The Eight Little Concubines of Gallipoli

Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Istanbul
April 25th 2006

Published: June 1st 2006

Edit Blog Post

tardree

Those crazy Turks!

Ha!

Matt:

There’s a couple of things that every Australian living in Europe is obliged to do while here. Most of these involve sporting events, alcohol, nudity or a combination of all three. Spending Anzac Day at Gallipoli is one of the few exceptions.

Our Anzac adventure, started like most of our previous trips: an urgent dash home after work on a Friday afternoon, a lightening fast shower, a quick change of clothes and a tube ride across town to Heathrow. Unusually for us, we made it to the airport with more than 15 minutes to spare and so sat back for a couple of drinks and waited for Greer, Kate, Kelly, Lisa, Vicky and Miranda who were joining us on our pilgrimage.

We all ended up arriving in Istanbul at around midnight, collected our bags and met our guides from ‘Go Anzac Tours’ for the transfer to our hotel.

Hotel Hamidiye ‘combines the benefits of a convenient location with the experience of comfort all in grand, four-star setting’; or so Go Anzac’s brochure would have you believe. I can think of a more appropriate four letter word description.

Upon checking in (which was actually more like

Topkapi Palace

And our first real sun since Malta!

playing a game of charades with the receptionist), we took the lift to our room on the fifth floor. After turning the key and opening the door, we were greeted by a scene from Midnight Express: a single, slowly circulating fan, threadbare orange carpet and pastel (ie. faded) bedspreads covering two single beds (something - as two guys travelling across Europe - we are slowly getting used to). Above my bed, the partly rusted night lamp had fallen off the wall and was dangling precariously above the pillow.

Thankfully, we lacked the energy to investigate the features of our room any further (including how clean the sheets were) and crashed asleep.

The following morning after having breakfast, we headed out with the girls to see what the town had to offer. We met a couple of Aussies in the foyer who offered to lead us on the 40 minute walk from our hotel’s ‘convenient location’ to the main tourist area.

First stop was the Topkapi Palace, the grand old residence of the Ottoman Emperors. The palace itself is really a collection of domed buildings set around four gorgeous tulip filled courtyards. After arriving, we explored several of

Topkapi Palace

Apparently the sultans were fond of gardening... And sex slaves

the buildings in the complex including the old Imperial Treasury, which houses the world’s fifth largest diamond (apparently purchased from a street peddler for four spoons who had found it in a rubbish dump) and the macabre jewel encrusted arm and skull of St John the Baptist.

Next, we went on a tour of the most famous section of the Palace - the Harem - where Sultans were free to engage in debauchery at will. Apparently, at any one time the Harem was filled with up to 300 concubines, all maintained by an army of black eunuchs who were castrated at birth to stop them ‘interfering’ with the Sultan’s property. Being surrounded by Greer, Kate, Kelly, Lisa, Vicky and Miranda just added to the whole experience for Ed and me.

We then walked up the road to the 400 year old Blue Mosque. Although the guidebooks were right in saying that the exterior of the building invokes a sense of wonder, the interior invokes more a sense of smell. By the time we arrived mid afternoon, the thousands of tourists that had traipsed through the inside of the building barefoot during the day had definitely left their mark

Farewell my Concubine(s)

He pulls it off well, doesn't he?

on the atmosphere. Despite the stench though, it was all very amazing.

Next we spent a couple of hours looking around the Grand Bazaar, which is a huge arcade filled with over 4,000 shops, all under one roof (think Paddy’s Markets but with more rugs). The whole complex is crisscrossed with kilometres of narrow laneways and is totally filled with tourists. After exploring a couple of hundred stalls, we began to realise that all 4,000 sold only four basic products: rugs, jewellery, fake branded clothes and souvenirs. The place was still insanely busy though, and heaps of fun.

After stocking up with fake Gucci, Polo and Versace (oh my!), we found a local hamam (ie. Turkish bath) and went in for a scrub. Like most baths in Turkey, this one was segregated, so we left our band of Queensland concubines at the door, changed into the kilt-like outfit supplied (unlike Aussies, the Turks don’t seem to appreciate nudity) and proceeded into the domed, steam filled room beyond.

Inside, about a dozen men lay on a huge heated marble stone immediately beneath the dome. Around the outside, several enormous Turkish men furiously scrubbed and pummelled a few unfortunate

The Blue Mosque

Wow!

tourists. We found an empty square on the stone and lay down. A few minutes later, the most enormous of the Turks (let’s just call him Habib) came over to me, pinched my warm relaxed big toe and ushered me into a back room.

Now, the idea of being ushered into a back room of a sauna by a hairy overweight man in a kilt is the stuff of gay porn folklore. Fortunately, Habib was not the type to continue with the image… Unfortunately, he was capable of stripping a couple of layers of skin off my body with a glove that felt like it was made of sandpaper - despite walking into the bath with a new found tan, I emerged as white as ever!

That night, we took a cab to a local restaurant for a massive banquet. After all the girls had been proposed to by the all male staff, we crashed the Fanatics’ (ie. wild Aussie tour group) welcoming party before staggering back to the splendorous surroundings of the Hotel Hamidiye.

The following day, we met our Go Anzac tour group and tour leader for the start of our organised tour. Our tour

The Blue Mosque

Home of 100,000 sweaty tourist feet each and every day!

leader was a short, round, sleazy Turk who’s name was unpronounceable, but started with a ‘G’… We soon settled on the name ‘Guido’ and after a while, he was answering to it.

