Just a quick note to let everyone know that I made it back to LA without too many complications and I am in good spirits. I have a job starting in a month and I move into my new place this weekend. So, when I get everything settled I will write the rest of my journey from Prague to Krakow. Sorry it is taking so long to update, but there is a surprising amount of things that need to happen when you reintrograte yourself back into society. That's all for now. Oh, and my phone is up and running again if anyone wants to call.
bye
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Eastern Europe
Ok, before we get any further into the story of Em, let me explain why Robby and I decided to go to Eastern Europe instead of Greece. We had originally planned to do Greece for 7 days before I flew home from Tel aviv, but with the war (yes, I know it ended) and the trouble of finding a plane or ferry or anything back to Israel, we realized it would be better to just continue on to Eastern Europe and then find a way home from there. Plus we were both kinda sick of seeing Roman and Byzantine pillars. There are only so many marble and stone monument you can see before they end up blending into each other. We decided a change of scenery was in order and so Gothic castles became our next challenge. I also got to extend my trip another 6 days - was suppose to fly home from Tel Aviv on the 4th and now I fly to LA on the 10-11th via Krakow to Dublin.
Now back to the saga. We made it to Istanbul at 11am and went in search of the bus that would take us to Budapest. We were told that there was a direct bus, but after going from bus company to bus company we found that we were going to have to take a night bus to Sophia, Bulgaria and then catch a bus to Budapest. Apparently there was no direct bus, go figure. We had a 9 hour lay over in Istanbul so we ventured up to the Carrefour- the lovely supermarket/mall that made us extremely happy in Egypt actually existed in Turkey.
We enjoyed the next 8 hours looking at ugly clothes, eating something besides a kebob, keeping cool in the AC, and getting my hair colored and Robby's cut. When you have time to waste you end up doing stupid stuff... well, semi-stupid stuff. I've always wanted my hair to be another color and since the hair salon wouldn't make it blur I decided on Red, but no orange red, the red that is actually red. I wanted maroon, but they didn't have a lot of options and they didn't speak English. Robby and I communicated via a nice patron of the salon who spoke mediocre English and through wide hand gestures and pictures.
While I got my hair gooped up, Robby tried to tell the master Stylist how she wanted her hair. She wanted it shoulder length and with layers. We showed the guy a picture, but for some reason he decided to alter the image a bit and went a little nuts on the cutting. Robby's hair is cute, but short and boyish. We had to practically pull the stylist away when he went in for the kill on Robby's bangs. That's a No-No. So she can now pull her hair back into cute little pig-tail stubs and the rest up curls.
My hair on the other hand is long (I was going to cut it, but I got scared and bowed out)and red. When the dye set and the hair was washed my hair was a reddish-pink. Awfully bright pink more so than red, but after the first wash it went dimmer and since it's been about 12 days from when I got it dyed it's all but a natural red color. I think my hair hates anything un-natural and so it won't let dyes stay. So I have red hair, but it's red-headed step-child hair rather than punk red hair. Since I got it dyed I've run into at least 200 other people with red hair. It seems the color that everyone and their grandma dyes their hair in Europe. I feel so unoriginal. :( Hopefully America just has boring hair colors so I can stand out a bit when I get back.
So, hair cuts and shopping out of the way we headed back to the bus station and boarded our 10 hour bus to Bulgaria. The bus was a tight squeeze with the knees, but at least there wasn't an evil man kicking the seat behind me. About 12:30 am the bus stopped at the boarder and practically the whole bus got off. Robby and I weren't sure what to do, but once we realized everyone was headed to the duty-free store we relaxed and went back to sleep. At 1 am the bus stopped again, 10 feet further to the exit gate. Everyone got off again and we were sort of grunted at by a fellow passenger who told us to get off. We had to take all our bags because the inspectors were suppose to go through them, but they pretty much looked at us, rifled through 2 bags and told us to get back on the bus.
We wanted to go to sleep, but 15 minutes later we had to get off the bus again and this time it was a mad rush to get to the inspection window and have the very tired and bored officer inspect and stamp our passports. Robby, I and two other people got to be the lucky winners of the inspection officer keeping our passports. After the whole bus (about 50 people) went through inspection, us and the other couple were called to answer a few stupid questions about why we were headed to Bulgaria. We told him we wanted Budapest and he thought we said Bucharest, which started more stupid questions, but eventually he stamped our passports and handed them back.
We climbed on board the bus again, only to get off at the boarder into Bulgaria (we were exiting Hungary) where we went through the "In" stamp process to Bulgaria. After 3 annoying hours we were headed to Sophia and finally allowed to get a little shut eye. Night buses save on hotel fairs, but you never get any sleep. We arrived at the Sophia bus station at 6 am and were told by the bus people in Istanbul to go to EuroBus for the connecting bus to Budapest. EuroBus didn't open until 8 am. We camped out in front of the office waiting and harassing the other bus companies for buses to Budapest. We started to get nervous when every other company said they didn't go to Budapest. We found one company that did go, but they were full and they didn't have another bus going until 2 days later. We did not want to spend two days in Sophia.
While we were waiting for EuroBus to open we bumped in a girl that went on the Goreme trip with us. She was trying to get to Budapest as well and so we banned together in finding a bus. At 8 am EuroBus opened and to our disappointment they told us they did not, and never had, any buses going to Budapest. Great! For some reason I decided to go back to the place that said they had a bus and see if there were any more buses leaving that day. Miracouisally they had spots available on the 9 am bus. Hum. Robby and Hollie (the other girl) ran around the station looking for an ATM machine to get Bulgarian currency because the bus station wouldn't take USD or credit cards. None of the ATMs accepted the Debit cards and so they went frantically searching for an open exchange place. About 15 minutes to 9am they returned, with me practically freaking out that we would lose the newly available seats. They paid, got tickets, and the bus driver rushed us aboard.
The bus left 10 minutes early, but we didn't care because we had seats. It was an old school bus of sorts with rickedy seats, no TV, no free coffee or water (like on the Turkey buses), and bad working AC - as we later came to find out. The bus stalled at the first stop light, but seemed to run ok after that. We had two more boarder crossings to deal with in our 12 hour bus ride that went fairly smooth and there were only 2 minor problems to deal with. The first was the fact that I couldn't pee in Serbia because I didn't have any Serbian money and I wasn't about to exchange a $50 USD into useless money for a 50 cent Serbia toilet. I pretty much went frantically searching for someone to give me a 50 cent Serbian piece and when no one did I thrust a Turkish dollar (way more that the 50 cent Serbian piece) in the toilet lady's hand and said, "I'm pissing!" and got in line. The problem with traveling in random countries for a short amount of time is that you will never have the right money and toilets always cost something Europe.
The second issue was the fact that no one on the bus spoken English and so at the first gas station stop RObby, Hollie and I spent too long in the store searching for food when the driver came to yell at us and motion that the bus was leaving. He was not a happy camper. At least he came to find us or we would have been stuck on the side of the road in Serbia. After that the lady behind us flashed 15 on her hands every time we stopped to let us know how much time we had at the stop.
9:30 pm we departed the sweaty bus (the AC had broke some 10 hours earlier) and found ourselves in a new city without money and no idea how to catch the metro we needed to the hostel we were staying at. We found an ATM to get money, but there was no Exchange place to make smaller bills for the metro ticket machine. Luckily Budapest is one of those trusting cities were they assume everyone will buy a ticket for the metro or buses, but they only ever have people check for tickets randomly. We boarded a metro without an problems and found our hostel in no time.
The Downtown Hostel was anything but friendly and clean. The bathrooms were small and smelly, the guy who worked there looked like he had never taken a shower in his life and never left the place (he was there everytime we we there), most of the other people staying there were cold-shouldered Hungarian girls that glared and smoked indoors, and for some reason the hostel loved to give the backpackers wine, but for some reason the hostel guy never learned that you do not serve red wine chilled... it's just wrong.
Hollie stayed the one night and then moved to Astoria Hostel because her friend was staying there. In the morning Robby and I wandered the town for a bit to take in the sights and get our barrings. Budapest is broken up into 2 sides. It was originally two different cities, Buda and Pest until a king came and combined them. Buda is the more rustic and rural of the two sides. Pest is shopping and monuments. We were staying on the outskirts of Pest. About a 10 minute walk to downtown Pest. We took photos of the giant church, went to the Jewish Synagogue, ate at a cute pub, and enjoyed the day. We met Hollie in the evening and went to see The Sentinel. We had all been stressed and tired and so we figured a movie would relieve some pressure. It turned out to be a great film and we had a nice evening.
The next day Robby and I walked 5 million miles to the City Park which is like Central Park in NY, but on a smaller scale. It's the main hub for people to chill out and walk their dogs or play soccer or go for a picnic. The Park also houses ever type of transportation museum you can think of. The train museum was cool because the building has train engines sticking out so it looks like the train is pulling the building. We didn't go into any of the museums, but they were nice to walk by. The park also has the the oldest bath house in Hungary.
Hungary is known for it's bath houses like Turkey is known for it's Turkish Baths and Thailand is known for it's massages. The bath house in the park is suppose to be rather large with about 15 different swimming pools all ranging in temperature. The water is mostly from natural hot and cold spring that are filtered in from the hills. There are whirlpools, jacuzzis, and a kids play area also in the bath house. Robby and I wanted to go in and take a look, but it was very expensive and since we didn't have our suits on we opted to do it another day.
The front of the park has a nice courtyard of Roman and Greece statues that look down upon the visitors. On either side of the courtyard is an art museum. We mostly just walked around the park and didn't really go into any of the museums. Next time. We did however find Death. We were wandering around and then we spotted him. He is a marble statue wearing a hooded cloak and holding a large book that is open. The head is practically concealed beneath the hood and so it looks like Death is thinking and writing the names of his victims in the book. The statue turned out to be of Anoymos - a famous Monk that wrote poetry. But to us and the people we met at Astoria Hostel, he is Death.
That evening we went to pick up Hollie at her hostel, but after waiting around for an hour we figured she'd forgotten our date and so we went off to find something else to do. We ended up at another movie theater and watched Thank You for Smoking. If you haven't seen this movie I advise you to go watch it. It is brilliant, well written and and beautifully acted. Well worth it.
The next day we said goodbye to the yucky Downtown Hostel and moved to Astoria Hostel. It was much cleaner, the people were friendlier and there was free breakfast. We left our bags in the lobby and headed out to eat lunch and then to Sandwiching. No Sandwiching is not a town fair competition of stuffing ones face with the most sandwiches, it is in fact caving - getting really dirty by squeezing your body through small caverns and holes inside the Earth.
Robby and I met about 20 other adventures at the #6 bus stop where we were all told to met with our little white sheets of paper. No one knew who was in charge, but pretty soon the white sheets gave away who was on the tour so that there weren't 20 of us just milling about go, "what do we do now," by themselves. Eventually the tour guy came and we boarded two buses that took us into the Buda hills. We got broken up into groups, Robby and I being put with 6 other girls.
We donned a lovely jumpsuit of and hard hat so that we looked like the 7 dwarfs off to work. The suits were great because we could freely crawl around in the mud and not care that our clothes were going to get all dirty. I hate to say it, but I'm a girl and I wouldn't want to be crawling on my stomach across wet mud while in my own clothes. The suits took away the dirty clothes fear and we were free to move about as we pleased. The 8 of us followed our guided across the street and into a tunnel that lead us down a 30 feet ladder into the belly of the Earth. For the next 2 1/2 hours we crawled, climbed, twisted and turned through about 700 meters of rocks.
Hungary is littered with underground caves. The one that we sandwiched through happened to be the World's 2nd largest network of caves spanning a distance of 20 KMs. It used to be only 5 KMs, but the combined it which a neighboring cave to in large it. The biggest connecting cave system is in Kentucky and is 25 KMs.
The best part about the caving adventure was the "Pooh Hole." The hole was very small, maybe 2 feet by 2 feet and aptly named the "Pooh Hole" because of Winnie the Pooh and the hole he tried to squeeze through after he had eaten all the honey and thus got stuck causing Christopher Robin and the others to push him through. Well, the guide first squeezed through the hole with little difficulty and then told all of us to give it a go. Now the only different between the tour guide and us is the fact that he is a man and therefore has no hips. 5 of the girls went, including Robby and only the small, skinny girl made it through. Everyone's hips got stuck and they had to back out. Even though almost everyone failed to go through, I felt I should give it a try and for some reason I pushed and pulled and managed to squeeze my hips through the hole. It was awesome.
After caving Robby and I followed a few of the girls back to their hostel on the Buda side in the promise of going to an all-you-can-eat buffet, but once we got to the place we found out that it was closing and not worth the price since it was so late. So we said goodbye to the girls and headed back to our hostel for the night.
The next day was Saturday and the main reason why we decided to stay in Budapest an extra 2 days. Budapest was having some sort of Festival and parade and it sounded like fun, even though no one could tell us why they were having the parade. We spent the morning looking around the Chinese Market which is essentially a huge Flea market before hopping on a train to the City Park and watching the parade. On the way to the parade route we stopped to watch the people in the make-shift skate park. It was refreshing to see tons of people of all ages and talents sharing the different ramps and runways. Little girls skates alongside an old man on a bike and teenagers jumping ramps on skate boards.
The beginning of the parade was cool because there were many different types of acts, most of them resembling some type of Carnival (Venice version) theme with people wearing elaborate costumes with feathers, stilts, masks, and odd ornaments. The Carnivaler's lead way for the capoeira fighters, about 50 or so people with balloon made porcupine spikes on their backs, belly dancers of all shapes and ages, and the Stomp street cleaners. Hungary apparently isn't too worried about parade safety and so Robby and I and anyone who wanted were allowed to walk along the parade path and through the parade participants if we chose to. It was great because I got some cool close up pictures of the people.
After all the interesting acts dances by the floats started. These floats were not good and all the same. They we pretty much semi after semi of half naked girls dancing to introduce the "After Party" of some club. Almost everyone of the floats had a following of 50-100 teeny boppers dancing beside it screaming and acting stupid. We saw girls ranging in age from 14 to about 25 strut their stuff (or lack of stuff) while idiotic boys took pictures and tried to picture up the girls. After an hour or so of this madness we opted to find an interest cafe and escape the bad Techno music the floats screamed. Too much nonsense.
On Sunday we rented bikes and peddled around St. Margaret's Island, another beautiful park/island with happy families out for a stroll with their puppies. We biked to the Buda side and got lost in the trees of the suburbs before finding our way back to the Danu. We didn't mind because it was beautiful and we were biking just to see stuff. We walked our bikes up the huge driveway of the Palace to see the view from the top. It turned out to be nice, but nothing spectacular, although you got to see the Danu below and all the bridges that lead from Buda to Pest.
We had to return our bikes after 6 hours, pick up our packs from the hostel and head to the train station because we were headed to Eger (pronounced Egg-ger) for the next 3 days. Eger is a small, very quaint town two hours by train from Budapest. Some of the people that we met at Astoria hostel recommended the place because it was peaceful, had a hot spring swimming pool, and was near a National Park. When we arrived in Eger at about 9:30pm we were told to walk about 700 meters to find the hostel that we were to stay at, but after a half hour of pacing back an dforth from one street to the next we decided that the idiot who gave us directions had no clue as to wear the train station was in regards to the hostel. We basically spent the next hour and 15 minutes walking around with our heavy packs getting crankier and crankier while we walked down a barely lit rural street looking for an address that seemed to not exist. We eventually found the hostel/dorm in middle of nowhere.
Like most small towns in Europe, Universities rent out their dorms as hostels for the summer to make a little extra cash and so when we showed up, not too happy, we were greeted by moronic college kids that didn't really speak English and could have cared less if we walked two feet to get to their door or the 2 miles we really walked. We were at least given our own dorm room, so we didn't have to bother with stupid other students while there. I really wanted a drink after the long hike to the hostel, but the only thing nearby was a gas station that didn't even have hot water for hot chocolate. Robby and I decided to change hostels in the morning.
When we awoke the following day it was of course raining, but we didn't care because we were getting the hell out of the hostel. The people we not friendly and we were about a 1/2 hour walk from anywhere near town. We hopped on a bus and ended up near the center of town not knowing where to stay. I made Robby hike all around as we followed the Pension signs, but everything seem too expensive. Eventually we found the Tourist office and they pointed us in the direction of a dorm/hostel near the center of town. Luckily the dorm had space and we were allowed to set our packs down. I don't mind not knowing where I am going, but with heavy backpacks it can be a pain.
We decided that we needed to relax and so we packed our bathing suits and headed out in search of the hot springs we were told about. They turned out to be fairly close to the hostel. It was a large complex with 6 swimming pools filtering in natural sulfur water. All the pool varied in temperature and we opted to stay in the pool that was about 38 degrees C. The pool had pipes that poured extra hot water on your back with was nice. We also went in the neighboring pool that was slightly colder, but had a water jet bed and a whirlpool. It was very relaxing and cleansing.
We spent the rest of the day window shopping through the downtown square that was picturesque from some TV show of a small town. The cute cobblestone street with appealing shops to the side and happy people walking about. I nicknamed the town "Sunnydale," because at about 7 pm the shops closed and the majority of the people went home. The only things still open were the pubs that served only alcohol and coffee and a few restaurants. We ended up at McDonalds because it was open to at least 11pm. On the way back to the dorm we passed the park and it looked so creepy I felt we needed crucifixes and stakes to walk through it (hence the name Sunnydale).
The next day we visited the castle on top of the hill. It was interesting, but we didn't get to see the cool prison cells and the hero's walk because the tour took you there and we had hopped off the tour in the beginning since it was in Hungarian and we didn't understand anything. We looked around the museum that gave a timeline for when the castle was built and how it evolved over the centuries. There was a nice view of the town and farming villages in the distance. We got to see a small exhibit on the olden torture devices, but all the info was in Hungarian and so we just looked at the pictures. Overall the castle was nice and gave us something to do because we spent the rest of the day rewalking the downtown square and wondering what people did here.
The last day of Eger we spent in Bukk National Park, hiking through the hills of Szilvasvarad. We decided that we wanted to stretch our legs and get some fresh air so we started our journey up a small hill to visit the prehistoric cave of some cave dwellers before blindly following a group of hikers up and up and up a large mountain trail. Halfway up the trail we decided to ask someone where exactly the trail we were on lead. The Hungarian first asked us what the hell we were doing there, since we were American and it probably looked a little weird having two Americans come up to her and ask where they were headed, but she eventually told us we were about a KM away from a nice lookout point on the tip of the mountain. Since we had spent the last hour or so huffing and puffing up the stupid hill (why we decided to go up I don't know) we decided to continue to the top.
Yeah, the 1 KM turned out to be more like 3 KMs and the lovely lookout spot turned out to be a grassy knoll hidden in the mist of tall trees. No lookout to anything. We did however get to see a nice large cross planted in the grass and a bird house sign that said we'd reached 959 meters. Yea us. All our hard work climbing and we didn't get to take one nice picture of the valley below. We decided to head down a different direction from the slippery and steep one we climbed up and some how managed to get a tad bit lost.
We knew that we needed to go in a certain direction, but the clearly labeled paths seemed to become unclear and sometimes vanish all together the further we went down the mountain. It was suppose to be a 4.5 KMs journey back to town, but it took us about 6 Miles to reach the bottom. Our journey up the hill started out on the Green Triangle path which lead to the Red Triangle, The Yellow Dash, The Blue Slash, the Yellow Cross, The Yellow dash again, and the Green Dash got us out. Along the way we off roaded a bit, lost all paths completely and backtracked a bit. It was fun, but freezing and threatening to rain on us at any moment. We hit the town with growling stomachs and entered the first restaurant that sounded edible.
The day turned out to be a blast and made us too tired to find something to do during the night. We headed back to the dorm and went to sleep. We had to get up early to catch a train to Budapest to get another one to Prague, but that is another story. So long for now.
Now back to the saga. We made it to Istanbul at 11am and went in search of the bus that would take us to Budapest. We were told that there was a direct bus, but after going from bus company to bus company we found that we were going to have to take a night bus to Sophia, Bulgaria and then catch a bus to Budapest. Apparently there was no direct bus, go figure. We had a 9 hour lay over in Istanbul so we ventured up to the Carrefour- the lovely supermarket/mall that made us extremely happy in Egypt actually existed in Turkey.
We enjoyed the next 8 hours looking at ugly clothes, eating something besides a kebob, keeping cool in the AC, and getting my hair colored and Robby's cut. When you have time to waste you end up doing stupid stuff... well, semi-stupid stuff. I've always wanted my hair to be another color and since the hair salon wouldn't make it blur I decided on Red, but no orange red, the red that is actually red. I wanted maroon, but they didn't have a lot of options and they didn't speak English. Robby and I communicated via a nice patron of the salon who spoke mediocre English and through wide hand gestures and pictures.
While I got my hair gooped up, Robby tried to tell the master Stylist how she wanted her hair. She wanted it shoulder length and with layers. We showed the guy a picture, but for some reason he decided to alter the image a bit and went a little nuts on the cutting. Robby's hair is cute, but short and boyish. We had to practically pull the stylist away when he went in for the kill on Robby's bangs. That's a No-No. So she can now pull her hair back into cute little pig-tail stubs and the rest up curls.
My hair on the other hand is long (I was going to cut it, but I got scared and bowed out)and red. When the dye set and the hair was washed my hair was a reddish-pink. Awfully bright pink more so than red, but after the first wash it went dimmer and since it's been about 12 days from when I got it dyed it's all but a natural red color. I think my hair hates anything un-natural and so it won't let dyes stay. So I have red hair, but it's red-headed step-child hair rather than punk red hair. Since I got it dyed I've run into at least 200 other people with red hair. It seems the color that everyone and their grandma dyes their hair in Europe. I feel so unoriginal. :( Hopefully America just has boring hair colors so I can stand out a bit when I get back.
So, hair cuts and shopping out of the way we headed back to the bus station and boarded our 10 hour bus to Bulgaria. The bus was a tight squeeze with the knees, but at least there wasn't an evil man kicking the seat behind me. About 12:30 am the bus stopped at the boarder and practically the whole bus got off. Robby and I weren't sure what to do, but once we realized everyone was headed to the duty-free store we relaxed and went back to sleep. At 1 am the bus stopped again, 10 feet further to the exit gate. Everyone got off again and we were sort of grunted at by a fellow passenger who told us to get off. We had to take all our bags because the inspectors were suppose to go through them, but they pretty much looked at us, rifled through 2 bags and told us to get back on the bus.
We wanted to go to sleep, but 15 minutes later we had to get off the bus again and this time it was a mad rush to get to the inspection window and have the very tired and bored officer inspect and stamp our passports. Robby, I and two other people got to be the lucky winners of the inspection officer keeping our passports. After the whole bus (about 50 people) went through inspection, us and the other couple were called to answer a few stupid questions about why we were headed to Bulgaria. We told him we wanted Budapest and he thought we said Bucharest, which started more stupid questions, but eventually he stamped our passports and handed them back.
