Çanakkale, Turkey - The Gallipoli Experience

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Çanakkale

We arrived at Istanbul Airport at around midday and made our way through maze of shops until we found the stall that provided bus trips to Çanakkale. We paid around €20 each for tickets and caught the next bus at 2:30 to our destination. The trip was pretty long and far from enjoyable but when we arrived at nearly 8:30 that night, we were just relieved to be off the bus. We got our bags and headed into the town square and found our hotel very easily. We checked in and were immediately upgraded to the brand new hotel around the corner. This was great as we had a pretty shitty day and this was making it much better. We went to our new hotel and got settled before heading down the road for dinner at about 9:30. We then crashed as it had been a really long day.

The next morning we woke up and had the complimentary breakfast downstairs. This wasn’t really great but it was free so how can you complain! We didn’t really do much all morning as we had worked out that after a big day of travelling it was best to take it fairly easy the next day. So we watched a bit of TV and went out and had lunch at the chicken joint down the street. After lunch we went back to the room and relaxed a little more before the phone rang. It was reception and they were said that there was free beer waiting downstairs for us. Now if anything had ever sounded like, “Hey kid, get in my van, there’s a whole load of lollies in there”, this was it! But at that point I was more intrigued than cautious, so we went downstairs and asked the reception what it was about. He simply pointed around the corner. So we went around the corner and expected to see a hell of a lot of people all scoffing beer in the dining room. This was not the case. There was a Turkish fella in the corner and a man with his back to us and that was it. Still we went outside in the hope of finding this elusive free beer which I didn’t really believe existed anymore and the man turned around and said “I’ll have a XXXX if you’re buying”. It was Dad! I don’t think I have ever felt more overwhelmed, shocked, happy or flabbergasted in my life. We sat down and the waiter took our orders. Not for free beer mind you but beer nonetheless. It turned out that Mum and Sarah had been planning for Dad to fly over and surprise me. It worked! So we sat and drank and we caught up about what we had been doing for the past few months and it was really, really great. We headed out for dinner at a fantastic café called Cafeka on the main strip. We headed back to the hotel and Dad went to bed at 9:30 and rightly so since he had spent 40 hours or so getting here. We went to bed shortly after but I was still a little shocked that Dad was actually here so I didn’t get to sleep until around midnight.

Monday came and we met Dad downstairs at 9:30 to get the day started. We went and found a Turkish pastry shop for breakfast and got an assortment of different pastries and things. Afterwards we looked around the streets and looked at a few of the shops before booking our Gallipoli tour at the Hassle Free Travel Agency on the main road. It was a pretty good deal and we ended up paying €35 each for 8 hours of tour. We then found a memorial museum at the other end of Çanakkale and spent a few hours checking out all of the amazing things that this museum had to offer. There were replica mines and torpedoes as well as parts of the ships that were sunken in the strait. There was even a replica of the mine laying ship that was responsible for many of the allied forces ships, being sunk on the first attack on Turkey in the Dardanelles. We had lunch at around 1:30 and then continued our tour of the museum which also led us to a room inside a castle that had a complete timeline of the ANZAC landing in Gallipoli up until their eventual retreat 9 months later.
We then went back to the hotel and had a few drinks before heading out to dinner again at Cafeka. After dinner we were invited by the owner of the tour company for Gallipoli, to go back to his hotel and watch the 1980’s documentary of the ANZAC story. It was an amazing documentary and although I knew most of the things in the story, it was the first time I had heard the veteran speak about Gallipoli and even this long on, they still didn’t really want to talk about it. After the movie we headed back to the hotel and to bed.

Tuesday arrived and we had breakfast at the hotel again. It hadn’t improved! Afterwards, we went and saw the huge wooden horse from the movie Troy. It is the actual prop used in the movie that sits on the waterfront in Çanakkale. After this we found a coffee shop and had a few cappuccinos before making our way up the main street to meet our tour group. We did have to wait for an Aussie lady to get her purse or lipstick or something which is just typical I think. In a good way! We all got on a ferry and crossed the strait and then caught another bus to a restaurant in Ecebat. We were treated to a free lunch and then all put on another bus to make our way to the town of Gelibolu, or Gallipoli in English. Our first stop was at the original landing site where the ANZACs were supposed to mount their attack. We then got on a boat which took us along the path the ANZAC landing ships would have travelled. We arrived at the landing site where the ANZACs first started. I’ve seen many pictures of the Gallipoli Cove but until you see it in person, you cannot truly appreciate what they young men went through and what they faced. The area still has a bit of a strange feeling to it, but it is definitely an area of peace. A few guys were allowed to go for a swim and retrieve parts of a British warship which had been sunken in the war. After a while we made our way back to the bus and were taken to a cemetery where the great John Simpson is buried. You should Google “John Simpson and his donkey”. It is a very touching story. On our way to the memorial cemeteries, we stopped to take a photo of the giant statue of the Turk and the Brit. The story is that a British soldier was wounded outside his trench and his men could hear him screaming out to them. If anyone was to leave they would be shot instantly by the enemy. However gunfire stopped and a Turk raised a white flag and climbed out of his trench and went over to the Brit. He then picked up the man and walked into the allied forces trenches. He then placed the Brit down in his trench and went back to his own. We then made our way to the official Australian memorial called Lone Pine. This was a very upsetting place as a few hundred men are buried here but also there is a massive wall with the names of thousands of men who aren’t buried here. No one knows where they are, they were either washed out to sea or buried elsewhere. We then visited a NZ memorial of the same nature as well as the Turkish counterpart. At this point our day had come to an end and we made our way back to Çanakkale feeling a huge deal of respect for these ANZACs that gave their lives for no good reason at all. We had dinner at a café down at the port which was just excellent and headed back to the hotel for bed after a huge day, but one Dad and I had long been dreaming of.

The next day we woke up and had breakfast at the café again and decided that we would have a bit of a relax day as Dad was coming down with the flu. So we walked around a bit and bought a few souvenirs before heading to the room for a nap. We had a fairly late lunch at around 3pm before going back to the hotel. We left for dinner at around 6:30 and had our last dinner in Çanakkale. We headed back to the hotel and got ready to head to bed before our long trip back to Istanbul in the morning.

Wedesday came and we really didn’t want to leave Çanakkale. It is a beautiful city and we could have spent forever there. Dad, Sarah and I all packed our bags and headed to the bus terminal and started our 6 hour bus ride back to Istanbul.

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