Turkish travels continued.

After arriving in Dalyan, I was able to kill two birds with one stone by searching for Chloe and her group while also exploring the town. The town is mostly hotels, restaurants and cafes; clearly aimed at the tourist population. Dalyan is set peacefully alongside a small river, looking onto ancient ruins that are carved high into the opposing cliff face. Moored on the river's edge are many small boats offering various day trips to the beaches nearby. Although very touristy, the town itself had a relaxed feel, and it was easy to wander the streets without being harassed by rug salesmen.

Within about half an hour, I ran into Chloe and her small group; Hayley, Brett and Kylie. We all headed back to the upstairs terrace level of our small hotel and chatted while enjoying the view overlooking the river. It was nearly dinner time, and I was starving. With all the bus travel, I had completely lost track of what meals I had had. In search of a Turkish mixed-grill, Chloe and I headed down to one of the riverside restaurants for a meal. Once again, I was not disappointed. After dinner, I decided on an early night to catch up on missed sleep and get ready for the bus ride to Olympos the next day.

The bus ride was uneventful. I was now getting used to the Turkish custom of seating (unmarried) men and women separately on the buses. Every time a new passenger boarded, ticket inspector would quickly reshuffle everyone's seating in order to minimise the unplanned pregnancies that might result from men and women sitting together. Although comical at first, this quickly became tedious and soon quite annoying when a large, bad-smelling man was moved into the seat next to me.

Olympos is basically just a scattering of hostel-type accommodation alongside a beach and has a reputation of being a party-town. I checked in and was told that my room wasn't quite ready. I left my bags in Chloe and Hayley's room, and we all headed down to the bar for a beer. The national beer of Turkey is Efes; it tastes quite good, but its' most redeeming quality is the fact it usually comes in a 500ml bottle. After a few of these and a buffet style dinner, served outside by the hotel, I was really settling into the Olympos way of life. As night set in, the western music (classics such as "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It") playing through the stereo was replaced by a Turkish band. The band was obviously playing covers, as the now sizeable crowd of young Turkish people (with men and women still separated for the most part) was enthusiastically singing along with most songs. Most of the crowd was drinking tea, although a couple of the tables seemed to be sharing around a bottle of vodka or scotch.

As the night progressed, the crowd really got in to the spirit of things; dancing and singing loudly. I had been in Turkey for a few days by this point, and found that I could translate the lyrics quite accurately:

"Smack dat, get on the floor, smack dat, give me some more..."

The excessive tea consumption had really started to have an effect by this point, and some of the men stopped dancing with each other for a song or two in order to mingle with the women.

I decided to go and get the key to my room, which was described earlier as a tree house room. The room was indeed a treehouse and was located directly above the outdoor bar/club below. The idea of sleep was clearly ridiculous, so I climbed down for some more Efes.

After heading up to bed at about 2am when the bar had started to clear out, I finally managed to fall asleep by about 3am, despite the noise of two old men playing a vigorous game of backgammon directly below me.

The next day, we had until about 4pm in Olympos, and with beautiful weather, everyone decided a day at the beach was in order. The beach was about a 500m walk through some very uninteresting ruins. The beach itself was made up of a very course sand comprised of large stones and cigarette butts. It was also very busy. Most of the people were Turkish, but the odd American accent could also be heard. The water was beautiful and clear, so I spent most of the "beach" time in the water; a wise choice. Being at the beach is better than not being at the beach, but I am sure there are better beaches in Turkey than Olympos. It was time for my overnight bus ride to Goreme.

At the bus station, we all stood bemused as about three guys tried to fit our 5 bags in the luggage compartment. Admittedly, the space they were trying to fit the bags in could probably only hold about 20 bags; these guys were never going to set a high score in Tetris. Eventually, we set off.

When on the bus, our group was repeatedly scolded for being too loud, all the while the Turkish Eurovision qualifiers were being blasted through the bus speakers at about 400 decibels. Despite numerous long stops, our "overnight" bus ride ended at about 2:30am, when we were left at the Nevsehir bus station, which was actually about 10km from our real destination. Chloe managed to find us a sleeping cab driver who woke up just enough to drive us to Goreme. He did not wake up enough to close the luggage door of the taxi properly, and we stopped twice so he could close it after it flew open mid-journey.

When we got to Goreme, we were told that for that night, instead of three rooms for 5 people, we could have one room and two sofas in the lobby instead. With some creative rearranging of bedding, we made do.

