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Published: October 5th 2009
Hey Guys,
Well we arrived in Turkey and pretty much hit the ground running! We had previously decided to speed up our travels through Turkey to pick up 2 weeks since we are looking at doing a month in Indoneasia or just adding it onto Australia. We were confident we could catch all the main attractions as we would probably just spend those 2 weeks lounging on the beaches of Mediterranean and after a beautiful week in Dahab on the Red Sea we were willing to make the sacrifice (life is rough).
So as I was saying we got to Istanbul and set out right away to to see the Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia. What can we say but wow for both buildings. The Mosque is very beautiful and you could spend several hours just staring at the ceilings, which is a common theme in Turkey for almost every site we visit. Afterwards we made our way across the street to Aya Sophia. Aya Sophia again is absolutely amazing with it's beautiful Christian frescos and again every inch of the inside of the building is beautifully sculpted, painted or tiled. This building is a great display of
both Islamic and Christian artwork and I took way too many pics so thank God/Allah for digital memory sticks! On a side note Tyne and I were completely taken back by the volume of tourists visiting Istanbul. I thought Egypt had to be tops but everywhere we went we were surrounded by tour groups from all over the world. We spent the remainder of the day wandering around Istanbul, and we managed to try and visit the Grand Bazaar and all 4,000 of it's vendors on the only day it is closed! And to think Tyne and I were seriously thinking about dropping a couple thousands on a nice carpet. Hahaha
Our next day was spent walking about through Topkapi Palace, this again is one of the main landmarks of Istanbul showcasing some of the Ottoman Empires best artwork and architectural designs. They also have many artifacts from the Ottoman rulers as well as some of the most holy relics of the Muslim World belonging to the Prophet Muhammed. They also have several rooms to showcase many treasures, our personal favourite is the Spoonmakers Diamond which is an 86 carat diamond that is said to have been found
in a pile of garbage and traded for three spoons! That afternoon we made it to the Grand Bazaar to check it out. With over 4,000 stalls it might be one of the largest markets we've been in and if you can't find it here you're probably looking for something that doesn't exist. We managed to make it out without making any purchases although the lure to buy good quality knock off items is always hard to pass up.
We spent that night on a train to Ankara for an unscheduled stop at the Indian Embassy to get Visas for India. This was going to be our biggest gamble since we had to wait 8 days for the visas which was pretty much the rest of our trip in Turkey. So after leaving our passports behind at the embassy and hoping all the stars would align in 8 days for us we hopped on a bus and headed to Cappadocia.
Cappadocia proved to be one of our favourite stops in Turkey as the other world terrain provides magnificent views no matter where you look. We ended staying in Goreme and getting a room in a cave
hostel which was pretty cool and their restaurant offered the best views. We visited the Göreme Open Air Museum which is the most visited site in Cappadocia. It is a complex of 30 rock-carved churches and chapels containing some superb frescoes, dating from the 9th to the 11th century. This museum was similiar to Petra with the Churches and dwellings being carved right into the rocks. All the churches here had their walls and roofs covered with paintings which are all in different stages of decay. It is interesting to see the original artwork which is quite basic behind some of the later more beautiful artwork where the plaster has fallen off. After the Museum we set off for a hike to the Red & Rose Canyons. Walking and climbing our way through these canyons gave us some awesome views of these amazing canyons. The colour of the rocks as well as the formations of Volcanic and Water carved rocks truely make these valleys one of a kind.
We ended up taking a tour to see the undergound city, another Rock church and a nice hike through the Ilhara Valley. The underground city was pretty neat to visit, although
today is little more than tunnels and caves. It does cover a large area and is definetely not for the clastrophobic! Our guide told us that it is estimated that between 20-40,000 people lived here at the peak but the figure should be closer to 5,000 which would still be way too many for my liking even though there are 8 levels in this complex. The next Church we visited was another great Complex carved out of the Volcanic rock formations. These churches and dwellings are very impressive as most rooms have well carved columns and archways. You can still see some of the artwork on the walls and can only imagine how it looked in it's prime. Our hike through the Ilhara Valley was very nice and we enjoyed talking and sharing travelling stories with another young Canadian couple visiting Turkey on some holidays. We were fortunate that our tour ended in time so we could catch our night bus to Selcuk.
Once we arrived in Selcuk we dropped off our packs at our Hostel and headed out to Ephesus, the ruins of an ancient Greek city just outside town. This is another heavily visited tourist destination,
and ruins is a good description of this site. Almost all the buildings are in ruins but you can still get a good idea of how great this city once was by the beautifully carved marble blocks laying everywhere. The main building that is still standing is the Library which is really amazing as well as the the theatre which was able to seat 44,000 and is still used on occasion today for outdoor concerts. We ended up walking back to Selcuk and spending the afternoon walking around town. The next 2 days we hopped on a local bus and headed to the beach at Pamucak about 7km away. This is one of the few sandy beaches in Turkey and since it was the end of the season we were able to enjoy our time here virtually by ourselves. The waters of the Aegean Sea were a little cold at first but warmed up once you got used to them.
We left Selcuk and headed to Pamukkale to visit "The Cotton Castle" also known as the Travertine pools and the ruins of Hieropolis. This was an ancient fortress built atop the huge white calcium encrusted hill giving way
to the name Cotton Castle. The Travertine pools on the hill side are natural hot springs and although you cannot swim in them anymore you are allowed to wade around in some along the path. We found this to be a better option than paying the $40 dollars to swim for 2hrs in the pool. The ruins of Hieropolis were nice to visit, again a lot of imagination needs to be used as most buildings are laying in pieces around the site. The theatre is the most impressive building that is still in tact, although walking through the marble "Boneyard" of building blocks behind it again shows that the Greeks certainly knew how to carve beautiful images into marble. We were able to catch the Sunset while sitting around the travertine pools which was really nice and relaxing prior to some hectic travelling ahead.
We hung out in Pamukkale until we caught our night bus to Ankara to pick up our passports. Upon arriving in Ankara we were unable to pick up our passports until 5pm we spend the day in Ankara wandering around taking in the sites (see photo of the gayest statue ever, really WTF???). After getting
our passports we were off for another bus ride, this time back to Istanbul. Our bus was supposed to get us there around 11:30pm, but we didn't end up getting there until 2:30am so we were lucky we found a hostel with a room quickly so we weren't wandering the streets too long.
Our last day in Istanbul we checked out the Spice Bazaar and the Grand Bazaar again cause they're always entertaining. And as if we hadn't logged enough miles recently we were off to the airport to fly to India! No wonder we've been in India for two days now and I'm still jet legged! We both really enjoyed our time in Turkey and feel we will definetely return sometime in the future to check out the Mediterranean Coast and some of the sites in Eastern Turkey on the path less travelled. The people we encountered were all really friendly, especially the carpet salesman. hahahaha.
Anyways until the next ones...
Cheers,
Matt & Tyne
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another young Canadian couple
non-member comment
about a month late
Matt and Tyne! Just read your blog, your photos are fantastic! It was really nice meeting you guys in Cappadocia. It looks like right now you should be in India. Here is the contact info for work in Brisbane: Malcolm Douglas Construction Malcolm Douglas - Owner Contact:Phone (07) 3263 8161 Hope this phone number still works, I checked it on the internet and it seems like it is up to date. I worked for him for about 6 months in 2003. Let him know that you know Martyn the Canadian and hopefully he will remember me. Hope you guys are having a great time in India. Martyn and Hye Young.