Georgia

Our bus from Yusufeli to Hopa was uneventful, as was our taxi from Hopa to the Georgian border. Upon arrival at the border we lined up to be stamped out of Turkey, with that finished we walked 500 metres to get stamped into Georgia. We were stamped in no problem, check our passport, compare our photo, stamp the passport and “Welcome to Georgia”. The first thing I noticed once across the border was the soviet built Lada cars parked on the side of the road, the second thing was the weird Georgian script that I would be learning and third were the cows that roamed free like in India. Georgia is an interesting country. It does not feel as modern as Turkey, and it's Soviet history is very apparent, whether it's the Lada cars, the apartment blocks, the statues of Josef Stalin on many street corners or the 5 dollar a litre Vodka. The reason that the Stalin statues remain (even when the country bears no trace of statues of Lenin) is that Stalin was a local lad, who became the leader of one of the most powerful country’s on the planet. When we arrived in Batumi the first thing we did was go to a restaurant to look at the map of our Batumi on the computer. When we walked in with our big bags everybody stopped and stared at us, not used to backpackers in the part of the world. When we sat down they all returned to their food and the man at the table beside us said “Welcome to Georgia”. We talked a bit and found out that he was from Iran and here on holiday.

June 5^th and 6^th 2011

Our 7 hour ride in a “Marshutka”(15 seat minibus) was uncomfortable but it worked, as we are now in Tbilisi. Our bus driver was a bit of a speed demon and driving in Georgia was the same as in India but twice as fast. Anyhow, Tbilisi is an interesting city, the old town is very nice, but not very upmarket, it looks like it's all falling apart. The cliffs along the river are littered with nice old churches. We wandered up onto the east bank to visit the massive cathedral, home of the Georgian orthodox Patriarch. The cathedral was very big, the floor space was not very large but the ceiling was incredibly high, it looked bigger from outside though.

June 8^th

We woke up early today, had muesli for breakfast and politely declined the slurring Russian's offer of “Do you van' drinkin'?”. We walked down to the metro, went 3 or 4 stops to Didube bus station. Upon arrival we were questioned about our destination by a taxi driver, we told him we were going to Gori, but not by taxi. He said that was fine and that he would show us to our Marshutka. He took us there and told us that the cost would be 10 Lari each, knowing that that price was insane we walked away, however the bus driver came running after us yelling “5 Lari! 5 Lari!”, so we went back, confirmed with a few other passengers that this was indeed the right price and started on our way to Gori. In case you didn't know, Gori is famed for being the birthplace of Josef Stalin, feared dictator of the USSR for over a quarter of a century. Our reason for visiting Gori was to see the Stalin Museum which is beside Stalin's birthplace, a small mud brick house, protected by a temple like structure in a park where all the other houses were demolished. It was fairly expensive to visit the museum, 15 lari each including mandatory guide. The best way to describe the museum was “Weird”; it told the tale of a poor local boy who helped defeat the tsar and was one of the key figures of 20^th century politics. Not that of a repressive dictator who sent millions of people to their deaths. The tour went a bit like this - “ThisisapictureofyoungStalinthisisapictureofStalinwithLenintheseareStalinsschoolbooks etc.”.One weird room was the room that contained gifts to Stalin from foreign countries, Stalin's coat, boots and the furniture from his office in the Kremlin. At one point I accidentally lent on one of the chairs, it gave me the chills thinking that Stalin and countless other famous politicians had sat in that exact same chair. The creepiest room is empty other than a circle of columns surrounding a pedestal on which sits one of Stalin's nine death masks. A more realistic room was the “Room of Repression” It talked a bit about the Gulag but it never blamed Stalin directly, just the Bureaucrats who directly sentenced the “Spies”. After our dose of reality we left the museum building and visited Stalin’s birthplace and childhood home, which was fairly humble considering his future. The most interesting part of the museum was probably Stalin's train carriage. We took a photo of Stalin's toilet and I got to sit on his bed. It was amazing to think that this carriage brought him to the Yalta conference and many other conferences and key occasions in 20^th century politics. With our museum tour finished we went for a walk around town. On our walk we noticed the square apartment blocks,wide streets and old cars. It was exactly what we would have imagined the soviet union to have looked like. We also noticed the bullet holes in all the buildings, left over from the 2008 Russian invasion.

Yalta Conference

Kremlin furniture

Entry hall

Stalin's house

Stalin's toilet

Goreme - Yusufeli

30^th of May 2011

We were a bit reluctant to wake up after our day on the bikes, but by 8:30 our stomachs couldn't take it any more and we had to go for breakfast. The hotel owner served us some sort of molasses that was made out of grapes and sweet peas, it wasn't really my cup of tea, although the delicious Turkish tea sure was. When we had finished the molasses, we walked to the Goreme open air museum, the admission price of 15 lira (10 dollars) made us a bit unsure but because it was “the” sight to see in Cappadocia, we decided to go anyway. There were lots of rock cut churches with very impressive frescoes although you had to wait in line because of the many tour groups. We had a watermelon for lunch and then Mhari and Dad went back to the hotel while Mom and I took a minibus to Nevsehir. From Nevsehir we took another bus to Derinkuyu, home to the underground city. The city was dug a long time ago by some people to hide from other people, it was then used by different people to hide from other different people who then turned it into a museum. The admission is a lot but it's worth it. There were a ton of tiny tunnels leading into unlit mazes of rooms and the main staircase goes down 8 storeys. From the bottom you can look up the ventilation shaft to the tiny spot of light above you. There were a few tour groups at the start but later on it was mostly empty making it a bit spooky for going down to places such as the graves.

31^st of May - 2^nd of June 2011

From Goreme we took a bus to Kayseri and bought train tickets for the 2am to Erzurum, a 16 hour journey. We had about 12 hours to spare so left our bags with the snack shop owner and walked downtown. We spent about 2 hours in the Bazaar, the second largest in Turkey, I bought a Kayserispor Football club scarf that has something in Turkish written on it. With a dictionary and a travelling linguist we met later on, I figured out that it includes the words “fall down” and “reciprocal love”. We also spent an hour chatting with a carpet salesman who told us that he thought backpackers were “low-quality tourists” because they did not buy carpets (he didn't know we were backpackers). We returned to the train station and sat around all night because the train was late and arrived at 7.20am, not 2am. We got off in Erzurum at11pm after a spectacular ride. We only stayed one night, We saw the beautiful “Çifte Minareli Medrese”, reminiscent of “A Thousand and One Nights” and got on a bus to Yusufeli.

3^rd of June 2011

Yusufeli is an interesting town, there are far to many hair salons and cay shops, and the restaurants all close by 7pm. We managed to find one place open serving pide (turkish pizza). When we asked what kinds of pide he had, he replied “Meat or Cheese”, he then hesitated before adding “Meat and Cheese” not health food by any means. We ordered one of each and they turned out to be very good, and for 3 lira (2 bucks) per pide, a bargain as well. Today we went for a walk up into the hill, we stopped near a stream to eat apricots and made a series of dams to divert the water flow. We returned to the pide place for lunch and are now napping or blogging.

Goreme

28^th May 2011

I have written about our time between Orhaniye and here but because it's on paper I don't have time to type it all out at the moment, maybe I will post it later, when I have time. So basically, from Antalya, we took a night bus to Nevesehir and then a quick bus ride to Goreme. The night bus was good but I only slept for 1 hour. Eventually I gave up trying to sleep and just watched movies. I watched one movie about Turks in America's wild west, and one about Americans in Turkey's wild east, I'm not kidding. They were both in Turkish but I got the gist of things. At about 4 am we figured we should try out the bus's Wi-Fi and sure enough, it worked very well. I don't think I will ever be able to travel by bus in any other country ever again, “What, no snacks, no tea, no Wi-Fi?”

Upon arrival in Goreme, we searched high and low for a reasonably priced hotel, when we found one, we had lentil soup for breakfast and went to sleep.

I guess I should probably now explain why we are in Goreme. Goreme is the tourist hub of the region of Cappadocia, the main highlight being the landscape. A very long time ago, there was a volcanic eruption, slowly, erosion wiped away the volcanic rock and only the “tuff” (which the book describes as “consolidated volcanic ash” basically a soft yellow stone) remained in solitary pillars. What all this means is that the landscape is dotted with huge cones and pillars, a lot like the hoodoos in the Badlands of Alberta.

When we woke up at 2pm we went for a nice walk, had supper and then went back to bed.

29^th of May 2011

Today was bike day, we got 4 nice mountain bikes and headed out on the road to Çavuşin. On our way we stopped at Love valley. The fairy chimneys here are have particularly umm... interesting shapes, it is also a nice place to go for a walk through the vineyards. The next interesting place we went was Çavuşin village. There was an extremely large fairy chimney here that doubled as a castle. We had a very bad lunch here and then took a donkey cart track to a valley that started with “P” this one was like Love Valley except it had more tourists and was therefore more accesible. It was a short ride to Zelve open air museum, an abandoned rock cut village. It was a monastic retreat from the 9^th to the13^th century and then a village from then until 1952 when it was deemed to dangerous to live in. There were some nice old churches here and the monks quarters were interesting because you could see things like where the window frame was and where the bed was. The highlight of the museum was definitely the system of narrow tunnels that connects one valley with the next. The steep staircases and pitch black corridors were indeed very spooky. Our last stop of the day was the Devrent Valley, a 3km uphill slog. We had a look a the fairy chimney shaped like a camel (it wasn't really) and then flew back down the hill to Zelve. The rest of the ride was slowly uphill and hard at first but the last bit was easier

Hot air ballooning is a very popular activity

Downtown Goreme

These ones look like, ummmm... Rocket Ships.

Fairy Chimneys

Does that look like a camel to you?

Istanbul and Orhaniye

On the Bosphorus

I spent my 14^th birthday (May 13^th) on the Bosphorus Strait. When I woke up that morning I was greeted with pistachio baklava and pistachio Turkish delight. We had seen a place down the road that did a breakfast buffet for 10 lira but we thought we'd stick to 1 lira lentil soup. We went to the docks and got on the public cruise going all the way up the straight. We saw many mosques, palaces, bridges and forts. The cruise was great and we had fish for lunch. That evening I had pistachio birthday cake (by the way, I love pistachios and Turkey grows some of the best). That evening we splurged on supper and went to the same Lokanta we go to every night. A filling meal for four with tapioca pudding, 20 lira, about 15 dollars (okay so maybe not quite a splurge but it's some of the best food I've ever had).

Orhaniye

We took an overnight bus From Istanbul to Marmaris, and a Dolmus (minibus) to the small coastal town of Orhaniye, where we met up with Terry Anthony, a relative of ours. We spent three full days there, we did lots of hiking, and the water was very warm so we swam a lot. The village is set in a bay, surrounded by huge mountains; it was fun to float in the bay and stare up at the mountains. The hikes were also beautiful. One day we went up to an ancient amphitheatre and temple which had amazing views over the bay. We also saw lots of tortoises, lizards and goats. One herd of goats ate cucumber from our hands.

Istanbul days 3 and 4

May 11^th 2011

After our standard bowl of lentil soup, we took the tram from Kabataş to the Grand Bazaar. We found a public toilet outside a nearby mosque and I watched a crazy homeless man with 7 dogs while the rest of the family went to the bathroom. We walked around a bit until we found the book bazaar, it turned out that they didn't have what we were looking for so we braced ourselves and went into the Grand Bazaar. The Bazaar was in fact quite manageable and not too busy, a pleasant surprise. Most of the shops were touristy, and also expensive. At this point, Dad, Mhari and I spilt up with Mom so that she could shop as much as she wanted without us telling her to hurry up. We found our way out of the Bazaar only stopping for me to buy an awesome t-shirt (picture below) and went looking for a kebab shop. About 15 minutes later we found one on a street that sold nothing but plastic toys made in China. With our bellys full we climbed up the hill to Sulemaniye Mosque, apparently the grandest Mosque in Istanbul. It was indeed very grand, about as big as Blue Mosque, except pleasingly simple in decoration, other than the great stained glass windows. We got lost in the streets around the mosque which were full of old wooden houses, and ended up at the viaduct, we popped into another mosque, this one painted like an easter egg inside, and walked back to the Bazaar. On the way home I had a Simit (sesame seed bread ring) and a Dundurma (ice cream with a very elastic texture, you have to bite it or else you might just pull it off the cone) for 1 lira (65 cents) each. That evening we went back to our favourite Lokanta and had 8 mezzes and 3 rice puddings for 19 lira (11.50 dollars).

