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Published: October 17th 2007
The Blue Mosque
Arguably the most famous mosque in Istanbul, and probably TurkeyWoo-hoo party central. And I thought that Ramadan was all about being solemn etc. Ah-huh - not the Ramadan we saw. We arrived in Istanbul about 7;30pm. We managed to figure out the public transport and got ourselves to Sultanahmet - the main tourist area - by metro and tram. We hopped off the tram into a mad house! There were people everywhere. The pavements were packed full of people, adults and children, stalls selling food, drinks, jewelery and anything else you can imagine. It was particularly hard to move around with a backpack on and no idea where you were headed. But the feeling in the air was awesome. There was no agro as often accompanies a big event, rather everyone seemed happy to be moving around in the crush and enjoying themselves.
We found ourselves a hostel - not the best but it had a bed - and we headed back out into the mad world for a good look around and to get some food. We later found out that all the celebrations were in aid of Ramadan - the yearly month long fasting period for Muslems. During this time they are not allowed to eat between
sunrise and sunset. So when the sun goes down...let the eating begin. It didn't seem to end either. Many actually get up in the middle of the night to have a mid evening snack, and then many towns employ drummerboys to go around the streets beating a drum before sunrise (it woke us up a few times!) to wake everyone up so that they can have breakfast before the fasting begins. For obvious reasons food and drink is a massive focus during Ramadan.
Even during the day when a lot of Istanbulies get a bit grumpy from not being allowed to eat (although many do not seem to practice the fasting anymore - at least in Istanbul), Istanbul still had a great feeling about it. There are SO many people - about 15 or 20 million just in Istanbul, and so many cars - probably the craziest traffic I have seen yet, but it all combined to make a wonderful city. We loved it!
On our first day in Istanbul we spent a lot of time just wandering around and taking in the atmosphere. One touristy thing we did though was check out the Cistern Basilica. It is
a massive underground room built originally as a water storage area. It has massive brick columns, a couple of which have decorations including two which are built on top of Medusa head supports. At present there is still a shallow amount of water in the cistern and it is full of carp fish. Not sure how they survive without sunlight but it doesn't seem to bother them.
The rest of the day was just spent wandering and taking in the atmosphere. We saw the outside of the Blue Mosque (couldn't go in because we weren't covered up enough), the Aya Sofia (now a museum) and the Topaki Palace. The rest of the time was spent organising the next stage of our trip and chatting at the hostel roof top bar to other travellers.
Next stop ended up being a tour bus down to see Gallipoli. How could a couple of Aussies come to Turkey and not see the site of the famous battle and listen to the history that helped shape our nation? In other words, in some ways I felt like it was a requirement rather than something I really wanted to do. But it turned out
Istanbul
A typical street scene - it comes alive in the evenings with people everywhere (no room for cars!) to be one of our best experiences. You learn it all in school, but to actually see it and hear about it at the same time is pretty impressive.
One of the most interesting things, and something I had never really given much thought, was the memorials to the Turkish soldiers. Our tour guide was an older Turkish man (who reminded me of the old actor George Burns - funny like him too), who seemed to know all of the history of the place, having played in the battle fields as a child (moving around in the trenches and the caves and collecting souvenirs), and later learning about the battles in detail and becoming a tour guide for thousands of Australian, New Zealand and other tourists. He told us that many Turks come to pay homage to their fallen ancestors. The memorials are set up with wash areas, so that the Turks can pray at the memorials as their religion requires.
The Turks see the Gallipoli battles as the factor which led to the birth of their national pride. And there is definitely plenty of national pride! You can't go very far without seeing a Turkish flag flying
Aya Sofia
The other famous mosque - once a church, now a museum from just about every other building. I suppose it is understandable. To them the battles at Gallipoli were a massive victory, and to us a massive disaster. I think many Turks struggle to understand why we come to their country to pay our respects, yet others respect us for respecting the soldiers that fought for our country.
The other thing of interest about Gallipoli was the alleged "gentleman" spirit during the battles. For example, both sides agreed to cease fires so that the soldiers could collect and bury their dead. There is also much made of the fact that the Turkish leader was blindfolded and taken into the Allies camp so that they could have discussions. And apparently they didn't shoot people in the back when they were retreating. They call it one of the last gentleman battles.
It was a really worthwhile experience all round and something that I would recommend to anyone from Australia or New Zealand, or who has an interest in past wars and battles.
After this saddening experience we caught the ferry over the famous Dardanelles to Cannakkale and had a nice night out with some other tour group members. A few
drinks at the hostel and then dinner out at a local restaurant which was more like eating in someone's home.
The next day was a long bus ride down to Izmir. We weren't going to be stopping there on our way to Selcuk except that I realised I had left our digital camera memory card on the bed in our hostel in Istanbul. Not good, as all we had left was one with only 128Mb capacity. Between Evan losing his towel, then his hat, and now me losing the memory card, we were on a real losing streak! Bad things in threes and all that.
So we got to Izmir just in time and then walked into about 10 different shops before finally finding one which had memory cards for Olympos cameras. They are not easy to get! Everyone seems to think SD cards are the only type that exist. The experience was made easier by a nice Turkish-Belgium guy who we met on the bus. He ended up coming down to Selcuk with us and we spent a fair bit of time chatting to him about life as a muslem, amongst other things.
While in Selcuk
Gallipoli Museum
A letter from a soldier home. Note the reference to "Dardanup" near the end. Seems it might have been someone from the south west. we went out and visited the nearby ruins of Ephesus - the big tourist drawcard. They are really quite amazing in scope and preservation. But Ephesus was also the first time in Turkey that we had run into huge groups of tourists - there were thousands! There was no way you were going to get photos without someone in them. Haven't got much to say about the ruins as we just toured ourselves around reading the information boards. Didn't really want to join a tour group following an umbrella.
Next big stop was Pammukale. It is amazing!! There is a mountain which is totally covered in white - approaching it from a distance is quite unreal. The white is caused by water running down the mountain which is full of calcium, and as the water runs over the rocks it leaves part of the calcium behind. Overtime it has built up to such an extreme that most of the mountain appears to be white.
Best thing about it? You can swim in the calcium pools (travertines) which you find up the mountain. Many of them are now closed to swimmers because of damage (hence you can't wear shoes
on the calcium anymore) but there were still plenty of options and everyone was taking advantage. Not sure about covering your body in the calcium sludge at the bottom like many tourists seemed to be doing though! Not the usual kind of mud bath. However, the funniest thing was all the tourists who spent most of their time having their friends or partners taking photos of them. Not just any old photo either. They posed like they were in swimwear magazine photoshoots. It was hilarious to watch. They were all totally into themselves.
When you get to the top of the calcium clad mountain you find the ruins of Hierapolis - another ancient city in Turkey. The ruins are quite amazing although not as well preserved as at Ephesus. The Roman theatre was probably the best and most spectacular, but that is because they are currently restoring it. As we have said before, ruins aren't really our thing - the history of them anyway (love the buildings) - so we spent most of our day in and around the pools. Nice hot day for it!
Next stop - the southern coast - the Mediterranean sea.
The famous beach site
If only we had landed 2km further on...
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