3TL (£1.50), which was crazy so we munched on those as we made our way around. The Grand Bazaar was awesome but mental - it is a huge indoor market full of shops as far as they eye can see. You can easily get lost in there for most of day. There are of course turkish men constantly hounding you to go into their shops to buy things but a stern no and they tend to leave you alone. Some of them are so funny though with their pick up lines - the three we got were "are you sisters, I have a brother", "excuse me you dropped something, no wait that was my heart" and "you have beautiful eyes" (I was wearing black sunglasses!). Me and Jess just cracked up laughing, we couldn't believe they actually thought lines like that would work! We headed back towards the hostel for lunch as there were heaps of places on the way that looked really good. Once we finished lunch at about 3:30pm we made our way back to the hostel to sort our stuff out (as we were leaving at 7am) and we also needed to register with Oasis as well as have an Oasis pre-departure meeting. We met some of our fellow Oasis passengers who had already registered and we were having a drink in the bar. We got chatting but of course it was a little bit awkward at first making sure there were no crazies! We all then went up to the roof terrace where we met our Oasis crew - Dave the tour leader who was Irish and Nev the driver who was Aussie. Dave explained the first part of the trip to us but didn't go into great detail as he reckoned we would not remember it all and that we would be told as we go along which was fine by me as I hadn't actually looked into the trip that much, I was just looking forward to seeing everything. It was bloody freezing on the roof terrace and everyone was getting too cold so we finished off the meeting and headed down to the bar. It was a little more relaxed by this stage and we chatted with everyone but with 23 other people on the truck I was never going to remember all their names and background info straight off - I would get there eventually but not in the first few days. The people I did get along with and remember straight off were Di, an aussie who seemed really fun and outgoing and the life of the trip, Carly and Ben who
are australian and engaged and on their way home after 3 years living abroad and Andy who was an english guy from Manchester who was of course a United fan which I wasn't too happy about being a Chelsea supporter but nothing wrong with a good bit of competition I guess!! We had a bit of a dance and I spent some of the night going between the Oasis crew and the Fanatics crew. At one stage I did try to steal an Anzac hoody from Fanatics as it was very cool but sadly I got caught by one of the guys (they knew we were trying to get one as I had not made a secret about it earlier in the night so they were keeping an eye on me). I did want to stay and party and get to know everyone more but with only having a few hours sleep and having to be up and on the bus to leave at 7am I decided to retire to bed at about midnight.

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