Istanbul

Aaaaahh, Istanbul! The name alone conjures up images of Sultans and harems, of bazaars, spices and mosques. The only city in the world that straddles both Europe and Asia, Istanbul teems with an incredible 20 million people. That's the entire population of Australia in one city.

We had five days here to see the main sights, catch up with friends and do some much-needed clothes shopping and repairs (some of our hiking gear didn't survive the hike too well!) but we barely touched the surface.

We stayed in the touristy area near the main sites. The advantage was that we were close to most things. The disadvantage was that we were constantly approached by people trying to sell us carpets, tours and whatever else we apparently must have. We were constantly reminded of an old comedy skit that has the line "You look like you want to buy a carpet". I tried to google it but I can't find it. If anyone knows who did that skit or can find it on Youtube, please let us know! We even had that exact line used on us.

Our first stop was Aya Sofya. This building started life as a Christian church in Byzantine times. It was then converted to a mosque and is now a museum. Unfortunately it was under renovation so large parts were barricaded off but that's got to happen at some stage.

There were a few amazing mosaics.

We headed down to the mighty Bosphorus, which has witnessed so many incredible sights over the centuries - battles, celebrations and trading have been happening along it for thousands of years. We were hunting out a balik ekmek place. This literally means fish and bread. Yep - for a few dollars you get a piece of fish slapped into a bread roll with a bit of salad. John loved it!

We caught a ferry up the Bosphorus and saw some gorgeous old palaces, forts and grand summer houses along the water's edge.

Next up was the Sultanahmet Mosque. This is just as old and stunning as the Aya Sofya but it is still an operating mosque. 

We loved the gorgeous colours and amazing decorative work.

All women had to wear a shawl and long skirt to get in. Not sure I'd make a good Muslim woman!

We then walked through the ancient underground water cisterns. These stored water for the old city. It was very atmospheric. Most of the columns were re-used from other things. One column was supposed to be dedicated to the over 100 slaves who lost their lives building this cistern. We marvel at these incredible buildings and it's a shock to realise that many were built by slaves.

Also in this area was the remains of the old hippodrome where they used to hold chariot races. Two obelisks stolen from the Egyptians a long time ago marked the two turning points in the race and these are still standing. There is surprisingly little room to get speed up and the turns are sharp. They must have been very eventful races!

We stayed in a great hotel and one day they ran a free Turkish food tour. Of course we had to join in! First up were vegetarian meatballs. The reason that sounds strange is that they were traditionally raw but modern food laws don't allow that. They were yummy!

Next up was what our hotel manager-cum-food guide called "the most challenging part of the tour". He led us to a stand where the meat (pictured below) was roasting on a skewer. We had seen these before and knew what the meat was - sheep intestines. What we didn't previously know was that it was stuffed with sheep thymus glands!

The guy cut off a sample for us to taste so we could decide if we wanted a small serve in bread. I decided in a rash moment to give the tiniest piece a try. At first it was surprisingly tasty. It was salty and herbal. Then the taste of the gland kicked in. I suddenly remembered that I had tried "sweetbreads" before (Helen, Val and the Johns - remember the Fawlty Towers night at Dunkeld?) You would think that I would remember the horrific taste and not try it again! It was soooo awful! John decided that his taste was ok so he had a serve in bread but, judging by the photo below, I think it quickly lost its appeal!

We were then shown through the Spice Market. As you'd expect, this was awesome!

We bought the best dates I've ever had here.

This one's for you Courtney. They had so many different tea varieties as well as coffee beans from all over the world.

Lots of dried foodstuff hung from rooftops.

And now one for you Connor. Our last stop was the very shop where Turkish Delight was first invented hundreds of years ago. We sampled a number of wonderful ones. I always thought there was only one sort of Turkish Delight but there are all sorts of flavours. Yummo!

And now for a complete change of pace- just outside the spice market was the corner where you can buy your leeches! They are used for sucking blood for medicinal purposes. They were huge! I think I'd rather let nature take its course.

On a lighter note, I'll tell you a funny story. One night we were walking back near the river to our hotel after dinner. We passed some people and one of them dropped something. John picked it up and called out to them and one of them came back and collected it. The guy was a shoeshine guy and what he dropped was a brush. He thanked John then seemed to suddenly be inspired to shine John's shoes. We then realised it was some sort of scam as he tried to insist on shining John's shoes. We got out of there fast. A couple of days later we were again walking in a similar area and someone walking past us dropped a brush. John immediately launched into a game of footy with it, kicking it along the footpath. We could hear the shoeshine guy making comments behind us but he knew that we knew he was trying scam us and he wasn't too vocal!

Next up was the Topkapi Palace, home to various sultans for centuries. It was incredible. Many rooms had walls lined with hand-painted tiles and some parts were lined with gold. It had a harem, which is really just where the women lived, and a circumcision room. Circumcision is a big thing here. It's usually done at around 12 years old. Ouch!

Across the other side of the river from where we stayed there was more to see. The Galata Tower was so beautiful at night.

Ramadan started the day before we arrived. This is where devout Muslims don't eat, drink or smoke from sunrise til sunset for a month. I think it would be very tough going. At sunset, people set up picnics or join in on communal feasts. There is a party atmosphere each evening.

People picnicked in the gardens around Aya Sofya and the Sultanahmet Mosque. Fountains were lit up and coloured lights surrounded the area in celebration each night.

Sultanahmet Mosque was lit up with a sign that said something like "Welcome to Sultanahmet". They put these signs up especially for Ramadan.

While we were in Istanbul, John decided that he was tired of his beard, plus we had Skyped the kids and they were both shocked by it, so we went to a barber. Again, John had the cut-throat razor treatment.

The final result - what do you think?

One of the sights I was most looking forward to was the Grand Bazaar but I found it to be a bit underwhelming. It was nice to see but mostly sold touristy stuff. I expected there to be huge crowds there but it was fairly quiet. Some of the shop displays were gorgeous though.

One of our favourite places was a bar six floors up where there was a fantastic view of the city and we could look right at Aya Sofya. It was wonderful!

So finally it is time for us to leave Turkey. We've been here for nearly eight weeks and have absolutely loved it. The people are so caring and generous. It's part of the Muslim culture that everyone should care for other people. Nobody should be allowed to go without food or drink or any necessities. 

I have never been to a country where there is so much to see. Mountains roll down to stunning turquoise bays, wildflowers bloom everywhere, jaw-dropping landscapes abound and ancient cultures have left their imprints from one end of the country to the other. It really is a travellers' dream.

Terrorist attacks in 2015 and early 2016, plus a President who seems intent on offending other countries, have left this country's tourism industry a shadow of its previous self. Often we were the only customers in family-run accommodation or restaurants. People involved in the tourism industry begged us to tell our friends that Turkey is now safe and I'm more than happy to do so. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone (just stay clear of the Syrian border - that's a different kettle of fish!). With shocking terrorist attacks happening since in Paris, Manchester and London, plus others that have been stopped before they happened in many other countries including Australia, Turkey is no less safe than most other parts of the world. It's a truly magical place.

Anyway, that's enough of my waffling! I'll leave you with one of my favourite photos from Istanbul.

Bye for now.

Heather and John

Ancient Civilisations and Awesome Landscapes

Hello again! Welcome back to our little blog. If you're reading this then you've done well listening to our stories for this long!

We left Cappadocia and headed across to the west coast. It's a long way so we flew. Flights are so cheap here! We stayed in an interesting backpacker type of place run by an Aussie Turk. We met some lovely people there and had a lot of fun.

Our main destination there was Ephesus, one of the largest ruined cities in the world. It was incredible. Even more incredible is that 80% of it is still under the ground, awaiting discovery! This was the fourth largest city of the Roman Empire and it had everything - houses, theatres, temples and markets.

The main street must have been stunning in its time.

Restoration makes such a difference to what we see and can understand. The restored building above was a highlight.

There was a separate section that was still being excavated. It was kept under cover for protection and we had to pay extra to get in but we're sure glad we did it. This was an area of houses owned by the wealthy. There were gorgeous mosaic floors and amazing painted walls.

For some weird reason that I can't work out, I've lost the next lot of photos on my camera so you'll just have to envisage the following. One of the strangest places was the public toilets. There was no privacy in those days. Rows of toilet seats were carved into marble slabs over drains. There was only about half a metre between seats. The really privileged people had the rights to one toilet seat and they had their initials carved into them! There was also supposedly a brothel.

The next day we visited a very cool old castle and explored the ruins of a huge church. Wish I had the photos. We also found a restaurant owned by a Turkish/Chinese couple who had lived in Australia. We were excited to have Chinese food after about 7 weeks of Turkish food!

We caught a bus to our next destination, Pamukkale, and had our first negative experience with Turkish touts when we were told we had to get off the bus and got driven to our hotel but in they detoured past a tour shop to try to get us to buy a tour. We had heard about that sort of thing happening but we had never experienced it anywhere else. We were definitely in prime tourist country now!

Pamukkale is famous for mineral-rich water which deposits calcite onto the landscape, leaving gorgeous white terraces cascading down the hill. There are pools of ice-coloured water that people can swim in. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site but we were so disappointed to find that they had diverted the water away from the real pools and had built new pools from concrete! They had ruined a large part of the area. We think that maybe this was done before it became World Heritage listed but we're not sure. We could still see some lovely real pools though.

As the water drips over the edge of terraces it creates stalagtite-like effects. This is a real pool.

There were some cool features on the white surface.

In one of the fake pools.

Pamukkale is a double whammy - at the top of the cascades is a gorgeous ruined city. Some parts were lined with flowers. It was very pretty.

Ohhh, poppies again!

The main street here was amazing once again. All those columns on the right belong to the public toilets. That's a lot of loos!

As we slogged up a hill to see the theatre I said to John that I was at the stage where this was a JUT - Just Another Theatre. I was getting a bit theatred out. Then we stepped out onto the top floor and were blown away! The theatre had been 90% restored and it was simply stunning. It was huge! The stage part was several stories high and was still missing its last two stories. The views from the top were sensational as well. This photo is taken from half way up. Over the centuries this place served many functions, including gladiator fights.

We're off to Istanbul next - it's our final destination in Turkey!

Cheers,
John and Heather

Fairy Tale Fairy Chimneys, Magical Music and More!

Oh my goodness - just when we think this country can't get any more amazing it absolutely floors us! I'll warn you now, this is a loooong post, but it's mostly pretty pictures! Another word of warning - there's a rude bit right at the end. If you are a gentile type of person you might want to skip that bit. The other 99% of you might want to skip straight to that bit if you're getting bored with the rest of the post!

One of the 'big' sights in Turkey is Cappadocia, a place of weird and wonderful rock formations. It was out of our way though, so earlier on we had decided not to go there. John loves a Lebanese singer called Yasmine Hamdan, and one day he saw on Facebook that she was performing at a music festival in Cappadocia! We changed our plans and decided to go there.

The way the timing worked we had to spend 8 days there which is a long time in one spot for us. The area was packed with people for the long weekend festival and accommodation was scarce so we had to split our time across two different towns, not far apart.

We caught a bus to the first town, called Goreme. The views of one of the mountains through the bus window was superb.

As we drove into the area, our jaws hit the floor. We were surrounded by the most amazing rock formations we have ever seen. The soft volcanic tufa in the area has been weathered over the years to form weird and wonderful shapes. For thousands of years, people have carved rooms out of some of these formations to live or worship in. They often used them to hide from enemies. Many of the formations form large conical shapes nicknamed fairy chimneys which is exactly what some of them are like! They are magical. You can almost imagine fairies and gnomes living in these. 

This one was at our hotel. They build the hotels around the fairy chimneys. They use the similar stone for the buildings so everything blends in very well.

This old abandoned village was nearby. You can just walk through and explore the old rooms and caves. Unfortunately, the places are privately owned here, which means that people can sell them! The sign below says "For Sale"!

Larger complexes had kitchens. You can see the old fireplace here.

On our first night we went to a lovely restaurant where the dusk views of the town through the fairy chimneys were superb.

A traditional meal of this area is a stew that's cooked in a sealed pottery urn. You have to knock the top off the urn then pour the stew onto your plate. The owner of the restaurant showed us how to do the first one. It didn't break properly and bits of pottery fell into the stew. It wasn't pleasant eating it & then crunching into a piece of pottery! I had a go at knocking the top off the second pot and it worked beautifully. I think some just get a bit stuck. We had two more of these pottery dishes over the next week, one of which was inedible due the large amounts of pottery that fell into it. After that we gave up. Every time we walked into a restaurant they would try to convince us to have the pottery dish because it's a local speciality. If they didn't speak English we had trouble trying to explain why we didn't want it!

We spent the next dew days exploring the valleys in the area. Each valley had different types of amazing rock formations.

The huge expanses of incredible landscapes were stunning!

Most of the buildings that were carved out of the soft stone were houses but there were also numerous churches as many of the previous inhabitants were Byzantines. This one was breathtaking for its sheer size and simplicity.

The thing to do in Cappadocia is to take a dawn balloon flight. We didn't do it - I'd rather keep my feet on the ground - but John got up early one morning and took this awesome photo.

We later caught this lot flying on a much mistier morning. I loved the way they lit up when the gas was opened up. 

One day we hired a car and drove to a few places further afield. First we went to an old underground city. At one stage 5,000 people lived here, spread over 8 levels, hiding from their enemies (Persians, Arabs, Mongols, etc, etc) for up to 6 months at a time. There were large communal kitchens, bathrooms, laundries and bedrooms. You wouldn't want to be claustrophobic!

We then drove to a place that had an entire monastery carved into a mountain.

There were a few churches here, all impressive.

We then began a walk down a stunning valley. It started with more fairy chimneys.

Much of the walk was along a lush valley floor which was being farmed around us. Donkeys still rule here.

We hadn't seen many goats in this part of the country. All the animals around her are in good condition as the country is so much more fertile than further south.

Aww, how cute is he?

One part of this valley is famous for having many churches cut into the cliff walls. Some of them have gorgeous artwork in them.

Shockingly, graffiti is rife in some places. The public can access all of these churches and vandals have run amok, ruining paintings that are up to a thousand years old. I can't totally blame modern tourists and locals though - much of the damage has been done over the centuries by invading races that desecrate artwork that is against their own religion.

We loved just exploring the old cliff dwellings.

We moved to the next town, called Uchisar, which was built around an old castle on a hill.

We explored another series of churches cut into the cliffs and fairy chimneys. These are better protected than the ones we had seen previously and the artwork in some of them was amazing.

Until a few years ago, there were heaps of Aussies in Turkey. I just had to photograph this sign! Media reports of terrorist attacks and political unrest have kept people away in droves but there actually haven't been any issues for quite some time now. Attacks in Manchester, Paris and elsewhere show that nowhere is safe these days. 

We had four days in Uchisar and three of them had terrible weather! We copped thunder, lightening, hail, mist and rain. And it was so cold!

At last it was time for the Cappadox Music Festival! This was a huge event - we heard there were about 5,000 people in attendance. Unfortunately, this was when the terrible weather struck!

We went looking for the action but there wasn't a lot to be seen. Either people were staying inside trying to keep warm or they were at music events. We found a little bit of a street party happening outside a small store. The very clever owner had set up a few fires and people could walk into his shop, buy alcohol from his shelves, then walk outside and drink it! We didn't expect this in a Muslim country!

At last it was time for the Yasmine Hamdan concert! It was held in a beautiful small sheltered area - outdoors! To our amazement when they opened the gates everyone waltzed in then politely formed rows in front of the stage and sat down, leaving space right in front of the stage for people to pass. That would never happen at home! We were near the start of the line and managed to sit right in front of her in the second row. Awesome! For most of the concert, people remained sitting until Yasmine encouraged them to get up and dance. Thank goodness - we were struggling to sit on the cold grass for that long!

 The concert was fantastic. We only really know one of her songs. It's called 'Hal' from the movie "Only Lovers Left Alive". Google it if you're interested. Yasmine is Lebanese so we didn't understand much of her Arabic singing - and neither did the Turks - but it was fabulous. The band was incredible too. We had an amazing night and it was definitely worth changing our plans for!

The next day we climbed up the castle that perches on top of the town. The castle was built in and around a couple of huge fairy chimneys.

Everywhere we go we see selfie sticks. I feel somewhat behind the times without one!

The views from the top were superb!

We had one clear day and suddenly the mountain appeared. Wow!

Another day we walked down Pigeon Valley, so named for all the pigeons that live there.
  

WARNING - RUDE BITS AHEAD!!! 

Next we walked down Love Valley. Why is it named Love Valley I hear you ask?

Would you like your love short and stumpy?

Or maybe long and skinny?

Perhaps a bit of both?

Multiples maybe? Ohhh, that's so naughty! Haha!

Anyway, this has been a most incredible part of the country. We have never seen anything like it. The landscapes, the fairy chimneys, the homes in caves and cliffs and the history were all incredible. We are both so glad that we came to Cappadocia. It was worth the long bus ride.

Hooroo!

Heather