Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 392

Night buses in Turkey are quite an experience. Most people in Turkey travel by bus rather than plkane or train, so they are very nice. First of all you are assigned a seat on the bus; single women cannot sit next to a man they do not know. This might lead to innaporpriate contact during the night. Second, there are no bathrooms ususally (it has been called to my attention that the more well known companies do have bathrooms). The bus makes stops every 2 hours or so. This can lead to issues for some people. The bathrooms at the reststops are usually the typical turkish toilet- a hole in the floor, no toilet paper, and a water bucket along side for washing your parts afterward. I had much fun with these after being woken up ... read more

On Sunday we awoke in Kusadasi Turkey (Tour-Key-Ay we were corrected). The first half of the day was spent at the ancient ruins of Ephesus, parts of which are believed to date back to 1300 years BC. I took lots of pictures. After the tour we went to town for a demonstration of the construction of hand made rugs. They are gorgeous and some of them represent an entire years work by up to three young ladies. The Turks are very hospitable. Every store we entered, the proprietor tried to give us food and drink. They are also very pushy salesmen! I thought it was bad in Tijuana but these guys make the TJ shop owners look passive. I mean, they just do not take no for an answer! So... I let them sell me a ... read more

Hello again from Istanbul! What an incredible city, and an incredible journey getting here. THE BUS RIDE: From Borgas, we got on our bus to Istanbul. On the bus, we met a Canadian couple from Halifax on their honeymoon who were travelling Eastern Europe to visit family, and to travel. It was nice to see some friendly faces and here a familiar accent. We exchanged some information, and we may meet up tonight for drinks. ARRIVING IN ISTANBUL Interesting... The bus guide told us to get off at a central bus station, and another bus would pick us up there. Of course once we got off, there were 100000000 people in the busy station, everything was written in Turkish, few people spoke English, and nobody knew where our bus was. All of us had large ... read more

Arrived well in Istanbul. Left JFK with Lufthansa after a hectic day shipping boxes . Quite good service and a happily not so memorable flight. The arrival into Istanbul stood out because of the ubiquitous head scarves. Turkey is a secular state, yet religion plays a daily role in everyone's life with the daily calls to prayer and beautiful mosques spread throughout the country side. Brandon, my first travel partner, and I arrived in Istanbul on a hot Saturday afternoon. We made our way to the touristy, backpacker area of Sultanahmet. After a brief nap (and an upgrade from the Istanbul Hostel to Med Cezir Hotel), we were off to the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofia. The next day we visited the wonders of the Topakai Palace and the Harem. Off on a night bus ... read more

Just a quick note. Sianne failed to mention the Serbian girls at Pumukkale. They all come down to Turkey for their holidays and there was about 50 of them at the terraces. We thought we had walked into a photo shoot for Sports Illustrated. They were all posing under waterfalls and on the sides of the terraces while their boyfriends took photos and directed where they should stand, bend, stretch etc. Very amusing. I'm sure Sianne was paying attention to the Serbian boys in their speedos and gold medallions :) ... read more