Turkey – theplaceswe

May 1, 2016

G’day mate

Being in Turkey for ANZAC Day meant that we were going to the Dawn Service in Gallipoli. We had read before going to the Dawn Service that we needed to be a part of an organised tour so we booked ours with Intrepid. It was here that we met our amazing guides, an Aussie – Jen, and a Turk – Suleyman. With Mark’s birthday on the 24th April it meant he spent his 27th birthday on a 4 hour bus ride to Eceabat, Turkey. That may sound pretty bad but it wasn’t a completely terrible birthday. We made friends with the other Aussies on our bus and he was able to have a BBQ and drinks at a bar called Boomerang. We stayed there for a few hours before we were told we had to get back on the bus at about 11pm for the drive to ANZAC Cove. The drive wasn’t very long and we were at ANZAC Cove and through security before we knew it. Mark had had a bit to drink at the bar so on our walk from the carpark to our spot on the grass he kept us all entertained. But what tends to happy when you’ve had a bit to drink is that you repeat yourself. While walking Mark asked where his “Uber was at” we all laughed at this and thought he was funny. It was only funny the first time though and the other 7 times it was just repetitive. Once we reached the ceremony grounds we found a spot on the grass, set up our sleeping bags and tried to get some sleep.

A couple of hours before the sun came up everyone started to slowly pack up their things in preparation for the Dawn Service. Just before the official ceremony commenced they played a short film called The Telegram Man, which really got the waterworks going. The service itself was quite moving and it was amazing to be in Gallipoli for ANZAC Day. I know it sounds cliche but there was something really special being there with other Aussies and Kiwis remembering those who gave their lives for us 101 years ago. After the service we walked for about 4 and a half hours up to Chunuk Bair for the Kiwi memorial. We stopped along the way to look at major landmarks of the battles that happened there and spent quite a bit of time at Lone Pine which is the Australian memorial site. There was no actual memorial service this year for Aussies so we all went to the Kiwi one. At Chunuk Bair they could only allow a certain number of people up to the site for the service, the rest of us had to watch the service on a big screen. It was quite amazing though because as the site started to fill up and they began turning people away all of the Aussies remaining had the same idea – we wouldn’t go to the site just in case there were a few Kiwis that showed up at the last minute. After all it was their memorial service, not ours. After the service at Chunuk Bair finished we waited for our bus to arrive so we could head back to Istanbul. It was a very quite bus ride. The experience as a whole was quite amazing and definitely once in a lifetime type experience. What made it even more amazing was hearing the history of the ANZAC’s from a Turk. Back home we learn about the war from Australians and we learn about it from our Australian point of view and hearing about it from a Turk’s point of view seems to sum up everything we have learnt and shows us how terrible it was for everyone involved, even if, ultimately the Turks won the battles in Gallipoli.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Lest We Forget.

The next few days we spent in Istanbul and Suleyman was nice enough to meet us on his day off to show us around. Istanbul is unbelievable. We absolutely loved going to the market and buying Turkish Delight, nuts, fruits and spices. None of it is like what we get back home. There is so much to see in Istanbul and we spent hours each day walking around. Everywhere we turned there was something to look at or new food to eat. It wasn’t just the sites and food that made our time in Istanbul great but the people as well. Everywhere we went people were always more than happy to help us – a guy stopped us in the street and asked us if we needed help getting to where we were going (we must have looked super lost). Even when people stopped us in the street to try to sell us something and we said no, they always just asked to talk to us. It may have been their way of building rapport so we did eventually buy something but it never felt like that. To top it all off every time we said we were from Australia, no matter where we were they always replied “G’day mate”.

I’m glad we ended our time in Turkey in Istanbul. It is such an amazing city and I can’t wait to go back. It was also really fitting that we reached the 100 day mark in Istanbul.

I’m really sad thinking about leaving here but we are off to Jordan and I have no idea what it will be like there. Hopefully just as amazing as Turkey has been to us.

