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Published: April 27th 2008
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Istanbul Skylıne
Thıs ıs the vıew from our hotel roof. A mosque ıs opposıte TURKEY- ANZAC DAY
We arrived in Turkey and instantaniously fell in love with the place. The weather was beautiful, the people were happy and very friendly and we had almost a whole month to spend in this gorgeous country.
We have organised a 35 day tour from Istanbul to Cairo through the middle east. We realised that this tour was due to start around a week before Anzac day so we decided to come to Istanbul a week earlier.
Istanbul itself is an amazing city- its first inhabitants were here around 2500BC. Since then there have been many different civilizations that have inhabited Istanbul including the Byzantines Romans, Greeks, Ottomans, and now the Turkish. This is proabably because Istanbul sits in between the European and Asian continents and is only seperated by a thin stretch of water (which now has bridges across).
Although Turkey is a secular state (i.e. there is no state religion) 98% of the population are Islamic. This has created an environment where it is advisable to be a bit more conservative in the way that you dress (such as not wearing short shorts), but it is tolerated if you want to dress like
Blue Mosque
Peter ın front of the Blue Mosque that. It is very surreal to hear the prayers from the mosques, which happens 5 times a day. All of the mosques (and there are a lot) have loudspeakers on the outside which they put the prayer over. It can be a little annoying very early in the morning (the first call to prayer occurs at 3am) - especially if there is a mosque dircetly across from the window of your room. However it creates such an atmosphere in the city that the early morning wake up is well worth it.
We booked a tour to take us to Anzac day which included a quick day tour of Istanbul, of which we had already taken ourself on the day before. Luckily the sites in Istanbul are so grand that seeing them twice was certainly not a problem. Our tour included the Blue Mosque, Ayia Sofia and the Hippodrome.
ANZAC day
We left Istanbul for Gallipoli mid afternoon with the aim of arriving at ANZAC cove at around 8pm. We had heard stories of the ANZAC service including that it is very cold and that you sleep on the ground etc etc. We were not sure if we
Insıde the Blue Mosque
Thıs ıs taken from within the Blue Mosque. Tourists are allowed inside the mosque outside of prayer times. İt is called the Blue Mosque due to the many blue tıles that decorate ıts walls were going to be sleeping on the bus or going straight to the service- it was all going to be a bit of a surprise. We had worked out that a lot of people were going to be at the dawn service and this was confirmed when we went through the first security check point and our bus was given the number 72. Thats 71 coaches before us with 40 people per bus- so at that moment there were 2840 people already there. When we were leaving we saw bus numbers up to 250 (thats approx 10000 people based on 40 per bus).
When we arrived the grass area was full of people and the stands were largely full however we ended up finally finding a seat in a stand and we settled in for the night. It was a very cold night, luckily we were prepared for this and spent all night fully dressed whilst in a sleeping bag. Although we were in a sleeping bag, no sleep was to take place. We were awake all night. Although we were sitting there freezing and tired it was not appropriate to whinge and complain. After all we were at
Ayıa Sofıa
Trıona standıng outsıde Ayıa Sofıa. Thıs used to be a Chrıstıan Monestary but was converted ınto a Mosque. İt ıs now a museum. The buıldıng ıtself ıs very grand Galliopli and heard stories all night of the harsh conditions that these boys had to live in during the battle here in 1915. It seemed inappropriate to complain about one night of no sleep and been a bit cold when the boys who had fought here, many of which died there, had not had any sleep, very little food, no sanitary, no proper drinking water, a sweltering hot summer and a freezing winter with heavy snow. Bombs, bullets, and death becoming a normal part of there day.
4.30am came around the dawn service commenced. It is hard to describe the Gallipoli dawn service it really is something that you have to experience for yourself. Perhaps heavy, reflective, sad, angry, sorrowful and proud; these words may help describe the variety of emotions felt. It is a surreal experience, the sun rising on the beautiful backdrop of ANZAC cove and a sleepless freezing night probably amplify the service itself. The service has speeches from a number of people including the Australian defence minister and the foreign minister of New Zealand both of whom gave excellent and very moving speeches. The people who went to the service this year were really well
behaved, before you go you hear stories about people doing various things. However all of the crowd were excellently behaved and showed a great deal of respect for the ceremony and the area.
After the dawn serice we met up with Chad (for those friends from home, we worked with Chad) and we headed to the Australian service at Lone Pine Hill. Lone Pine Hill is the sight where the Australian light horse attacked the Turkish line by running out of the trenches into a line of fire. This attack consisted of 4 waves of Australian troops who were to attack the Turkish trenches across a small piece of land. (In places the trenches are seperated by only the width of a single lane road) The attack however was doomed as the navy stopped shelling 7 minutes early, the Australian commanders however pressed on with the attack and sent the first line forward. These troops were all shot as they got out of the trenches as the Turkish had resumed their position. Many of them didnt even get out of the trench and those that did made it barely 2 metres. The next line was sent two minutes later
and these men reached the same fate, by this time the men in the trenches knew they were going to die however they were ordered to go anyway. One of the questions that comes into your mind is how did these men bring themselves to do this when they knew exactly what was going to happen to them. This scene forms the end of the film Gallipoli however seeing the actual place where this took place is amazing.
We also spent some time walking around the many graveyards that are scattered around Gallipoli and exploring the trenches. The one grave that has stuck in my mind is a 19 year old boy with the inscription of "Our Brave Boy". The thing that strikes you is the ages of all the graves the youngest soldier to die at gallipoli was 14 years and 9 months.
When walking around and seeing the names and ages on the graves you can not help but think that this could be my friend, my father, my brother, myself.
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shinoj
non-member comment
awesome photos
great snaps........thank you