Turkey with a hint of Bulgaria

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I've been lagging a bit on the blog, I know, but we have been so busy that it's hard to keep up. We're in Thailand now, but I'm only going to relate the experiences in Turkey, for the moment.

First off, Turkey is by far the most expensive place that we have been. It's also high season for travel over there so the prices were definitely inflated and we were definitely limited by money. We flew into Istanbul on a delayed red-eye flight in which we were served disgusting mystery food. As a result, I got to Istanbul feeling exhausted and sick, which definitely ruined the day. We checked out the Blue Mosque, which is really the big sight to see in Istanbul. However, Hesam and I had no idea of it's cultural significance so we just saw it as a cool building and then went on without feeling particularly moved. We decided to check out the Princes' Islands, which our book recommends as having nice beaches to hang out at. However, when we got there, it was absolutely the worst beach that I have ever been to. Imagine a beach that is 10 feet wide, has no sand, just large irrecular shaped rocks, and thousands of overweight tourists splashing in the dirty water. Needless to say, we didn't hang out long and just took the next ferry back into town.

That evening, we took an overnight bus to Goreme, which is a small town in the Cappadocia region of central Turkey. The city's setting was spectacular. All around town were these giant rock columns that had these random caves carved into them. From my impression, Cappadocia is the land of caves. Our hotel room that night was a cave that was carved into the side of the cliff, outfitted with some beds and a bathroom. That day we rented dirt bikes, as that seemed like the the cheapest and most exciting way of exploring the area. It was Hesam's first time on a motorcycle, but he picked it up quickly. We grabbed a worthless map and then sped off into the outskirts of town. We turned off into a random dirt road and then next thing we realize, we are riding through theses little tunnels carved into these rock pillars, that look like they are 1000 years old. All around there are these caves and old ruins that were carved out of the rock cliffs 100's or even 1000's of years ago. We were too cheap to pay for one of the tours so we didn't really know where they came from. However, I think that I overheard someone saying that they were carved out as old cities by the Christian Romans in the 6th through the 11th century. It was spectacular just riding these dirt bikes around in the middle of these old abandoned ruins. There weren't even any tourists around, it was just us for miles. As we continued our ride, we came across some grape vineyards where we picked some fresh grapes as a snack. A few miles away, we randomly came across one of the main sights of the area. It's called "Love Valley" and is pretty silly looking. It's a small valley filled with loads of 30 foot tall, exceptionally phallic stone pillars. Some more riding and we came across Rose Valley whose terrain just looks like pink rose petals. A while later, we rode to the top of a hill to get a good vantage point of the area. Of course, there were more caves up there that we explored for a bit. It was really an exceptional 4 hour ride.

The following day we checked out the Open Air Museum. It is essentially a roped off area that has a high concentration of well preserved caves. The caves were like a big city of Roman Christians and there were tons of cave curches as well as private residences. They were pretty neat, but they quickly all started to look the same. Plus, Hesam and I aren't really that excited by old sight seeing, we enjoy being active much more. That evening, we took an overnight bus to Olympos which was by far the coolest part of Turkey. If you are ever in Turkey, it's absolutely essential that you go to Olympos. It is this quiet little town that really only has one street. The setting is absolutely amazing. Imagine Yosemite, but super warm and right on the Mediterranean. It is thick, mainly coniferous, forest with huge limestone cliffs all over the place. Plus, there is a dash of old ruins scattered about in the forest and along a small creek that goes through town. The town is a cool little hippie town and we stayed in this awesome tree house place the provided free breakfast and dinner with each nights stay. The food was vegetarian and really healthy and delicious. Also, the place was full of outdoor activities.

