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...