We climbed on board the bus again, only to get off at the boarder into Bulgaria (we were exiting Hungary) where we went through the "In" stamp process to Bulgaria. After 3 annoying hours we were headed to Sophia and finally allowed to get a little shut eye. Night buses save on hotel fairs, but you never get any sleep. We arrived at the Sophia bus station at 6 am and were told by the bus people in Istanbul to go to EuroBus for the connecting bus to Budapest. EuroBus didn't open until 8 am. We camped out in front of the office waiting and harassing the other bus companies for buses to Budapest. We started to get nervous when every other company said they didn't go to Budapest. We found one company that did go, but they were full and they didn't have another bus going until 2 days later. We did not want to spend two days in Sophia.
While we were waiting for EuroBus to open we bumped in a girl that went on the Goreme trip with us. She was trying to get to Budapest as well and so we banned together in finding a bus. At 8 am EuroBus opened and to our disappointment they told us they did not, and never had, any buses going to Budapest. Great! For some reason I decided to go back to the place that said they had a bus and see if there were any more buses leaving that day. Miracouisally they had spots available on the 9 am bus. Hum. Robby and Hollie (the other girl) ran around the station looking for an ATM machine to get Bulgarian currency because the bus station wouldn't take USD or credit cards. None of the ATMs accepted the Debit cards and so they went frantically searching for an open exchange place. About 15 minutes to 9am they returned, with me practically freaking out that we would lose the newly available seats. They paid, got tickets, and the bus driver rushed us aboard.
The bus left 10 minutes early, but we didn't care because we had seats. It was an old school bus of sorts with rickedy seats, no TV, no free coffee or water (like on the Turkey buses), and bad working AC - as we later came to find out. The bus stalled at the first stop light, but seemed to run ok after that. We had two more boarder crossings to deal with in our 12 hour bus ride that went fairly smooth and there were only 2 minor problems to deal with. The first was the fact that I couldn't pee in Serbia because I didn't have any Serbian money and I wasn't about to exchange a $50 USD into useless money for a 50 cent Serbia toilet. I pretty much went frantically searching for someone to give me a 50 cent Serbian piece and when no one did I thrust a Turkish dollar (way more that the 50 cent Serbian piece) in the toilet lady's hand and said, "I'm pissing!" and got in line. The problem with traveling in random countries for a short amount of time is that you will never have the right money and toilets always cost something Europe.
The second issue was the fact that no one on the bus spoken English and so at the first gas station stop RObby, Hollie and I spent too long in the store searching for food when the driver came to yell at us and motion that the bus was leaving. He was not a happy camper. At least he came to find us or we would have been stuck on the side of the road in Serbia. After that the lady behind us flashed 15 on her hands every time we stopped to let us know how much time we had at the stop.
9:30 pm we departed the sweaty bus (the AC had broke some 10 hours earlier) and found ourselves in a new city without money and no idea how to catch the metro we needed to the hostel we were staying at. We found an ATM to get money, but there was no Exchange place to make smaller bills for the metro ticket machine. Luckily Budapest is one of those trusting cities were they assume everyone will buy a ticket for the metro or buses, but they only ever have people check for tickets randomly. We boarded a metro without an problems and found our hostel in no time.
The Downtown Hostel was anything but friendly and clean. The bathrooms were small and smelly, the guy who worked there looked like he had never taken a shower in his life and never left the place (he was there everytime we we there), most of the other people staying there were cold-shouldered Hungarian girls that glared and smoked indoors, and for some reason the hostel loved to give the backpackers wine, but for some reason the hostel guy never learned that you do not serve red wine chilled... it's just wrong.
Hollie stayed the one night and then moved to Astoria Hostel because her friend was staying there. In the morning Robby and I wandered the town for a bit to take in the sights and get our barrings. Budapest is broken up into 2 sides. It was originally two different cities, Buda and Pest until a king came and combined them. Buda is the more rustic and rural of the two sides. Pest is shopping and monuments. We were staying on the outskirts of Pest. About a 10 minute walk to downtown Pest. We took photos of the giant church, went to the Jewish Synagogue, ate at a cute pub, and enjoyed the day. We met Hollie in the evening and went to see The Sentinel. We had all been stressed and tired and so we figured a movie would relieve some pressure. It turned out to be a great film and we had a nice evening.
The next day Robby and I walked 5 million miles to the City Park which is like Central Park in NY, but on a smaller scale. It's the main hub for people to chill out and walk their dogs or play soccer or go for a picnic. The Park also houses ever type of transportation museum you can think of. The train museum was cool because the building has train engines sticking out so it looks like the train is pulling the building. We didn't go into any of the museums, but they were nice to walk by. The park also has the the oldest bath house in Hungary.
Hungary is known for it's bath houses like Turkey is known for it's Turkish Baths and Thailand is known for it's massages. The bath house in the park is suppose to be rather large with about 15 different swimming pools all ranging in temperature. The water is mostly from natural hot and cold spring that are filtered in from the hills. There are whirlpools, jacuzzis, and a kids play area also in the bath house. Robby and I wanted to go in and take a look, but it was very expensive and since we didn't have our suits on we opted to do it another day.
The front of the park has a nice courtyard of Roman and Greece statues that look down upon the visitors. On either side of the courtyard is an art museum. We mostly just walked around the park and didn't really go into any of the museums. Next time. We did however find Death. We were wandering around and then we spotted him. He is a marble statue wearing a hooded cloak and holding a large book that is open. The head is practically concealed beneath the hood and so it looks like Death is thinking and writing the names of his victims in the book. The statue turned out to be of Anoymos - a famous Monk that wrote poetry. But to us and the people we met at Astoria Hostel, he is Death.
That evening we went to pick up Hollie at her hostel, but after waiting around for an hour we figured she'd forgotten our date and so we went off to find something else to do. We ended up at another movie theater and watched Thank You for Smoking. If you haven't seen this movie I advise you to go watch it. It is brilliant, well written and and beautifully acted. Well worth it.
The next day we said goodbye to the yucky Downtown Hostel and moved to Astoria Hostel. It was much cleaner, the people were friendlier and there was free breakfast. We left our bags in the lobby and headed out to eat lunch and then to Sandwiching. No Sandwiching is not a town fair competition of stuffing ones face with the most sandwiches, it is in fact caving - getting really dirty by squeezing your body through small caverns and holes inside the Earth.
Robby and I met about 20 other adventures at the #6 bus stop where we were all told to met with our little white sheets of paper. No one knew who was in charge, but pretty soon the white sheets gave away who was on the tour so that there weren't 20 of us just milling about go, "what do we do now," by themselves. Eventually the tour guy came and we boarded two buses that took us into the Buda hills. We got broken up into groups, Robby and I being put with 6 other girls.
We donned a lovely jumpsuit of and hard hat so that we looked like the 7 dwarfs off to work. The suits were great because we could freely crawl around in the mud and not care that our clothes were going to get all dirty. I hate to say it, but I'm a girl and I wouldn't want to be crawling on my stomach across wet mud while in my own clothes. The suits took away the dirty clothes fear and we were free to move about as we pleased. The 8 of us followed our guided across the street and into a tunnel that lead us down a 30 feet ladder into the belly of the Earth. For the next 2 1/2 hours we crawled, climbed, twisted and turned through about 700 meters of rocks.
Hungary is littered with underground caves. The one that we sandwiched through happened to be the World's 2nd largest network of caves spanning a distance of 20 KMs. It used to be only 5 KMs, but the combined it which a neighboring cave to in large it. The biggest connecting cave system is in Kentucky and is 25 KMs.
The best part about the caving adventure was the "Pooh Hole." The hole was very small, maybe 2 feet by 2 feet and aptly named the "Pooh Hole" because of Winnie the Pooh and the hole he tried to squeeze through after he had eaten all the honey and thus got stuck causing Christopher Robin and the others to push him through. Well, the guide first squeezed through the hole with little difficulty and then told all of us to give it a go. Now the only different between the tour guide and us is the fact that he is a man and therefore has no hips. 5 of the girls went, including Robby and only the small, skinny girl made it through. Everyone's hips got stuck and they had to back out. Even though almost everyone failed to go through, I felt I should give it a try and for some reason I pushed and pulled and managed to squeeze my hips through the hole. It was awesome.
After caving Robby and I followed a few of the girls back to their hostel on the Buda side in the promise of going to an all-you-can-eat buffet, but once we got to the place we found out that it was closing and not worth the price since it was so late. So we said goodbye to the girls and headed back to our hostel for the night.
The next day was Saturday and the main reason why we decided to stay in Budapest an extra 2 days. Budapest was having some sort of Festival and parade and it sounded like fun, even though no one could tell us why they were having the parade. We spent the morning looking around the Chinese Market which is essentially a huge Flea market before hopping on a train to the City Park and watching the parade. On the way to the parade route we stopped to watch the people in the make-shift skate park. It was refreshing to see tons of people of all ages and talents sharing the different ramps and runways. Little girls skates alongside an old man on a bike and teenagers jumping ramps on skate boards.
The beginning of the parade was cool because there were many different types of acts, most of them resembling some type of Carnival (Venice version) theme with people wearing elaborate costumes with feathers, stilts, masks, and odd ornaments. The Carnivaler's lead way for the capoeira fighters, about 50 or so people with balloon made porcupine spikes on their backs, belly dancers of all shapes and ages, and the Stomp street cleaners. Hungary apparently isn't too worried about parade safety and so Robby and I and anyone who wanted were allowed to walk along the parade path and through the parade participants if we chose to. It was great because I got some cool close up pictures of the people.
After all the interesting acts dances by the floats started. These floats were not good and all the same. They we pretty much semi after semi of half naked girls dancing to introduce the "After Party" of some club. Almost everyone of the floats had a following of 50-100 teeny boppers dancing beside it screaming and acting stupid. We saw girls ranging in age from 14 to about 25 strut their stuff (or lack of stuff) while idiotic boys took pictures and tried to picture up the girls. After an hour or so of this madness we opted to find an interest cafe and escape the bad Techno music the floats screamed. Too much nonsense.
On Sunday we rented bikes and peddled around St. Margaret's Island, another beautiful park/island with happy families out for a stroll with their puppies. We biked to the Buda side and got lost in the trees of the suburbs before finding our way back to the Danu. We didn't mind because it was beautiful and we were biking just to see stuff. We walked our bikes up the huge driveway of the Palace to see the view from the top. It turned out to be nice, but nothing spectacular, although you got to see the Danu below and all the bridges that lead from Buda to Pest.
We had to return our bikes after 6 hours, pick up our packs from the hostel and head to the train station because we were headed to Eger (pronounced Egg-ger) for the next 3 days. Eger is a small, very quaint town two hours by train from Budapest. Some of the people that we met at Astoria hostel recommended the place because it was peaceful, had a hot spring swimming pool, and was near a National Park. When we arrived in Eger at about 9:30pm we were told to walk about 700 meters to find the hostel that we were to stay at, but after a half hour of pacing back an dforth from one street to the next we decided that the idiot who gave us directions had no clue as to wear the train station was in regards to the hostel. We basically spent the next hour and 15 minutes walking around with our heavy packs getting crankier and crankier while we walked down a barely lit rural street looking for an address that seemed to not exist. We eventually found the hostel/dorm in middle of nowhere.
Like most small towns in Europe, Universities rent out their dorms as hostels for the summer to make a little extra cash and so when we showed up, not too happy, we were greeted by moronic college kids that didn't really speak English and could have cared less if we walked two feet to get to their door or the 2 miles we really walked. We were at least given our own dorm room, so we didn't have to bother with stupid other students while there. I really wanted a drink after the long hike to the hostel, but the only thing nearby was a gas station that didn't even have hot water for hot chocolate. Robby and I decided to change hostels in the morning.
When we awoke the following day it was of course raining, but we didn't care because we were getting the hell out of the hostel. The people we not friendly and we were about a 1/2 hour walk from anywhere near town. We hopped on a bus and ended up near the center of town not knowing where to stay. I made Robby hike all around as we followed the Pension signs, but everything seem too expensive. Eventually we found the Tourist office and they pointed us in the direction of a dorm/hostel near the center of town. Luckily the dorm had space and we were allowed to set our packs down. I don't mind not knowing where I am going, but with heavy backpacks it can be a pain.
We decided that we needed to relax and so we packed our bathing suits and headed out in search of the hot springs we were told about. They turned out to be fairly close to the hostel. It was a large complex with 6 swimming pools filtering in natural sulfur water. All the pool varied in temperature and we opted to stay in the pool that was about 38 degrees C. The pool had pipes that poured extra hot water on your back with was nice. We also went in the neighboring pool that was slightly colder, but had a water jet bed and a whirlpool. It was very relaxing and cleansing.
We spent the rest of the day window shopping through the downtown square that was picturesque from some TV show of a small town. The cute cobblestone street with appealing shops to the side and happy people walking about. I nicknamed the town "Sunnydale," because at about 7 pm the shops closed and the majority of the people went home. The only things still open were the pubs that served only alcohol and coffee and a few restaurants. We ended up at McDonalds because it was open to at least 11pm. On the way back to the dorm we passed the park and it looked so creepy I felt we needed crucifixes and stakes to walk through it (hence the name Sunnydale).
The next day we visited the castle on top of the hill. It was interesting, but we didn't get to see the cool prison cells and the hero's walk because the tour took you there and we had hopped off the tour in the beginning since it was in Hungarian and we didn't understand anything. We looked around the museum that gave a timeline for when the castle was built and how it evolved over the centuries. There was a nice view of the town and farming villages in the distance. We got to see a small exhibit on the olden torture devices, but all the info was in Hungarian and so we just looked at the pictures. Overall the castle was nice and gave us something to do because we spent the rest of the day rewalking the downtown square and wondering what people did here.
The last day of Eger we spent in Bukk National Park, hiking through the hills of Szilvasvarad. We decided that we wanted to stretch our legs and get some fresh air so we started our journey up a small hill to visit the prehistoric cave of some cave dwellers before blindly following a group of hikers up and up and up a large mountain trail. Halfway up the trail we decided to ask someone where exactly the trail we were on lead. The Hungarian first asked us what the hell we were doing there, since we were American and it probably looked a little weird having two Americans come up to her and ask where they were headed, but she eventually told us we were about a KM away from a nice lookout point on the tip of the mountain. Since we had spent the last hour or so huffing and puffing up the stupid hill (why we decided to go up I don't know) we decided to continue to the top.
Yeah, the 1 KM turned out to be more like 3 KMs and the lovely lookout spot turned out to be a grassy knoll hidden in the mist of tall trees. No lookout to anything. We did however get to see a nice large cross planted in the grass and a bird house sign that said we'd reached 959 meters. Yea us. All our hard work climbing and we didn't get to take one nice picture of the valley below. We decided to head down a different direction from the slippery and steep one we climbed up and some how managed to get a tad bit lost.
We knew that we needed to go in a certain direction, but the clearly labeled paths seemed to become unclear and sometimes vanish all together the further we went down the mountain. It was suppose to be a 4.5 KMs journey back to town, but it took us about 6 Miles to reach the bottom. Our journey up the hill started out on the Green Triangle path which lead to the Red Triangle, The Yellow Dash, The Blue Slash, the Yellow Cross, The Yellow dash again, and the Green Dash got us out. Along the way we off roaded a bit, lost all paths completely and backtracked a bit. It was fun, but freezing and threatening to rain on us at any moment. We hit the town with growling stomachs and entered the first restaurant that sounded edible.
The day turned out to be a blast and made us too tired to find something to do during the night. We headed back to the dorm and went to sleep. We had to get up early to catch a train to Budapest to get another one to Prague, but that is another story. So long for now.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Buses, buses, and more fucking buses.
So I don't know what to write about first. I guess I will just go in order of events and then write the trouble of buses in-between.
So, Goreme (Gor-E-may) (which is the main city in Cappadocia - Cappadocia being a region rather than a city) turned out to be a beautiful. Robby and my pension was a room within a cave because Goreme is the Cave town. I truly believe that the creators of Smurfs and Flintstones came to Goreme some 45 years ago, looked around, got ideas and then designed their TV shows.
Goreme is a quaint town surrounded by 100's of miles of hiking trails through colorful canyons of gnome, Phalic, and mushroom looking pointed rocks. They sprang up due to volcanic activity in the region millions of years ago and have been defined and redefined by nature and the public ever since. Most of the Gnome ones were (and are) used as houses for numerous societies, hence the cave we were living in.
We arrived in Goreme at 6am and were shuttled to the Show String Pension. Since check in wasn't until 9 am I got the pleasure of attempting to sleep on a rather B.O. smelling blanket covered bench while Robby and the rest of the 10 tired souls that arrived with us read up on the local history of Goreme and some of the activities to do. Around 8 am Robby rudely awoke me and told me we were going on a journey to find Kristin (the girl we met on the Falucca in Egypt). We had scheduled to met her at Mt Nemrut, but our plans changes and she was in Goreme at the same time as us.
We found Kristin's hostels in no time, but there was no sign of Kristin, so we decided to have breakfast and wait a bit. We didn't have to wait long before she showed up and it was like being back in Egypt. We chatted, telling horror and funny stories before Michelle, a friend of Kristin's, showed up.
Once breakfast was over we headed to Pigeon Valley. We entered the canyon via a tree lined dirt road that opened onto white-brown gnome rocks that had holes and doors cut into them. Pigeon Valley got it's name from all the little square inlets in the gnome rocks that allow Pigeons to poop in. Every once and a while the poop is collected and used as ferterlizer. Gross, but effective and useful.
We walked for a few KMs in the lovely heat admiring all the unique rocks before coming to a town that was up a hill. Now, I used to think I was in shape, but I'm starting to think I was only in shape when I was 12. Going up the hill to the center of the town nearly killed me. I thought I would have a heart attack or something. Huffing and puffing at the top, I splurged on an expensive cold drink.
For some reason I was the deciding vote in climbing a massive rock that was littered with gnome houses so that we could take a picture of the valleys below. You could see for about 50 miles in any direction. I guess once I got my lungs back, it was a rather beautiful sight.
We scouted the next valley and trail that we wanted to take us back to Goreme and then hiked down the hill and down the mountain to relatively flat ground. Along the way we passed a backpacking group of 55+ year olds and I decided that I had no right to complain because if they could do I could do it. We got lost a bit, but eventually found the path to the White Valley.
Somehow our sense of direction sucked and we ended up sliding down parts of a large cliff face to get on the right trail. It was fun, but I would have liked to have shoes with better traction. Once we were on secure footing we managed to find a path that took us through a gorge and inside small cave tunnels. It was like walking through the King David water system again, but there was light every few feet. Nature always has a way of amazing and "awe-ing" oneself.
The White Valley is aptly named for the color of the rocks and cliffs. I think all the rocks were Limestone or just covered in a fine layer of white sand. Most of the surfaces were smooth and more phalic looking rocks reached towards the sky. We passed the mushroom that the giant worm (from Alice and Wonderland) sat on before coming to a paved road that took us back to Goreme. We spent the rest of the day exploring the small town, taking showers, and eating.
The next day we met Kristin at her hostel and headed to the Red and Rose Valleys. To get to the Red Valley we had to walk past the UFO museum (yeah, exactly) and then a valley of many small pumpkin patches. The Valley floor was littered with little green and yellow squashes. Two farming ladies tried to give us some, but we kindly refused. A KM later we made it to Red Valley which is more low key then Pigeon Valley with the gnome houses and consisting o red shaded hills.
We found a fairly large rock face covered in open doorways. The bottom housed a ancient church that had open graves across the entrance floor and a prayer/candle lighting section farther inside the cave. The upper floors of the cliff held small to medium rooms. Robby asked if Kristin and I were interested in renting. We said, "no".
Somehow we ended up climbing another massive hill that would not end going upwards. At least while I was contemplating a soon impending journey to heaven I got to look at lush foliage and small watering holes. Somewhere along the way the trail stopped at a store in the middle of nowhere and a church door. The Christian and Byzantine priests, back in the day, found solace in building their churches in the caves and gnome rocks, so the Valleys surrounding Goreme and other parts of Turkey are littered with 1000's of these small religious sites.
I plopped my ass down outside the church door and admired the Valley floor below. I could see the parts of the trail we hiked up and Goreme in the distance. Behind us there was Rose Valley and more hills. The guy who worked at the store was also the key holder to the Church door. He wanted a ridiculous amount of money to see the church, so we all opted to be content seating in front of the church.
Right when I was starting to feel sorry for the poor store owner, because how does he make a living when very few people venture this far into the mountains and the ones that do are most likely cheap bastards like us than free spending yuppies, when a tour group of money spending Italians showed up and bought 10 over priced cold drinks. When it started to feel too crowded at our rest stop we escaped in time before the 20 person tour group rounded the corner. I guess the store owner sees enough business to make the rent.
We hiked along a ridge that separated the Red Valley from the Rose Valley. The two Valleys were very similar in landscape, but the colors of the rocks were different shades of Red. Since it was another hot day we decided to cut our hike short and head back to town via the pumpkin patches.
The next day we paid to be "sheep" and hopped on boarded a pre-arranged tour. The tour bus was packed and I got the pleasure of being sandwiched between the driver and Robby. Lucky me. Ever since Israel buses have started to have a tendency for lolling me to sleep. I woke up 45 mins later to the driver laughing at me and asking if I had a nice nap. Grrrr. At least I don't snore.
We clamored out of the Van at 2nd largest of the 150 underground cities in the Cappadocia region. Apparently societies in the olden days were riddled with violent tendencies towards each other and this warranted the building of underground "safety" cities. When the bad guys got too close to the above ground cities the people would retreat into the ground. Just like the little cave dwellers of the prehistoric ages, these people built their caves to house 1000's, including farm animals.
The city we visited was 9 floors deep with 2 sheep and goat pens, a church with prison next to it (basically a connecting stalactite/stalagmite with chains on the ceiling to string up the bad guy in a "Y" stance) so all the church goers could scold the bad guy as they entered and exited prayer, numerous housing rooms, a large area for cooking including underground ovens, two large air vents, massive rocks to block the entrance to each new floor in case the enemy penetrated the city, and a school to teach the little ones.
Other than there being no sunlight, the cave dwelling was a cool place to live. I would have to get used to climbing up and down stairs all the time and maybe shrink in size since half the stairwells were 5 feet tall, but I think I could become an underground cave dweller for a bit. The temperature was a comfortable 65 degrees and the houses were quite roomy.
Next stop on the tour was our 3Km hike through a lush gorge. Since Robby, Kristin, and I were accustomed to walking through the Goreme Valleys at a leisurely pace it really sucked when we realized we were in a beautiful place and all we were going to see was the person in front of us' feet. The Tour women kept such a strict pace that we didn't have time to take a decent picture or even take in our surroundings. The trail was very rocky that if we didn't look down we were likely to fall.
The two bits of information that the Tour lady gave us about the trail were about as useful as the imitated one that one of the girls in the group did; "This is a tree. It breathes and grows." "This is a trail, you walk along it to get to a different place." The Tour lady was that good.
We stopped for a mini break along a muddy stream in the mist of dense foliage, so that we couldn't even get a great picture of the high cliff faces that boarded the gorge we were standing in. 10 minutes later we were hiking/walking again. We ended the hike at a very busy cafe along the muddy river for lunch. Some poor 15 year old that worked at the restaurant looked as though he was going to suffer a stroke any minute. His face was flushed and he was beyond stressed bring all 50 of us our soups. I don't think anyone would have cared too much if he took his time, but he continued to over strained himself bringing heavy trays of meat and vegetable dishes to the tables and briskly walking back to the kitchen for more. The youth in Turkey grow up fast.
After lunch was another power nap for me and a stop at an old Chruch. The Church looked more like a castle and had an indoor part that was used during the winter to stay warm and an outdoor part that was shaded during the summer. I didn't learn much else because the tour lady didn't say a lot and she gave us a whole 5 minutes to explore.
Next up, the Goreme Onyx factory. Yeap, every country that survives on Tourism loves to invite its tourist to view the makings of their wonders. We were all lead into the basement of the factory and privy to a private showing of a hard onyx block being magically turned into a smooth and shiny egg. Ohhhh, Ahhhhh, Snorrrre. Next was the "subtle" herd into the 5 beautiful onyx and other precious metals show rooms. After 5 minutes Robby, Kristin and I escaped to the ice cream stand across the street and waited not so patiently for the 15 moronic shoppers to exit the factory - we did not pay to shop. There were clearly more than just poor backpackers on our tour.
Eventually everyone exited the factory and we drove to the Fairy Chimney rocks or almost drove to the Fairy Chimney rocks. The van hit something in the road, a loud pop was heard, and 10 minutes later we were all walking our asses through the desert. At least the weather was a nice temperature since a storm looked to be brewing. It caused rays of sunlight to poke through the dark gray clouds and shroud the land in angelic light. Quite beautiful, except for the ugly orange color of the rays and the muddy gray of the clouds.
15 minutes later we rounded a corner to look down on the Fairy Chimney rocks. The rocks are basically phalic looking poles of limestone that shoot upwards and are toped with a small triangle looking stone at the top. Someone nicknamed the Valley the Valley of Penis'. We snapped pictures and waited around for the new Van to show up. So far I still have a high loathing for Tours, but half the places we went we couldn't' easily get to without a tour bus.
We made it back to Show String with enough time to grab our bags and head to the bus station to catch our 8:30pm bus to some small town to catch a night bus to Katha. The little bus that came was so packed that three unlucky souls had to sit on the floor near the door for the two hours to the bigger town. For our night bus to Katha we had to wait around the bus station for 2 hours (an hour after the departure time of the bus) frantically asking every bus that pulled up if they were the bus we needed since no one could tell us exactly were our bus was going to dock. So I don't know what to write about first. I guess I will just go in order of events and then write the trouble of buses in-between.
So, Goreme (Gor-E-may) (which is the main city in Cappadocia - Cappadocia being a region rather than a city) turned out to be a beautiful. Robby and my pension was a room within a cave because Goreme is the Cave town. I truly believe that the creators of Smurfs and Flintstones came to Goreme some 45 years ago, looked around, got ideas and then designed their TV shows.
Goreme is a quaint town surrounded by 100's of miles of hiking trails through colorful canyons of gnome, phalic, and mushroom looking pointed rocks. They sprang up due to volcanic activity in the region millions of years ago and have been defined and redefined by nature and the public ever since. Most of the Gnome ones were (and are) used as houses for numerous societies, hence the cave we were living in.
We arrived in Goreme at 6am and were shuttled to the Show String Pension. Since check in wasn't until 9 am I got the pleasure of attempting to sleep on a rather B.O. smelling blanket covered bench while Robby and the rest of the 10 tired souls that arrived with us read up on the local history of Goreme and some of the activities to do. Around 8 am Robby rudely awoke me and told me we were going on a journey to find Kristin (the girl we met on the Falucca in Egypt). We had scheduled to met her at Mt Nemrut, but our plans changes and she was in Goreme at the same time as us.
We found Kristin's hostels in no time, but there was no sign of Kristin, so we decided to have breakfast and wait a bit. We didn't have to wait long before she showed up and it was like being back in Egypt. We chatted, telling horror and funny stories before Michelle, a friend of Kristin's, showed up.
Once breakfast was over we headed to Pigeon Valley. We entered the canyon via a tree lined dirt road that opened onto white-brown gnome rocks that had holes and doors cut into them. Pigeon Valley got it's name from all the little square inlets in the gnome rocks that allow Pigeons to poop in. Every once and a while the poop is collected and used as ferterlizer. Gross, but effective and useful.
We walked for a few KMs in the lovely heat admiring all the unique rocks before coming to a town that was up a hill. Now, I used to think I was in shape, but I'm starting to think I was only in shape when I was 12. Going up the hill to the center of the town nearly killed me. I thought I would have a heart attack or something. Huffing and puffing at the top, I splurged on an expensive cold drink.
For some reason I was the deciding vote in climbing a massive rock that was littered with gnome houses so that we could take a picture of the valleys below. You could see for about 50 miles in any direction. I guess once I got my lungs back, it was a rather beautiful sight.
We scouted the next valley and trail that we wanted to take us back to Goreme and then hiked down the hill and down the mountain to relatively flat ground. Along the way we passed a backpacking group of 55+ year olds and I decided that I had no right to complain because if they could do I could do it. We got lost a bit, but eventually found the path to the White Valley.
Somehow our sense of direction sucked and we ended up sliding down parts of a large cliff face to get on the right trail. It was fun, but I would have liked to have shoes with better traction. Once we were on secure footing we managed to find a path that took us through a gorge and inside small cave tunnels. It was like walking through the King David water system again, but there was light every few feet. Nature always has a way of amazing and "awe-ing" oneself.
The White Valley is aptly named for the color of the rocks and cliffs. I think all the rocks were Limestone or just covered in a fine layer of white sand. Most of the surfaces were smooth and more phalic looking rocks reached towards the sky. We passed the mushroom that the giant worm (from Alice and Wonderland) sat on before coming to a paved road that took us back to Goreme. We spent the rest of the day exploring the small town, taking showers, and eating.
The next day we met Kristin at her hostel and headed to the Red and Rose Valleys. To get to the Red Valley we had to walk past the UFO museum (yeah, exactly) and then a valley of many small pumpkin patches. The Valley floor was littered with little green and yellow squashes. Two farming ladies tried to give us some, but we kindly refused. A KM later we made it to Red Valley which is more low key then Pigeon Valley with the gnome houses and consisting o red shaded hills.
We found a fairly large rock face covered in open doorways. The bottom housed a ancient church that had open graves across the entrance floor and a prayer/candle lighting section farther inside the cave. The upper floors of the cliff held small to medium rooms. Robby asked if Kristin and I were interested in renting. We said, "no".
Somehow we ended up climbing another massive hill that would not end going upwards. At least while I was contemplating a soon impending journey to heaven I got to look at lush foliage and small watering holes. Somewhere along the way the trail stopped at a store in the middle of nowhere and a church door. The Christian and Byzantine priests, back in the day, found solace in building their churches in the caves and gnome rocks, so the Valleys surrounding Goreme and other parts of Turkey are littered with 1000's of these small religious sites.
I plopped my ass down outside the church door and admired the Valley floor below. I could see the parts of the trail we hiked up and Goreme in the distance. Behind us there was Rose Valley and more hills. The guy who worked at the store was also the key holder to the Church door. He wanted a ridiculous amount of money to see the church, so we all opted to be content seating in front of the church.
Right when I was starting to feel sorry for the poor store owner, because how does he make a living when very few people venture this far into the mountains and the ones that do are most likely cheap bastards like us than free spending yuppies, when a tour group of money spending Italians showed up and bought 10 over priced cold drinks. When it started to feel too crowded at our rest stop we escaped in time before the 20 person tour group rounded the corner. I guess the store owner sees enough business to make the rent.
We hiked along a ridge that separated the Red Valley from the Rose Valley. The two Valleys were very similar in landscape, but the colors of the rocks were different shades of Red. Since it was another hot day we decided to cut our hike short and head back to town via the pumpkin patches.
The next day we paid to be "sheep" and hopped on boarded a pre-arranged tour. The tour bus was packed and I got the pleasure of being sandwiched between the driver and Robby. Lucky me. Ever since Israel buses have started to have a tendency for lolling me to sleep. I woke up 45 mins later to the driver laughing at me and asking if I had a nice nap. Grrrr. At least I don't snore.
We clamored out of the Van at 2nd largest of the 150 underground cities in the Cappadocia region. Apparently societies in the olden days were riddled with violent tendencies towards each other and this warranted the building of underground "safety" cities. When the bad guys got too close to the above ground cities the people would retreat into the ground. Just like the little cave dwellers of the prehistoric ages, these people built their caves to house 1000's, including farm animals.
The city we visited was 9 floors deep with 2 sheep and goat pens, a church with prison next to it (basically a connecting stalactite/stalagmite with chains on the ceiling to string up the bad guy in a "Y" stance) so all the church goers could scold the bad guy as they entered and exited prayer, numerous housing rooms, a large area for cooking including underground ovens, two large air vents, massive rocks to block the entrance to each new floor in case the enemy penetrated the city, and a school to teach the little ones.
Other than there being no sunlight, the cave dwelling was a cool place to live. I would have to get used to climbing up and down stairs all the time and maybe shrink in size since half the stairwells were 5 feet tall, but I think I could become an underground cave dweller for a bit. The temperature was a comfortable 65 degrees and the houses were quite roomy.
Next stop on the tour was our 3Km hike through a lush gorge. Since Robby, Kristin, and I were accustomed to walking through the Goreme Valleys at a leisurely pace it really sucked when we realized we were in a beautiful place and all we were going to see was the person in front of us' feet. The Tour women kept such a strict pace that we didn't have time to take a decent picture or even take in our surroundings. The trail was very rocky that if we didn't look down we were likely to fall.
The two bits of information that the Tour lady gave us about the trail were about as useful as the imitated one that one of the girls in the group did; "This is a tree. It breathes and grows." "This is a trail, you walk along it to get to a different place." The Tour lady was that good.
We stopped for a mini break along a muddy stream in the mist of dense foliage, so that we couldn't even get a great picture of the high cliff faces that boarded the gorge we were standing in. 10 minutes later we were hiking/walking again. We ended the hike at a very busy cafe along the muddy river for lunch. Some poor 15 year old that worked at the restaurant looked as though he was going to suffer a stroke any minute. His face was flushed and he was beyond stressed bring all 50 of us our soups. I don't think anyone would have cared too much if he took his time, but he continued to over strained himself bringing heavy trays of meat and vegetable dishes to the tables and briskly walking back to the kitchen for more. The youth in Turkey grow up fast.
After lunch was another power nap for me and a stop at an old Chruch. The Church looked more like a castle and had an indoor part that was used during the winter to stay warm and an outdoor part that was shaded during the summer. I didn't learn much else because the tour lady didn't say a lot and she gave us a whole 5 minutes to explore.
Next up, the Goreme Onyx factory. Yeap, every country that survives on Tourism loves to invite its tourist to view the makings of their wonders. We were all lead into the basement of the factory and privy to a private showing of a hard onyx block being magically turned into a smooth and shiny egg. Ohhhh, Ahhhhh, Snorrrre. Next was the "subtle" herd into the 5 beautiful onyx and other precious metals show rooms. After 5 minutes Robby, Kristin and I escaped to the ice cream stand across the street and waited not so patiently for the 15 moronic shoppers to exit the factory - we did not pay to shop. There were clearly more than just poor backpackers on our tour.
Eventually everyone exited the factory and we drove to the Fairy Chimney rocks or almost drove to the Fairy Chimney rocks. The van hit something in the road, a loud pop was heard, and 10 minutes later we were all walking our asses through the desert. At least the weather was a nice temperature since a storm looked to be brewing. It caused rays of sunlight to poke through the dark gray clouds and shroud the land in angelic light. Quite beautiful, except for the ugly orange color of the rays and the muddy gray of the clouds.
15 minutes later we rounded a corner to look down on the Fairy Chimney rocks. The rocks are basically phalic looking poles of limestone that shoot upwards and are toped with a small triangle looking stone at the top. Someone nicknamed the Valley the Valley of Penis'. We snapped pictures and waited around for the new Van to show up. So far I still have a high loathing for Tours, but half the places we went we couldn't' easily get to without a tour bus.
We made it back to Show String with enough time to grab our bags and head to the bus station to catch our 8:30pm bus to some small town to catch a night bus to Katha. The little bus that came was so packed that three unlucky souls had to sit on the floor near the door for the two hours to the bigger town. For our night bus to Katha we had to wait around the bus station for 2 hours (an hour after the departure time of the bus) frantically asking every bus that pulled up if they were the bus we needed since no one could tell us exactly were our bus was going to dock.
After annoying the guy at the ticket office we were stuck with another guy going on the same bus with us and from there we dragged our bags back and forth across the bus station before some guy was running across the street to stop our bus as it was driving passed the station. We hauled ass to the illegally parked bus, handed our backpacks over to the bus guy and boarded a very hot and very packed bus. Our seats were the 2 before the row of four at the back of the bus. Three little kids were in our seats that begrudenly moved into the ailse and behind us when we came. We sat down with 4 adults, 3 kids under three, 2 kids about 7, and one grandma sharing the 4 seats behind us, one adult under the back of our seats and three small ones passed out in the ailse. This was the start of a fun nights rest.
Kristin got the pleasure of sitting next to a nice Turkish man, but he feel asleep with his head constantly rolling on Kristin. I had a 7 year old sleeping on the back of my head rest. I didn't want to hit the kid so I couldn't really stick my head all the way back and I couldn't lean my chair back because of all the people behind me. The bus stopped every three hours for a 30 minute piss break where the lights went on, the kids hit our elbows on the way outside and the AC was turned off.
Around 6:30am we rolled into dank bus station and sort of continued to doze because we figured the bus guy would tell us when we reached Katha. Nope, everyone got off the bus and Kristin told us we had arrived when she ventured out to see were we were. Katha, a small dust pit of despair. We wearily exited the bus, grabbed our bags and wondered what to do next. We knew that a city bus to Mt. Nemrut didn't leave until about 2pm and so we were decided to wander into town when a guy offered to take us to our hostel for an exorbitant price. We told the guy no, but he kept asking and telling us we wouldn't get a better deal. We opted to wait until the city bus. On top of the lovely haggler, a 12 year old with his fly unzipped stared at us like we were monkeys in the zoo. We were not in the mood. Just as we picked up our bags to walk into town to find a coffee shop a nice man told us he was headed to Mt. Nemrut and offered to take us for a reasonable sum. We agreed.
Our pension was the last rest stop before the entrance to Mt. Nemrut and that is why we choose it, but the beds were most likely wood planks covered in sheets on top squeaky springs inside an airless room with a shower that dripped freezing cold water. We'd found paradise. At least we got to sleep the morning away instead of being goggled at by the Katha locals.
We woke at noon, decided to venture down the mountain to the pension we saw earlier with all the tour buses and find a bite to eat. The pension turned out to be farther than we thought and by the time we got there all the buses had gone. It was us and the Hotel staff and eggs for lunch. We wished someone would drive us back up the 2KM hill to our pension, but instead we worked off the eggs by climbing the 25 degree incline hill. The rest of the day was spent reading and relaxing.
We woke at 2 am to hike the 10 Km to the top of Mt. Nemrut to watch the sunrise. Mt. Nemrut is known for its 2 meter high stone heads that lie at the feet of the statue bodies. The heads used to be attached to the bodies, but after an earthquake, they rolled to the ground. The statues were built by a crazy king (sort of like Ramese II) who worshiped himself among other gods. He somehow built a large stone peak on top of Mt. Nemrut, put statues around it and most likely buried some dead people within the peak.
We walked uphill under the cover of a cool starry night, chatting and enjoying ourselves. Surprisingly multiple cars passed us on the way up. We secretly wished they'd give us a ride, but if you saw three dark figures walking along a mountainside at 3 in the morning would you stop and offer a ride? The Lonely Planet had said that the trek to the top of Mt. Nemrut was only 6KM, which it was really 10, so when it told us that the last 3 KM of the trek would have to be driven in 1st gear we paid no attention. Apparently someone got some information right and the last 3 KM sucked big time. Nearly a 40 degree incline that didn't even out even for a brief bit. Up, up, and up. We passed a car that stalled out and was being pushed up the hill, but soon that car regained its engine and passed us.
2 hours and 7 minutes since we had started our journey we were regaining our breathes on a bench a mere 600 meters from the top. Somehow the coffee seller and his buddies knew we were from Cesme Pension. I guess not many people walk and the pension guy told his friends we planned to walk. We climbed the 600 meters of steps to the top and watched the sun rise through a foggy haze. At least the heads were interesting or the walk was for nothing. There were about 8 heads on the East side of the mountain. The human looking head was of the King and the rest were various animal heads that represented the Gods. 5 of the bodies sat in a line above the heads. We walked around the top of the peak to the West side where there were more heads, but most of the statues were destroyed. As we walked back towards the East side and the exit, the sun came out of the fog and showed us its orange and yellow rays. The journey was worth it afterall.
We lucked out in hitchhiking down the mountain to the pension because it would have torn our knees to shred's walking. A nice group of guys pulled over and stuffed us three, along with 2 bigger guys in the back of a small Neon while two guys rode in front. Hey, a free rides a free ride. Besides, we had to catch a 7:30 am city bus back to Katha to catch another city bus to Urfa.
We loaded into a 15 pass van with a family of 5 kids and 2 parents for an hour before we transferred to another 15 pass van that crammed us, the family, 13 other people, and Robby's backpacking backpack into the non ACed and closed windowed van. We sped along the city streets looking for more passengers and slowly made our way to Urfa, a big city in Eastern Turkey. Three hours later we breathed fresh air at another dirty bus station while collecting ourselves.
Urfa basically looks like another Cairo. Poor, dirty, and covered in annoying hecklers and catcallers. Somehow we found our way to Hospitality Hostel, a bunch of rooms in a house of a happy old couple. We were given a nice room, again with the lumpy hard beds and no air circulation, but it was clean and the owners were very friendly. We dropped our bags and were lead into town by Aziz, the owner of the Hostel.
He took us to a holy fish pool that is said to house the fish of the Prophet Mohammed. The story of the fish somehow goes like this: There was a castle on the hill that Mohammed was living in and a bad guy wanted to live there so he blasted Mohammed out of the castle which blew Mohammed into the air and down onto the pond, which saved his life, and all the fiery bits of castle turned into fish in the pond. Something like that and now the fish are sacred and people from all over come here to feed them. Aziz left us with a 13 year old that looked about 10 and told us he was his nephew and a Jr. Tour guide.
We asked the nephew to take us to an internet cafe and ended up seeing the fish pond again, along with a mosque, a giant park, numerous streets, and eventually a very smoky, all male internet cafe. We checked our emails, lost the nephew and ventured into downtown Urfa. We came upon a bazaar, looked about, tried in vain to find food that wasn't ke-bob or pizza and went back to the Hostel. The mother of the hostel cooked RObby and I a homecooked dinner and we retired early, but not before meeting the other 20 or so people that were staying at the house. We didn't think there were that many rooms, but I guess they were good at cramming in the beds.
The next morning we took a city bus to Harran. We boarded a fairly empty 15 pass van and spent the next hour going up and down the city streets trying to find more passengers before the driver would head to Harran. The drivers don't like to drive places without a full van because gas is so expensive, but I would think driving 5 miles an hour up and down hills would waste more gas than just driving to the location. Good thing I'm not a bus driver.
Harran is the world's longest inhabited city...now barely inhabited city. We pulled up along side a bee hive house, got out and took in the dirt and tussle weeds. The old section of Harran is know for the Oldest Mosque, the castle and the bee hive houses. The bee hive houses are basically bee hive looking dome roofs placed on top square walls, all made of mud, bricks, and plants. The domes of the bee hives were reinforced with bricks stolen from the Mosque and Castle.
The place we stopped at was a bee hive house that visitors could look in and see how the people lived. The temperature was a cool 80 degrees while outside burned under the 105 degree sun. Mats and little chairs covered the floors, a stone table was set up in the kitchen, good luck charms hung from the ceiling, and old men stared at us over their huka containers. We ventured into town.
What remained of the largest Mosque in the world was a half destroyed rectangular bell tower and one wall. Piles of rubble lay forgotten and crumbled along the dimensions of the old walls and many more pieces of crumbled rocks littered the valley for a distance. Harran looked to be quite large in its hay day.
The castle was falling apart, but one could still climb the three floors and look out at the town. Harran used to be covered in grass and surrounded by lakes, but now it is a dust bowl surrounded by farmland. It's weird because the castle, the Mosque, the bee hive houses and a few other houses are all set upon dirt while just out of reach is bright green crops and water. It's like the land is trying to gave up on life, get rid of life and fade into nothingness, but humans won't let it go.
We headed back to Urfa, wandered about some more and went to the bus station to board our respective buses. Kristin was headed to Olympos for a week of relaxation while Robby and I were headed to Istanbul to catch a bus to Budapest. We decided that it was too expensive to travel in Greece for a week, so we might as well travel to Budapest and Prague for cheaper and see more. We were kind of sick of the same old Roman and Greek ruins anyhow and needed something new, like gothic buildings and castles. (Short note, it is really expensive and quite hard to get to Tel Aviv from Europe, so I will be forfeiting my semi free ticket home from Israel and boarding a plane from Krakow to Dublin to LA on September 11th. Now I have a few extra days to explore Europe and I don't have to backtrack to the Middle East, especially during a war time.)
Of Course the bus that Robby and I were taking was late and after wandering if it was going to show up, a guy told us to follow him out of the bus station, up and over the over pass, down to the other side of the street and on to an island in the middle of the main road. We stood with our packs wondering what the hell we were doing. We finally understood after a bus stopped at the island (not our bus) and dropped people off. Somehow we had managed to book another bus that didn't stop at the bus station. Kristin (who was catching a later bus), Robby and I decided that in the future on top of asking the bus people if the bus is large (some are 15 passes), ACed, and for a seat in the middle of the bus, we now have to ask if it actually stops at the station or if we need to go chase it down.
45 minutes late our bus stopped at the Island, we said goodbye to Kristin, and boarded a 15 hour hell ride. Now most people know that on a bus the seats go back a little and if it is an over night bus the seats will go back. Somehow this understanding of bus logic didn't get passed along to the mean old man sitting behind me. I pushed my chair back and was immediately launched forward. The old man had pushed his hands down on the top of my seat and let go, effectively flicking the seat. I turned around and was met with an evil glare and an expression that said, "put the seat up". I put it up and cowered in an uncomfortable position. I knew that the seats had about a foot and a half of knee room, but that was still a foot and a half of knee room. Somehow the old man had his chair all the way forward and his knees pressing into the back of my upright chair. I think he was slouching all the way forward.
I asked Robby to watch the man through the crack in the chairs and tell me when he moved so I could slowly move the chair backwards. It worked for a bit, but everytime I got off the bus and back on, the chair was back upright. Smart little bastard. Another night of restless sleeping.
So now I am in Hungary, have been for a while, but I've written enough for this blog and bored you all miserably. So good night and I will write more about horrible bus journeys later.
So, Goreme (Gor-E-may) (which is the main city in Cappadocia - Cappadocia being a region rather than a city) turned out to be a beautiful. Robby and my pension was a room within a cave because Goreme is the Cave town. I truly believe that the creators of Smurfs and Flintstones came to Goreme some 45 years ago, looked around, got ideas and then designed their TV shows.
Goreme is a quaint town surrounded by 100's of miles of hiking trails through colorful canyons of gnome, Phalic, and mushroom looking pointed rocks. They sprang up due to volcanic activity in the region millions of years ago and have been defined and redefined by nature and the public ever since. Most of the Gnome ones were (and are) used as houses for numerous societies, hence the cave we were living in.
We arrived in Goreme at 6am and were shuttled to the Show String Pension. Since check in wasn't until 9 am I got the pleasure of attempting to sleep on a rather B.O. smelling blanket covered bench while Robby and the rest of the 10 tired souls that arrived with us read up on the local history of Goreme and some of the activities to do. Around 8 am Robby rudely awoke me and told me we were going on a journey to find Kristin (the girl we met on the Falucca in Egypt). We had scheduled to met her at Mt Nemrut, but our plans changes and she was in Goreme at the same time as us.
We found Kristin's hostels in no time, but there was no sign of Kristin, so we decided to have breakfast and wait a bit. We didn't have to wait long before she showed up and it was like being back in Egypt. We chatted, telling horror and funny stories before Michelle, a friend of Kristin's, showed up.
Once breakfast was over we headed to Pigeon Valley. We entered the canyon via a tree lined dirt road that opened onto white-brown gnome rocks that had holes and doors cut into them. Pigeon Valley got it's name from all the little square inlets in the gnome rocks that allow Pigeons to poop in. Every once and a while the poop is collected and used as ferterlizer. Gross, but effective and useful.
We walked for a few KMs in the lovely heat admiring all the unique rocks before coming to a town that was up a hill. Now, I used to think I was in shape, but I'm starting to think I was only in shape when I was 12. Going up the hill to the center of the town nearly killed me. I thought I would have a heart attack or something. Huffing and puffing at the top, I splurged on an expensive cold drink.
For some reason I was the deciding vote in climbing a massive rock that was littered with gnome houses so that we could take a picture of the valleys below. You could see for about 50 miles in any direction. I guess once I got my lungs back, it was a rather beautiful sight.
We scouted the next valley and trail that we wanted to take us back to Goreme and then hiked down the hill and down the mountain to relatively flat ground. Along the way we passed a backpacking group of 55+ year olds and I decided that I had no right to complain because if they could do I could do it. We got lost a bit, but eventually found the path to the White Valley.
Somehow our sense of direction sucked and we ended up sliding down parts of a large cliff face to get on the right trail. It was fun, but I would have liked to have shoes with better traction. Once we were on secure footing we managed to find a path that took us through a gorge and inside small cave tunnels. It was like walking through the King David water system again, but there was light every few feet. Nature always has a way of amazing and "awe-ing" oneself.
The White Valley is aptly named for the color of the rocks and cliffs. I think all the rocks were Limestone or just covered in a fine layer of white sand. Most of the surfaces were smooth and more phalic looking rocks reached towards the sky. We passed the mushroom that the giant worm (from Alice and Wonderland) sat on before coming to a paved road that took us back to Goreme. We spent the rest of the day exploring the small town, taking showers, and eating.
The next day we met Kristin at her hostel and headed to the Red and Rose Valleys. To get to the Red Valley we had to walk past the UFO museum (yeah, exactly) and then a valley of many small pumpkin patches. The Valley floor was littered with little green and yellow squashes. Two farming ladies tried to give us some, but we kindly refused. A KM later we made it to Red Valley which is more low key then Pigeon Valley with the gnome houses and consisting o red shaded hills.
We found a fairly large rock face covered in open doorways. The bottom housed a ancient church that had open graves across the entrance floor and a prayer/candle lighting section farther inside the cave. The upper floors of the cliff held small to medium rooms. Robby asked if Kristin and I were interested in renting. We said, "no".
Somehow we ended up climbing another massive hill that would not end going upwards. At least while I was contemplating a soon impending journey to heaven I got to look at lush foliage and small watering holes. Somewhere along the way the trail stopped at a store in the middle of nowhere and a church door. The Christian and Byzantine priests, back in the day, found solace in building their churches in the caves and gnome rocks, so the Valleys surrounding Goreme and other parts of Turkey are littered with 1000's of these small religious sites.
I plopped my ass down outside the church door and admired the Valley floor below. I could see the parts of the trail we hiked up and Goreme in the distance. Behind us there was Rose Valley and more hills. The guy who worked at the store was also the key holder to the Church door. He wanted a ridiculous amount of money to see the church, so we all opted to be content seating in front of the church.
Right when I was starting to feel sorry for the poor store owner, because how does he make a living when very few people venture this far into the mountains and the ones that do are most likely cheap bastards like us than free spending yuppies, when a tour group of money spending Italians showed up and bought 10 over priced cold drinks. When it started to feel too crowded at our rest stop we escaped in time before the 20 person tour group rounded the corner. I guess the store owner sees enough business to make the rent.
We hiked along a ridge that separated the Red Valley from the Rose Valley. The two Valleys were very similar in landscape, but the colors of the rocks were different shades of Red. Since it was another hot day we decided to cut our hike short and head back to town via the pumpkin patches.
The next day we paid to be "sheep" and hopped on boarded a pre-arranged tour. The tour bus was packed and I got the pleasure of being sandwiched between the driver and Robby. Lucky me. Ever since Israel buses have started to have a tendency for lolling me to sleep. I woke up 45 mins later to the driver laughing at me and asking if I had a nice nap. Grrrr. At least I don't snore.
We clamored out of the Van at 2nd largest of the 150 underground cities in the Cappadocia region. Apparently societies in the olden days were riddled with violent tendencies towards each other and this warranted the building of underground "safety" cities. When the bad guys got too close to the above ground cities the people would retreat into the ground. Just like the little cave dwellers of the prehistoric ages, these people built their caves to house 1000's, including farm animals.
The city we visited was 9 floors deep with 2 sheep and goat pens, a church with prison next to it (basically a connecting stalactite/stalagmite with chains on the ceiling to string up the bad guy in a "Y" stance) so all the church goers could scold the bad guy as they entered and exited prayer, numerous housing rooms, a large area for cooking including underground ovens, two large air vents, massive rocks to block the entrance to each new floor in case the enemy penetrated the city, and a school to teach the little ones.
Other than there being no sunlight, the cave dwelling was a cool place to live. I would have to get used to climbing up and down stairs all the time and maybe shrink in size since half the stairwells were 5 feet tall, but I think I could become an underground cave dweller for a bit. The temperature was a comfortable 65 degrees and the houses were quite roomy.
Next stop on the tour was our 3Km hike through a lush gorge. Since Robby, Kristin, and I were accustomed to walking through the Goreme Valleys at a leisurely pace it really sucked when we realized we were in a beautiful place and all we were going to see was the person in front of us' feet. The Tour women kept such a strict pace that we didn't have time to take a decent picture or even take in our surroundings. The trail was very rocky that if we didn't look down we were likely to fall.
The two bits of information that the Tour lady gave us about the trail were about as useful as the imitated one that one of the girls in the group did; "This is a tree. It breathes and grows." "This is a trail, you walk along it to get to a different place." The Tour lady was that good.
We stopped for a mini break along a muddy stream in the mist of dense foliage, so that we couldn't even get a great picture of the high cliff faces that boarded the gorge we were standing in. 10 minutes later we were hiking/walking again. We ended the hike at a very busy cafe along the muddy river for lunch. Some poor 15 year old that worked at the restaurant looked as though he was going to suffer a stroke any minute. His face was flushed and he was beyond stressed bring all 50 of us our soups. I don't think anyone would have cared too much if he took his time, but he continued to over strained himself bringing heavy trays of meat and vegetable dishes to the tables and briskly walking back to the kitchen for more. The youth in Turkey grow up fast.
After lunch was another power nap for me and a stop at an old Chruch. The Church looked more like a castle and had an indoor part that was used during the winter to stay warm and an outdoor part that was shaded during the summer. I didn't learn much else because the tour lady didn't say a lot and she gave us a whole 5 minutes to explore.
Next up, the Goreme Onyx factory. Yeap, every country that survives on Tourism loves to invite its tourist to view the makings of their wonders. We were all lead into the basement of the factory and privy to a private showing of a hard onyx block being magically turned into a smooth and shiny egg. Ohhhh, Ahhhhh, Snorrrre. Next was the "subtle" herd into the 5 beautiful onyx and other precious metals show rooms. After 5 minutes Robby, Kristin and I escaped to the ice cream stand across the street and waited not so patiently for the 15 moronic shoppers to exit the factory - we did not pay to shop. There were clearly more than just poor backpackers on our tour.
Eventually everyone exited the factory and we drove to the Fairy Chimney rocks or almost drove to the Fairy Chimney rocks. The van hit something in the road, a loud pop was heard, and 10 minutes later we were all walking our asses through the desert. At least the weather was a nice temperature since a storm looked to be brewing. It caused rays of sunlight to poke through the dark gray clouds and shroud the land in angelic light. Quite beautiful, except for the ugly orange color of the rays and the muddy gray of the clouds.
15 minutes later we rounded a corner to look down on the Fairy Chimney rocks. The rocks are basically phalic looking poles of limestone that shoot upwards and are toped with a small triangle looking stone at the top. Someone nicknamed the Valley the Valley of Penis'. We snapped pictures and waited around for the new Van to show up. So far I still have a high loathing for Tours, but half the places we went we couldn't' easily get to without a tour bus.
We made it back to Show String with enough time to grab our bags and head to the bus station to catch our 8:30pm bus to some small town to catch a night bus to Katha. The little bus that came was so packed that three unlucky souls had to sit on the floor near the door for the two hours to the bigger town. For our night bus to Katha we had to wait around the bus station for 2 hours (an hour after the departure time of the bus) frantically asking every bus that pulled up if they were the bus we needed since no one could tell us exactly were our bus was going to dock. So I don't know what to write about first. I guess I will just go in order of events and then write the trouble of buses in-between.
So, Goreme (Gor-E-may) (which is the main city in Cappadocia - Cappadocia being a region rather than a city) turned out to be a beautiful. Robby and my pension was a room within a cave because Goreme is the Cave town. I truly believe that the creators of Smurfs and Flintstones came to Goreme some 45 years ago, looked around, got ideas and then designed their TV shows.
Goreme is a quaint town surrounded by 100's of miles of hiking trails through colorful canyons of gnome, phalic, and mushroom looking pointed rocks. They sprang up due to volcanic activity in the region millions of years ago and have been defined and redefined by nature and the public ever since. Most of the Gnome ones were (and are) used as houses for numerous societies, hence the cave we were living in.
We arrived in Goreme at 6am and were shuttled to the Show String Pension. Since check in wasn't until 9 am I got the pleasure of attempting to sleep on a rather B.O. smelling blanket covered bench while Robby and the rest of the 10 tired souls that arrived with us read up on the local history of Goreme and some of the activities to do. Around 8 am Robby rudely awoke me and told me we were going on a journey to find Kristin (the girl we met on the Falucca in Egypt). We had scheduled to met her at Mt Nemrut, but our plans changes and she was in Goreme at the same time as us.
We found Kristin's hostels in no time, but there was no sign of Kristin, so we decided to have breakfast and wait a bit. We didn't have to wait long before she showed up and it was like being back in Egypt. We chatted, telling horror and funny stories before Michelle, a friend of Kristin's, showed up.
Once breakfast was over we headed to Pigeon Valley. We entered the canyon via a tree lined dirt road that opened onto white-brown gnome rocks that had holes and doors cut into them. Pigeon Valley got it's name from all the little square inlets in the gnome rocks that allow Pigeons to poop in. Every once and a while the poop is collected and used as ferterlizer. Gross, but effective and useful.
We walked for a few KMs in the lovely heat admiring all the unique rocks before coming to a town that was up a hill. Now, I used to think I was in shape, but I'm starting to think I was only in shape when I was 12. Going up the hill to the center of the town nearly killed me. I thought I would have a heart attack or something. Huffing and puffing at the top, I splurged on an expensive cold drink.
For some reason I was the deciding vote in climbing a massive rock that was littered with gnome houses so that we could take a picture of the valleys below. You could see for about 50 miles in any direction. I guess once I got my lungs back, it was a rather beautiful sight.
We scouted the next valley and trail that we wanted to take us back to Goreme and then hiked down the hill and down the mountain to relatively flat ground. Along the way we passed a backpacking group of 55+ year olds and I decided that I had no right to complain because if they could do I could do it. We got lost a bit, but eventually found the path to the White Valley.
Somehow our sense of direction sucked and we ended up sliding down parts of a large cliff face to get on the right trail. It was fun, but I would have liked to have shoes with better traction. Once we were on secure footing we managed to find a path that took us through a gorge and inside small cave tunnels. It was like walking through the King David water system again, but there was light every few feet. Nature always has a way of amazing and "awe-ing" oneself.
The White Valley is aptly named for the color of the rocks and cliffs. I think all the rocks were Limestone or just covered in a fine layer of white sand. Most of the surfaces were smooth and more phalic looking rocks reached towards the sky. We passed the mushroom that the giant worm (from Alice and Wonderland) sat on before coming to a paved road that took us back to Goreme. We spent the rest of the day exploring the small town, taking showers, and eating.
The next day we met Kristin at her hostel and headed to the Red and Rose Valleys. To get to the Red Valley we had to walk past the UFO museum (yeah, exactly) and then a valley of many small pumpkin patches. The Valley floor was littered with little green and yellow squashes. Two farming ladies tried to give us some, but we kindly refused. A KM later we made it to Red Valley which is more low key then Pigeon Valley with the gnome houses and consisting o red shaded hills.
We found a fairly large rock face covered in open doorways. The bottom housed a ancient church that had open graves across the entrance floor and a prayer/candle lighting section farther inside the cave. The upper floors of the cliff held small to medium rooms. Robby asked if Kristin and I were interested in renting. We said, "no".
Somehow we ended up climbing another massive hill that would not end going upwards. At least while I was contemplating a soon impending journey to heaven I got to look at lush foliage and small watering holes. Somewhere along the way the trail stopped at a store in the middle of nowhere and a church door. The Christian and Byzantine priests, back in the day, found solace in building their churches in the caves and gnome rocks, so the Valleys surrounding Goreme and other parts of Turkey are littered with 1000's of these small religious sites.
I plopped my ass down outside the church door and admired the Valley floor below. I could see the parts of the trail we hiked up and Goreme in the distance. Behind us there was Rose Valley and more hills. The guy who worked at the store was also the key holder to the Church door. He wanted a ridiculous amount of money to see the church, so we all opted to be content seating in front of the church.
Right when I was starting to feel sorry for the poor store owner, because how does he make a living when very few people venture this far into the mountains and the ones that do are most likely cheap bastards like us than free spending yuppies, when a tour group of money spending Italians showed up and bought 10 over priced cold drinks. When it started to feel too crowded at our rest stop we escaped in time before the 20 person tour group rounded the corner. I guess the store owner sees enough business to make the rent.
We hiked along a ridge that separated the Red Valley from the Rose Valley. The two Valleys were very similar in landscape, but the colors of the rocks were different shades of Red. Since it was another hot day we decided to cut our hike short and head back to town via the pumpkin patches.
The next day we paid to be "sheep" and hopped on boarded a pre-arranged tour. The tour bus was packed and I got the pleasure of being sandwiched between the driver and Robby. Lucky me. Ever since Israel buses have started to have a tendency for lolling me to sleep. I woke up 45 mins later to the driver laughing at me and asking if I had a nice nap. Grrrr. At least I don't snore.
We clamored out of the Van at 2nd largest of the 150 underground cities in the Cappadocia region. Apparently societies in the olden days were riddled with violent tendencies towards each other and this warranted the building of underground "safety" cities. When the bad guys got too close to the above ground cities the people would retreat into the ground. Just like the little cave dwellers of the prehistoric ages, these people built their caves to house 1000's, including farm animals.
The city we visited was 9 floors deep with 2 sheep and goat pens, a church with prison next to it (basically a connecting stalactite/stalagmite with chains on the ceiling to string up the bad guy in a "Y" stance) so all the church goers could scold the bad guy as they entered and exited prayer, numerous housing rooms, a large area for cooking including underground ovens, two large air vents, massive rocks to block the entrance to each new floor in case the enemy penetrated the city, and a school to teach the little ones.
Other than there being no sunlight, the cave dwelling was a cool place to live. I would have to get used to climbing up and down stairs all the time and maybe shrink in size since half the stairwells were 5 feet tall, but I think I could become an underground cave dweller for a bit. The temperature was a comfortable 65 degrees and the houses were quite roomy.
Next stop on the tour was our 3Km hike through a lush gorge. Since Robby, Kristin, and I were accustomed to walking through the Goreme Valleys at a leisurely pace it really sucked when we realized we were in a beautiful place and all we were going to see was the person in front of us' feet. The Tour women kept such a strict pace that we didn't have time to take a decent picture or even take in our surroundings. The trail was very rocky that if we didn't look down we were likely to fall.
The two bits of information that the Tour lady gave us about the trail were about as useful as the imitated one that one of the girls in the group did; "This is a tree. It breathes and grows." "This is a trail, you walk along it to get to a different place." The Tour lady was that good.
We stopped for a mini break along a muddy stream in the mist of dense foliage, so that we couldn't even get a great picture of the high cliff faces that boarded the gorge we were standing in. 10 minutes later we were hiking/walking again. We ended the hike at a very busy cafe along the muddy river for lunch. Some poor 15 year old that worked at the restaurant looked as though he was going to suffer a stroke any minute. His face was flushed and he was beyond stressed bring all 50 of us our soups. I don't think anyone would have cared too much if he took his time, but he continued to over strained himself bringing heavy trays of meat and vegetable dishes to the tables and briskly walking back to the kitchen for more. The youth in Turkey grow up fast.
After lunch was another power nap for me and a stop at an old Chruch. The Church looked more like a castle and had an indoor part that was used during the winter to stay warm and an outdoor part that was shaded during the summer. I didn't learn much else because the tour lady didn't say a lot and she gave us a whole 5 minutes to explore.
Next up, the Goreme Onyx factory. Yeap, every country that survives on Tourism loves to invite its tourist to view the makings of their wonders. We were all lead into the basement of the factory and privy to a private showing of a hard onyx block being magically turned into a smooth and shiny egg. Ohhhh, Ahhhhh, Snorrrre. Next was the "subtle" herd into the 5 beautiful onyx and other precious metals show rooms. After 5 minutes Robby, Kristin and I escaped to the ice cream stand across the street and waited not so patiently for the 15 moronic shoppers to exit the factory - we did not pay to shop. There were clearly more than just poor backpackers on our tour.
Eventually everyone exited the factory and we drove to the Fairy Chimney rocks or almost drove to the Fairy Chimney rocks. The van hit something in the road, a loud pop was heard, and 10 minutes later we were all walking our asses through the desert. At least the weather was a nice temperature since a storm looked to be brewing. It caused rays of sunlight to poke through the dark gray clouds and shroud the land in angelic light. Quite beautiful, except for the ugly orange color of the rays and the muddy gray of the clouds.
15 minutes later we rounded a corner to look down on the Fairy Chimney rocks. The rocks are basically phalic looking poles of limestone that shoot upwards and are toped with a small triangle looking stone at the top. Someone nicknamed the Valley the Valley of Penis'. We snapped pictures and waited around for the new Van to show up. So far I still have a high loathing for Tours, but half the places we went we couldn't' easily get to without a tour bus.
We made it back to Show String with enough time to grab our bags and head to the bus station to catch our 8:30pm bus to some small town to catch a night bus to Katha. The little bus that came was so packed that three unlucky souls had to sit on the floor near the door for the two hours to the bigger town. For our night bus to Katha we had to wait around the bus station for 2 hours (an hour after the departure time of the bus) frantically asking every bus that pulled up if they were the bus we needed since no one could tell us exactly were our bus was going to dock.
After annoying the guy at the ticket office we were stuck with another guy going on the same bus with us and from there we dragged our bags back and forth across the bus station before some guy was running across the street to stop our bus as it was driving passed the station. We hauled ass to the illegally parked bus, handed our backpacks over to the bus guy and boarded a very hot and very packed bus. Our seats were the 2 before the row of four at the back of the bus. Three little kids were in our seats that begrudenly moved into the ailse and behind us when we came. We sat down with 4 adults, 3 kids under three, 2 kids about 7, and one grandma sharing the 4 seats behind us, one adult under the back of our seats and three small ones passed out in the ailse. This was the start of a fun nights rest.
Kristin got the pleasure of sitting next to a nice Turkish man, but he feel asleep with his head constantly rolling on Kristin. I had a 7 year old sleeping on the back of my head rest. I didn't want to hit the kid so I couldn't really stick my head all the way back and I couldn't lean my chair back because of all the people behind me. The bus stopped every three hours for a 30 minute piss break where the lights went on, the kids hit our elbows on the way outside and the AC was turned off.
Around 6:30am we rolled into dank bus station and sort of continued to doze because we figured the bus guy would tell us when we reached Katha. Nope, everyone got off the bus and Kristin told us we had arrived when she ventured out to see were we were. Katha, a small dust pit of despair. We wearily exited the bus, grabbed our bags and wondered what to do next. We knew that a city bus to Mt. Nemrut didn't leave until about 2pm and so we were decided to wander into town when a guy offered to take us to our hostel for an exorbitant price. We told the guy no, but he kept asking and telling us we wouldn't get a better deal. We opted to wait until the city bus. On top of the lovely haggler, a 12 year old with his fly unzipped stared at us like we were monkeys in the zoo. We were not in the mood. Just as we picked up our bags to walk into town to find a coffee shop a nice man told us he was headed to Mt. Nemrut and offered to take us for a reasonable sum. We agreed.
