Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 366

Despite having to force ourselves out of bed due to the lack of any light to wake us naturally we managed to get up, pack and check out fairly early. We had to rush to the station otherwise the next bus would have been an hour later. We grabbed a typical Turkish snack of pretzels to eat on the way. We arrived at Troy and to our surprise it was 10ytl for adults but completely free for students of any nationality. That is what we like to see. At the entrance to the site there is a big model replica of the wooden horse in an artists impression. You are allowed to climb inside it right up to the top which we gladly did with no pretences of being too old or mature. Troy itself is ... read more

Our room at Anzac house hostel has no windows and therefore no daylight to wake us up naturally. We slept till around eleven when I got restless and checked the time. A room with no windows is a dangerous thing when you are constantly tired as we are. Yesterday we had both agreed that going to Gallipoli was too expensive considering our lack of interest in it. We were both vaguely interested until we read that the majority of the trip consists of visiting cemeteries which for £22 each did not seem worth it. We had both agreed to look at tour agencies whilst walking around to see if we could find anything cheaper. We couldn't and we weren't entirely disappointed. The plan for today was to get a dolmus out to Troy; however we were ... read more

The guys who worked at Paris Hotel wrote down the numbers of two buses that went to the main bus station which is actually pretty far from the centre. We stood for a while at what we thought was the right stop until a really friendly guy indicated using German and Turkish that we should be on the other side of the road. The shuttle bus seemed to take forever and got pretty crowded. We are so confused as to the hıerarchy of seat priority in Turkey. İn some countries men always stand up for women of any age and in other countries only younger men do and younger women stand for older men. No one particularly old got on the bus so we didn't give up ours, but one does worry about these things. We ... read more

We awoke, dressed and left the hostel in a somewhat zombified state. We were out of the hostel by six thirty and onto the weirdly empty streets of Istanbul. We walked up to the Aya Sofia where we had to run to catch a tram nearer to the port. We got off and unable to find a road name, we set off in approximately the right direction. We are both rather proud of getting to the port on time and with minimal hassle. The ferry crossing was ok once we had figured out where the hell to sit. We bought what we thought was a Danish pastry but turned out to have meat inside. Once the ferry docked we knew we had to get a shuttle bus to the centre of Bursa. There were buses waiting ... read more

Yes. Today we got all our nice clean washing back from the laundrette. Nice clean soft clothes are amongst one of the best luxaries you can get whilst backpacking. We would both have been very happy except that somehow they managed to lose two of Rob's socks and one of mine. That puts my total amount of pairs of socks at six and Rob's at seven, that is not enough for people who don't want to smell. Topkapi palace was top on our agenda today despite knowing very little about it. We had read somewhere that it was in the top three sights of Istanbul so we decided we probably should see it. Entrance was another massive rip off at 10ytl each and no discounts for students unless you are Turkish. It really irritates me that ... read more