Advertisement
Published: November 16th 2006
Downpour in Istanbul
Regardless of the rain, the Bule Mosque is pretty wicked.Well friends...since we wrote last we have had quite the adventures through Turkey. We were in Channakale when we last wrote a blog. We did go to the ruins of Troy dating back to 3500 BC in the morning on a tour and in the afternoon we went on another guided tour but this time it was of Galipoli. This was one of the highlights of my, Josh's, turkey experience. Its baasically a battlefield where the turks defended thier peninsula from the kiwis and aussies. We had a tour guide who told us all about what happened and we were able to see all the places where this horrible tradgedy occured. Just for some perspective...500,000 soldiers died either on the field or as a result of the batttle ie, infected wounds, famine, hypothermia etc. And it was all fought in vain. No one won, nothing changed, just a whole lot of death.
Kat: what Josh din't mention about Cannakale is that it was FREEZING there. this is one of the windiest places in Western Turkey. After we took our tour of Troy, where is was snowing, rainy and blowing all at the same time, we had 10 mintues in town
Istanbul Cistersn
This is a huge cistern right under the Hagia Sofia... before our next tour left. We sprinted, in a Chariots of Fire fashion, to the closest sporting goods store where we quickly and efficiently bought the cheapest yet warmest gloves and toques we could find. We then sprinted back to the hotel where i added 3 more shirts to my already 3 shirts, one more pair of pants and 3 more pairs of socks. Josh's outfit consisted of 3 t-shirts, 2 hoodies, a wife beater, jeans, 3 pairs of socks and a rain jacket. Man did we look SEXY! Like 2 marshmallow men walking down the street. But it worked.
After Channakale we went to Selcuk. pronounced sell-chuck. This is a small village where the ruins of ephesus are, the ancient temple of Artemis, st. Johns basilica, and a 14th century mosque are. we spent 3 nights here and loved it. It was a combination of things but mostly the place we stayed was the best place we stayed in for our entire trip. It had an amazing roof top terrace full of couches with overstuffed turkish cushions, a wood burning fireplace, and really cool fellow travellers. oh yeah, and a hooka pipe! Even kat took a little hit
from the bong! dont worry mom! its apple tobacco, this isnt amsterdam! The staff was so friendly and welcoming...sooo...if any of you go to Selcuk, stay at Hotel Bella...and no they did not give us a discount on a new Turkish rug to say this. on the first day we just putzed around the city, went to st johns basilica where John is buried, went to the mosque and went to a museum. WOW! churches and museums...like we havnt seen much of those in the last 10 weeks! but it was cool. the next day we went to the ruins of ephesus.
joshys going to hammer down a couple german beers so its kats time to hit the keys...
Ya, so Ephesus...we thought that we were so sneaky in not going to Ephesus the first day we were in Selcuk because there was a cruise ship in town...we're like "Yay, tomorrow we'll be the ONLY people there!". You'd really think that after 2 months of travel we would have learned better...i think that there were probably 2 or 3 criuse ships in town the next day...but regardless we ventured out to fight the masses of sunburned Americans with
Ephesus...
The library...so cool... their white tennis shoes and long southern drawls. Despite the overcrowdedness, Ephesus is an incredible place to see...it is HUGE! It is pretty cool to walk down the Marble Street and to think that this is where Paul was hanging out and walking around during the time of his letter writing to the Ephesians, as well as seeing the theatre were he taught. We also saw the famous Nike Goddess of Sport carved into a piece of marble. This is what inspired Nike's logo as the piece of marble is in a shape strikingly similar to a checkmark...or a Nike 'swoosh' if you will. Pretty neat.
After our lovely time in Selcuk we took a day trip to Pamukkale which is a small town slightly more inland which the ruins of Hieropolis as well as the natural calcium springs that looks like a winter wonderland. That was pretty cool. Our plan was to then take a night bus from Denzili (the bigger city near Pamukkale) to Cappadocia where we were set to arrive at 7am the next morning. Now, for those of you unfamiliar with Cappadocia, the landscape is like no planet you have ever seen, as you can
Joshua's wild ride...