Our pension was the last rest stop before the entrance to Mt. Nemrut and that is why we choose it, but the beds were most likely wood planks covered in sheets on top squeaky springs inside an airless room with a shower that dripped freezing cold water. We'd found paradise. At least we got to sleep the morning away instead of being goggled at by the Katha locals.
We woke at noon, decided to venture down the mountain to the pension we saw earlier with all the tour buses and find a bite to eat. The pension turned out to be farther than we thought and by the time we got there all the buses had gone. It was us and the Hotel staff and eggs for lunch. We wished someone would drive us back up the 2KM hill to our pension, but instead we worked off the eggs by climbing the 25 degree incline hill. The rest of the day was spent reading and relaxing.
We woke at 2 am to hike the 10 Km to the top of Mt. Nemrut to watch the sunrise. Mt. Nemrut is known for its 2 meter high stone heads that lie at the feet of the statue bodies. The heads used to be attached to the bodies, but after an earthquake, they rolled to the ground. The statues were built by a crazy king (sort of like Ramese II) who worshiped himself among other gods. He somehow built a large stone peak on top of Mt. Nemrut, put statues around it and most likely buried some dead people within the peak.
We walked uphill under the cover of a cool starry night, chatting and enjoying ourselves. Surprisingly multiple cars passed us on the way up. We secretly wished they'd give us a ride, but if you saw three dark figures walking along a mountainside at 3 in the morning would you stop and offer a ride? The Lonely Planet had said that the trek to the top of Mt. Nemrut was only 6KM, which it was really 10, so when it told us that the last 3 KM of the trek would have to be driven in 1st gear we paid no attention. Apparently someone got some information right and the last 3 KM sucked big time. Nearly a 40 degree incline that didn't even out even for a brief bit. Up, up, and up. We passed a car that stalled out and was being pushed up the hill, but soon that car regained its engine and passed us.
2 hours and 7 minutes since we had started our journey we were regaining our breathes on a bench a mere 600 meters from the top. Somehow the coffee seller and his buddies knew we were from Cesme Pension. I guess not many people walk and the pension guy told his friends we planned to walk. We climbed the 600 meters of steps to the top and watched the sun rise through a foggy haze. At least the heads were interesting or the walk was for nothing. There were about 8 heads on the East side of the mountain. The human looking head was of the King and the rest were various animal heads that represented the Gods. 5 of the bodies sat in a line above the heads. We walked around the top of the peak to the West side where there were more heads, but most of the statues were destroyed. As we walked back towards the East side and the exit, the sun came out of the fog and showed us its orange and yellow rays. The journey was worth it afterall.
We lucked out in hitchhiking down the mountain to the pension because it would have torn our knees to shred's walking. A nice group of guys pulled over and stuffed us three, along with 2 bigger guys in the back of a small Neon while two guys rode in front. Hey, a free rides a free ride. Besides, we had to catch a 7:30 am city bus back to Katha to catch another city bus to Urfa.
We loaded into a 15 pass van with a family of 5 kids and 2 parents for an hour before we transferred to another 15 pass van that crammed us, the family, 13 other people, and Robby's backpacking backpack into the non ACed and closed windowed van. We sped along the city streets looking for more passengers and slowly made our way to Urfa, a big city in Eastern Turkey. Three hours later we breathed fresh air at another dirty bus station while collecting ourselves.
Urfa basically looks like another Cairo. Poor, dirty, and covered in annoying hecklers and catcallers. Somehow we found our way to Hospitality Hostel, a bunch of rooms in a house of a happy old couple. We were given a nice room, again with the lumpy hard beds and no air circulation, but it was clean and the owners were very friendly. We dropped our bags and were lead into town by Aziz, the owner of the Hostel.
He took us to a holy fish pool that is said to house the fish of the Prophet Mohammed. The story of the fish somehow goes like this: There was a castle on the hill that Mohammed was living in and a bad guy wanted to live there so he blasted Mohammed out of the castle which blew Mohammed into the air and down onto the pond, which saved his life, and all the fiery bits of castle turned into fish in the pond. Something like that and now the fish are sacred and people from all over come here to feed them. Aziz left us with a 13 year old that looked about 10 and told us he was his nephew and a Jr. Tour guide.
We asked the nephew to take us to an internet cafe and ended up seeing the fish pond again, along with a mosque, a giant park, numerous streets, and eventually a very smoky, all male internet cafe. We checked our emails, lost the nephew and ventured into downtown Urfa. We came upon a bazaar, looked about, tried in vain to find food that wasn't ke-bob or pizza and went back to the Hostel. The mother of the hostel cooked RObby and I a homecooked dinner and we retired early, but not before meeting the other 20 or so people that were staying at the house. We didn't think there were that many rooms, but I guess they were good at cramming in the beds.
The next morning we took a city bus to Harran. We boarded a fairly empty 15 pass van and spent the next hour going up and down the city streets trying to find more passengers before the driver would head to Harran. The drivers don't like to drive places without a full van because gas is so expensive, but I would think driving 5 miles an hour up and down hills would waste more gas than just driving to the location. Good thing I'm not a bus driver.
Harran is the world's longest inhabited city...now barely inhabited city. We pulled up along side a bee hive house, got out and took in the dirt and tussle weeds. The old section of Harran is know for the Oldest Mosque, the castle and the bee hive houses. The bee hive houses are basically bee hive looking dome roofs placed on top square walls, all made of mud, bricks, and plants. The domes of the bee hives were reinforced with bricks stolen from the Mosque and Castle.
The place we stopped at was a bee hive house that visitors could look in and see how the people lived. The temperature was a cool 80 degrees while outside burned under the 105 degree sun. Mats and little chairs covered the floors, a stone table was set up in the kitchen, good luck charms hung from the ceiling, and old men stared at us over their huka containers. We ventured into town.
What remained of the largest Mosque in the world was a half destroyed rectangular bell tower and one wall. Piles of rubble lay forgotten and crumbled along the dimensions of the old walls and many more pieces of crumbled rocks littered the valley for a distance. Harran looked to be quite large in its hay day.
The castle was falling apart, but one could still climb the three floors and look out at the town. Harran used to be covered in grass and surrounded by lakes, but now it is a dust bowl surrounded by farmland. It's weird because the castle, the Mosque, the bee hive houses and a few other houses are all set upon dirt while just out of reach is bright green crops and water. It's like the land is trying to gave up on life, get rid of life and fade into nothingness, but humans won't let it go.
We headed back to Urfa, wandered about some more and went to the bus station to board our respective buses. Kristin was headed to Olympos for a week of relaxation while Robby and I were headed to Istanbul to catch a bus to Budapest. We decided that it was too expensive to travel in Greece for a week, so we might as well travel to Budapest and Prague for cheaper and see more. We were kind of sick of the same old Roman and Greek ruins anyhow and needed something new, like gothic buildings and castles. (Short note, it is really expensive and quite hard to get to Tel Aviv from Europe, so I will be forfeiting my semi free ticket home from Israel and boarding a plane from Krakow to Dublin to LA on September 11th. Now I have a few extra days to explore Europe and I don't have to backtrack to the Middle East, especially during a war time.)
Of Course the bus that Robby and I were taking was late and after wandering if it was going to show up, a guy told us to follow him out of the bus station, up and over the over pass, down to the other side of the street and on to an island in the middle of the main road. We stood with our packs wondering what the hell we were doing. We finally understood after a bus stopped at the island (not our bus) and dropped people off. Somehow we had managed to book another bus that didn't stop at the bus station. Kristin (who was catching a later bus), Robby and I decided that in the future on top of asking the bus people if the bus is large (some are 15 passes), ACed, and for a seat in the middle of the bus, we now have to ask if it actually stops at the station or if we need to go chase it down.
45 minutes late our bus stopped at the Island, we said goodbye to Kristin, and boarded a 15 hour hell ride. Now most people know that on a bus the seats go back a little and if it is an over night bus the seats will go back. Somehow this understanding of bus logic didn't get passed along to the mean old man sitting behind me. I pushed my chair back and was immediately launched forward. The old man had pushed his hands down on the top of my seat and let go, effectively flicking the seat. I turned around and was met with an evil glare and an expression that said, "put the seat up". I put it up and cowered in an uncomfortable position. I knew that the seats had about a foot and a half of knee room, but that was still a foot and a half of knee room. Somehow the old man had his chair all the way forward and his knees pressing into the back of my upright chair. I think he was slouching all the way forward.
I asked Robby to watch the man through the crack in the chairs and tell me when he moved so I could slowly move the chair backwards. It worked for a bit, but everytime I got off the bus and back on, the chair was back upright. Smart little bastard. Another night of restless sleeping.
So now I am in Hungary, have been for a while, but I've written enough for this blog and bored you all miserably. So good night and I will write more about horrible bus journeys later.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
damn program
So i just spent literally the last 4 hours typing the next blog entry and then the fucking program goes and deletes everything and I'm too pissed off to re-write it all again right now so this message is to basically say I'm still alive and another installment of my journey will be available sometime soon.
Selcuk, Pamakkale, Water, and Trees
After a very long and grueling 10 hour bus ride from Cannakkale to Selcuk we arrived around 6:30 am to the sleepy little Hostel of Kiwi. We woke up the poor night manager to ask for the room that we had supposively reserved through Hassle Free (Hassle) travel agency, but they messed up again and Kiwi Hostel had expected us the day before we got there. They didn't have any dorm rooms available, but he gave us a room to ourselves in the basement with a King size bed to share. That early in the morning we didn't care, partly because the bed was soft and the room was cool. We slept a few hours and went to officially check in.
The lady that owns Kiwi hostel is a very nice Aussie (yeah, not sure why it's called Kiwi Hostel either) who gave us free breakfast and told us about all the cool things that we could do in Selcuk. We made a plan and set out for Ephesus and Artemis' Temple. 1st stop was to the Archeology museum that had us hanging about for a half hour because they were on lunch break, but turned out to be worth the wait. It was a small museum, but held very beautiful stone reliefs of the Gods and Goddesses. There was a whole room dedicated to the history of the gladiators. It told how they were mostly slaves and captured enemies that fought to the grisly death. Most of the fighters never made it past their 25th birthdays. Sad, but it was at a time where people got off on blood and death.
After the museum we walked along the 1.8 mile tree lined walkway to Ephesus. Along the way we stopped at Artemis' Temple and were very disappointed in one of the 7 Wonders of the World. In the olden days the Temple was a magnificent building of columned courtyards surrounded by 6 small lakes and with the circumference of 3 football fields. In all its glory it was quite an amazing feat to build, but now all that remains are a few piles of columned rubble and one erect column. Some of the lakes are there, but they're muddy and homes to lots of geese. The story goes that a mad lover of Cleopatra got angry and burnt the Temple to the ground. The Greeks really did have quite a temper. Now there is not much to look at for this spectacular monument.
We continued our walk until an empty tour bus stopped and the driver told us to get on. He said that it was a long way to walk and too hot. We gratefully accepted and were at the entrance in no time. We dismissed a ton of hasslers, bought our tickets and a computerized information thing and headed in. For those of you that don't know, Ephesus was a major city and way station for many of the Greek Royal members and the Greek Gods. Like in Karnak, Kings kept adding to the buildings, creating different and bigger complexes.
With a bad map and the trusty audio tour guide we learned about the history of Ephesus and its people. The people under went many changes of laws and governments because they changed ruling parties so any times. Buildings were added and taken down. A grand Library was erected in-between two buildings and so the architect made the higher walls slant inwards to give the Library the appearance of looking mightier than it really was. There were some impressive houses to see, but they cost too much extra so we opted to skip them. We walked the end of the 3km city and then walked the 3km back to the beginning. You weren't allowed to return the audio guide just anywhere. Just where we got them from. It was ok because we had more time to listen to all the background history.
We hopped a bus back to town and pretty much were in bed by 11pm. There is nothing to do in Selcuk during the night unless you are an old man or you go to Attila's - the expensive happening backpackers joint in the area.
The next morning we went to St. John's Church. It is said that when Jesus was about to be crucified, he pulled John away and told him, to look after Mary. So when Jesus was killed, John took Mary and they lived in the huge Church for many years and were happy until someone came and exiled John to an Island. There is the "Home of Mary" near Ephesus and I think that is where Mary went to live after John left. Anyhow, the Church is rather large with a main gate that looks like the entrance to a fortress, large stone wall with turrets. What remains of the buildings inside are several erect archways and columns, a small coliseum, a baptism bath, the treasury (which is some holes in the wall), and pieces of Christian reliefs mixed throughout broken walls and floors.
Above the Church on the hill that looks out over the whole valley is the Castle. I don't know much about it except that it was rather large with a wall surrounding the whole place. Robby and I tried in vain for an hour of fruitless walking to finding the entrance to the Castle only to discover that the entrance was through St. John's Church and that it closed a year ago. Go figure. Well, there is a Castle and there will remain a Castle and hopefully someday I will get to come back and see it.
Since it was really hot and Robby and I hadn't had a true hour of relaxing in the past few days, we headed to the Kiwi pool. Little did we know that the private pool for the Hostel would be a 3km walk along hot asphalt. When we had arrived at Kiwi house they gave us a map, but it was hand drawn and terrible at placing distances. We didn't think it was very far and that's why we never asked for a ride. At least we were nice and sweaty by the time we found the place. The Kiwi pool was hidden in a patch of peach and nectarine groves. The water came directly from a natural spring so was freezingly refreshing. It was us and three other people who enjoyed the serene-like tranquility of the place. No traffic, hardly any people, lush trees everywhere and free fresh fruit. Very nice. We stay for a while and headed back to town for dinner, reading and bed.
The next morning we were up fairly early because we were starting a three day crazed journey of seeing towns for a day and then driving to new towns. We headed to Pamukkale first. Pamukkale is a small ancient village situated on top a mountain ridge overlooking farm land and high peaks across the valley. The best part of the hike up the hill to the ruin city was the calcumite covered rocks. Nature decided there wasn't enough beauty in the world and so it sculpted a whole hillside and beyond with white, snow-like rocks that dripped over bushes or formed into large pools that natural spring water poured into.
My first introduction to Pamukkale was being yelled at by a "lifeguard/security guard" because I had ventured up a few some hills to take a picture of a particular dripping rock and from below a very shrill and annoying whistle starts to go off. I looked around and couldn't see where the noise was originating from through all the happy swimsuit clad people splashing in the pools. I climbed a little high and the whistle didn't shut up. Instinct told me the whistle was directed at me, so I looked around again and this time I saw one very pissed off guy coming towards me, yelling to get down.
I figured, "Well, I’m already up here and I', already in trouble, so I might as well snap my shot." I clicked the shutter and headed to the guard. He pretty much tore my head off because I wasn't allowed to climb the calcumite not on the watered trail (they were trying to preserve the rock)and both Robby and I had our shows on, a huge NO, No. He pointed to a sign a good 10 yards from where I had started climbing and yelled at us some more. When we got close enough to read the sign it said in some really awful English to not climb the rocks. Opps. The sign that said to take your shoes off was turned away from us at the entrance and so we never saw it. We said sorry to the unforgiving guard and continued on our way. We walked up the 1 km calcumite hill admiring the natural beauty of the place and regretting the fact that no one told us to bring a swimsuit. Robby went under one of the waterfalls to get wet.
We eventually reached the museum at the top of the lakes and learned about the Greek Gods and some of the culture that lived in Pamukkale. The museum was housed in the giant bath house of the ancient culture and told the story of the people who lived there. Pamukkale was an epicenter of many people. The town was about 2 times the size of Ephesus with the springs being a major attraction for all. The waters processed healing abilities and so many of the towns folks took baths regularly. A nice idea back then. We wandered along the car road to the columned Temple and then continued on to the numerous grave sites. It seemed that the further we went along the road the less people and pretty soon it was us and bewildered faces from passing cars and tour buses. I guess it was too hot for people to be walking about. We didn't mind because no one got in the way of our shots.
I found the 1km stretch of graveyard to be rather interesting. It looked like Superman had had a really bad day and decided to throw a 100's of stone coffins as a stress reliever. Broken resting places lay littered about the ground. Some sideways, upside down, on top of each other, and crumbling. The insides were all pillages long ago, the bodies missing. It makes you wonder what the world has come too when ancient societies that whole-heartedly believe in an afterlife and in death that they spend their lives preparing for death and in a mere 2000 years their resting places are dug up and looted for the sake of greed. The dead are carelessly thrown to the side, not a thought of remorse among the ones that profit. It makes you wonder if your body will still be lying in its finally resting place in a 1000 years or so or in some random museum for little kids to laugh at.
We managed to walk to the end of the city in search of finding the red calcumite red formations, but we rewarded with a mini-mart/ restaurant that had seen better days. The parking lot and for path to the abandon eatery was covered in weeds and dust. We decided to head back along the cliff edge and admire the valley below. There were many dry calcumite pools spanning across the top of the cliff, but the water had dried up 5 years ago. We climbed a massive hill to look down into the theater and were rewarded with 4 intact statues and a beautiful backstage relief of ancient gods. We couldn't go down the stairs and get a better look because there was a dig in progress. I tried to get Robby to go ask them for a job, but she said, "No," and admired them from afar.
That evening we hopped on two more buses to make it to Koycegiz for the night. We were told by the owner of Kiwi Hostel that Koycegiz was the place to go if you wanted a nice boat ride to relax and not many people because the tourist buses hadn't found the place yet. We checked into one of the nicest Hostels ever and went to sleep in a beautiful wooden dorm room with a slanted ceiling and a view of the lake beyond. In the morning we boarded the day boat cruise that would take us to Turtle Island and mud baths.
Robby and I lucked out and got on a boat with only Turkish people and I think a Croatian family. Since it was not a tourist boat we had an entertainer Turkish man that showed us magic tricks with strings and then dressed up as a female belly dancer and strutted his stuff while amusing us and passing boats. The men on other boats would be really jealous of us because we had a belly dancer, but then they'd realize it was a guy and get embarrassed for drooling.
First stop after sailing through the tall reed water way was Turtle beach. The Turtles come out at night, but during the day everyone lounges around on the beach and takes in the beauty of the water. Robby and I joined the rest of the morons in the water and tried to body surf on the little waves. Both of us ended up with salt water up our noses. Yuck. We stayed at the beach for 3 hours and then headed to a mud bath on the edge of the water. The building looked like a creepy stripped clown tent that houses hot spring baths, but it was $2 USD to cover ourselves in stinky mud, turn to a green cement monster in the sun and then take a dip in the soothing hot water. It was well worth the money.
We went back to the home island, grabbed our stuff and boarded a bus to Fethiye. Someone told us to stay at Ferah hostel, but I think whoever that person was was on crack when they said it was a nice place. Robby and I had to fight with 8 other people for the remaining dorm beds and ended up in a small shack out front in the garden that was used as a TV lounge. There were sheer curtains with a yapping mutt outside and a safety light that flashed on and in our eyes everytime an ant walked by. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep and we paid more than anywhere else we'd been for a whole 9hrs accommodations.
The next day we boarded a large yacht for our splurge trip in Turkey. We were convinced that if you were in Turkey you had to go on a Blue Cruise. Since we went on the felucca we figured that a large, posh boat would be a much better adventure. We and 10 other people were the happy passengers and crew on the boat. Everyone got to buddy up in a room with a queen bed, a small closet, and a bath room with a removable spicket in the sink for a shower. It went about 3 ft, so we opted for swims and the hose on deck for a shower.
Intro to the passengers: Aussie friends, Craig and Melissa (Mel); Aussie friends, Sara and Carrie; The Turk, Yusef; and the Italian Stallions, Andrea (Male), Lorenzo, and Rudy. The crew consisted of Sean (Aussie), 1st mate and cook and Ali (Turk), captain. Everyone was extremely nice, but all the Aussies were party people, the Italian’s were great dancers and the Turks just blended in. Robby and I were part of all the groups, but if we were there we could be invisible if we wanted.
We began the day eating a great lunch prepared by Sean who said that this was only the beginning and the best was yet to come. It was so nice to have a real meal; bread, starch, veggies, and meat. We've been basically getting by on just carbs. Sean was impressed because all the food that we put on the table was devoured. Apparently his last boat didn't eat anything and he was mad. We couldn't get enough.
We sailed to a bay and swam in the clear emerald water for a while. Then we headed to St. Christopher's Island, the home of Santa. Yeah, Santa was a real guy who used to give presents to people and he lived on this island for a brief period of time. We docked for the night, had another swim and laughed at the Italians that arrived late via the ice cream boat. Everyone in Turkey helps each other out.
We all clamored up the steep hillside of St. Christopher's Island to look at the ruin 8 Churches, the remains of the civilization that lived there long ago, and watch the sunset. We climbed back down and spent the rest of the night reading and playing card games. The Aussies played drinking games and sang songs.
We spent the majority of the next day sailing so that we could spend the last day swimming and relaxing. We stopped a few places for a swim and docked for the night at Kas (pronounced Cash). We were allowed to venture through the cute little cobble stone town until dinner time where we came back to enjoy some of the freshly caught fish of the day. I had helped to catch two of them while sailing. We played a few rows of drinking games before heading to a bar and talking into the early morning.
The following day we sailed pass the Sunken City of Kekova while Sean tried to tell us the little information he knew. Large town built on the water, but as nature goes, the waters rose and the town was submerged. Parts of remaining buildings and stairs can still be seen above water, but the best way to see the city is to scuba. Too bad we couldn't afford it. We docked across the way at the island of Simena. There was a castle at the top that we hiked to. We took a wrong turn and ended up at the graveyard of the old village. More stone coffins that protrude from the ground, but they covered the side of the hill and went all the way down to the water, some even in the water. We took pictures, sat in the shade a bit and continued to our dock for the night.
The night activity was Smuggler's Inn. Some guy decided it would be awesome to build a bar in the middle of a remote island with access only by boat and then offer shuttle coats to all the cruise ships to the bar. We went and danced the night away with old America and Aussie songs. The Aussies and the Italians got plastered while we just danced. We came back to the boat around 2:30am and everyone, but us and Andrea decided to go for a "nudy" swim. The jumped in the cold water and started giggling and talking really loud that the next morning Sean was reprimanded by three or so captains from other boats. He didn't care because the other boats knew that this was an area where the backpacker boats docked and therefore they should know that it will be loud. Us and the rest of the passenger got a rude awakening from some crazy guy who decided that we kept him up all night so he was going to jump in the water at 7:30 am and start screaming at us to wake up and join him. Yeah all the drinkers were hung over and we just wanted to sleep. He didn't shut up and we all lumbered onto the deck for breakfast.
We spent the remaining of the morning swimming, talking and packing. We got off the boat and boarded a bus to take us to Olympos. Robby and I had assumed that Olympus was a fairly large town because all the Blue Cruises went and left from there, but it turns out it is a quaint little backpacking village stuffed into the woods. All the stores and Hostels are tree house/cabins surrounded by mountains and trees. We traveled with the Aussies to Bayram's and somehow stayed in a small shanty hut that was the last one up the hill and behind all the other tree houses. Our roommate was Craig while the three other girls shared the cabin below. All three of us climbed a dangerous slope and entered the hut thinking at any moment the crooked wooden building was going to collapse and we'd all tumbled down the hill into the rest of the tree houses and most likely be killed by rolling so many times. Luckily the place held.
We wandered through the small town and realized we were staying at the 2nd most popular place, but one of the shittist in my opinion. At least they gave you free tea and coffee, breakfast and dinner. Breakfast had a variety of choices which made us quite happy since we were sick of Turkish breakfast: hot hard boiled egg, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, salty cheese and tea. There is only so much of that you can take.
We went down the 500 meter wooden path to the beach and somehow managed to absent-mindedly pass the toll booth. We were hoping to find the Aussies, but the beach turned out to be far bigger then we expected and we found our own spot on the sand near the idiot cliff jumpers. We stayed a bit and headed back to read a bit on the pillow covered decks of the Hostel. Bayram's tree house might suck, but they had a cozy reading, playing games atmosphere where you could take off your shows and lay on a rugged and pillowed platform. We met a nice Aussie couple that filled us in on the latest in the new and kind of made me paranoid.
They told us that 19 idiots decided to bring liquid weapons on board 19 separate flights to the US where they would set them off via cell phones. Luckily they were caught before the planes took off, but now there is a strict band on all carry-ons. You’re not allowed to bring anything on the plane, but your passport and medicine. Yeah, this rule better get amended soon because there is no way I'm sticking my camera and film under the plane. So if anyone hears more on this subject will you please keep me updated? Thanks, I appreciated it. Hopefully the scare will blow over soon.
We found the Aussies sometime later and learned how to play Uker, which is a great game and if anyone wants to play I'd be more than happy to teach you. After 1 am Robby and I decided to be losers and good to bed while the Aussies opted for dancing at the Orange Night Club. We were rudely awoken by Craig who was too drunk to know that if he kept talking to us at 4 in the morning we didn't want to hear it. Eventually he passed out and we got to wake him up at 9am since check out was at 10 am.
Robby and I had planned to go walking through the ruins, but we spent the majority of the morning playing Uker with the Hung-over people. It was relaxing and fun, so we didn't care too much. After 2m we said we'd meet them at the beach and head down the beach road to the ruins. Remnants of the vast town were scattered throughout the trees, so Robby and I selected a path and went on a lovely hike through the woods. The day was beautiful and we enjoyed the exercise and tranquility that came with hiking. I hadn't realized how much I missed hiking until I came to Olympos. Nice place to stay for a little bit.
We hiked out onto the beach and found the Aussies just as they were preparing to head back. We all were catching the 5 pm bus to Antayla. We walked back, grabbed a bite to eat and smashed into the over crowded bus. After 20 minutes we transferred to a new bus and within 2 hours we were at the main bus station in Antayla awaking our night bus to Cappadocia. Sara and Carrie were coming on the same bus, but Craig and Mel had to stay the night and catch a plane to London in the morning. We said sad goodbyes and headed to the gnome village of Goreme.
Since I've already written a ton and we want to get food, I will write about Cappadocia later. Until then stay safe, don't fly anywhere, and tell me hi once in a while.
The lady that owns Kiwi hostel is a very nice Aussie (yeah, not sure why it's called Kiwi Hostel either) who gave us free breakfast and told us about all the cool things that we could do in Selcuk. We made a plan and set out for Ephesus and Artemis' Temple. 1st stop was to the Archeology museum that had us hanging about for a half hour because they were on lunch break, but turned out to be worth the wait. It was a small museum, but held very beautiful stone reliefs of the Gods and Goddesses. There was a whole room dedicated to the history of the gladiators. It told how they were mostly slaves and captured enemies that fought to the grisly death. Most of the fighters never made it past their 25th birthdays. Sad, but it was at a time where people got off on blood and death.
After the museum we walked along the 1.8 mile tree lined walkway to Ephesus. Along the way we stopped at Artemis' Temple and were very disappointed in one of the 7 Wonders of the World. In the olden days the Temple was a magnificent building of columned courtyards surrounded by 6 small lakes and with the circumference of 3 football fields. In all its glory it was quite an amazing feat to build, but now all that remains are a few piles of columned rubble and one erect column. Some of the lakes are there, but they're muddy and homes to lots of geese. The story goes that a mad lover of Cleopatra got angry and burnt the Temple to the ground. The Greeks really did have quite a temper. Now there is not much to look at for this spectacular monument.
We continued our walk until an empty tour bus stopped and the driver told us to get on. He said that it was a long way to walk and too hot. We gratefully accepted and were at the entrance in no time. We dismissed a ton of hasslers, bought our tickets and a computerized information thing and headed in. For those of you that don't know, Ephesus was a major city and way station for many of the Greek Royal members and the Greek Gods. Like in Karnak, Kings kept adding to the buildings, creating different and bigger complexes.
With a bad map and the trusty audio tour guide we learned about the history of Ephesus and its people. The people under went many changes of laws and governments because they changed ruling parties so any times. Buildings were added and taken down. A grand Library was erected in-between two buildings and so the architect made the higher walls slant inwards to give the Library the appearance of looking mightier than it really was. There were some impressive houses to see, but they cost too much extra so we opted to skip them. We walked the end of the 3km city and then walked the 3km back to the beginning. You weren't allowed to return the audio guide just anywhere. Just where we got them from. It was ok because we had more time to listen to all the background history.
We hopped a bus back to town and pretty much were in bed by 11pm. There is nothing to do in Selcuk during the night unless you are an old man or you go to Attila's - the expensive happening backpackers joint in the area.
The next morning we went to St. John's Church. It is said that when Jesus was about to be crucified, he pulled John away and told him, to look after Mary. So when Jesus was killed, John took Mary and they lived in the huge Church for many years and were happy until someone came and exiled John to an Island. There is the "Home of Mary" near Ephesus and I think that is where Mary went to live after John left. Anyhow, the Church is rather large with a main gate that looks like the entrance to a fortress, large stone wall with turrets. What remains of the buildings inside are several erect archways and columns, a small coliseum, a baptism bath, the treasury (which is some holes in the wall), and pieces of Christian reliefs mixed throughout broken walls and floors.
Above the Church on the hill that looks out over the whole valley is the Castle. I don't know much about it except that it was rather large with a wall surrounding the whole place. Robby and I tried in vain for an hour of fruitless walking to finding the entrance to the Castle only to discover that the entrance was through St. John's Church and that it closed a year ago. Go figure. Well, there is a Castle and there will remain a Castle and hopefully someday I will get to come back and see it.
Since it was really hot and Robby and I hadn't had a true hour of relaxing in the past few days, we headed to the Kiwi pool. Little did we know that the private pool for the Hostel would be a 3km walk along hot asphalt. When we had arrived at Kiwi house they gave us a map, but it was hand drawn and terrible at placing distances. We didn't think it was very far and that's why we never asked for a ride. At least we were nice and sweaty by the time we found the place. The Kiwi pool was hidden in a patch of peach and nectarine groves. The water came directly from a natural spring so was freezingly refreshing. It was us and three other people who enjoyed the serene-like tranquility of the place. No traffic, hardly any people, lush trees everywhere and free fresh fruit. Very nice. We stay for a while and headed back to town for dinner, reading and bed.
The next morning we were up fairly early because we were starting a three day crazed journey of seeing towns for a day and then driving to new towns. We headed to Pamukkale first. Pamukkale is a small ancient village situated on top a mountain ridge overlooking farm land and high peaks across the valley. The best part of the hike up the hill to the ruin city was the calcumite covered rocks. Nature decided there wasn't enough beauty in the world and so it sculpted a whole hillside and beyond with white, snow-like rocks that dripped over bushes or formed into large pools that natural spring water poured into.
My first introduction to Pamukkale was being yelled at by a "lifeguard/security guard" because I had ventured up a few some hills to take a picture of a particular dripping rock and from below a very shrill and annoying whistle starts to go off. I looked around and couldn't see where the noise was originating from through all the happy swimsuit clad people splashing in the pools. I climbed a little high and the whistle didn't shut up. Instinct told me the whistle was directed at me, so I looked around again and this time I saw one very pissed off guy coming towards me, yelling to get down.
I figured, "Well, I’m already up here and I', already in trouble, so I might as well snap my shot." I clicked the shutter and headed to the guard. He pretty much tore my head off because I wasn't allowed to climb the calcumite not on the watered trail (they were trying to preserve the rock)and both Robby and I had our shows on, a huge NO, No. He pointed to a sign a good 10 yards from where I had started climbing and yelled at us some more. When we got close enough to read the sign it said in some really awful English to not climb the rocks. Opps. The sign that said to take your shoes off was turned away from us at the entrance and so we never saw it. We said sorry to the unforgiving guard and continued on our way. We walked up the 1 km calcumite hill admiring the natural beauty of the place and regretting the fact that no one told us to bring a swimsuit. Robby went under one of the waterfalls to get wet.
We eventually reached the museum at the top of the lakes and learned about the Greek Gods and some of the culture that lived in Pamukkale. The museum was housed in the giant bath house of the ancient culture and told the story of the people who lived there. Pamukkale was an epicenter of many people. The town was about 2 times the size of Ephesus with the springs being a major attraction for all. The waters processed healing abilities and so many of the towns folks took baths regularly. A nice idea back then. We wandered along the car road to the columned Temple and then continued on to the numerous grave sites. It seemed that the further we went along the road the less people and pretty soon it was us and bewildered faces from passing cars and tour buses. I guess it was too hot for people to be walking about. We didn't mind because no one got in the way of our shots.
I found the 1km stretch of graveyard to be rather interesting. It looked like Superman had had a really bad day and decided to throw a 100's of stone coffins as a stress reliever. Broken resting places lay littered about the ground. Some sideways, upside down, on top of each other, and crumbling. The insides were all pillages long ago, the bodies missing. It makes you wonder what the world has come too when ancient societies that whole-heartedly believe in an afterlife and in death that they spend their lives preparing for death and in a mere 2000 years their resting places are dug up and looted for the sake of greed. The dead are carelessly thrown to the side, not a thought of remorse among the ones that profit. It makes you wonder if your body will still be lying in its finally resting place in a 1000 years or so or in some random museum for little kids to laugh at.
We managed to walk to the end of the city in search of finding the red calcumite red formations, but we rewarded with a mini-mart/ restaurant that had seen better days. The parking lot and for path to the abandon eatery was covered in weeds and dust. We decided to head back along the cliff edge and admire the valley below. There were many dry calcumite pools spanning across the top of the cliff, but the water had dried up 5 years ago. We climbed a massive hill to look down into the theater and were rewarded with 4 intact statues and a beautiful backstage relief of ancient gods. We couldn't go down the stairs and get a better look because there was a dig in progress. I tried to get Robby to go ask them for a job, but she said, "No," and admired them from afar.
That evening we hopped on two more buses to make it to Koycegiz for the night. We were told by the owner of Kiwi Hostel that Koycegiz was the place to go if you wanted a nice boat ride to relax and not many people because the tourist buses hadn't found the place yet. We checked into one of the nicest Hostels ever and went to sleep in a beautiful wooden dorm room with a slanted ceiling and a view of the lake beyond. In the morning we boarded the day boat cruise that would take us to Turtle Island and mud baths.
Robby and I lucked out and got on a boat with only Turkish people and I think a Croatian family. Since it was not a tourist boat we had an entertainer Turkish man that showed us magic tricks with strings and then dressed up as a female belly dancer and strutted his stuff while amusing us and passing boats. The men on other boats would be really jealous of us because we had a belly dancer, but then they'd realize it was a guy and get embarrassed for drooling.
First stop after sailing through the tall reed water way was Turtle beach. The Turtles come out at night, but during the day everyone lounges around on the beach and takes in the beauty of the water. Robby and I joined the rest of the morons in the water and tried to body surf on the little waves. Both of us ended up with salt water up our noses. Yuck. We stayed at the beach for 3 hours and then headed to a mud bath on the edge of the water. The building looked like a creepy stripped clown tent that houses hot spring baths, but it was $2 USD to cover ourselves in stinky mud, turn to a green cement monster in the sun and then take a dip in the soothing hot water. It was well worth the money.
We went back to the home island, grabbed our stuff and boarded a bus to Fethiye. Someone told us to stay at Ferah hostel, but I think whoever that person was was on crack when they said it was a nice place. Robby and I had to fight with 8 other people for the remaining dorm beds and ended up in a small shack out front in the garden that was used as a TV lounge. There were sheer curtains with a yapping mutt outside and a safety light that flashed on and in our eyes everytime an ant walked by. Needless to say we didn't get much sleep and we paid more than anywhere else we'd been for a whole 9hrs accommodations.
The next day we boarded a large yacht for our splurge trip in Turkey. We were convinced that if you were in Turkey you had to go on a Blue Cruise. Since we went on the felucca we figured that a large, posh boat would be a much better adventure. We and 10 other people were the happy passengers and crew on the boat. Everyone got to buddy up in a room with a queen bed, a small closet, and a bath room with a removable spicket in the sink for a shower. It went about 3 ft, so we opted for swims and the hose on deck for a shower.
Intro to the passengers: Aussie friends, Craig and Melissa (Mel); Aussie friends, Sara and Carrie; The Turk, Yusef; and the Italian Stallions, Andrea (Male), Lorenzo, and Rudy. The crew consisted of Sean (Aussie), 1st mate and cook and Ali (Turk), captain. Everyone was extremely nice, but all the Aussies were party people, the Italian’s were great dancers and the Turks just blended in. Robby and I were part of all the groups, but if we were there we could be invisible if we wanted.
We began the day eating a great lunch prepared by Sean who said that this was only the beginning and the best was yet to come. It was so nice to have a real meal; bread, starch, veggies, and meat. We've been basically getting by on just carbs. Sean was impressed because all the food that we put on the table was devoured. Apparently his last boat didn't eat anything and he was mad. We couldn't get enough.
We sailed to a bay and swam in the clear emerald water for a while. Then we headed to St. Christopher's Island, the home of Santa. Yeah, Santa was a real guy who used to give presents to people and he lived on this island for a brief period of time. We docked for the night, had another swim and laughed at the Italians that arrived late via the ice cream boat. Everyone in Turkey helps each other out.
We all clamored up the steep hillside of St. Christopher's Island to look at the ruin 8 Churches, the remains of the civilization that lived there long ago, and watch the sunset. We climbed back down and spent the rest of the night reading and playing card games. The Aussies played drinking games and sang songs.
We spent the majority of the next day sailing so that we could spend the last day swimming and relaxing. We stopped a few places for a swim and docked for the night at Kas (pronounced Cash). We were allowed to venture through the cute little cobble stone town until dinner time where we came back to enjoy some of the freshly caught fish of the day. I had helped to catch two of them while sailing. We played a few rows of drinking games before heading to a bar and talking into the early morning.
The following day we sailed pass the Sunken City of Kekova while Sean tried to tell us the little information he knew. Large town built on the water, but as nature goes, the waters rose and the town was submerged. Parts of remaining buildings and stairs can still be seen above water, but the best way to see the city is to scuba. Too bad we couldn't afford it. We docked across the way at the island of Simena. There was a castle at the top that we hiked to. We took a wrong turn and ended up at the graveyard of the old village. More stone coffins that protrude from the ground, but they covered the side of the hill and went all the way down to the water, some even in the water. We took pictures, sat in the shade a bit and continued to our dock for the night.
The night activity was Smuggler's Inn. Some guy decided it would be awesome to build a bar in the middle of a remote island with access only by boat and then offer shuttle coats to all the cruise ships to the bar. We went and danced the night away with old America and Aussie songs. The Aussies and the Italians got plastered while we just danced. We came back to the boat around 2:30am and everyone, but us and Andrea decided to go for a "nudy" swim. The jumped in the cold water and started giggling and talking really loud that the next morning Sean was reprimanded by three or so captains from other boats. He didn't care because the other boats knew that this was an area where the backpacker boats docked and therefore they should know that it will be loud. Us and the rest of the passenger got a rude awakening from some crazy guy who decided that we kept him up all night so he was going to jump in the water at 7:30 am and start screaming at us to wake up and join him. Yeah all the drinkers were hung over and we just wanted to sleep. He didn't shut up and we all lumbered onto the deck for breakfast.
We spent the remaining of the morning swimming, talking and packing. We got off the boat and boarded a bus to take us to Olympos. Robby and I had assumed that Olympus was a fairly large town because all the Blue Cruises went and left from there, but it turns out it is a quaint little backpacking village stuffed into the woods. All the stores and Hostels are tree house/cabins surrounded by mountains and trees. We traveled with the Aussies to Bayram's and somehow stayed in a small shanty hut that was the last one up the hill and behind all the other tree houses. Our roommate was Craig while the three other girls shared the cabin below. All three of us climbed a dangerous slope and entered the hut thinking at any moment the crooked wooden building was going to collapse and we'd all tumbled down the hill into the rest of the tree houses and most likely be killed by rolling so many times. Luckily the place held.
We wandered through the small town and realized we were staying at the 2nd most popular place, but one of the shittist in my opinion. At least they gave you free tea and coffee, breakfast and dinner. Breakfast had a variety of choices which made us quite happy since we were sick of Turkish breakfast: hot hard boiled egg, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, salty cheese and tea. There is only so much of that you can take.
We went down the 500 meter wooden path to the beach and somehow managed to absent-mindedly pass the toll booth. We were hoping to find the Aussies, but the beach turned out to be far bigger then we expected and we found our own spot on the sand near the idiot cliff jumpers. We stayed a bit and headed back to read a bit on the pillow covered decks of the Hostel. Bayram's tree house might suck, but they had a cozy reading, playing games atmosphere where you could take off your shows and lay on a rugged and pillowed platform. We met a nice Aussie couple that filled us in on the latest in the new and kind of made me paranoid.
They told us that 19 idiots decided to bring liquid weapons on board 19 separate flights to the US where they would set them off via cell phones. Luckily they were caught before the planes took off, but now there is a strict band on all carry-ons. You’re not allowed to bring anything on the plane, but your passport and medicine. Yeah, this rule better get amended soon because there is no way I'm sticking my camera and film under the plane. So if anyone hears more on this subject will you please keep me updated? Thanks, I appreciated it. Hopefully the scare will blow over soon.
We found the Aussies sometime later and learned how to play Uker, which is a great game and if anyone wants to play I'd be more than happy to teach you. After 1 am Robby and I decided to be losers and good to bed while the Aussies opted for dancing at the Orange Night Club. We were rudely awoken by Craig who was too drunk to know that if he kept talking to us at 4 in the morning we didn't want to hear it. Eventually he passed out and we got to wake him up at 9am since check out was at 10 am.
Robby and I had planned to go walking through the ruins, but we spent the majority of the morning playing Uker with the Hung-over people. It was relaxing and fun, so we didn't care too much. After 2m we said we'd meet them at the beach and head down the beach road to the ruins. Remnants of the vast town were scattered throughout the trees, so Robby and I selected a path and went on a lovely hike through the woods. The day was beautiful and we enjoyed the exercise and tranquility that came with hiking. I hadn't realized how much I missed hiking until I came to Olympos. Nice place to stay for a little bit.
We hiked out onto the beach and found the Aussies just as they were preparing to head back. We all were catching the 5 pm bus to Antayla. We walked back, grabbed a bite to eat and smashed into the over crowded bus. After 20 minutes we transferred to a new bus and within 2 hours we were at the main bus station in Antayla awaking our night bus to Cappadocia. Sara and Carrie were coming on the same bus, but Craig and Mel had to stay the night and catch a plane to London in the morning. We said sad goodbyes and headed to the gnome village of Goreme.
Since I've already written a ton and we want to get food, I will write about Cappadocia later. Until then stay safe, don't fly anywhere, and tell me hi once in a while.
Saturday, August 05, 2006
Istanbul and Canakkale
So, Matt turned out to be a really nice guy that we ended up spending all our time with in Istanbul. We started the morning out exploring Hagia Sophia - a giant Mosque that was first a Christian church, but later taken over by the Muslims and converted to a Mosque. The beautiful Christian drawings of baby Jesus, Mary, and the apostles were covered with stucco and painted flowers. Kind of a shame that the religious images got destroyed, but there is a restoration project in effect to unearth some of the more impressive pictures while also trying to retain some of the Muslim beauty. The Mosque was a buzz with tons of loud tour groups and families. We spent about 3 hours walking through the grand hall and the balconies.
Next we went to the other side of the road where the Blue Mosque stood. It's equally impressive in outside architectural design, but the inside is quite smaller and it is still used as a Mosque today. It is called the Blue Mosque because the whole inside is painted with blue flower designs on a very light blue background. The color has faded immensively over the years and so the background color looks white and the flower designs look very light blue. It was more impressive 100's of years ago I think.
Both of the Mosques have about 5 small domes on the outside with a massive dome in the middle and 4-5 skinny towers at the corners. They look like mini castles. Since we didn't have time to visit the Topkapi Palace that day we went wandering around the town and stopped in on a few more smaller Mosque that were tombs to great Sultans. Istanbul is basically the home site of the Sultans and so their graves had great descriptions of the Sultans as being wonderful men who fought for their country , defended the weak, and killed many to sleep with his concubines in his great Palace. It was like this is a great killer and murder, but we all loved him. Very odd. The Sultans liked to practice Fratricide since there was no "the first son is king" deal. Whoever got to the throne first was king. I'm glad I didn't live in their family.
Matt had a friend who was living in Istanbul and so he left us every evening to go out with her and us to find things to entertain ourselves. We ended up wandering to the grand bazaar (which of course closed on us as we walked up) and the University. We ended up going out for a drink with some Auzzie sisters we met at our hotel. We compared travel stories and got some ideas about where to stay while seeing the rest of Turkey. It's so nice to stay at a hostel that has people there to talk to and hang out with for a bit.
But our little hotel room turned out to suck awfully bad. Apparently we underestimated the Tourist season and just assumed that there would be numerous places to stay, but everything seemed to be full and we got the very last room at the Paris Hotel in Istanbul. It was on the 3rd floor in the middle of the hall with a window opening to the stairwell and hot air. No fan in the room and so it just accumulated heat that had nowhere to go. We pretty much left the one window open to the hall, while allowing people to peer in as they descended from higher floors. It was that or shut the curtain and fry to death. Good thing we would there for only three nights.
The next day we went to the Archeology museum without Matt because he got home late and wasn't quite up. We agreed to meet him later. We had a slight bit of trouble trying find the museum because there weren't very many signs and the signs that there were were in Turkish. Eventually we realized that the museum was inside the grounds to the Topkapi Palace. We found it tucked into a corner and down the hill of the Palace's front gardens. It was three museums in one.
The first museum was the Oriental Museum that was an ecliptic mix of Egyptian, Asia and Roman artifacts and books. More mummies, some ancient text Steales, a couple books, lots of murals drawn on stones, and little figurines.
The second museum was the real Archeology stuff. We made it through the white marble statues of Gods and goddesses that had numerous art students sprawled on the floor drawing and some of the artifacts of the ancient societies that lived in Turkey before the Muslims, before we had to leave and go find Matt.
We picked Matt up and headed back to the Anthro Museum to see the rest of it. Since Matt hadn't seen the Oriental museum or the parts of the Arch Museum that we had we agreed to meet him in a few hours and then decide what to do next. We went back into the museum and saw lots of statues depicting Zeus and Ishtar. We learned a little about the Sultans and their ways of life. Some stuff about the Mosques and then a whole room devoted to massive coffins of dead kings with fighting scenes on the side and tops of the marble box. It was a museum definitely worth it's 3 dollar entry fee.
The last museum was quite boring. Textiles and ceramics of the olden days. I pretty much just skimmed everything. We met Matt in the tea garden and talked about what to do next. There was really no time to see the Topkapi Palace as the guide book said you needed a half day to truly see everything inside, so we hopped in a cab and went to Dolmabahace Palace. This Palace was the grand home of many Sultans. It had about 130 rooms with 68 bathrooms, 5 grand halls, and the world's second heaviest crystal chandelier. The place was beautiful. Some of the rooms were a mosaic of flowers while others had carved flowers and designs carved into the walls. Everything was lavishly colored in reds and blues and pinks. The Palace sat right on the water and had an impressive lawn with three fountains, lots of flowers and even a giant clock built into a bush. Very beautiful.
We spent the night with Matt and Elizabeth (a girl we picked up at the Hostel) getting food and watching the really bad light show at the Blue Mosque. Elizabeth is a linguistics major and it was nice to have someone around who knew the language. We talked well into the night and then headed to bed. The next day we got up early and headed to Topkapi Palace. We had to catch a 3pm bus and we didn't want to miss out on the Palace as we didn't go for the past two days. We entered just as the tour groups decided to show up. Damn tour people always ruining a picture by carelessly walking through your shot. I guess it can't be avoided.
Topkapi Palace was the Sultan's main living Palace back in the day before they got bored and built a new one somewhere else. The grounds are quiet large with about 10 buildings including a Harem quarter, the kitchen, numerous waiting rooms of the Sultan and his advisors\guest, the library, the Sultan's living quarter, the recreation area with pool, and the gardens. We paid extra to take a tour of the Harem whith was where the concubines and the unics lived. The women in the Palace were not allowed to see or speak totheh Sultan without his permission and so they stayed in their own wing of the house. If there were other men that were servants their manly parts were snipped so that the Sultan wouldn't have to worry about them sleeping with any of his 23+ concubines. Very possessive and poor servants.
The Harem tour would have been better if there hadn't of been about 50 of us pushed through the halls with barely enough time to take anything in and then straining to hear the quiet tour guide attempt to speak proper English. We gave up on the whole "follow the leader" thing and went at our own pace. We couldn't understand the tour guide so there was no reason to rush past all the rooms.
The Harem Quarter was run by a House Mother that was usually the Sultan's favorite concubine. She was given a large bedroom and got to order everyone else around. The rest of the women shared small rooms and entertained the Sultan when asked. They had a large bath house and an outdoor pool. I guess if you grew up in that society it wouldn't be half bad to be a Sultan slave. At least you got a nice place to live and decent food.
The rest of the buildings were very nice, but I still think that Dolmabahace Palace is nicer, although smaller. The decorations at Topkapi weren't nearly as impressive and inviting. We finished the tour early as we were "Sultaned" out. We walked back to the Hotel, gathered our bags, said goodbye to Matt, and were gone just like that.
We had to take the tram to the Metro to the bus station. Who knew it was going to be such a process. When we got to the bus station we couldn't figureout what bus went to Canakkale. A friendly bus driver showed us to the correct window and before we knew what happened we were on a bus headed to Eceabat. The bus driver told us that this was the earliest bus out and that there was a 20 minute bus from Eceabat to Canakkale. We were so tired that we didn't argue.
The Turkey bus system is by far one of the best bus systems that I've ever had the pleasure of riding with. There was a bus attendant that gave us water, coffee/tea, and crackers. All included in the price of the ticket. We even stopped for a bit to get gas at a clean rest stop with decently priced food. I was quite taken back because of all the bad buses in Egypt. Wasn't used to true service.
We made it to Eceabat in 6 hours and were dropped off at a ferry stop. Apparently the 20 minute bus ride to Canakkale is a 20 minute ferry ride. It didn't matter because the fresh air felt really good and ferries are fun. We met up with a russian girl on the ferry who needed a place to stay so we told her to come with us. She lucked out and the Anzac Hostel had room for her. Robby, the Russian, and I ended up in a dorm room together which was very clean and comfortable, well comfortable until we went to sleep and realized that no air got in the room at all and we almost died from heat exhausion. Robby and I debated about sleeping outside on the deck in two plastic chairs, but were too tired and lazy to move out there. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep that night. The next day we stole a fan and put it in our room.
We had signed up the previous night to go on a tour of Gallipoli. Us, the stupid Americans that we are, had no idea what Gallipoli was, but it had sounded interesting on the flyer and the tour went to multiple places. Yeah well, Gallipoli is a War Memorial for Auzzies, Kiwis, Brits and Turks. In 1915 during World War 1 the Turks were allies with the Germans and the British wanted to use the Dardanelles water way to send their ships to help the Russians. Unfortunately the Turks kept bombing the British ships as they passed by Turkey and so some great British General got the idea to conquer Gallipoli and put the Turks out of the war. So for 8 months the Auzzies, Kiwis, British, and a few Indians and Newfoundlanders that made up the Anzac army fought a fruitless battle against the Turkish army. Nearly 97000 people died before the Anzacs realized that the Turkish were far better opponents than they had originally suspected and so they retreated secretly from the island. This battle was equalent to the fruitless killings of the American soldiers during World War 2 when they tried to conquer Guadalcanal.
So our tour consisted of mostly Auzzies and Kiwis with us being the only American and then two Canadians that I think were also Turkish. Everyone thought it was ammusing that we were on the tour becuase we had no clue what the war was about and how it had impacted so many people's lives in 1915 and today. Although we didn't grow up learning about the war in school we did learn quite a bit visiting the gravesites and trenches of the soldiers. I had to say I enjoyed the tour, but next time I think I'll research a bit more closely what I'm going to see before wasting money visiting the gravesites of soldiers that have nothing to do with me.
Today we were suppose to take a early bus to Selcuk, but the tickets that were reserved by our Hassle Free travel agent were not reserved and all the buses departing were full. So we are now hanging about Canakkale until our 10:30pm bus. At least we managed to get out of paying for a night's rent since we will be on a bus.
That's all for now. Until next time...
Next we went to the other side of the road where the Blue Mosque stood. It's equally impressive in outside architectural design, but the inside is quite smaller and it is still used as a Mosque today. It is called the Blue Mosque because the whole inside is painted with blue flower designs on a very light blue background. The color has faded immensively over the years and so the background color looks white and the flower designs look very light blue. It was more impressive 100's of years ago I think.
Both of the Mosques have about 5 small domes on the outside with a massive dome in the middle and 4-5 skinny towers at the corners. They look like mini castles. Since we didn't have time to visit the Topkapi Palace that day we went wandering around the town and stopped in on a few more smaller Mosque that were tombs to great Sultans. Istanbul is basically the home site of the Sultans and so their graves had great descriptions of the Sultans as being wonderful men who fought for their country , defended the weak, and killed many to sleep with his concubines in his great Palace. It was like this is a great killer and murder, but we all loved him. Very odd. The Sultans liked to practice Fratricide since there was no "the first son is king" deal. Whoever got to the throne first was king. I'm glad I didn't live in their family.
Matt had a friend who was living in Istanbul and so he left us every evening to go out with her and us to find things to entertain ourselves. We ended up wandering to the grand bazaar (which of course closed on us as we walked up) and the University. We ended up going out for a drink with some Auzzie sisters we met at our hotel. We compared travel stories and got some ideas about where to stay while seeing the rest of Turkey. It's so nice to stay at a hostel that has people there to talk to and hang out with for a bit.
But our little hotel room turned out to suck awfully bad. Apparently we underestimated the Tourist season and just assumed that there would be numerous places to stay, but everything seemed to be full and we got the very last room at the Paris Hotel in Istanbul. It was on the 3rd floor in the middle of the hall with a window opening to the stairwell and hot air. No fan in the room and so it just accumulated heat that had nowhere to go. We pretty much left the one window open to the hall, while allowing people to peer in as they descended from higher floors. It was that or shut the curtain and fry to death. Good thing we would there for only three nights.
The next day we went to the Archeology museum without Matt because he got home late and wasn't quite up. We agreed to meet him later. We had a slight bit of trouble trying find the museum because there weren't very many signs and the signs that there were were in Turkish. Eventually we realized that the museum was inside the grounds to the Topkapi Palace. We found it tucked into a corner and down the hill of the Palace's front gardens. It was three museums in one.
The first museum was the Oriental Museum that was an ecliptic mix of Egyptian, Asia and Roman artifacts and books. More mummies, some ancient text Steales, a couple books, lots of murals drawn on stones, and little figurines.
The second museum was the real Archeology stuff. We made it through the white marble statues of Gods and goddesses that had numerous art students sprawled on the floor drawing and some of the artifacts of the ancient societies that lived in Turkey before the Muslims, before we had to leave and go find Matt.
We picked Matt up and headed back to the Anthro Museum to see the rest of it. Since Matt hadn't seen the Oriental museum or the parts of the Arch Museum that we had we agreed to meet him in a few hours and then decide what to do next. We went back into the museum and saw lots of statues depicting Zeus and Ishtar. We learned a little about the Sultans and their ways of life. Some stuff about the Mosques and then a whole room devoted to massive coffins of dead kings with fighting scenes on the side and tops of the marble box. It was a museum definitely worth it's 3 dollar entry fee.
The last museum was quite boring. Textiles and ceramics of the olden days. I pretty much just skimmed everything. We met Matt in the tea garden and talked about what to do next. There was really no time to see the Topkapi Palace as the guide book said you needed a half day to truly see everything inside, so we hopped in a cab and went to Dolmabahace Palace. This Palace was the grand home of many Sultans. It had about 130 rooms with 68 bathrooms, 5 grand halls, and the world's second heaviest crystal chandelier. The place was beautiful. Some of the rooms were a mosaic of flowers while others had carved flowers and designs carved into the walls. Everything was lavishly colored in reds and blues and pinks. The Palace sat right on the water and had an impressive lawn with three fountains, lots of flowers and even a giant clock built into a bush. Very beautiful.
We spent the night with Matt and Elizabeth (a girl we picked up at the Hostel) getting food and watching the really bad light show at the Blue Mosque. Elizabeth is a linguistics major and it was nice to have someone around who knew the language. We talked well into the night and then headed to bed. The next day we got up early and headed to Topkapi Palace. We had to catch a 3pm bus and we didn't want to miss out on the Palace as we didn't go for the past two days. We entered just as the tour groups decided to show up. Damn tour people always ruining a picture by carelessly walking through your shot. I guess it can't be avoided.
Topkapi Palace was the Sultan's main living Palace back in the day before they got bored and built a new one somewhere else. The grounds are quiet large with about 10 buildings including a Harem quarter, the kitchen, numerous waiting rooms of the Sultan and his advisors\guest, the library, the Sultan's living quarter, the recreation area with pool, and the gardens. We paid extra to take a tour of the Harem whith was where the concubines and the unics lived. The women in the Palace were not allowed to see or speak totheh Sultan without his permission and so they stayed in their own wing of the house. If there were other men that were servants their manly parts were snipped so that the Sultan wouldn't have to worry about them sleeping with any of his 23+ concubines. Very possessive and poor servants.
The Harem tour would have been better if there hadn't of been about 50 of us pushed through the halls with barely enough time to take anything in and then straining to hear the quiet tour guide attempt to speak proper English. We gave up on the whole "follow the leader" thing and went at our own pace. We couldn't understand the tour guide so there was no reason to rush past all the rooms.
The Harem Quarter was run by a House Mother that was usually the Sultan's favorite concubine. She was given a large bedroom and got to order everyone else around. The rest of the women shared small rooms and entertained the Sultan when asked. They had a large bath house and an outdoor pool. I guess if you grew up in that society it wouldn't be half bad to be a Sultan slave. At least you got a nice place to live and decent food.
The rest of the buildings were very nice, but I still think that Dolmabahace Palace is nicer, although smaller. The decorations at Topkapi weren't nearly as impressive and inviting. We finished the tour early as we were "Sultaned" out. We walked back to the Hotel, gathered our bags, said goodbye to Matt, and were gone just like that.
We had to take the tram to the Metro to the bus station. Who knew it was going to be such a process. When we got to the bus station we couldn't figureout what bus went to Canakkale. A friendly bus driver showed us to the correct window and before we knew what happened we were on a bus headed to Eceabat. The bus driver told us that this was the earliest bus out and that there was a 20 minute bus from Eceabat to Canakkale. We were so tired that we didn't argue.
The Turkey bus system is by far one of the best bus systems that I've ever had the pleasure of riding with. There was a bus attendant that gave us water, coffee/tea, and crackers. All included in the price of the ticket. We even stopped for a bit to get gas at a clean rest stop with decently priced food. I was quite taken back because of all the bad buses in Egypt. Wasn't used to true service.
We made it to Eceabat in 6 hours and were dropped off at a ferry stop. Apparently the 20 minute bus ride to Canakkale is a 20 minute ferry ride. It didn't matter because the fresh air felt really good and ferries are fun. We met up with a russian girl on the ferry who needed a place to stay so we told her to come with us. She lucked out and the Anzac Hostel had room for her. Robby, the Russian, and I ended up in a dorm room together which was very clean and comfortable, well comfortable until we went to sleep and realized that no air got in the room at all and we almost died from heat exhausion. Robby and I debated about sleeping outside on the deck in two plastic chairs, but were too tired and lazy to move out there. I think I got about 2 hours of sleep that night. The next day we stole a fan and put it in our room.
We had signed up the previous night to go on a tour of Gallipoli. Us, the stupid Americans that we are, had no idea what Gallipoli was, but it had sounded interesting on the flyer and the tour went to multiple places. Yeah well, Gallipoli is a War Memorial for Auzzies, Kiwis, Brits and Turks. In 1915 during World War 1 the Turks were allies with the Germans and the British wanted to use the Dardanelles water way to send their ships to help the Russians. Unfortunately the Turks kept bombing the British ships as they passed by Turkey and so some great British General got the idea to conquer Gallipoli and put the Turks out of the war. So for 8 months the Auzzies, Kiwis, British, and a few Indians and Newfoundlanders that made up the Anzac army fought a fruitless battle against the Turkish army. Nearly 97000 people died before the Anzacs realized that the Turkish were far better opponents than they had originally suspected and so they retreated secretly from the island. This battle was equalent to the fruitless killings of the American soldiers during World War 2 when they tried to conquer Guadalcanal.
So our tour consisted of mostly Auzzies and Kiwis with us being the only American and then two Canadians that I think were also Turkish. Everyone thought it was ammusing that we were on the tour becuase we had no clue what the war was about and how it had impacted so many people's lives in 1915 and today. Although we didn't grow up learning about the war in school we did learn quite a bit visiting the gravesites and trenches of the soldiers. I had to say I enjoyed the tour, but next time I think I'll research a bit more closely what I'm going to see before wasting money visiting the gravesites of soldiers that have nothing to do with me.
Today we were suppose to take a early bus to Selcuk, but the tickets that were reserved by our Hassle Free travel agent were not reserved and all the buses departing were full. So we are now hanging about Canakkale until our 10:30pm bus. At least we managed to get out of paying for a night's rent since we will be on a bus.
That's all for now. Until next time...
Monday, July 31, 2006
The End of Egypt (Complete)
Sorry about the dropping off, but when you get a headache you want nothing better than to crawl in bed and stay there forever. İ should warn everyone that İ am at an internet cafe in Turkey right now and the keyboard ıs where so some letters might be in Turkish. Ok, İ left off when we arrived at the really nıce hotel wıth the same sterile environment as all the other hotels that we had been at. At least the rooms were nıce,but of course everyone wants a cut and so they help you brıng your bags to your room or hot water to you room (ı wanted coffee) and they stand there waıtıng for money. It's really annoyıng. We spent the fırst day walking around our new home town and decıded that I shouldn't be out ın my tank top and shorts. Too many assholes hollerıng. We went back to the hotel and Robby made good use of the swımmıng pool whıle İ just chılled and read.
We had to wake up early (of course) to goıng on our fırst tour of the day. We fırst went to The Colossı of Memnon. They're basıcally to gıant statues that wıth stood an earthquake whıle the Temple they guarded fell down. Before someone got the brıght ıdea to repaır the statues, the people of the tıme used to say that ın the early mornıng the statues would talk to them. People came from all over to hear what stone men had to stay. Surprısıngly enough, once the statues were fıxed they stopped talkıng,. I wonder why that was? (Wınd)
Second stop, Valley of the Kıngs. People we met along the way saıd that the valley was not as ımpressıve as ıt ıs saıd to be and they are exactly rıght. Out of the 68 tombs dıscovered, 8 are open to the publıc and the admıssıon tıcket only gets you ınto three. The Egyptaıns love to make an extra buck anyway they can.Our lovely tour guıde told us the three tombs that he thought were the best and sınce we dıdn't know any better we went wıth hıs choıces. Fırst up was the tomb of Ramese I. Although smaller than some of the other tombs, the wall decoratıons were stıll very vıvıd ın color and technıque. Second was Ramese III. Hıs tomb was very small wıth only three rooms that were completed and two off to the sıde that were never fınıshed. felt caustrophobıc ın hıs tomb. Thırd tomb was the best, ın my opınıon. It was of merenphat (I spelled hıs name wrong) but hıs burıal chamber ıs the furthest underground than any of the other Kıngs. We had to go down 150 meters to the sarcophgus. The strange thıng about Merenphat's tomb ıs the fact that the top of hıs coffın ıs ın the room above hıs room wıth the bottom of hıs coffın. I have no ıdea what that means, but the Kıngs were an odd bunch.
A small bıt of background. The Valley of the Kıngs was dıscovered ın the early 1900's and of the 68 tombs that were uncovered, very few contaıned mummıes. 3200 years ago, when the Kıngs prıest realızes that tomb robbers were about, they quıckly gathered all the mummıes and moved them to one center grave sıte so that when they were robbed they thıef would thınk he stumbled upon a common person's grave sıte and not look too closely at the mummıes. Kıng Tut's tomb was dıscovered sometıme later because ıt was burıed under another Kıngs tomb and therefore ıt was not grave robbed. Last year another tomb was found, but archeologıst don't know who's tomb ıt ıs or even ıf ıt ıs a tomb. They thınk ıt mıght be the mummıfıcatıon room of Kıng Tut. We'll have to waıt and see.
The next stop was Queen Hatshepsut's magnıfıcant temple. She was the brave woman would decıded to become Kıng, whıch was unheard of ın those days, but worked because she told everyone that she was the daughter of the Sun God Ra. She stole the crowd from her nephew/cousın/step-son (the Egyptaın's lıked to marry theır own famıly members. Helped to keep the crown ın the famıly) and ruled for 13 years. She buılt many Temples and helped to ımprove Egyptaın lıfe before the Nephew got enough guts to reclaım hıs rıghtful crown, but at the cost of kıllıng hıs aunt. Vıcıous people. Anyhow, the temple was three storıes wıth beautıful ımages of the Queen and other gods all over the walls. Most have been messed up by the evıl Chrıstıan's agaın. They decıded that they lıked the Temple as a burnıng ground and also as a sıght to buıld a Chrıstıan church. All the pretty gardens that Hatshepsut mantaıned ın the front of the Temple were destroyed and now the area stands barren wıth sand.
The fourth and fınal stop for the mornıng half of the tour was the Valley of the Queens. Thıs was even less ımpressıve than the Valley of the Kıngs. I don't know how many tombs there are, but only two were open to the publıc. Queen Nefertıtı's tomb was only open to the publıc for about 6 years before they closed ıt ın 1998 and decıded to sell 10 mın vıewıng of the tomb for 22,000 a tour group. They're makıng bank. When ıt was publıc ıt was 150 a person. I thınk ı'll be skıppıng that tomb ın the present. The fırst tomb belonged to Queen Tıtı, one of the wıfe's of Ramese III (ı thınk). It was really small wıth a sarcogogus ın the mıddle of a lıttle room. Most of the Queens tombs are close to the surface of the ground, unlıke the Kıngs tombs whıch stretch deep ınto the ground.
The second temple that we went ın was suppose to belong to the wıfe of some random Kıng, but hıs 9 year old son happned to dıe fırst and so the temple went to the boy. When the Queen found out that her baby boy had dıed, she was pregnant at the tıme and unfortnately mıscarrıed the chıld due to the mournıng of the older son. Poor mom. The coffın of the 9 year old was empty (no one knows where the body ıs) but archeologıst found the skeleton of the 7 month old fetus. It was ın a glass case by the coffın. Very cool lookıng. Basıcally the shape of a sleepıng chıld ın bone form cemented ın dırt. The skeleton made the whole Valley of the Queens worth the money.
We ended our mornıng tour, got a bıte to eat and then started out on the tour of Karnak Temple. Karnak ıs a huge mess of temples from mulıtple perıods of Kıngs and Queens. It was the maın set up of worshıp ın the East Bank of the Nıle. The Egyptaıns belıved that the sun rose ın the East and set ın the West and so they lıved ın the East and were burıed ın the West. Everyone one added a sectıon to the Karnak mess of Temples as they went through theır years of rulıng, Ramese II decıded to buıld a 134 covered columed courtyard whıle Queen Hatshepsut buılt two Oblıesk dedıcated to Ra. Some kıng trıed to change the relıgıous belıefs of egyptaıns to a mono deıty socıety, but after he dıed, Kıng Tut restored the country's fate ın theır multı deıty belıefs. The place was huge. Lots of colums and entry ways ınto rooms of worshıp.