April 23, 2016April 26, 2016

Destination: Antalya

Göreme at night is just as beautiful as during the day. Lights are turned on throughout the town and hillside that it looks like fairies are covering the entire town. I simply loved it there. I was sad to leave after 2 days but was looking forward to seeing the famous thermal waters in Pamukkale which was a 7 hour drive away. On the way we stopped at Lake Beysehir which is simply breathtaking. The mountain behind it was enormous and the water was so still. The lake itself was surrounded by parkland which had public ovens that people could use to cook food for a picnic and I could just picture how busy it would be there in summer.

DSC04191_Fotor — I would picnic here constantly if I could

Up to this point I had been surprised with everything Turkey had to offer so when we got to Pamukkale I was super excited to be able to see the thermal waters there. When you go somewhere and the main feature is the water it’s hard to not be disappointed when you get there and there isn’t any water. Apparently they are working on some repairs there so have stopped the water flowing onto the terraces. It was still a pretty amazing thing to see although we didn’t hang around long and left for our drive to Bodrum.

Bodrum is a beachside town with the nicest people. Everyone there was always willing to help us and we spent our 2 days there wandering around and relaxing. It was nice to be near the beach again and I’m really looking forward to summer now and spending days by the beach. It was here in Bodrum that Mark booked in a game of golf in Antalya for his birthday so I know he was looking forward to the next couple of days going by relatively quickly.

Our next stop after Bodrum was Olympos where we stayed in a treehouse which was pretty cool. The guesthouse itself is quite big and they included breakfast and dinner in our room price. Breakfast is often included in room prices but dinner was a first for us. Eating there felt like we were on school camp, lining up to scoop food onto our plates, secretly wanting to be first so you didn’t miss out on anything. On our second night as I was making up a plate for myself and Mark another couple were in line behind me and I was wondering if they would think I was being greedy by taking so much and I wanted to turn around to ensure them that I was getting food for myself and Mark but I thought was overthinking it. I quietly laughed to myself though as I reached the rice dish and saw there wasn’t much left as they saw it as well and the girl said, much louder than she had been talking, to her partner “ohh there isn’t much rice left, I hope we get some”. This may sound bad but I did scoop an extra spoonful on my plate because of this, after all they hadn’t seen the chef in the kitchen holding a new tray of rice so I knew they would be getting more than they thought.

After a couple of days we left Olympos nice and early so we could reach Lykia Golf Course in time for Mark’s 11:10am tee off. My present to him was not the golf game itself but me walking the entire 18 holes with him. I think he played well. I’m not very good at knowing, especially considering I was often looking at the wrong flag on each hole, wondering why he was hitting it in the completely wrong direction. I always find it funny watching people take golf so seriously, especially all of the etiquette and rules. Sometimes, when it’s really quiet, I just want to say to others there, lighten up a bit, a bit of noise isn’t going to hurt. I don’t think Mark would appreciate me doing that in his presence. I don’t think I’m cut out for golf.

We are at Antalya airport as I write this with an absolutely ridiculous sunglasses tan from walking around all day. I’m so glad we drove through Turkey as we saw so much of the country that we wouldn’t have been able to if we had flown everywhere. We also were able to listen to hours of songs from our iPods – songs we hadn’t listened to in years. It was roughly about 21 hours of music, over 1700kms. I’m looking forward to what Istanbul has to offer and of course being at Gallipoli for the ANZAC Day Dawn Service. It will be a once in a lifetime-type of experience.

April 19, 2016April 23, 2016

The land of fairies, balloons and tranquility

After we first arrived in Turkey and I had a fear we were missing our bags again I was a bit apprehensive about what our experience in Turkey would be like. We got to our hotel just before 11pm, checked in, had some soup for dinner and went to bed. The next morning Mark left to go pick up our hire car while I got ready and packed up. For those back home who have been in the car with Mark know he can be a bit of a crazy driver, not bad, just crazy, so getting into our hire car I was a bit nervous at first because I saw it was a manual and I thought it would be hard enough driving on the other side of the road in an automatic let alone a manual. After a couple of repeated suggestions that he move slightly further away from the cars beside me I think he understood I was a bit nervous and our drive to Göreme quickly turned into a pretty fun experience. We stopped at the service station and picked up your typical road trip food – chips, chocolates and drinks – and before we knew it we arrived in Göreme, thanks mainly to my amazing navigations skills which only cost us 2 wrong turns. This is big for me considering I don’t actually possess any sense of direction whatsoever and I can get lost driving around my local streets back home.

Göreme was amazing. I am actually lost for words trying to describe the town in Cappadocia. It was a quiet town with the nicest people, people who loved Aussies which was a bonus for us. We were told that years ago the town was filled with Australians and a lot of the locals learnt to speak English from them which resulted in them speaking with an Aussie accent. So many people from Göreme had travelled to Australia or had family there that we were quite amazed. The locals said that these days they don’t see as many Australians as they used to, one guy said that it was because our entire population had already been so they weren’t coming back – I think he was trying to emphasise just how many Australians used to be there.

Of course you can’t visit Cappadocia without doing a hot air balloon ride and we didn’t miss the opportunity to. We got picked up at 5am the morning of our hot air balloon flight and taken to have some breakfast before hand and of course some tea, you can’t go anywhere in Turkey without having some tea. The balloon ride itself was beautiful. We watched the sun rise while just floating in the air, it’s in unusual feeling when you look around and see all of the other balloons just staying still in mid air and then realise that you are doing the same.

Besides the hot air balloon ride we went on a huge walk through the valleys there. We kept passing groups of children who we figured were on a school camp or excursion and were clearly not dressed properly for the walk. I did feel sorry for some of them as the water running through some of the paths had made them super muddy. Our legs were long enough that we could pretty much step over them or jump sightly if we needed, but for some of the kids that just wasn’t possible, with one girl actually stepping into a stream of mud and sinking down past her white shoes and up past her ankles. We probably shouldn’t have laughed because a few minutes later some other kids came running and splattered mud all over us. Karma got us.

DSC04125_Fotor — One of the many views from our walk.

The next few days for us will be spent road-tripping through Turkey checking out as much as we can. Until our next stop, B. xxx

April 16, 2016April 16, 2016

You jinxed us!

These were the words Mark spoke to me when we arrived in Rome. I knew he was going to say it. I had thought it myself, but I was secretly hoping that he wouldn’t actually say it out loud – I felt bad enough already.

I should probably go back 48 hours and explain to you what had happened. It all started when we arrived in Ho Chi Minh. Our bags were some of the last to arrive on the baggage belt and I happened to say out loud what I was thinking. “Our bags haven’t gone missing yet” Mark pretty much had a heart attack then and there. He replied very franticly “I can’t believe you just said yet, you’re going to jinx us now.” If only I knew how quickly we would be jinxed.

The next day was when it all started to go wrong. The taxi to the airport usually only takes half an hour but there was so much traffic that we were running 20 minutes late which doesn’t seem too bad but we have our routine pretty down pat and it kind of threw us off a bit. It all seemed okay though because once we walked into the airport it looked empty and we walked straight up to the check in counter to drop off our bags. We got upgraded to Premium Economy which was a nice treat. However, we normally get access to a business class lounge because of Mark’s frequent flyer points but we weren’t given an entry pass and couldn’t be bothered going back to get one. This should have been our first clue as to how bad things could go. Then, whilst waiting for our flight to Hong Kong we were told it was delayed by half an hour, then an hour and it was at this time that we started trying to work out if we would make our connecting flight to Rome. We didn’t care though, we knew if we missed it we would get another one – after all we weren’t in a huge rush.

Arriving at Hong Kong airport we had 20 minutes to get off the plane, through transit security and onto another plane. The line for transit security was huge but there was a group of us who were rushing to get connecting flights so people let us through. Once through we had staff members telling us to run, so we walked really fast and got onto the plane in time. We were pretty happy with ourselves as we were seated 15 minutes before take off. I already had planned what movies I was going to watch during the flight and worked out I could sleep for maybe 5 out of the 12 hours. Neither of us said it but we were both hoping they would get our bags onto our new flight. And then, another delay. This time we were to sit on the plane, on the tarmac for at least 2 hours. I was so annoyed at this stage and starting thinking we should have just missed the flight, after all I could have at least slept in a hotel bed. It did occur to me though that they would have plenty of time to get our bags onto the plane so I watched the first movie on my list.

14 hours later when we arrived in Rome I was pretty stoked I would be able to use my Italian passport for the first time and I would get through security before Mark. My line took longer than his line and he ended up waiting for me. Not to worry though because we were in Italy and I was super excited. Once we got to Belt 9 to wait for our bags we jumped onto the free wifi to quickly tell our parents we had arrived safely. After a while of waiting our bags just weren’t there so we checked to make sure we had the correct belt and sure enough we did and this is where I started to realise that I had jinxed us. I didn’t tell Mark what I was thinking though because I was hoping I was wrong. After accepting the fact that our bags weren’t going around on Belt 9 we walked over to the help desk where we were told by a lovely lady that our bags “are not in Rome.” “Where are they?” I asked. “It doesn’t say that they are in Hong Kong but they aren’t here in Rome and there is no message to say they missed the flight so I do not know where your bags are.” We were then told that they would contact the airline for us but they only fly every second day to Rome so we worked out we would have to get back to the airport in 2 days time to make sure our bags arrived before we got on a flight to Turkey that day.

So our 2 days in Rome started with missing bags, us getting lost trying to find our AirBnb accommodation, having to go and buy some clean clothes and some toothbrushes, and then getting to the Police station to register Mark’s visa only to be told that they didn’t do that there. In normal circumstances I know that all of those things would have bothered me but they just didn’t. After a lot of help from our AirBnb host we worked out where we needed to go to get Mark’s visa registered, travelled an hour there, ran around the streets near the Immigration office looking for the post office so we could pay the registration fee, ran back to the Immigration office and sorted everything out all with an hour to spare before closing. I took this as a good sign and Mark told me that he kept thinking that the whole process was like a huge puzzle that had to fit together properly for our path to be cleared in time and that’s exactly what happened. Everything fell into place at the right time and worked out. We were only praying it would do the same for our missing bags.

And what do you know, the jinx was lifted. When we arrived at the airport super early – Mark said he wanted extra time to sort out what to do if our bags weren’t there – we were taken through a staff security entrance where the same lady that had helped us days earlier was there with a smile on her face. I had the biggest smile on my face when I saw her and she told us that our bags had just arrived. We were so happy to have our bags back and know that we wouldn’t have to worry about trying to get them while we were travelling around Turkey.

I couldn’t contain my excitement when we got our bags! Also, check out my bargain buy pants from H&M

Our flight to Turkey was delayed but we were too happy we didn’t care and once we arrived in Istanbul we went to our connecting gate to wait for our flight to Kayseri which was delayed as well. All up we were delayed by over 2 hours and when we were waiting for our bags in Kayseri they weren’t there. We had been told twice that our bags were going from Rome to Kayseri and we didn’t need to get them in Istanbul and re-check them but I started worrying. I didn’t want to have to go through this all again, so before we freaked out we showed the airport staff our baggage tickets and tried to explain that they weren’t on the baggage belt. They checked the tickets, looked at us as if we were simply tiring them out and told us that our bags were in the next building at the International arrivals. I’m not going to say I ran there, but I think I could have power walked for Australia. And what do you know – there they were, our bags, with 80% of our belongings for the next 12 months just circling around the baggage belt as if they were a glorious prize.

It’s been a hectic couple of days but here’s to our road trip through Turkey!