Blogs from Canakkale, Marmara, Turkey, Middle East - page 4

Pergamum – Troy – Cankkale Another big day of travelling – we have covered a lot of miles in Turkey but the bus stops every hour and a half so there are lots of breaks. One of my favorite places we visited today was a hospital – 4th century BC – so unbelievable they had a hospital then but it was no ordinary hospital, For a start they wouldn’t accept any pregnant women, or anyone who looked like dying or was very ill. It was more like a research centre…. One story Enis told us was that a patient had a dream about two snakes drinking milk and so the doctors got the idea of milking the snakes and that was the beginning of antidotes. The hospital was on a natural thermal spring and they used ... read more

Sunday 31st October and Monday 1st November 2010 It was an early start this morning, 9am departure rather than 10am. This was mainly due to the fact that daylight saving finished here at 4am and we didn't know until just before breakfast! After a final drive past the white travertines we were on our way, stopping briefly just up the road to take photos of the cotton fields there. Cotton is a major industry in Turkey, a fact we only found out about when discussing the country with the other Australians at breakfast this morning. It was a straight through drive to Bergama, over 200kms away, the reason for our visit was to see the ruins of the the ancient city of Pergamum. Not as many tourists come here and it is reputed to be more ... read more

Last night I met my roommate for the next month, and then the rest of the group. They are a lively mixture of mostly Aussies with a Canadian, South African, a Brit, an American and only one Kiwi. Me. Last night was a major football game on TV, for the country’s championship. All the restaurants were full of men watching their local team. The pavement outside our hotel was jammed with locals watching the giant ancient TV set up outside for then diners. It all went quiet later so I assumed they lost. As I left the restaurant last night and fought my back to the hotel through the throngs of footballers the host from the restaurant appears, the one that wanted to take me for coffee at 1am. He produced a bag, a gift for ... read more

2 Pages of photos again! Sorry!!! Getting out to the Gallipoli peninsula turned out to be more troublesome than anticipated. Having bought tickets on a Metro bus, one of the biggest companies in Turkey, we thought it was going to be easy. Their servis transfer at 0910 took us to the bus station, but not the bus station we expected to go to. There we were put onto another bus which eventually took us to the main bus station. When we presented our ticket for our 1030 departure, it turned out that was the departure time from the Harem bus station on the Asian side of Istanbul. We were not due to leave until 1230! So, we could have had another 2 hours in bed!!!! When travelling to Gallipoli the buses pass through the town of ... read more

It has been an eventful day. Firstly, on leaving Alexandropolis, someone had obviously checked out the saddlebags. Nothing was taken because there was nothing in them. It happened on the past trip as well, in Ancona so maybe it is something about street parking in port cities. We loaded up the bike and after coffee set off for the Turkish border. It all went smooth until we got to the border. Exiting Greece was easy enough. Then Turkey, entry with a vehicle is a multi stage process. Got through the first bit where details of the bike were taken. Then after some back and forth sorted the visas and passport stuff. Then we got sent back to the start because the registration number of the bike had been entered incorrectly. LT07TZX had become LTO7TZX (the letter ... read more