Okay...a total tourist trap but still fun! see from our pictures...Sooo, our bus left at 7pm and Josh and i settle in to our long supposed 12 hour bus ride to Goreme (the city in Cappadocia where we were staying) As there are no bathrooms on the busses, they stop about every hour or 2. At 3:30am, the bus driver pokes Josh and nods. Josh took this to mean that there were other people getting on the bus at this stop so he needed to move back to his original seat. The driver then looks at us again, points outside and says "Goreme". I looked at Josh with a slightly panicked look and told him that there was no way we were there yet...4 HOURS BEFORE SCHEDULE! Turkish people are crazy drivers but come on!! But despite my concerns, we looked outside in the middle of the darkness and saw these stange rock formations jetting out of the ground. We reluctantly got off the bus, as the rest of the Turkish passengers on the bus stared...what else is new...we get out backpack and watch the bus drive away as we continue to stand in the middle of a deserted parking lot. We look at each other and
Pamukkale
Natural calcium springs! couldn't help but giggle at this unusual situation we found ourselves in. All ended well as we found our hostel, woke up the poor fron desk guy who gave us a room.
The rest of our time in Goreme was really great. Our first day there we went to the Open Air museum where you can look inside these huge rock formations where people used to live - and while looking around we met a really nice couple from Boston on a 9 month honeymoon around the world...and we thought our trip was long! We ended up meeting them for dinner each night and sharing travel stories...it was really fun.
Our second day in Goreme we took a guided tour around part of the Cappadocia region and saw lots of really cool places but the neatest of all was the biggest underground city in Cappadocia. There are 8 levels of this city that are discovered and that you can tour but they figure that there are a total of 11 levels below the ground...we saw the BOTTOM of the ventilation shaft that was dug out, which goes 55 meters deep. mmm...can you say clostrophibic? We followed our guide
Goreme...
Our hotel in Cappadocia...a cave! as she contiued to walk down and down and down and the hallways are getting smaller and smaller and smaller...you almost had to kneel to get through some spots. Throughout the time this city was in use, over 30,000 people had lived there...many of them Christians who had to go underground in order to remain safe in times of war and turmoil in the country. wow...so cool.
The day after our tour we decided that we wanted to be able to tour around the area ourselves so we rented a scooter. It was really fun - especially after i got a little more comfortable and stopped yelling "JOSHUA, YOU'RE GOING TOO FAST"- and we got to see lots more cool stuff around the area, including a place called the valley of the fairy chimneys...where we hiked around and bonded with the stray dogs that insisted on being our tour guide around the area. As we drove by other people in their cars, Josh insisted on being part of the "brotherhood" as he calls it and waved at everyone that drove past us. they looked at us like we were crazy. It did get a bit interesting once the sun
Pigeon Valley
Goreme is right behind us at the foot of Pigeon Valley went down as the tempature drops to around 0...yet we continued on our little guttless scooter...just picture Dumb and Dumber...that was us. Not to mention the fact that i slipped on a little hillside and landed right on my but in a big pile of MUD! So there we are riding in sub zero temperatures, people blazing past us because our scooter can only go about 50, me riding on the back with a big mud stain on my ass. Good times were had by all.
Here we are now on our last stop before we go home, in Dusseldorf, Germany staying with our Aunt and Uncle...what a perfect last stop. 4 new pairs of shoes did happen to find their way into my bag..."But Honey, Their such a GOOD DEAL!!"...i don't know how that happened...and Josh had a major splurge and bought a belt that was originally 5 Euros marked down 70% to 1.77. That's Josh's kind of shopping.
Tomorrow we head back to the land of toilet seats, deoderant, traffic lights that are more than simply guidlines, language we can understand, and of course, WORK! AAAHH!!
It would be an understatement to say that we
Open Air Museum
Everywhere you look, there are caves carved out of the rock! had a great time... though now we get to go home and look at all our pictures and delete most of the 17 picutres we took of the Eiffel Tower, the 13 pictures we took of Big Ben, the 24 pictures we took of the Coliseum...
Laters...
Kat and Josh
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0361s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
mommy rogers
non-member comment
WOW!
I can't believe that your trip has come to an end but that is the way of life, I guess. Sounds like your time in Turkey was exceptional! Dad was just saying yesterday that he would like to do a trip similar to yours sometime. What's wrong with this picture? You guys are 24 and we are 54 . . . a little reversal, perhaps? Anyway, glad that you have had such a wonderful journey and thank you so much for sharing your adventures with all of us. Love you lots and lots. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox