Epic Post: Finished putting up the photos finally!!

Right. I hope you will appreciate this post as I am taking great pains to write this crammed on a mini bus going from Bergama to Izmir. Listening to evanesence through my headphones and enjoying hearing something something solidly in english for a little while (and also, I make no excuses for my music taste. It is what it is.)

I believe I left off.. crap where did I leave off? I'll start with the Troy and Gallipoli and fill in the gaps later (no internet at the moment so can't check).

SO our first morning in Cannakale we had a pretty sweet buffet breakfast which consisted of what we are coming to learn is typical Turkish (hotel) breakfast fare. Sliced: cheese, meat, tomatoes, cucumber; fresh turkish bread, some scrambled eggs, cereal, yoghurt, and even some mini cheese on toasts with tomato. Interesting fact: Our word for yoghurt was originally coined by the Turks (Yogurt or something).

(Greg finds Interesting Facts Interesting!)

That done, we headed round the corner to the “Hassle Free Travel Agency” who I have to conclude lived up to their name and the online reviews I had read about them. A friendly man with pretty good english welcomed us and told us we weren't going for another half an hour so we wandered along the waterfront – it was nice to see it during the day. It was a pleasant morning, a little cloudy. We knew however that the forecast was for rain, and after what happened in Istanbul we were ready for anythng!

(me and a horse's butt)

The morning part of the day trip was out to see the ruins of Troy of Trojan Horse and Brad Pitt Movie fame. The tour company had their own minibus and we joined with a bunch of people who were on the over night tour from Istanbul (Bus out from Istanbul in the morning see Gallipoli in the afternoon, stay overnight, see Troy in the morning, bus back to Istanbul that eveing. Sounds hideous).

Troy took maybe 20 minutes to get to from Cannakale and our guide was a fanastic Turkish man with an english accent to his english.

The first thing you see when you come in is a big fake trojan horse that you can climb up and poke your head out of the window and get your photo taken. Our guide's disdain for this particular fixture was clear but he let us all have ten minutes of touristy fun.

While I was clambering inside the horse I heard some Japanese people talking and I felt so desparate in that moment to go to Japan – it has been so frustrating coming here knowing no Turkish and bumbling by – I love languages and learning languages and so so want to go to a country where they don't speak english but I have a snowball's chance in hell of somewhat competently speaking the language... Japan is my best shot for this! ANYWAY back to Turkey

Greg instantly felt brothership with our Troy guide because he spoke like and academic. Mustafa had excellent knowledge about the archeology of the area – which is fascinating. Troy as a settlement it seems has been around for rather a long time and everytime it got abandoned or forgotten about eventually someone else would turn up and build right on top of the old one (apparently the use of mud bricks meant that the old settlements kind of self-buried over time, if I heard that right). The result: when they started digging they found many layers of Troy, getting older and older the deeper they dug. Troy from Helen of Troy and Trojan horse-ness was either Troy VI or VII (the archeologists are still arguing about it. Our guide was sure it was VI). As we wandered around the ruin it was possible to see ruins of the different 'Troy's.

If you can see them, the roman numerals stuck in the ground show where you can see the various layers of the Troys.

Also there were kitties.

The site as a place to settle was a popular one as before they knew about tacking in sailing, ships would have to stop there to wait for a favourable wind..After tacking was discovered (invented?) it was preserved by the Roman empire due to it's ties to the origin of Rome itself (I forget the story of why). Until a big earthquake destroyed the whole thing and it was finally abandoned for good.

Greg was pretty impressed by the history and the guide, so he bought the book that the guide had written.

After Troy we were taken back to the agency in Cannakale to drop off the overnighters. There we had another 20 minutes to kill so we wandered over and bought our bus ticket to Bergama for the next morning, which was a huge weight off knowing that that was done. When we got back we met our guide whose first language was Turkish, second language was French, and third language was self-taught English. He had excellent english and excellent knowledge but a very thick French/Turkish accent which made following what he was saying hard work!

We walked over to ferry terminal (one block away) and caught the ferry across the channel. It was just Greg and I now and we were to meet up with two more new overnighters from Istanbul on the other side. We were taken by bus from the ferry to our lunch restaurant which was included. It was a great lunch, three courses (set menu) all delicious. Dessert was Peynir Helvani (peynir means cheese) which is apparently a Cannakale/region specialty. From the taste of it, it was cream cheese, sugar and butter, and lots of it. It was delicious but I could feel my arteries hardening as I ate it!

Over lunch we met the two people to be our companions for the afternoon. Maddy, a bubbly girl from Syndey (living in London for the past year) and Kirk, a Texan completing his phD in computer science, over in Istanbul for a conference. So pretty good companions for the two of us! Although poor Kirk had only flown out the day before and had taken the bus out that morning from Istanbul and looked totally wiped.

Oh yeah, and the 'rain' that was supposed to happen? Not a cloud in the sky! And getting hotter by the minute. Was absolutely lovely, but if you've seen my facebook photo my unpreparedness for so much sun came to punish me later. I didn't have a hat either, and my hair, carefully dyed dark brown how I like it, is now rather bleached to my shock (but only the top half, the bottom half was pinned up!). I AM NOT COMPLAINING. Lovely weather is lovely and why I'm here and my skin and hair can turn whatever it likes I'm still happy. It was just a shock, is all.

SO after lunch we jumped on the minibus and started our four hour tour of Gallipoli. Not being terribly interested in war history I had the most barebones understanding of what had gone on there and why it was significant, so it was a very educational afternoon for me and my kiwiness! There are a crazy amount of sights to visit. Many cemetaries and memorials – at every one kiwi names engraved – and the ages listed just break your heart, mostly guys in their twenties, some older, and some younger – even a 16 year old... The cemeteries themselves are beautiful, some right on stunning sheltered beaches and some up on the ridges overlooking the most spectacular views. There are also remains of Australia and New Zealand trenches which blew my mind a little bit to see. Seeing the beach they landed on (now called Anzac Cove) and the hill they had to scale to take it from the Turks was incredible as well.

Australian trenches.

(NZ trenches (present-day reinforcing timber) )

Our guide was a wealth of information about the specifics of the battles and the names of generals etc. (his thing was war history) and I suspect could talk non stop for several days about Gallipoli alone. Overall I was quite moved by the experience, both in the great sadness at the needless loss of young men's lives (on both sides!) and also by the stunning beauty of the scenary – hard to imagine this place barren and trench ridden, covered in barbed wire etc. It was very easy to feel sad just putting myself in the shoes of all those women a hundred years ago whose sons/husbands/brothers/friends went off in a boat half way round the world to fight in a foreign war and simpy never came home. But for the grace of God...

By the time the tour was over we were all totally beat from a long afternoon in the hot sun. We said goodbye to Maddy who was heading back to Istanbul that night. We caught the ferry back across in the cooling dusk with Kirk and the guide. We asked the guide who's hometown is Cannakale to recommend us a few places so he showed us a more expensive option on the waterfont (Balik restaurant) and a cheap as chips option near the clock tower. We thanked him and headed back to the hotel for a pit stop. Recharged we decided to try the 'expensive' option as the restaurant was also recommended by the LP and 'expensive' in Turkey is still pretty cheap by NZ standards considering what you get and the service. We had a lovely dinner of fresh Balik (fish) that came out still 100% in fish form which was a first for me – and a delicious first! We also ordered starters – Greg got some garlic yoghurt and I got an aubergine thingy. OH my gosh I am really coming to ove Turkish food so much...

We waddled down the waterfront again after dinner for a bit and then decided to try and get an early night for our bus trip to Bergama the next morning.

The next day

Alarm woke us up at 6am and my first thought was 'It's ok, I'll sleep on the bus.' Unfortunately this option isn't available to Greg as he gets motion sick if he closes his eyes so his first thought was “Aw, crap”

We packed up, had breakfast and got to the bus station by 8.20am for our 9am bus. This was to allow time for the dolmus to take us out to the main Otogar (there is an annoying habit of placing their Ototgars miles out of town in Turkey).

