Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 396

ANZAC DAY 23/04/07 to 25/04/07 After arriving at Istanbul airport rather late on the 23rd, it was straight to the hotel to be ready for the tour in the morning. However as usual, something had to go wrong. Julie decided to play electrician with a lamp which would not work. Let’s just say there was a bright spark, and then darkness in our hotel room. After about an hour of stuffing around, we finally got a new room and made it to bed. The morning of the tour started off with a traditional Turkish breakfast at the hotel. This consisted of olives, feta cheese, tomato, cucumber, bread, circle meat, and a hard boiled egg. This we would learn would become out breakfast for the next 12 days. The tour kicked off at 7am and we ... read more

Well well well after the boring trip ın Scotland we were off to Turkey for the Anzac Day service in Gallipoli and to spend three weeks travelling around Turkey seeing all the sights. We arrived in İstanbul only to realise that we had stupidly spent all our money in the London airport on shit and had to get Turkish Vısa's, oops. We had enough money for one but not for another. We were a lıttle concerned but we scraped together enough cash (somehow Kez had some Euro's hidden) to get Visas and then we were in. A short taxi rıde to the area where we were to stay for a few days before heading off to Gallipoli. Sultanamhet was the area of Istanbul we stayed in and it was littered with Aussies and Kiwi's all ... read more

As promised I write you this time from Asia.... I am in Sinop, a city which is located on a small peninsula in the Black Sea in Northern Turkey. Since the last entry a lot of things happened and I try to give you a quite detailed insight in what happened, and which adventures I went through! After the great time ı still had with Vasili in Peristera, I continued my way, with many thoughts in my mind about the way he thinks and lives towards Kavala, which Zoran (the Macedonian) recommanded me to see. After an easy hitchhike without changing cars (it's only about 160 km) I arrived in Kavala, where I met Patrick, a German who is currently on his way to India by bike....I did some sightseeing with him and had a ... read more

Our first stop in Turkey was the smallish town of Gaziantep. During WW1, most of the young, fit men of Gaziantep - or Antep, as it was known then - were off fighting when a force of 2000 Allied soldiers, armed with the best automatic weaponry of the time, snuck around and approached the town unexpectedly. Some 600-800 Turks formed a milita, gathered up what shoddy rifles and handguns they could lay their hands on, and sucessfully defeated the opposing Allied soldiers. I was very impressed by this till I learnt the Allied soldiers were French... did those guys ever win a fight? Anyway, the Turkish government awarded the city the title of Gazi, or "Victorious Warrior" as a prefix. Upon arrival in Gaziantep, it was clear we were in a different country. The roads ... read more

Bospherus Boat TripJoel Schroeder We started out with breakfast at Med Cezir cafe, just across the street from the hotel and the same place we had dinner the night before. The weather wasn't cooperating, but we kept to our plan and headed down to the waterfront area to jump on a ferry with our guide, Mehmet, and rode about 90 minutes from the Galato Bridge up the Bospherus to just short of the Black Sea. Along the way we were at the back of the boat, trying to get photos and footage, but everything was muted and dull because of the weather. We went past the Imperial Palace, made stops on the European and Asian sides of the Bospherus, went under the Bospherus Bridge, and finally got off at the second to last stop, on the ... read more