Hey hey Istanbul is fantastic. Incredible, such a vibrance and energy about it. It has so much flavor. So the 21 hour train ride from Bucharest to Istanbul was fantastic. Adam and I ended up getting our very own sleeper compartment. I love travelling by train, something about hte melodic noise of the wheels on the tracks. The only problem is that I had zero food because the supermarket in Romania did not take my card. So yesterday I overindulged a bit by having 4 donner kebabs and 10 pieces of Baklava. Good lord the baklava is to die for, they [View Full Entry]

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Kurdish days Middle East » Turkey » Ankara By cosimovaga October 6th 2005 cosimo [View Full Entry]

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Hi All, The 10 hours connection in Istanbul seemed, at first, to be promising. However, after only 3 hours sleep at the former night, those 10 hours would appear to be difficult to pass. My first stop was the Hagia Sophia church that people say it is beautiful. It might be buetiful - but closed. 2nd stop was the Blue Mosque - beautiful and open. 3rd stop was the Topkapi palace- probably beautiful as well, as people say - but very long que for tickets so I quit this place and went down to the bay. By this time, the sky [View Full Entry]

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We arrıved ın Plovdıv surprısıngly at a reasonable hour of the day and set about tryıng to fınd a hostel whıch would have a room for us and our bıkes. Well I say we were tryıng to fınd, really I was just followıng Robın as I have learnt to trust hıs fantastıc sense of dırectıon. There would be no way I could have found my way to Turkey without hım. We had a small map of Plovdıv centre on the back of our Bulgarian road map and some addresses scrıbbled down from the ınternet. We had the [View Full Entry]

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Well said, arkadash! Middle East » Turkey » Urfa By cosimovaga September 28th 2005 cosimo [View Full Entry]

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Sending a kiss home Middle East » Turkey » Kiz Kalesi By cosimovaga September 21st 2005 cosimo [View Full Entry]

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So I finally got off of the islands, which i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, I was having so much fun but i think that it was time to leave. Not sure if my liver could take anymore abuse. So in other words, I loved Ios!!! Pretty much hungout on the beach for a few days and went to a few clubs at night. Hopped on a ferry to Naxos a few nights ago and then took an overnight ferry to Samos, From there I made a mad dash to get on the ferry to [View Full Entry]

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I'm back in Turkey now with their dodgy comma-less keyboards and two i keys! We're in İstanbul again but have just come from the central area of Cappadocia in a town called Goreme. It's possibly the strangest surroundings İ've ever seen. The area is all pumice rock that has been magically weathered into cones - most of which have been carved out to make houses. İ stayed in one of these caves which was nice and cool so a welcome relief from all the hot nights. On the last night there we went to see Whirliıng Dervıshes perform but unfortunately İ [View Full Entry]

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A town with this charming name was going to be my last one in Turkey. But there's some story connected to it. It all started when I was walking from the train station in Erzurum to the bus terminal. After some time two men were walking by my side and started talking to me in english. They were students at the university in Erzurum and they wanted to fetch a friend from the bus station. I told them, I was looking for a bus to Tehran (Tachran as they say in Turkey) and they offered to help me. This is always [View Full Entry]

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I'm fully recovered by now and make my way further east. Before I left Ankara I shortly visited the fort in Ankara. It's located on one of Ankaras many hills and you have a good view from there. The part of city directly surounding the fort is very different from the rest, there are only very narrow streets, sheep running around, like in a small village. And this at the heart of Turkey's capital... Finally the time waiting in Anakra paid of. I got the pakistanian and the chinese visa, so I'm ready to go for a long way. For the [View Full Entry]

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