The next morning we were able to see what Goreme looked like in the day time, and it was spectacular. The town is made up of numerous houses and hotels,ech carved into the side of conical geological structures that were deposited by volcanoes and had eroded into their unique shape over the past few million years. We spent the day exploring, eating kebabs and pide, and then headed to the 'Flintstones Cave Bar' for a couple of beers.

Goreme is in a region in Central Turkey called Cappadocia, and the area is home to many large and intricate underground cities, constructed and inhabited by various groups over time and used to seek refuge from any attackers. We visited one such city, and were quite amazed by the size and visual spectical of this engineering feat. The city was constructed around a central 'trunk' with level upon level of 'branches' extending outwards underground, housing stables for animals as well as family living quarters. Cappadocia was definitely proving to be a highlight of my Turkish adventure.

On the way from the underground city back to Goreme, the bus stopped at Nevsehir. We spent some time exploring the town and the market. Soon enough, a colourful local by the name of Mustafa began talking to us. He heard we were Australian, and he told us about his friend Steve. Every summer, Steve would come to Turkey, drink too much beer, and return to Australia much larger than when he had left. Mustafa told the story more than once, all the while glancing suspiciously at my waistline. All that talk of beer was making me thirsty.

Goreme pretty much marked the end of my trip to Turkey. I caught a flight from nearby Kayseri to Istanbul, stayed overnight and then flew through to Paris.

The wheels on the bus...

Following my three day stay in Istanbul, my plan was to meet up with Chloe and her tour group in Pamukkale. However, I probably hadn't planned this leg of the trip as well as I should have. As it turned out, I would arrive in a city called Denizli just as Chloe was leaving Pamukkale and heading onto the riverside town of Dalyan. Her group was changing buses at Denizli, so we arranged it so that I could just meet up with them there and travel straight through to Dalyan; I would have to skip Pamukkale.

With this plan in mind, I caught a shuttle bus to the main bus station at Istanbul, all the while mentally preparing myself for the 12 hour overnight bus ride ahead. I had about an hour to spare before my bus was leaving the station, so I decided to take a wander through the shops at the station. The first shop I passed had a huge glass counter with an impressive range of handguns and automatic weapons for sale. This in itself was disconcerting, but when I actually saw a fellow bus traveller stroll up to the counter and make a purchase, I quietly hoped that he wasn't on my bus.

The bus left right on schedule at 10pm, which I thought was a good sign. The seats were small but not uncomfortable. However, they barely reclined, so I figured I wouldn't be doing a lot of sleeping throughout the journey. I sat back and reclined my seat back the full 3 degrees and settled in to some music.

In what had seemed like no time at all, a couple of hours had passed, and we reached our first stop at about midnight. The bus had no bathroom, so I was expecting fairly frequent stops throughout the night. I was surprised though that the stop was for more than half an hour. When everyone re-boarded, I now had a young Turkish man sitting next to me. Obviously, I expected that he'd attempt to rob me fairly shortly, with or without the added bonus of a drink-spiking.

He introduced himself in broken English. His name was Ibrahim and he was going to visit his very beautiful girlfriend in Denizli. In case I didn't believe his claims, he had showed me about 4 photos of his girlfriend within about 30 seconds of sitting down. All of the photos were taken from a distance and out of focus, so I sat back and reserved judgement. Actually, that is a lie. I judged almost instantly.

We got chatting and I learned a thing or two about him:

"I study English at university. My English good for writing bad for speaking. I am very happy you speak English. Very happy. We will speak together all night and my English will be better.

I couldn't have been more excited at the prospect.

After we had spoken for quite a while, at least a minute or two, Ibrahim remarked 5 or 6 times about how handsome he thought I was. I smiled as I imagined how well that would go down on an Australian bus ride, noted the cultural difference and moved on. Or at least I tried to move on; he was very passionate about the subject.

In the two hours that followed, I discovered that Ibrahim was actually a genuinely nice guy, and also very interesting. I learned quite a bit about Turkish culture as well as getting some insight into his practice of Islam. He also suggested that I try a 'hamam' or Turkish bath:

"It is very good. Very relaxing. No clothes and man wash you with hot water."

I figured that something must have been lost in translation, because he wasn't really selling it.

On our next half hour stop, as we waited while the bus was washed, a couple of young women walked past us. Ibrahim instantly commented to me:

"These girls are very beautiful, yes?"

We shared a few minutes of awkward silence.

Despite the frequent 30 minute stops, the rest of the bus ride passed uneventfully. I managed a few hours of broken sleep and listened to some music.

The bus was supposed to arrive in Denizli at 9am. Apparently, bad weather and roadworks throughout the trip had caused the bus to be delayed. I think about 3 hours worth of stops at Turkish roadhouses had also played a significant part.

The 45 minute delay meant that Chloe and her group had already left Denizli for Dalyan and I would have to find my own way. Ibrahim had kindly offered to help, but I figured that I would be able to get a ticket easily enough.

I entered the bus station with my backpack on my shoulder and looking especially tourist-like. I was instantly mobbed by men selling tickets. It turned out that I had the choice of a few different bus companies for my onwards journey. In making my decision, I had nothing to go by but name; this was probably enough, as some of the options sounded decidedly uncomfortable:

I ended up finding a bus that left in 20 minutes time and enjoyed a morning breakfast of lamb kebab while I waited.

The bus to Dalyan was another 4.5 hours, and not particularly enjoyable, given that I was backing up a 12 hour ride on the previous bus. I was a bit worried that my ticket listed Dalaman as the destination rather than Dalyan. I checked with my driver and he assured me that the bus would stop at Dalyan.

Nearly 5 hours later, the bus arrived in a town called Orteca and the driver told me that it was my stop. I explained that I was going to Dalyan and he simply pointed at another bus. After about 20 hours and three buses, I was a broken man. The driver had lied to me. I was annoyed, but smug in the knowledge that undercover Turkish police would probably beat him shortly.

An hour or so later, I made it to Dalyan on a very crowded minibus. Everyone was very friendly, and I was given clear directions to the hotel. Actually, a boy came riding past on a bike and said he could lead me there. I paid him $2 and we set off. The hotel was only a few minutes walk away. I checked in, dropped my bags off, and the very friendly owners suggested a few places that I might find Chloe and her tour group. I set off looking for them, and thoroughly enjoyed being on my feet again.

Istanbul (not Constantinople)

“It’s always better on holiday, so much better on holiday, that’s why we only work when we need the money.” – Franz Ferdinand.

I’ve been in Istanbul for the past two days and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. The time has been filled with interesting people, amazing sights, excitement and adventure. I arrived shortly after midday on Monday after an easy 3 hr flight from Paris via Amsterdam. I arrived at my hotel and was pleasantly surprised. It was more like a guest house than a hotel; it couldn’t have had more than about 10 or 12 rooms. My room was on the ground floor and was small but very clean and decorated nicely with Turkish rugs and furniture. The room also had a nice little balcony looking out over the water. I dropped my bags in my room and left to explore some of Istanbul.
My hotel was in a good location. While scouring the streets for the nearest Turkish Pide House, I stumbled into the Arasta Bazaar, a fairly touristy shopping strip selling mostly Turkish rugs. I quickly dismissed the rug salesmen by telling them that I didn’t have a house, and thus had no need for rugs, cushions or any other finely-crafted Turkish furnishings. Walking through the Bazaar led me to Ayasofya and the “Blue Mosque.” Both are quite amazing buildings and I spent quite some time walking around the buildings and adjoining gardens. The view of Ayasofya across the fountains and gardens was quite spectacular, so I drew a picture.

As dinner time approached, I realised that the Twix bar supplied on the flight by KLM really wasn’t actually a meal, and I was starving. Nearby, I recognised the name of a restaurant from my 5 minutes of pre-Turkey travel research, so I figured it was worth a try. The food was quite delicious and everything I hoped for. Although quite tired from the travel of recent days, I decided to explore the Turkish nightlife and find myself a beer or two before bed.

As I strolled down the street, a young Turkish chap began walking alongside me and asked if I had a lighter. I told him I didn’t and he began making some small talk; he asked me where I was from, how long I was in Turkey, and commented on the lovely weather. A minute or two later, some grabbed my shoulder and the back of my neck quite firmly from behind. I turned around, and saw that the guy (we’ll call him John) who was walking alongside me had also been grabbed. I thought it quite odd that we were being mugged in a well lit street that was filled with people. The man spoke to me in Turkish, and then flashed a police badge. I told him I didn’t understand, and he asked where I was from. I said Australia, and he immediately smiled and shouted “Aussie” to his colleague and shook my hand. His colleague, a short, balding man smiled and waved to me, and then turned back to John and punched him in the side of the head.

