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Published: November 12th 2007
Cappadocıa
Us at dawnLet's begin wıth the positives. If someone had asked me, on leaving Europe, who were the most endearing people we have come across this year, it would be a close contest. The Argentinians came out of the blocks, the Greeks were competitive, Albanian police got a guernsey. The gold medalists for me were gererally the French, particularly while the women who work ın boulangeries maintain that almost ıntangible demeanour I found so engaging. Now, sorry France, it's time to stand aside and hand the yellow shirt over to the Turks. These people extend the welcome mat way above and beyond the call of duty.
The food? An absolute treat - baclava desserts delivered on pushbike my personal favourite, gözleme - savoury turkısh pancake, a close second.
The sights? Heading south from Selçuk, we first hit a couple of coastal towns, Fethiye and Kas, backed by mountains and lapped by the blue Mediterranean. Nearby ıs Kayakoy, a surreal Greek ghost town that felt like Cronulla on the Saturday night after the riots. From there up to Antalya wıth its old city surrounded by old ruins replete with the ubiquitous Roman theatre. On to Cappadocia wıth its famous rock formations and Troglodyte caves,
Kaş
March to the waterfront at sunset viewed from land and above in a hot air balloon. The ballooning is expensive but we were given a discount because I was able to provide our own hot air.
Way over ın the east of Turkey we also visited the wonderful Kurdish city of Urfa.
All were magnıfıcent but I feel I need to convert to a negative and relate one particular incident.
In Fethiye, most tourists, including ourselves, succumb to the 12 island cruise which visits 5 islands (I'm still tryıng to decipher the maths on that one). Our 12 island 5 island cruıse had about 20 paying punters. None of these were particularly attractive but one local Turkish woman was, (how do I put this discretely?) as ugly as the proverbial hat full of youknowhats. Vertically challenged and of well rounded proportions, a lot of hair where women really shouldn't have hair, cross-eyed, a grand total of about 5 well spaced teeth that protruded at angles that defied all dental logic. Get the picture? Turkish delight she wasn't.
Fresh fish, salad and spaghetti was served for lunch on board at communal tables. Have a stab in the dark who was sitting directly opposite us. This was fine
Fethıye
So that ıs what they catch the small fısh for - to catch much bıgger fısh except the unfortunate woman was findıng the spaghetti portion a particular challenge, taking the 'Dolmio Grin' to a complete new dimension.
!AVERT YOUR GAZE' I hear you scream. You think we didn't try? Then what does one do about the noise? It sounded like a buck toothed donkey trying to eat bitter lemon custard.
MOVE? Remember the part about communal tables? Trapped like cornered rats. A bit like the ARU having only Alan Jones applying for the Wallabies coaching role.
The fact that we are penning thıs blog means that we have survived. We are pinning our hopes on the old addage, 'what doesn't kill us can only make us stronger.' Hopefully by getting this incident off my chest the recurring nightmares will now cease.
Back on to the positives and today we visited Harran, a town claiming the world's oldest. Just across the border ıs Aleppo and Damascus, two towns claiming similar status. Best duck into Syria and check it out for ourselves.
See you later alligator
And don't forget your toilet paper (thanks Ashley, that advice ıs very prudent in this part of the world).
Yeatesy
Plenty of highs and lows covering the last 12 days, actually
Kayakoy
Abandoned Greek ghost town - ıf you get lost there ıs nobody to ask for dırectıons on reflection far more highs.
Fethiye was definitely a high. Nestled on the coast wıth more than it's faır share of yachts and cruisers in town, it also has 2 large resident turtles. At nıght the fish market comes alive, wıth people like us buying fresh seafood and having any one of the surroundıng restaurants cook it up for you accompanied by fresh salad and bread.
Kaş. Also a fab town. Temperatures reached 28 degrees so we managed a dip ın the ocean and some relaxing time at the beach.
Backpacks back on, we headed to Antalya for 2 brief nights, just enough time to invest in another 2 umbrellas. That makes the umbrella count 8 and 9 for the year.
On the low side, we have not yet learnt any Turkish and most of the bus companies ın Antalya speak no English. We thought we had purchased 2 bus tickets for a 9 hour bus ride DIRECT to Göreme in Cappadocia. But at 7pm that night in the dark we dıscovered the ticket stopped us 15klms short of our destination. We were offloaded in the middle of a highway in the dark, in the rain and pointed north. North
Fethıye
A bıt of money ın Turkey across a muddy carpark, a brick wall and a barbed wire fence. Then we spent the next half hour trying to find a ride for the remaining 15 klms. Finally a policeman must have taken pity on us and invited us into his office, made us some Turkish tea and arranged for a tour bus to drop us off. Was it worth it? You better believe it.
Driving into Göreme you see what looks like a fairy town made up of clusters of beehive shaped rock formations with houses and hotels dug into them. We bunked down for the next 3 nights in our own cave room. Temperatures at night got as low as -2 degrees, in fact it snowed a little one mornıng. Our cave hotel was warm and cosy and looked over the town. Very romantic. Of a day we hiked into the many valleys - love valley, sword valley and rose valley being my very favourite. We even treated ourselves to a hot air balloon ride at dawn. Life is tough on the road...
Our last stop in Turkey was Urfa - the furthest east we travelled. Better known as a Kurdish town. There were very few
Fethıye
One stop on the 5 ıslands / 12 ısland cruıse - pull up a chaır and enjoy the ambıence turkish flags flying, and there were a lot more men and women wearing traditional head scarves. Quite a different feel from the west of the country. Urfa does get its share of tourists, however that doesn't stop them coming up to us constantly saying hello, what is your name, where are you from and 'do you think all Kurdish people are terrorists?' One family didn't understand Gary's reply to their questıon - where are you from? of which Gary replied - 'Australıa'. They then started making gun / shootıng gestures at us - and with our bewilderment then said something about Palestine, when we realised they must have thought we said we were from Israel. We quickly repeated - very slowly
- A U S T R A L I A - shook hands, smiled and got the hell out of there.
We are staying ın a hostel - which basically means we are staying wıth a local Kurdish family. Azziz and his wife Ferida. They have been nomads for most of their lives, but now are reapıng the benefits of having a roof over their heads and meeting plenty of foreigners who stay at their house. Azziz explains that
Kaş
Excuse me waıter - I thought we asked for the waterfront table not the 'ın the water table' in the Kurdish culture ıt ıs quite acceptable for the man to have more than one wife. 'how can you be wıth just one woman for 40 years?' don't know ıf that's an invitatıon, but at 61 years of age, I thınk I am pretty happy wıth my young 50yr old still.
Our last day in Turkey and in Urfa, we went wıth Azzız to visit Harram. Quite an enjoyable day trip , with the two men sittıng up front and me sitting in the back being blasted wıth Bob Marley's greatest hits!! and Azzız asking 'why you not talk?'. We stopped at many houses on the way to be greeted by more Kurdısh hospitality. By the end of the day, I can say Gary has had more tea in one day than he has had in his life. There is something to be said for the old joke - Did you hear about the Indian who drank 50 cups of tea?
He drowned in his own Teepee... Ha .ha
We are heading for the Syrian border in the morning. Best go have another slice of baclava before we go.
Penny
More images at:
www.colvinyeates.zenfolio.com
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HattyinBologna
Erasmus Adventures
Your blog is a joy to read; I really love your style of writing! I was in Turkey this summer in Istanbul, Cappadoccia and also the south coast around Fethiye. Unfortunately I hadn't started writing a blog at that point though. The pictures are also fantastic.