At the Otogar we boarded another lovely bus (this time we were with the Truva bus company) for the supposedly four hour (but actually closer to five) trip to Bergama. It waqs a beautiful trip – everewhere we go the scenary is lovely to watch, rolling hills, coastline etc. etc. Except I couldn't promise it was beautiful for about one and a half hours of the trip as I was sound asleep. Apparently I even missed the first coffee service. Luckily they did another one later because I had read that they served coffee on the bus and I was fascinated as to how they achieved that! With some awkwardness overall, I discovered, but general competence.The trick was that they don't fill the cups too high! We also got a free cookie which was yummy (and we later found more of them in a supermarket!).

Annoyingly when we were half an hour out of Bergama we stopped for a 30minute comfort stop. Of course when the bus stopped and everyone got off we had no idea long we were going to stop for so we were too scared to do too much (like, if I buy an ice cream will I have time to eat it?). The souvenirs as the stall were all pretty average also.

The bus dropped us off literally on the side of the motorway, across and down a bit from the Otogar. Luckily, the internet and LP had prepared us for this eventuality. We knew we could have struggled across the road and over to the Otogar with our bags and then waiting up to 40minutes for the free servis into Bergama town, but given that we hadn't actually spent any money yet that day we had previously decided we would just take a taxi straight from there to the hotel.

(Where the bus dropped us off.)

Like magic, as soon as the bus pulled away there was a taxi, pulled over, driver approaching us. These Turks, they know exactly what the tourists want and how to time things perfectly. It's actually kind of nice, especially when the fare only came to 24 TL, which is about 16 NZD, and only 8 each. I'll make a comment here that in Turkey I don't really feel like people are out to scam me like I did in Greece and Italy – I'm fully aware that in general everything is costing more than for a local because of the mark ups in the tourist locations and my inability to be bothered bargaining. But overall I find that when the Turkish approach you to offer their services it's usually something that you want or need, and if you don't want what they're offering they pretty quickly back off. On the buses there has always been an official making sure we get on the right bus and off at the right stop and ready to help with bags etc. - and not expecting more money for it. In the restaurants they are friendly and helpful even though you can only point at what you want. And the ones that speak english are always polite and full of jokes and smiles. They just nicer. Maybe I'm being naïve, but thats my impression and I came here expecting to be generally despised as a foreigner and cheated whereever possible – not because I thought they were bad people, but just because that's often what people have to do to make a living and tourists as a whole do have a lot of money to spend if pushed. So there's yet another rant about stuff.

Where was I? Ah yes we got the taxi to our hotel. At the hotel, the young lady behind the desk spole fluent english with an American accent and I never asked her but I suspect she married a Turk and moved here rather than being Turkish originally. Either that or she must have lived in the states for a good while because her English was the best we'd encountered since we landed in Turkey and her perspective on things was very Western. She gave us the usual, map, how to get to the sights and good restaurants etc. and we were shown to our room. Our room was fantastic – newly renovated, spacious, beautiful view and a crazy assed bathroom with disco lighting and a massage shower!

We sat down and collected ourselves. I took some time working out what we should see that, afternoon and what to leave until the next morning – with only one night Bergama we had to be organised! Luckily the sights were already on their summer timetable so they didn't close til 7pm as it was already 3pm. We decided on the Asklepion that afternoon and then the Red Basilica if there was time, and the Acropolis the next day.

Well, I'm on a new bus now, we just changed at Izmir Otogar and now we are off to Selcuk. However long this post has taken you to read, I bet it didn't take the two hours it just took me to write... and it's still going! Incidentally, while it's in my thoughts and just on the subject of 'the turkish are nice and helpful', the bus attendant on the last bus asked us as we got to the station “Selcuk?” He must have heard us talking about it, and then the bus driver and him both took great pains to point out the right platform (peron) to get the bus to Selcuk and dropped us off right by it. Everything this whole trip has been like this – we are basically passed from the care of one Turkish person til another and anytime we look lost or confused someone wants to help us. It's baffling but fantastic – it's like there is a big conspiracy going on to make sure we have a nice holiday. Ok you get the point... moving on!

Once we had decided what sights we would see in Bergama we headed out. We had in mind a little family-run place for lunch recommended in the LP. As it happened, it was on the way to the Asklepion but we didn't realise that until we got there. The little restaurant had a small glass counter with a multitude of yummy Turkish dishes underneath it. We were momentarily stumped – this was clearly not a menu based place and without Turkish how could we tell them what we wanted or find out the price? (Incidentally by this point I had learned how to say 'How much is it?” but was well aware that my grasp of Turkish numbers was not enough to deal with the inevitably Turkish response). A nice young girl came out and we said hello (in turkish, we are both now very competent with “Merhaba”). I asked “Ingilizu?” she shook her head but smiled and but beckoned us in.

A kind looking old lady was behind the counter and she smiled at us. We mimed a menu and shrugged our shoulders then pointed at the food. She said probably the only english word she knew “Mix?” Yes! We cried, (“Evet!”) a mix would be perfect. Looking at the place, we knew could probably afford whatever it came to. So we were given a little bit of everything which was a huge plateful of many Turkish yummies. As it was 3pm by this stage we hoovered it pretty quick. So much goodness, including another thing that I thought couldn't possibly be a pepper because it was so large and it was stuffed with rice + meat... but yep, it was another pepper. Luckily, the meal was served with a plate of garlic yoghurt to share! And of course, a bin of turkish bread was at hand in case the mound of food hadn't filled you up. It astounds me that there are any skinny Turks...

(This is a dodgy photo as I was trying to take it without being noticed on my camera phone - this was a very small local restaurant full of locals and I felt quite self conscious. Of course, I'd left the flash on so when I took the photo, right as the waitress appeared with our cutlery, the flash lit up the entire room...)

As we left the lovely lady wrote down the price. 15TL total. Absolutely ridiculous – just over 5NZD each. I'm beginning to think I'm going to miss Turkey rather a lot (especially when we get to Europe and everything is in euros!).

Suitably stuffed we waddled up the hill in the rather hot sun to the Asklepion. Built as a medical centre in Greek times but had it's heyday in Roman times it was a collection of reasonably impressive ruins including a fairly intact theatre, some cool underground tunnels, and part of the surrounding Stoa had been reconstructed which was quite impressive. The base of a column survived with the two snakes drinking milk from a bowl. I'm sure wikipedia could give some more insight to this but the snake is related to one of the God's of medicine and I wonder if it has any links to the modern icon for medicine that involves a snake... So much of what we see leaves us going 'we should go look this up'. Hence the blog (partially) – so later we can remember what we should be checking out!

The snakes drinking milk from the same bowl.

Greg loves seeing the ancient structural elements but the dodgy keystone in this archway (and general scary cracks) meant he was only happy to stand behind, not directly underneath it!

They had this whole tunnel system thing going on! Was fun to explore.

Greg being a 'serious listener' at the theatre.

Greg told me to go on the stage and 'be an actor'.

The 'sacred well' complete with dodgy pipe you could grab a drink out of it you wanted. I suspect these days this water is more likely to make you sick than make you well...

The Asklepion didn't take too long so we decided to try get to the red basilica as well. We found it without too much difficulty (once you get close enough to it it's rather hard to miss). It was pretty empty so we worried it was shut for the night – it was after 5.00pm by this time – but we got there and they were definitely on their summer timetable, open til 7pm! Asked for a ticked in turkish to the laxed out ticket operators and went on in. Felt pretty proud “Hello. Two please. Thank you” (Merhaba. Iki lutfen. Teshekkuhr ederim) longest 'conversation' in turkish yet!

The Red basilica was originally a temple built to honour I think zeus and it is stupidly massive. The facades of what is left of the walls have long since fallen off revealing the red brick underneath. When we first saw it Greg sarcastically said “I wonder why they call it the red basilica?”. Apparently St. John the divine singled it out (in it's pagan state) as one of the seven temples of the devil and said it would be the Devil's main hang out place during the end of the world. I guess to counter this, the early Christians built a basilica inside it (it was too darn big for them to build around it). Was kind of difficult to figure out which bits were basilica and which bits original roman (except for the brick walls), we possibly should have bought a guide book off of the cheerful Turkish man at the entrance.

Can't figure out how to rotate these in the blogger program..

Whatever what was what, as far as ruins go, it's blimmin impressive due the sheer scale of it. Although standing right under those walls in what we know is a seismically active town was more than a little unnerving. It was like, if you hear a rumble, run for it! Especially after what happened in Italy a few days ago! Can't help but feel deeply for them, don't we ChChers know well what it's like...

For all it's vertical size it's not a big site to explore so we were soon finished. We wandered back to the hotel and recouped (by the way, the hotel was right in the middle of town, as they all have been so far, which is fantastic. Location location location!).

It took us ages to be hungry after the impressively late lunch that we had but eventually we surprised ourselves and went hunting for food. There was a restaurant that was LP's top choice and also recommended by the hotel lady, two blocks form the hotel, so we struck out for that. I also had my heart set on some dessert from a patisserie on the corner near the hotel.

The restaurant was great and reasonably priced. Greg ordered the most expensive thing on the menu – the Ozel kebap (Special Kepap) and I got a meat and cheese pide (turkish pizza). Greg's meal turned out to be a bit of everything on the menu with kebap underneath! You should have seen his smile when it came out. Actually, you can, I took a photo:

Above: Random free salad. Below: My more moderate Meat and Cheese Pide.

 .

Greg feeling pretty happy with himself or just pretty stuffed I don't know.

The food was everything promised and we had another kitty friend the whole time. Well, it seemed to like me the most. How do they know I'm a sucker for cats? The Turkish for cat is Kedi or Pisi. And meow is Miyat I think.

On the way back we poked our nose in the patisserie and I grabbed a chocolate pudding which was amazingly decadant. I think we annoyed the owner by sitting down to eat it because he wanted to shut up shop (it was 9pm) but we only there for ten mins max! Never mind pudding was good.

I don't believe it I am at last up to this morning! Today we got a sleep in! We had booked the bus to Izmir for 1445 and we only had the Akropolis to see that morning and maybe the museum if we had time and felt like it. We knew our options were to take a taxi to the top of the hill, walked up it 5kms in the baking sun, walk up it taking a dodgy shortcut through a hole in a fence, or take the cable car. In the end we went with the cable car option.

And now we are almost in Selcuk so I am going to have to stop writing!

...

It's now some hours later and I'm going to flick this up onto the blog just to get it out there. I am now of course aware that I still need to write about our first evening in Cannakale which is worth mentioning as it was fairly cool. In short, firstly we got dropped at the Otogar outside of Cannakale to our shock but then it turned out there was a free 'servis' minibus into town. Unfortunately we didn't really know where exactly in town it was going to take us and it seemed to be dropping people off outside their hotels. Greg had his GPS on and eventually we just jumped off when someone else did on a street near our hotel (although someone on the bus helpfully tried to tell us 'iskelese, iskelese' which we later found out means the ferry terminal, which was the final destination of the minibus - and two minutes from our hotel). But anyway we weren't far off, so we soon found it and found that our hotel had been upgraded (the whole hotel, not just the room, the hotels are a chain that are all on the same block basically), so that was cool.

Then we had dinner on the waterfront and I got the 'special' which was amazing and a ridiculous amount of food!

(The two plates in the foreground were for me)

During dinner there was a full on proper fireworks show too for the public holiday! There was also a live open air pop concert going on around the corner, which seemed to please the crowd of Turkish Teeny Boppers in attendance. Because it was the day celebrating the youth, even though it was late there were lots of families with young children out and about the kids were all getting icecreams and balloons and candy floss from the street vendors.

We walked down to see the fake trojan horse from the set of the movie Troy, and meandered until we were tired enough to head back to the hotel and sleep.

Ok so also note I added some more pictures to the last post  and will add photos to this when I get a bit more time. Internet connection here is a bit poos so it's a painful process. And I will post with the rest of today's antics at some point also.

Time for some dinner - it's 8.30pm!