I said that I just wanted to go and get my beer, but the guy who had grabbed me said that I would have to come with them. I was a little uneasy about this, because although they claimed to be police, they were undercover, and I really don’t know what a Turkish police badge should look like. They were armed though, and though much smaller than me, I still felt I had little choice but to go along. So they marched John back up the street, and told me to follow.

At the top of the street, near the police station, a man in a suit came over to talk to me:

“I am a businessman, and these men are police. They want to know if you would like to make a complaint.”

“Well I don’t think I have anything to complain about. All he did was talk to me...like the rug salesmen.”

“He is a very bad man. He would try to put special medicine in your drink to make you sleepy. And then rob you. Why do you go out alone? All your money will be gone and then you will complain to the police. The Turkish Government is trying to help you. You should make a complaint.”

“But he only talked to me for a minute.”

“Where are you from?”

“Australia.”

“Ah, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi!”

I turn around to see the short, balding cop slap John across the face 2 or 3 times. John says something in Turkish, and the cop yells at him, punches him and takes out some handcuffs. Some bewildered onlookers walk by.

John is handcuffed, and seems to have learned his lesson about speaking. He stays quiet, and looks quite sad. Obviously he is now being too quiet; the police officer grabs him and knees him in the ribs.

The ‘businessman’ tells me that I can go now. The police officers shake my hand, welcome me to Turkey and tell me to have a good night.

Let this be a lesson to all Turkish thieves; don’t even think about robbing Michael; there will be repercussions.

I make my way back to the hotel and stop at a small but busy pub for a couple of expensive but soothing pints of Efes; welcome to Istanbul!

The next day I make my way to the travel agent to book my train ticket to Pamukkale, where I will be meeting up with Chloe and her tour group. While I’m there, I find out that a boat tour of the Bosphorus is about to leave. I decide that this sounds good, so I buy a ticket and wait for the bus.

The boat trip was a great idea, and we make our way up and down the Bosphorus, crossing over between the European and Asian sides of Istanbul. The guide on the boat points out the numerous houses along the shore that are apparently worth upwards of 50m $USD. Although those price tags seem steep, the scenery really was amazing, and so I’m sure those prices are actually very fair.

After the boat trip, we stop at the Egyptian Spice Bazaar. The Bazaar is filled with wonderful sights, sounds and smells, as well as numerous Turkish delight salesmen. Well, unfortunately you don’t need a house for Turkish delight, and I was soon convinced to buy a small sample. It was delicious, but very sweet, and so I ended up giving the rest away to some of the other people on the bus back to the starting point. For the record, I am also the worst bargainer ever when it comes to Turkish delight purchases. I am sure the price I paid was not “best price in Istanbul” as claimed.

I spent the afternoon wandering the streets, and I think I actually managed to see some of the ‘real’ Istanbul, away from the main tourist areas. I stopped by the Grand Bazaar, which was impressive, but didn’t really offer much to me other than the visual spectacle. I walked around for an hour or two more, and then realised that I had no map and no clue where I was. I took the easy option and just took a cab back to my hotel.

View Larger Map

I’m sitting now in some outside seating in a very nice little Turkish laneway. Again, the food was magnificent. I haven’t had a bad meal in Turkey yet.

Tonight, I have an overnight bus trip through to Pamukkale. I had really hoped to make the trip on a sleeper train. I discovered the sleeper train concept in Vietnam. Basically, you get on the train in one place, have a beer or two, go to sleep, and then wake up at your destination. Obviously it is some sort of teleportation system that I don’t quite understand. Instead, I’ll be on a bus. The likelihood of me sleeping on an overnight bus is very low. I really don’t like trying to sleep while sitting upright. I’m sure the destination will be worth it.

An impromptu European adventure...

So here I am, sitting in an airport hotel in Paris, waiting to fly out to Istanbul tomorrow morning. Obviously, Istanbul is not the ideal place for me to be searching for a job as a lawyer in NYC. I would assume that NYC is probably a better place to be in that regard. However, about a week ago, my parents called and suggested that I meet up with them in France for a week at the end of May; they are renting a house there for the week. Not being one to pass up an overseas adventure, I quickly agreed. I remembered that a friend of mine was going to be playing a poker tournament in Bulgaria in mid-May, and had suggested that I play it too. It seemed as though I had the perfect plan, poker in Bulgaria followed by a week in Southern France.