May 12^th 2011

Today we didn't know what to do so we decided to hop onto a ferry to Kadikoy, on the Asian side to see what it was like. We stopped at a pide (Turkish pizza) shop and had tea and pide, we also went to a very cheap bookstore and stocked up on reading material. This afternoon we went to the Military Museum to watch the Ottoman Military Band, which plays every day from 3pm to 4pm. Of course, due to some UN conference, they were not playing between the 1 and the 18^th of May - typical. The museum was nice though, they had 3 big rooms with nothing but swords, each sword had a plaque underneath it that said “Sword”. When we were done with the swords we wandered through Defence Weapons (shield, helmets etc.) in halls 1-4 and then came across a model of a Turkish military classroom, complete with 15 life size students. Each one was wearing a fez and raising his right hand, except for the 3 trouble makers in the back row who were raising their left hand. We also found a set of furniture made entirely from weapons. On the top floor there was quite a bit of Propaganda, including a room full of pictures of Turks who were massacred by Armenians, and another room full of weapons that were “Used by the Greek Cypriotes against the Turks”. 

Grand Bazaar

More Grand Bazaar

Sulemaniye Mosque

Mosque carpet

Sulemaniye Mosque

Prince Mosque

Big Door

Prince Mosque

Bigger Door

My favourite time of day

Cool eh!

Sword

Don't sit down, it's sharp

Istanbul days 1 and 2

We spent another day in Pamukkale, exploring the nearby ruins of Laodika, home to one of the seven churches mentioned in the Book of Revelations. The weather was beautiful, the poppys plentiful and the tour buses had mostly skipped it. There were tons of lizards and some of the clay pipes that had once carried drinking water were visible. The theatres were interesting, because they were just theatre shaped dents in a hill, with a few rows of benches scattered here and there.

May 9^th 2011

Today was our first full day in Istanbul. We woke up around 8 am and went for a breakfast of lentil soup with mint and lemon and all you can eat bead for 1 lira (75 cents) at a nearby “Lokanta”, a restaurant serving “mezzes”, which are small plates of food, a bit like “tapas”. We walked east from Taksim square to the Bosphorous and hopped on the tram. When we arrived in Sultanahmet, (historical heart of the city) we stood around in the park a bit, marvelling at the Blue Mosque and Aya Sofya. When the effect wore off we wandered over to the Blue Mosque, stood in line for a minute or two and then entered the Mosque. The inside was indeed spectacular, covered in blue Iznik tiles, the huge dome was quite something. There was a nice carpet on the floor and an assortment of gilded medallions with Arabic on them. After 20 minutes of ooing and aahing, we left and headed towards its somewhat more ancient neighbour, the Aya Sofya... only to find out that it is closed Monday. Disappointed, we ambled in the direction of Topkapi palace. We bought our expensive tickets and went to explore the palace. The courtyards were beautiful and in the treasury, there were probably more precious stones and metals than there are in all of Canada. Dad and I also went into the Harem, (an extra 15 lira!) where the sultan, his family and his concubines lived. There were lots of fancy decorations and it reminded me of french chateaux. The mother of pearl and tortoise shell cupboards were quite something. We walked back home, stopping for a fish sandwich on the way.

Back at our hotel, we slept for a bit and went for supper at the same place we went to for breakfast. We had 7 plates of Mezzes (mezzes are substantially bigger than tapas, most grown men order one or two plates and some rice) and 1 plate of Baklava for 14 lira (9 dollars), I think we'll be coming back to this place.

May 10^th 2011

Another morning, another bowl of lentil soup, another tram. We got off at Aya Sofya, decided to wait till 4 pm when the crowds had left and walked to the Istanbul Archeological Museums. The Museums were great, tons of exhibits and very well laid out. The highlights were the incredibly well preserved sarcophagi and the Roman tombs that had been translated into English. Most of them read something like this...

“This tombstone was built by ______ son/daughter of _____ for their mother/father/cousin etc who was a builder/priest/teacher etc. who was known for his/her virtues/beauty/hard work.”

Although some were more dramatic, such as this one...

“ Meandros, son of Meidias farewell!”

“Oh Meandros, son of Meidias, why are you walking the most painful road that has no return, leaving sad tears for your son?

Your wife Moschion is wailing, your sister is lamenting. You have been suddenly killed by the power of an unknown man.

Go away, the worst of unfortunate deeds! Why have you extinguished unseasonally this refined person, taken by Ares who ends lives.”

Some other highlights in the museum were the hundreds of sculptures and the exhibit on the history of Istanbul, which contained the chain that was used to stop ships sailing up the Golden Horn (the other water way in Istanbul).