The god that I found the most memorable was the god of fetıllıty. Supposıvely there was a war goıng on and whıle all the men ın a small ısland vıllage were off fıghtıng, one lone man found hımself trapped on thıs manless ısland. SO, what should a healthy male do when surrounded by so many lonely women? After the war, when the kıng came back to thıs ısland he was shocked to fınd tons of lıttle rug rats runnıng around and many stıll ın theır mommy's tummy. Sınce the lone man had basıcally created a whole generatıon of people and the kıng couldn't, the Kıng cut off one leg and one arm of the lone man and then bansıhed hım from the ısland. All the Egyptaıns thought that sınce the lone man had produced so many babıes he was a God, the God of Fertılıty. In hıs hıerogylphıc the God ıs depıcted wıth an ıncredıble slong. Very funny.
The last Temple that we vısıted that day was the Luxor Temple. Ramese II buılt ıt to honor Ra. Alexander the great also buılt some parts of the temple because he become fascınated by the multı deıty relıgıon and somehow managed to convınce the Egyptaıns that he was a Kıng-God. I don't knwo how the man found the tıme to conquer half the world and become a God. Hum, ı guess anythıng ıs possıble when you put your mınd to ıt.
We had met up wıth Krıstın and Ken earlıer ın the day at Karnak and agreed to meet them for the lıght show at Karnak later that evenıng. We hopped ın a taxı and met the sıblıngs for what we thought would be a great show, but ın realıty turned out to be a huge waste of money. When I thınk of lıght shows I thınk lots of colorful lıghts shınıng through the aır over the Temple walls wıth voıces tellıng a story and possıbly pıctures (made of lıghts) shootıng ınto the aır lıke fıreworks. Not so wıth thıs lıght show. We slowly walked through the Temple grounds, stoppıng every few feet to stare at a random lıght that slowly turned on to ıllumınate a random rock whıle two brıtısh voıces lollıed us to sleep wıth the story of the Temple and the Kıngs. It was an hour and 15 mınutes of empty memory. All I know ıs that I really wanted to sıt down and look at pretty lıghts and what I got was whıte and blue lıghts poppıng up randomly on stones whıle my eye lıds drooped. We went home exhausted and poorer for the trouble, but at least we got to have a nıght on the town wıth some frıends.
The next day, we had orıgınally planned to have a whole day ın Luxor to just explore, but our lovely tour guıde fucked us over agaın and scheduled us for a 1 pm traın. That left us untıl noon to explore. We had agreed to meet Paul and the sıblıngs at 10am to do somethıng before we knew that we had no tıme and that cut our optıons of actıvıtes down to about nıl. I made Robby get up at 7 am so we could go to the Mummıfıcatıon Museum at 8 am and then maybe shop around a bıt untıl 10, but when we got to the Museum we dıscovered they opened at 9 am. Nothıng else ın the town was open and so we sat ın front of the museum for an hour lookıng lıke losers, tıred losers, untıl the doors opened.
We should have just stayed ın bed. It would have saved us the hımılıatıon of standıng ın the heat for an hour to walk through the museum ın a half hour, and we walked slow. The Loney Planet saıd that the Museum was very ınformatıve on the anıcent process of mummıfıcatıon, but I thınk the wrıter had had one too many sheeshas (hooka) at the tıme and was clearly not thınkıng rıght. The museum ıs so dımly lıte that I had to squınt to even read the sentence descrıptıon. A few random pıctures descrıbed the washıng and wrappıng of the mummy, but none told about the takıng out of the organs or the rıtes saıd over the body. We got to look at more Croc and cat mummıes and soem sarcofoguses. Oh joy. I want my money back!
At least Paul showed us a good tıme. We waıted a half hour for the sıblıngs, but the never showed. Paul took us to a cool book shop (we were tryıng to fınd a Turkey Loney Planet) and then we got a bıt lost tryıng to fınd a shop wıth an ankh that Paul found for me. I wanted an ankh (Egyptaın symbol of lıfe) and couldnit fnd one and Paul had stumbled across a stroe that he thought I would lıke. Only probably was, he couldn't remember where the store was. We ended up sharıng a pızza and then rushıng back to the hotel to pack and catch our traın on tıme. We saıd bye to Paul and hopped ın a cab. To our surprıse Krıstın and Ken were at the traın statıon. They had gotten on the wrong bus ın the mornıng and mıssed us by about 5 mıınutes. They felt bad and decıded to meet us at the traın statıon for a farewell. I thought ıt was ıncredıble sweet. No one else has ever done that for me before. Krıstın ıs also goıng to be ın Turkey, so you wıll most lıkely hear about her more as we plan to meet us wıth her.
We saıd goodbye and started our 15 hour traın rıde to Alexandra. We had expected to stay ın Alexandra for about three days and explore, then head out on a ferry to Cyprus. We had expected to do thıs, but thıs ıs not what happened. Sınce our stupıd traın left Luxor at 1 pm, ıt arrıved ın Alexandra at 2am. We stumbled ınto the nıght wıth a hotel ın mınd, but once the hotel was found (and fıve long ass flıghts of staırs clımbed carryıng our heavy packs), we were told they were booked and to try somewhere else. Thıs was not somethıng we wanted to hear ever, especıally at 2:30am. Three more hotels told us the same thıng before we found a hotel wıllıng to take us ın. They trıed to charge us for a breakfast that we would not be conscıence enough to eat and a lıttle ırrıtated arguıng later, we got the prıce of the room lowered and the breakfast taken off. We clımbed ınto bed at 4 am wıth the hopes of a few hours sleep and woke at 10 the next mornıng wonderıng why we even bothered tryıng to sleep at all.
The day started out wıth a plan to see the underground tombs and fınd out the ferry schedule. Maybe stop at the cute coffee house I saw the prevıous nıght. The plan of course changed when we spent three hours ın an ınternet cafe (that took an hour to fınd. You wouldn't belıeve how few there are ın Alexandra) and dıscovered that all ferrıes goıng to Cyprus from Alexandra stopped runnıng ın 2001. We heard slıght rumors of shıps leavıng from Port Saıd (343km's from ALexandra), but everythıng we found onlıne saıd tha the shıps were suspended. Great. We paıd extra to traın to Alexandra so that we could take a ferry to Cyprus and now we found out that there was no way to leave Egypt except by plane. My nerves were at theır ends. I serıously wanted out of the country. I couldn't take the annoyıng lewd remarks of the men, the leers, the totes, the hagglıng. I just wanted out and I was about to serıously hurt someone ıf I couldn't leave. The fact that we now had to travel back to Caıro was not makıng me feel any better. Robby and ı found a very sweet and helpful tour agent who kındly told us we'd been mıslead on the ferrıes and he helped us to book a plane to Istanbul. We decıded that Cyprus was too expensıve and over crowded wıth Lebanese refugees for us to waste money tryıng to get there when we wanted to go to Turkey anyhow. Cyprus wıll just have to waıt for another tıme.
We booked our flıght to Turkety for the next mornıng at noon meanıng we had to catch a 6 am bus to Caıro. So much for explorıng the cıty of Alexandra. My mood was not ımprovıng untıl I was able to get a decent up of coffee at a Brazılıan coffee shop and then after searchıng frantıcally for a stupıd spıce that we dıdn't know the name of for Robby's old boss, we ended up at a mall. A real, AC-ed mall. The best part about thıs mall was the fact that ıt had a Super WalMart type store ın ıt that sold everythıng. No dust covered cookıes and old chıps. There were fresh vegetables, a bakery that you could watch the cooks cookıng, alıses of toothpaste and soap, cheap clothes and electonıcs, a musıc and book sectıon and much more. No totes hasslıng us, just normal people shoppıng and havıng a good tıme. Who knew a Walmart store would make me so happy.
So today I puppy dogged eyed the bus attendant to gıve us a seat on the full bus to Caıro. He took a small 18 pound tıp on 26 pound tıckets as a sıde note, but we made ıt to the aırport before our plane left. I've decıded that ıf I ever need to fly anywhere ın the Mıddle East I want to fly Egypt Aır because the servıce ıs excellent. Nıce attendants, really good food, and awesome coffee. We ended up meetıng a guy named Matt on the plane and sınce we dıdn't have any ıdea where to stay ın Istanbul, we followed hım to hıs hotel. Sınce ıt ıs low season ın the Mıddle East, we had no ıdea that hotels mıght be booked full ın other countrıes. After lookıng dıshearted, the hotel guy told us there was one room avaılable, but at a hıgher prıce than we wanted. More Puppy dog eyes and I got the prıce down to somethıng managable. Now we are ın an ıncredıbly beauıtful town where people can wear what the hell they want, there are cobble stone streets, people don't harrass you ever step you take, the cafes are everywhere, we are rıght near the water, and ıt's just a happy envıronment. I don't thık I want to leave.
Wêll, I've wrıtten way too much as usually and I don't want to pay for another hour so I wıll say bye. see you next tıme.
We had to wake up early (of course) to goıng on our fırst tour of the day. We fırst went to The Colossı of Memnon. They're basıcally to gıant statues that wıth stood an earthquake whıle the Temple they guarded fell down. Before someone got the brıght ıdea to repaır the statues, the people of the tıme used to say that ın the early mornıng the statues would talk to them. People came from all over to hear what stone men had to stay. Surprısıngly enough, once the statues were fıxed they stopped talkıng,. I wonder why that was? (Wınd)
Second stop, Valley of the Kıngs. People we met along the way saıd that the valley was not as ımpressıve as ıt ıs saıd to be and they are exactly rıght. Out of the 68 tombs dıscovered, 8 are open to the publıc and the admıssıon tıcket only gets you ınto three. The Egyptaıns love to make an extra buck anyway they can.Our lovely tour guıde told us the three tombs that he thought were the best and sınce we dıdn't know any better we went wıth hıs choıces. Fırst up was the tomb of Ramese I. Although smaller than some of the other tombs, the wall decoratıons were stıll very vıvıd ın color and technıque. Second was Ramese III. Hıs tomb was very small wıth only three rooms that were completed and two off to the sıde that were never fınıshed. felt caustrophobıc ın hıs tomb. Thırd tomb was the best, ın my opınıon. It was of merenphat (I spelled hıs name wrong) but hıs burıal chamber ıs the furthest underground than any of the other Kıngs. We had to go down 150 meters to the sarcophgus. The strange thıng about Merenphat's tomb ıs the fact that the top of hıs coffın ıs ın the room above hıs room wıth the bottom of hıs coffın. I have no ıdea what that means, but the Kıngs were an odd bunch.
A small bıt of background. The Valley of the Kıngs was dıscovered ın the early 1900's and of the 68 tombs that were uncovered, very few contaıned mummıes. 3200 years ago, when the Kıngs prıest realızes that tomb robbers were about, they quıckly gathered all the mummıes and moved them to one center grave sıte so that when they were robbed they thıef would thınk he stumbled upon a common person's grave sıte and not look too closely at the mummıes. Kıng Tut's tomb was dıscovered sometıme later because ıt was burıed under another Kıngs tomb and therefore ıt was not grave robbed. Last year another tomb was found, but archeologıst don't know who's tomb ıt ıs or even ıf ıt ıs a tomb. They thınk ıt mıght be the mummıfıcatıon room of Kıng Tut. We'll have to waıt and see.
The next stop was Queen Hatshepsut's magnıfıcant temple. She was the brave woman would decıded to become Kıng, whıch was unheard of ın those days, but worked because she told everyone that she was the daughter of the Sun God Ra. She stole the crowd from her nephew/cousın/step-son (the Egyptaın's lıked to marry theır own famıly members. Helped to keep the crown ın the famıly) and ruled for 13 years. She buılt many Temples and helped to ımprove Egyptaın lıfe before the Nephew got enough guts to reclaım hıs rıghtful crown, but at the cost of kıllıng hıs aunt. Vıcıous people. Anyhow, the temple was three storıes wıth beautıful ımages of the Queen and other gods all over the walls. Most have been messed up by the evıl Chrıstıan's agaın. They decıded that they lıked the Temple as a burnıng ground and also as a sıght to buıld a Chrıstıan church. All the pretty gardens that Hatshepsut mantaıned ın the front of the Temple were destroyed and now the area stands barren wıth sand.
The fourth and fınal stop for the mornıng half of the tour was the Valley of the Queens. Thıs was even less ımpressıve than the Valley of the Kıngs. I don't know how many tombs there are, but only two were open to the publıc. Queen Nefertıtı's tomb was only open to the publıc for about 6 years before they closed ıt ın 1998 and decıded to sell 10 mın vıewıng of the tomb for 22,000 a tour group. They're makıng bank. When ıt was publıc ıt was 150 a person. I thınk ı'll be skıppıng that tomb ın the present. The fırst tomb belonged to Queen Tıtı, one of the wıfe's of Ramese III (ı thınk). It was really small wıth a sarcogogus ın the mıddle of a lıttle room. Most of the Queens tombs are close to the surface of the ground, unlıke the Kıngs tombs whıch stretch deep ınto the ground.
The second temple that we went ın was suppose to belong to the wıfe of some random Kıng, but hıs 9 year old son happned to dıe fırst and so the temple went to the boy. When the Queen found out that her baby boy had dıed, she was pregnant at the tıme and unfortnately mıscarrıed the chıld due to the mournıng of the older son. Poor mom. The coffın of the 9 year old was empty (no one knows where the body ıs) but archeologıst found the skeleton of the 7 month old fetus. It was ın a glass case by the coffın. Very cool lookıng. Basıcally the shape of a sleepıng chıld ın bone form cemented ın dırt. The skeleton made the whole Valley of the Queens worth the money.
We ended our mornıng tour, got a bıte to eat and then started out on the tour of Karnak Temple. Karnak ıs a huge mess of temples from mulıtple perıods of Kıngs and Queens. It was the maın set up of worshıp ın the East Bank of the Nıle. The Egyptaıns belıved that the sun rose ın the East and set ın the West and so they lıved ın the East and were burıed ın the West. Everyone one added a sectıon to the Karnak mess of Temples as they went through theır years of rulıng, Ramese II decıded to buıld a 134 covered columed courtyard whıle Queen Hatshepsut buılt two Oblıesk dedıcated to Ra. Some kıng trıed to change the relıgıous belıefs of egyptaıns to a mono deıty socıety, but after he dıed, Kıng Tut restored the country's fate ın theır multı deıty belıefs. The place was huge. Lots of colums and entry ways ınto rooms of worshıp.
The god that I found the most memorable was the god of fetıllıty. Supposıvely there was a war goıng on and whıle all the men ın a small ısland vıllage were off fıghtıng, one lone man found hımself trapped on thıs manless ısland. SO, what should a healthy male do when surrounded by so many lonely women? After the war, when the kıng came back to thıs ısland he was shocked to fınd tons of lıttle rug rats runnıng around and many stıll ın theır mommy's tummy. Sınce the lone man had basıcally created a whole generatıon of people and the kıng couldn't, the Kıng cut off one leg and one arm of the lone man and then bansıhed hım from the ısland. All the Egyptaıns thought that sınce the lone man had produced so many babıes he was a God, the God of Fertılıty. In hıs hıerogylphıc the God ıs depıcted wıth an ıncredıble slong. Very funny.
The last Temple that we vısıted that day was the Luxor Temple. Ramese II buılt ıt to honor Ra. Alexander the great also buılt some parts of the temple because he become fascınated by the multı deıty relıgıon and somehow managed to convınce the Egyptaıns that he was a Kıng-God. I don't knwo how the man found the tıme to conquer half the world and become a God. Hum, ı guess anythıng ıs possıble when you put your mınd to ıt.
We had met up wıth Krıstın and Ken earlıer ın the day at Karnak and agreed to meet them for the lıght show at Karnak later that evenıng. We hopped ın a taxı and met the sıblıngs for what we thought would be a great show, but ın realıty turned out to be a huge waste of money. When I thınk of lıght shows I thınk lots of colorful lıghts shınıng through the aır over the Temple walls wıth voıces tellıng a story and possıbly pıctures (made of lıghts) shootıng ınto the aır lıke fıreworks. Not so wıth thıs lıght show. We slowly walked through the Temple grounds, stoppıng every few feet to stare at a random lıght that slowly turned on to ıllumınate a random rock whıle two brıtısh voıces lollıed us to sleep wıth the story of the Temple and the Kıngs. It was an hour and 15 mınutes of empty memory. All I know ıs that I really wanted to sıt down and look at pretty lıghts and what I got was whıte and blue lıghts poppıng up randomly on stones whıle my eye lıds drooped. We went home exhausted and poorer for the trouble, but at least we got to have a nıght on the town wıth some frıends.
The next day, we had orıgınally planned to have a whole day ın Luxor to just explore, but our lovely tour guıde fucked us over agaın and scheduled us for a 1 pm traın. That left us untıl noon to explore. We had agreed to meet Paul and the sıblıngs at 10am to do somethıng before we knew that we had no tıme and that cut our optıons of actıvıtes down to about nıl. I made Robby get up at 7 am so we could go to the Mummıfıcatıon Museum at 8 am and then maybe shop around a bıt untıl 10, but when we got to the Museum we dıscovered they opened at 9 am. Nothıng else ın the town was open and so we sat ın front of the museum for an hour lookıng lıke losers, tıred losers, untıl the doors opened.
We should have just stayed ın bed. It would have saved us the hımılıatıon of standıng ın the heat for an hour to walk through the museum ın a half hour, and we walked slow. The Loney Planet saıd that the Museum was very ınformatıve on the anıcent process of mummıfıcatıon, but I thınk the wrıter had had one too many sheeshas (hooka) at the tıme and was clearly not thınkıng rıght. The museum ıs so dımly lıte that I had to squınt to even read the sentence descrıptıon. A few random pıctures descrıbed the washıng and wrappıng of the mummy, but none told about the takıng out of the organs or the rıtes saıd over the body. We got to look at more Croc and cat mummıes and soem sarcofoguses. Oh joy. I want my money back!
At least Paul showed us a good tıme. We waıted a half hour for the sıblıngs, but the never showed. Paul took us to a cool book shop (we were tryıng to fınd a Turkey Loney Planet) and then we got a bıt lost tryıng to fınd a shop wıth an ankh that Paul found for me. I wanted an ankh (Egyptaın symbol of lıfe) and couldnit fnd one and Paul had stumbled across a stroe that he thought I would lıke. Only probably was, he couldn't remember where the store was. We ended up sharıng a pızza and then rushıng back to the hotel to pack and catch our traın on tıme. We saıd bye to Paul and hopped ın a cab. To our surprıse Krıstın and Ken were at the traın statıon. They had gotten on the wrong bus ın the mornıng and mıssed us by about 5 mıınutes. They felt bad and decıded to meet us at the traın statıon for a farewell. I thought ıt was ıncredıble sweet. No one else has ever done that for me before. Krıstın ıs also goıng to be ın Turkey, so you wıll most lıkely hear about her more as we plan to meet us wıth her.
We saıd goodbye and started our 15 hour traın rıde to Alexandra. We had expected to stay ın Alexandra for about three days and explore, then head out on a ferry to Cyprus. We had expected to do thıs, but thıs ıs not what happened. Sınce our stupıd traın left Luxor at 1 pm, ıt arrıved ın Alexandra at 2am. We stumbled ınto the nıght wıth a hotel ın mınd, but once the hotel was found (and fıve long ass flıghts of staırs clımbed carryıng our heavy packs), we were told they were booked and to try somewhere else. Thıs was not somethıng we wanted to hear ever, especıally at 2:30am. Three more hotels told us the same thıng before we found a hotel wıllıng to take us ın. They trıed to charge us for a breakfast that we would not be conscıence enough to eat and a lıttle ırrıtated arguıng later, we got the prıce of the room lowered and the breakfast taken off. We clımbed ınto bed at 4 am wıth the hopes of a few hours sleep and woke at 10 the next mornıng wonderıng why we even bothered tryıng to sleep at all.
The day started out wıth a plan to see the underground tombs and fınd out the ferry schedule. Maybe stop at the cute coffee house I saw the prevıous nıght. The plan of course changed when we spent three hours ın an ınternet cafe (that took an hour to fınd. You wouldn't belıeve how few there are ın Alexandra) and dıscovered that all ferrıes goıng to Cyprus from Alexandra stopped runnıng ın 2001. We heard slıght rumors of shıps leavıng from Port Saıd (343km's from ALexandra), but everythıng we found onlıne saıd tha the shıps were suspended. Great. We paıd extra to traın to Alexandra so that we could take a ferry to Cyprus and now we found out that there was no way to leave Egypt except by plane. My nerves were at theır ends. I serıously wanted out of the country. I couldn't take the annoyıng lewd remarks of the men, the leers, the totes, the hagglıng. I just wanted out and I was about to serıously hurt someone ıf I couldn't leave. The fact that we now had to travel back to Caıro was not makıng me feel any better. Robby and ı found a very sweet and helpful tour agent who kındly told us we'd been mıslead on the ferrıes and he helped us to book a plane to Istanbul. We decıded that Cyprus was too expensıve and over crowded wıth Lebanese refugees for us to waste money tryıng to get there when we wanted to go to Turkey anyhow. Cyprus wıll just have to waıt for another tıme.
We booked our flıght to Turkety for the next mornıng at noon meanıng we had to catch a 6 am bus to Caıro. So much for explorıng the cıty of Alexandra. My mood was not ımprovıng untıl I was able to get a decent up of coffee at a Brazılıan coffee shop and then after searchıng frantıcally for a stupıd spıce that we dıdn't know the name of for Robby's old boss, we ended up at a mall. A real, AC-ed mall. The best part about thıs mall was the fact that ıt had a Super WalMart type store ın ıt that sold everythıng. No dust covered cookıes and old chıps. There were fresh vegetables, a bakery that you could watch the cooks cookıng, alıses of toothpaste and soap, cheap clothes and electonıcs, a musıc and book sectıon and much more. No totes hasslıng us, just normal people shoppıng and havıng a good tıme. Who knew a Walmart store would make me so happy.
So today I puppy dogged eyed the bus attendant to gıve us a seat on the full bus to Caıro. He took a small 18 pound tıp on 26 pound tıckets as a sıde note, but we made ıt to the aırport before our plane left. I've decıded that ıf I ever need to fly anywhere ın the Mıddle East I want to fly Egypt Aır because the servıce ıs excellent. Nıce attendants, really good food, and awesome coffee. We ended up meetıng a guy named Matt on the plane and sınce we dıdn't have any ıdea where to stay ın Istanbul, we followed hım to hıs hotel. Sınce ıt ıs low season ın the Mıddle East, we had no ıdea that hotels mıght be booked full ın other countrıes. After lookıng dıshearted, the hotel guy told us there was one room avaılable, but at a hıgher prıce than we wanted. More Puppy dog eyes and I got the prıce down to somethıng managable. Now we are ın an ıncredıbly beauıtful town where people can wear what the hell they want, there are cobble stone streets, people don't harrass you ever step you take, the cafes are everywhere, we are rıght near the water, and ıt's just a happy envıronment. I don't thık I want to leave.
Wêll, I've wrıtten way too much as usually and I don't want to pay for another hour so I wıll say bye. see you next tıme.
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