Advertisement
Published: October 10th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Our trip covering some of the East of Turkey has bought quite a few surprises not to mention some incredible sights, Woolly thought it would be a good idea to do a summary of the trip and we agreed thinking it might keep him quiet for a few days!
Woolly says – So cutting! The East was very different and gave us a variety of problems and some wonderful destinations
Camping proved to be problematic with many campsites not existing and I would certainly recommend contacting camps by email before planning to stay at them. Prices are cheap ranging between 25TL and 40TL (approximately £8.10 and £12.90 GBP) in comparison to European sites but be prepared for very basic facilities with only a few camps having washing up areas at all. Several we stayed on where attached to Bars or Hotels and we found ourselves sharing the toilets with the customers. The Turkish vision of camping is very different from ours and this led to another problem…..
Equipment, we had stocked up on gas bottles for our light and single burner cooker while in Europe – Thank You Decathlon. Once these ran
out, which they did part way through the trip we couldn’t find hide nor hair or any equipment stores or small gas bottles anywhere. Research on the net told us that the nearest store is in Istanbul, not much use that far away! We ended up with candles for light and purchasing a new single burner that fits Turkish gas bottles (I had problems lugging those about with my little legs!) to make sure I remained fed! Oh, Jo and Ian were fed as well!
Culture, as you might have already read in some of our blogs our very PC Jo upset a whole restaurant with her attire, something we hadn’t thought off living in the South and more touristy areas. Jo, bless her, was also treated as a women and therefore not spoken to by men who would address Ian only, a bit of a shock for our very capable and independent women, although I found it hilarious!
There were some AMAZING finds though, I really enjoyed the Underground City which was Woolly sized but found the Open Air Museum at Cappadocia a bit much, I asked Jo and Ian what had been
there best and least favourite places on the trip
Ian immediately came up with Turkey’s longest cave as his least favourite and after humming and haring for a while choose Nemrut and the Hittite Oasis as his favourites.
Jo having thought for a while agreeing with Ian on the Cave but put my favourite The Underground City as her least favourite experience.
The reason please Jo….
Well to be fair it wasn’t a great start by having to queue for so long and then change location to see the City but although it was interesting a little went a long way and after crawling through a few tunnels and seeing a few rooms I felt my back had seriously had enough. My best experience was defiantly Nemrut even with the horrendous walk it is one that I will remember always, Hattusa was very good as well and I probably learnt more there about a different civilization that I had with anything else.
Woolly says - Food as you all know is rather important to me and having a full tummy makes me a nice Mammoth
but being hungry makes me rather cross and irritable. We have had rather a mixed bag with poor Jo (she should eat meat it would be far easier!) having little or no options.
Jo Says – it has been a bit hit and miss and there are only so many days of the week when I want to eat chick peas for every meal. I was surprized at the lack of veggie choice though as many of my Muslim friends in the UK are veggie and I supposed I expected Turkey to be similar. My worst meal was probably the one where they tried to pick out all the meat from my dish and palm it off as veggie! The very best meal was at the Dileck Camping, that was awesome and I would happily go there again.
Ian Says – I’m with Jo on the best meal, my goulash was out of this world. It was a mixed bag in general but definitely too much green stuff for me. The best menu has to go to the man who produced the frozen chicken fillet and frozen Kofte for me to choose from, class.
Woolly says – I liked the driving sweeties best there called toffee’s here but they are fruity chews, well except for the cherry ones which none of us like (I have a large stockpile of these if anyone would like them!)
Hotels, we did use more of these than we had planned particuly due to lack of campsites and in part because of the cold. With prices ranging from 90TL to 150TL (approximately £29.00 to £48.50 GBP). We all agreed the Ali Blizir at Beysherir was by far the best and we would all go there again, the worst was on the Black Sea in a damp, cold chalet (more like a box!), not on our list for a return visit.
All in all it was a brilliant trip though, the views are spectacular and we never tired of them throughout the whole journey we only touched the surface of places to visit, hopefully we will head off this way again (probably when the surrounding countries are slightly more peaceful) and take in a bit more of the Eastern Promise. Ian keeps hinting about a drive through Iraq but
I’m not so sure…..wouldn’t want to end up being a Mammoth kebab would I!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.073s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 16; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0323s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
RENanDREW
Ren & Andrew
I'll have the cherry sweets!
Woolly - nice summary! It seems we both suffer from the same condition of getting 'stressed' when we are hungry. I've heard that the medical term for this is 'hangry'. :)