When we arrived at the Aya Sofya, the lines were much shorter than before. We bought the tickets and headed on in. The Aya Sofya you see today is the most recent of a series of churches built by Byzantine empires. The current one was commisioned by Justinian and finished in 537. In the conquest of 1453, it was turned into a mosque, it stayed that way until 1935 when Ataturk decided to proclaim it a museum. Inside was spectacular, the dome was massive. We had been expecting scaffolding because of restoration, but due to Istanbul's title of European capital of culture 2010, the scaffolding has been temporarily removed and the building was indeed awe inspiring, we wandered around for about an hour, admiring mosaics and staring up above us. It took a while, but we managed to pry ourselves away from this truly monumental building after about one hour. On the walk home, Joe will be happy to know that my dad had his leatherman knife sharpened by a man with a motorized grindstone on wheels.

Laodika

A lizard in Laodika

Nice Sarcophagus

Great Museum

Blue Mosque, the windows top-center, are all along the bottom of the dome

Blue Mosque courtyard

Lunch

Topkapi Palace

Nice View

In the Harem

Just fooling around

A cupboard in the Harem

Stained glass in the Harem

Yeni Camii

Inside Aya Sofya

More Aya Sofya

The dome

That row of windows, barely visible at the top of the photo is as close as I got to getting to floor and the dome in the same picture.

Ephesus and Pamukkale

May 4th

Oops, I seem to really be falling behind so I will just skim over the rest of Greece.

We took an overnight ferry from Santorini to Rhodes and spent 4 days in Rhodes; we had a great time. We spent most of our time wandering around the amazing walled old town and we also met up with my aunt and uncle from England who were there on holiday. We had supper together one night and a day later we went to Lindos, a pretty town on the east coast. Rhodes Old Town was quite amazing, and judging by the number of visitors it was obviously no secret.

From Rhodes, we took a catamaran to Marmaris, in Turkey, We did not linger long in Marmaris, we headed straight up to Selçuk which is where we are now. Today was quite the day, we got up bright and early and walked 3 km to the ruined city of Ephesus. Famed as one of the best preserved ancient cities in the Mediterranean region. It was originally a harbour city although now its about 3 km from the sea. The first major ruin you see once you enter the site is the Theatre, made to seat 25,000 it is a truly amazing sight. Despite seating less than half the number of people, the theatre in Amman was more spectacular because it is steeper, giving the illusion of being bigger that it actually is. The streets in Ephesus still have their original paving stones, and many of the columns have been reassembled.

The Library of Celsus, the most famous roman monument in Turkey, is It is a beautiful two story facade full of carvings with niches to hold statues of the gods. An interesting feature is that the bottom story is convex (bulges out) and the pillars in the middle are larger that the ones on the end, making it look larger. When we first arrived here, early in the morning the site was busy, but not too cramped, about 30 minutes later tour groups from the nearby resort of Kuşadasi arrived and things got crowded. It was as the city would have been in it's heyday. After the Library, we walked up the marble paved road, past many other crumbling monuments including a fountain, a toilet, an odeon and and various other bits and pieces. On our walk back to Selçuk from Ephesus, we dropped in at the Temple of Artemis. Yes, the “7 Ancient Wonders of the World”, Temple of Artemis. Unfortunately it is now just one pillar remaining out of 127 and a couple other stones laying in a marsh. One good thing was that there were dozens of baby turtles in the marsh. I even got to pet one.

May 6^th

We took a comfy bus from Selçuk to Denizli and a minibus from there to Pamukkale. We found a nice hostel and relaxed all afternoon. Today we woke up bright and early and headed up to the travertines and Hierapolis. The travertines are pools formed by mineral deposits from calcium rich water running down the hill, Hierapolis is the ruins of the Roman spa city built atop the travertines. Walking around on the white cliffs was very cool, especially with the hot water running over our feet the whole time. The rock was very grippy and worked as a pumice; my feet feel very smooth now. When we got to the top of the hill we walked around in Hierapolis. We saw tombs, roads and an amazing roman theatre which had extra large roman cupholders. Halfway through the day it started to rain so went into the museum and also had some tea in a cafe. Tea is an obsession here and I have at least 4 cups most days. Tea is served in small tulip shaped glasses with two sugar cubes. Later, we wandered back down the travertines, walked around town a bit and had intestine sandwiches for supper. 

Santorini

Our car rental day in Santorini was great, we started off by going to Red beach, a protected bay backed by red, volcanic cliffs. We amused ourselves by lifting very big, yet very light volcanic rocks and pretending we were strong. We swum around a bit in the water and then walked back to the car. We drove all the way up the island to Oia, on of the most beautiful villages on the island, the way the bleached white houses hung from the cliff was in fact quite nice and there were also lots of pretty, blue-domed churches.