After driving around the amazing city walls (which in parts, despite being 1,500 years old, look in better condition than some of the surrounding buildings), Guido and the gang stopped at an underground reservoir from the Roman era that once was used as the city’s main source of water. Oddly, this historical landmark was built under a Persian rug shop… Well maybe, not so oddly - for some reason, Guido had allocated more time to ‘learning about’ (ie. buying) rugs than visiting the sight!

Next we headed to Aya Sofya, which is probably Istanbul’s most famous monument. The huge complex was originally built as a Christian church in the 6th Century before being converted into a Muslim mosque during the Conquest of the 1600s. The building is now a museum dedicated to showing how the Christian and Islamic faiths can exist within the one environment. The massive domed church cum mosque cum museum is definitely a spectacular setting for such a noble cause!

After a

The Blue Mosque

Double wow!

lunch of more meatballs (of which Guido had three helpings), the remainder of the day was spent cruising the Bosphorus, the only link between the Black Sea and the rest of the world, and the official divide between Europe and Asia. Although it sounds pretty glamorous, after a while of chugging around listening to a barely audible commentary that was allegedly in English, we soon became bored.

Always the innovator, Kate quickly devised a drinking game in which for every Turkish flag we saw, we had to take a swig of our (very bad) Turkish beers. Unfortunately for us, the Turks are a very patriotic people and are quite fond of their flag… Pretty soon, the scope was narrowed so as to include only those flags on the left (sorry, port) side… After an even shorter period, it was narrowed again to include only those flags that appeared through one tiny port-side window… It still didn’t really help, and as a result I can’t really remember how we ended up back on the bus (thanks Kate!)…

Next on our Go Anzac itinerary was an ‘informative’ trip to a leather factory… At this point there was nearly a revolt

The Grand Bazaar

See what I mean about patriotic!

on our bus at the thought of another excursion to a shop, and poor Guido was almost lynched. Most of us refused to go in and some of us got cabs back to the hotel in protest!

That night, Ed and I went to a performance of whirling dervishes in a waiting room at the local train station (don’t ask). For anyone that has ever seen photos or footage of those crazy dervishes whirl, you can appreciate how mesmerising the experience looks. Ed and I were mesmerised too - for the first five minutes! Despite all the Turkish flag spotting, after an hour of whirling and twirling and chanting and (you guessed it) more whirling, it all became a bit monotonous. You would think after 800 years of spinning they would have had time to expand their repertoire!

After the performance we headed out to the Go Anzac Gala Evening (or Galah - get it?) which more like a really dodgy family wedding… After another meal of meatballs, a performance by an eversmiling band of peroxide-blonde Turkish belly dancers and an impromptu half-naked Haka performance by a bunch of drunken New Zealanders, the night ended with a water

City Walls

Kept Christians, Muslims and Persian traders out for 1,500 years... Alas, no more!

fight between everyone on our bus… Just your typical family wedding really! :-)

The following day, we boarded the bus again for the trip down to the Gallipoli peninsula. Normally the trek from Istanbul takes around three hours, but with one Guido and a little traffic, this soon blew out to a seven hour marathon!

Once we had arrived, we stopped at the battlefields at Chunuk Bair, which is the highest point on the peninsula and the site of the Kiwi memorial. The first thing that struck me about Gallipoli is the rugged beauty of the landscape. From the top of the hill, the rocky ground falls away rapidly down to the landing beaches and the blue sea beyond. Standing and looking out over the coast, it was hard to imagine that the serene landscape was once the location for some of the most violent and bloodiest fighting of WWI.

After driving around the circuit road, we headed down to the coast for dinner. After dinner we waited and waited for Guido to finish his meatballs, but ended up giving up and going for a walk along the coastline.

Once Guido was full, we took the

Aya Sofya

Definately the most stunning lesson in religious tolerance I have ever experienced!

bus up to Anzac Cove for a night of camping at the site of the dawn service. I wasn’t really expecting much in way of facilities at the dawn service - maybe just a dais and a couple of loudspeakers on a beach. We were however greeted by bag searches (not so much for bombs but for cases of VB as the whole service is dry), massive TV screens, stadium seating and even host Andrew Denton! Although I was anticipating a relaxing and slightly dull evening under the stars, the whole night was filled with music from the Australian Air Force Band, documentaries and interviews a la Denton. There was even a light show, set to specially composed music and commentary, that lit up the various landmarks on the towering cliffs behind us.

The atmosphere of the place was something unexpected as well. Despite cramming 7,000 Aussies, New Zealanders and Turks into a small stretch of coastline, everyone was in an almost festive mood. The grass, sleeping bags and lack of alcohol gave the whole thing a primary school camp feel that was all pretty kewl.

At around 5am, the dignitaries (including the GG) arrived for the dawn

Carpet weaver

I don't think she appreciated me taking this!

service which was intensely moving. The speeches, hymns, anthems and music all combined to create an emotion filled mood which I don’t think I have ever experienced the likes of.

After the service, all 7,000 of us wearily trekked around the coastline and up the surrounding hills to Lone Pine for the Australian service which was also amazing.

After a quick nap on the ground, we managed to track down our coach from amongst the 400 that had descended on the small peninsula, and headed back to Istanbul for one last night at the Hotel Hamidiye and a hearty meatball dinner.

All up, I really enjoyed my time in Istanbul. The place is so different from everywhere we have visited so far, and to have the opportunity to spend Anzac Day at Gallipoli has definitely been a highlight for me!

Anywho - hope all is well in Oz. Still miss you all heaps!

Additional photos below

Photos: 28, Displayed: 28