When we arrived, we ate and then went out kayaking on the Mediterranean with two guides. The water was around 80 degrees, clean and clear and it was sunny and spectacular. The coast, in that area, consisted mainly of large limestone cliffs jutting straight out of deep water. Thre were some half submerged caves that we explored on our kayaks. Halfway into our trip, we found a tiny little beach that was wedged between some huge boulders and a large cliff. It was literally only abuot 10 or 15 feet wide, but we pulled up our kayaks and rested and swam for a bit. Because there are so many cliffs that come straight out of deep water, the sport of deep water soloing is really popular there. It pretty much just consists of kayaking or swimming up to a cliff, rock climbing as high as you can, or until you reach a ledge, and then turning around and jumping off into the water. It seemed super fun so Hesam and I gave it a try on an easy cliff. We were barefoot, however, so it was a bit difficult. We each made it to the top and jumped the 25 feet back into the Mediterranean. Afterwards, we paddled back, ate some lunch, and went back to the place where we were staying. After a bit of lounging and resting, we decided to give rock climbing a try, since it's so popular there. The rock was about 75 feet high, but there seemed to be a decent amount of footholes and such so we were feeling pretty confident. Oh man, was it harder than we expected. I, apparently, have terrible technique and use my arms instead of my legs to pull myself up, and so by the time I was nearing the top, my forearms were absolutely burning and had no strength left in them. I somehow managed to make it to the top, however, but not without a struggle. After laughing at me for making it look so difficult, Hesam gave it his go, but couldn't quite pull himself up the last few feet. On our second climb, we tried a different route up the same cliff, but it was a feeble attempt. Both of our arms were so dead that neither of us were able to make it to the top. It was a great workout though and we were both completely drenched in sweat by the time we were done. That night, we went to Chimera, which is not too far outside of the city. Here, they have natural fire that comes straight up out of the ground. It was a pretty significant hike up the hillside,in the dark, to where the fire was and there were plenty of tourists in the way. Eventually, we made it up and it was pretty neat to see. The flames weren't huge, just a few feet high for the larger ones, and it almost seemed as if it was fake. There were tons of little fires all over the place, and even more tourists up there taking photos.

The following morning, we took a bus to Antalya in order to get a bus back to Istanbul. We wanted to go to the Black Sea, and Istanbul is close so we figured we would go there and then figure it out according to bus destinations. We had a few hours to kill in Antalya, but nothing that we really wanted to do in the city, so we ended up just watching Inception at a movie theater. (Good movie by the way.) We took an overnight bus to Istanbul and then had no idea what we were going to do. The travel guide we have was pretty much worthless, so we went to an internet cafe to figure it out. Apparently, all of the nice Black Sea locations in Turkey are way east and we didn't have to time to get all the way over there. However, we found that there was a cool beach city in Bulgaria, which was actually only a few hours away. Twenty minutes later, we were on a bus to Burgas, Bulgaria with absolutely no clue about the city, or what there is to do, or if it's safe or anything. We just knew that there were nice beaches along the Black Sea and that was enough for us. When the bus dropped us off in the middle of town, and we had no idea of what to do and not even a travel guide or any type of information, we realized that it probably wasn't the best idea. However, there was a German couple that looked just as confused as us, but they had a travel guie, so we quickly made friends with them. They use a different written alphabet so we couldn't even read signs or anything, so we spent a lot of time just lost and looking for a hotel. Eventually we found one and the receptionist told us that we were the first Americans to stay at the hotel that year. We were also only the second group of Americans to ever stay at that hotel. When we walked around the streets, it definitely didn't seem like there were many Americans walking around. There were a handful of tourists, but all Eastern Europeans.

That evening, we went out to dinner with our new German friends. In the morning, we did what we came to Bulgaria to do, swam in the Black Sea. It was actually really fun. It was a nice sandy beach, really warm water, and also happened to be a topless beach. Bulgarian women are actually quite attractive so Hesam and I had no complaints. There was a decrepit old pier that extended a ways out into the sea so we went out to check it out. It really seem like there are no rules in Burgas, so there were tons of kids out there jumping off the pier. Hesam and I hapily joined in on the fun and were definitely the only ones speaking English. There was an extension of the pier that had a second story, but it was locked behind a gate and had a rebar barrier blocking the stairs. Of course though, this didn't matter. We joined the local kids in climbing around the gate along the outside of the pier, and then squeezing through a small hole in the rebar to get up to the second floor. It was pretty high up there, a good 35 feet or so. Those Bulgarian kids were crazy and doing backflips off and other crazy stuff, but Hesam and I were satisfied with a simple pencil dive. Unfortunately, Hesam had his underwater camera in his pocket and it fell out when he jumped. However, we have all of the photos back up on flash drives after my incident with deleting all the photos in Brazil, so we still have most of the pictures. We only lost our kayaking photos (which were actually really good). It was a fun afternoon, and that day we took a bus back to Istanbul.

We had one more night in the city before flying out the following morning. Coincidentally, Hesam's exgirlfriend, Lauren, was also in Istanbul with a friend, so we met up and hung out that evening. The next morning we were flew out to Dubai, and then to Bangkok where we are now.

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