I found myself sitting at my Brother's house in Maine with 2 or 3 days to book all my airfares and be on the Bulgarian coast, wearing my finest poker playing pants. So, I booked a flight from Maine through to NYC, and then a return flight to Paris, and a return flight from Paris to Varna in Bulgaria; things were going well. I was set to arrive in Varna at about 2am of the day of the tournament.

About an hour after I had booked and paid for these flights, my friend kindly let me know that the tournament had just been cancelled. No worries, I'd just change my flight. So, with the greatest of ease I cancelled my Bulgaria flight. All I had to do now is push the dates back a couple of weeks for my Paris flight, and I'd be all set. At this point, I discovered that Expedia Bargain Fares may be cheap, but they are not necessarily a bargain. I was told that the flight was non-changeable and non-refundable. "Use it or lose it" were the exact words of the Expedia rep. I was going to Paris, and now I had about 2 weeks to spare before meeting up with my parents.

I had already planned to meet up with my friend Chloe in Turkey for a couple of days after the tournament finished in Bulgaria. She is currently working as a tour leader in Turkey, so I emailed her for some ideas as to what to do with my new found free time in Europe. She suggested that I join her tour through Turkey for a week or so, and since I had always heard good things about Turkey, I decided to make it happen and booked a flight.

Now, when I say I had heard good things about Turkey, I couldn't actually remember what they were exactly. What I do know is that the banquet at the Turkish Pide House is delicious, and that Turkish Delight is indeed delightful. What more do I really need to know?

It was Friday night and I had to leave Saturday morning. I washed my clothes, through them back in my backpack, charged up my camera and music player and I was ready to go.

The first leg of my journey (if you don't count driving Bluey the Buick to Portland Airport) was my uneventful flight from Portland to JFK in NYC. Of course, my flight to Paris was leaving out of Newark airport in New Jersey. Usually when I get to NYC I'm tired and jetlagged and just want to get to bed, so I just catch a cab from the airport to wherever I'm headed. However, this time I was fresh, I had 3 hours to spare and was filled with the spirit of adventure, so I decided to try the train. I proceeded to catch the Airtrain from JFK to the subway station, the subway though to Penn Station, and then I caught the NJ transit train through to Newark and the Airtrain to my departure terminal. This was OK, because I had plenty of time. Or at least I would have had plenty of time if NJ transit wasn't running an hour late. After about 30 mins I asked at information if they knew when my train would leave. He told me with a smile that my 2pm train would be leaving just after the 3pm train left, and that their change policy was very similar, or actually identical, to that of the Expedia Bargain Fare. I eventually got my train, and arrived only slightly late for my flight to Paris via Frankfurt.

For some reason, when I got to Frankfurt, I had to clear German immigration before transferring to my connecting flight. Having had numerous bad experiences with immigration last year, I wasn't excited by this prospect. It seemed OK though, they were stamping passports as quickly as they could herd people through the queue. Until I got there. Now, I've traveled a fair bit in the last year, and so my passport has a few stamps in it. One of these stamps was clearly causing a problem. A very loud and furious German problem. I wondered what the problem could be, whether it was Vietnam, or Peru, Bolivia or Korea. The customs officer frowned some more, spoke some more angry German, and called his supervisor over. I'm not an expert German speaker, but here is the translation of what his supervisor said:

"Canada? Why would we care if he has been to Canada? Haven't you noticed? We let everyone into this country. We don't even look at their passports. Your job is to stamp passports. Just stamp it!" (angry German tone)

So I made my way through the neverending moving walkways of Frankfurt airport and caught my plane to Paris. We were served small bread rolls with ham in them. The Indian lady seated next to me politely asked if there was a vegetarian option. There wasn't. The blonde-haired German stewardess was very keen to solve this problem "sorry, we don't have a vegetarian option, only the ham. But you should try it. The ham is delicious." In all fairness, the ham was delicious.

Once I got to Paris, I mentally prepared myself for a prolonged interrogation about my trips to Canada. I was pleasantly surprised. It appears you can enter France without a passport or customs declaration. I think there might have been an opt-in queue for drug-dealers, terrorists or Canadians to surrender themselves, but everyone else can just pick up their baggage and leave.

I stepped outside hoping to find a Radisson shuttle bus to take me to the airport hotel. I didn't have to worry too much about that. As I stepped outside the door I was very nearly run over by a Radisson shuttle bus.

I arrived at the hotel to find that French people, in this case the check-in staff, were as pretentious, rude and unhelpful as all my years of American television has made them out to be. I smiled. I was in Paris. Shortly afterwards I fell asleep.