Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 454

This place leaves you lost for words. It is the proudest we have ever been to be a New Zealander Those heroes that shed their blood And lost their lives… You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side Here in this country of ours… You, the mothers, Who sent their sons from far away countries Wipe away your tears, Your sons are now lying in our bosom And are in peace After having lost their lives on this land. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1934... read more

Lest We Forget Turkey: 23rd April - 26th April 2005 “They gave me a tin hat, and they gave me a gun, and they sent me away to the War.” For Australia, New Zealand and Turkey the word “ANZAC” is one that stirs the national pride of even the most unpatriotic citizen. In 1915 both Australia and New Zealand had strong ties to the mother country, Briton and most of their populations considered themselves loyal subjects although many would never have set foot on the British Isles. On April 25th that same year, the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the beaches of the Gallipoli peninsula to fight a war for their King and Country in what was to become a small part of the Great War (WWI). The land assault on the peninsula ... read more

From Istanbul, we left on a three-night excursion into central Turkey, which lies on the Asian side of the Dardanelles. This was foreign territory indeed, as neither Dick nor I knew anything at all about it. I was vaguely aware that it had some interesting archaeological sites and some biblical cities were in it, but that was about it. We were blessed with an expert Turkish guide named Ahmet, who could easily have passed for a university lecturer. There were about 28 of us on the bus tour, and he set about educating us on Turkey. First, he said, Turkey is 98% Muslim, and until 1923 it was more or less indistinguishable from its Sultanate neighbors Iran, Iraq and Syria. But Kemal Attaturk came to power in 1923 and made sweeping changes to westernize it, so ... read more

Hey kıds, So, thıs may seem somewhat random to many of you, but we're in Turkey now -- we realized that we neglected to inform most of you about thıs, so...surprise! After spendıng a horrible night at the Barcelona bus station, where we were kicked out at 1 a.m. and forced to sit on cold metal benches outside, we took a bus to the aırport at 4 ın the mornıng and somehow -- I'm stıll not quıte sure how -- made ıt on to our plane to the Netherlands. So, we get off the plane in Eindhoven, and realize that there is no possible way we can go to Amsterdam; we were just so run-down and Liz was getting sıck, plus we realized it was Easter weekend and the museums we wanted to see would most ... read more

Pugner and I carefully weighed each word of the first travel agent who tried to set us up with a package tour. We cross checked all of the prices. We were dilligent. Then we checked our email, got tired, and bought the first package that the internet cafe guy (who possibly wasn't even a travel agent) mentioned to us. Without checking anything. We ended up with a cheap flight to the Capadocia region, which is famous for wacky geological formations and underground cities. The area has been inhabited for a long time by people wishing to basically be left alone. People would come here and carve houses, churches, even whole cities out of the relatively soft volcanic rock. The idea was that attackers wouldn't be bothered to try and dig them out, or climb up the ... read more