Blogs from Göreme, Cappadocia, Central Anatolia, Turkey, Middle East - page 7

Yeah, lame title I know but I can't really think of a better one at the moment so it will have to do. Thank goodness we are back in the digital world. The new netbook that Chris bought for the trip did the dishonourable thing and stopped working last week. After days trying to revive it and wasting hours on the phone to the samsung “helpdesk” he decided to cut his loses and buy another. Hopefully this one will do the job and the samsung will come back to life in New Zealand sometime. Since our last blog we left the coast in a sweltering 40 degree heat (yes, 40 degrees!) and headed inland where we had been warned that it was even hotter. Much to our relief, we stumbled off our 12 hour overnight bus ... read more

Upon arriving in Cappadocia we found that it's kind of like the Badlands of Southern Alberta, except that here they call hoodoos "Fairy Chimneys". Anyways, it's kind of interesting because they have homes and churches that were carved out of the rock formations as well as complete underground cities where they used to hide from invaders. We only went part of the way into the underground city before turning around after our guide told us about all the areas that had been closed off due to cave-ins, "but these areas are all safe..." Everyone else made it through okay, but it made us a little nervous knowing that we could be 50 meters underground with thousands of tourists on floors above us... The churches were really cool because they date back to the 10th-11th century. The ... read more

Day 15 Istanbul to Goreme (Sun 18th July) Up for an earlier start today, our last goodbye to Gettis. From here to the Iran border we will have a local driver with a local coach. Its a larger air conditioned coach with leather seats and just enough space for us all to have a double seat each to sleep if we need. I don’t really like air conditioning, but I must admit it’s really nice not to be sitting in a sauna all day. An uneventful, if long, drive to Goreme. The driver had to stop and ask for directions a couple of times along the way though, despite the fact that Goreme is the oldest and certainly the most visited town in the area. The drive through Cappadocia was stunning. Its the land of the ... read more

Getting around Turkey could not be easier, the bus service can get you almost anywhere. Nearly all the buses serve free tea, coffee, coke and some food. Some even have individual tvs and free WiFi. The bus trip from Kahta is quite long but it's a nice journey through mountains and valleys. We arrived quite late in Keysari and still had to get one more bus. We were very lucky and just caught the last minibus. I was travelling with a French couple I'd met at Nemrut. There were 3 free seats so obviously I took the one and let them sit together. This was not acceptable in Turkey though! I was sitting beside a woman so the bus driver asked me to move straight away. We didn't really know what was going on. In fairness ... read more

The underground and above ground world of Cappadocia. I arrived here this morning about 7am after the bus trip from hell. The bus itself was comfortable, but I just don’t seem to be able to sleep in planes, trains, buses and an automobile, as the saying goes. As we arrived at the main bus terminal in Antalya last night at around 9.30pm. My first impression was there was a riot going on, or an overflow from the heated soccer match that had been played in town that evening. There were hundreds and hundreds of people at the station, traffic were in a logjam, police everywhere. When a Turk gets stuck in traffic he does one thing, jump on the horn, no two things, he yells out the window as well; for however long it takes for ... read more