Farewell Turkey

Some thoughts on our last day

More ruins than Rome or Greece

Very friendly people

More satellite dishes than NASA

Developing fast - roads and appartments

They love their football, cigarettes, tomatoes, olives, feta and other white cheeses, cats and playing backgammon.

They think we love nescafe (instant)

They don't drink much Turkish coffee,  preferring Chai (Turkish tea)

Best one liner from a salesman - how can I make your money mine

Best ruin - Ephesus

Best desert - Yoghurt (natural) with almonds and honey

Best snack - date stuffed with a walnut

Making money on Istanbul's streets

Turkish people are inventive when it comes to making money.

At train and ferry stations there is always young girls 8 to12yrs to help explain the token system and after they have offered their advice they ask for a lire.

Public toilets have attendants who ask for a lire

There are many shoe shine men who ask for a lot more

There are bread vendors who have 3 types of snack bread

Guide book sellers, tour and restaurant touts are everywhere

There are very few outright beggars but many people sell small packets of tissues and this may be a more acceptable way of seeking help, Islam has something to say about begging.

There are tinkers who move around with a cart equipped with tools to cut sharpen weld and much more with metal.there is also the scrap collector who moves around with a cart collecting scrap metal and (unbelievably) plastic.

Possibly the most inventive are the scales people who weigh you for a lire. One of these was a blind man whose walking frame had a set o's scales built into the front.

Navigating in Turkey

GPS,  Maps and locals

Getting to our nightly stops has been tricky sometimes.

We have used Google maps which has allowed us to follow our progress however it is easy to lose the saved route over a day of navigating. My local data plan seems to not always work but for some reason the little blue dot does work.

We decided not to trust the electronics when it was asking us to take a dirt track off a very minor road 50kms from the Hittites excavations.

Coming into Istanbul we decided to stop a night on the outskirts after a seven hour drive. Istanbul is enormous. The locals say it is 20m people.

Our route map had refreshed and disappeared but (feeling clever) we had saved the directions.

Useless!! The directions talked about road names and they were non existent on the ground. The road signs talked about town and suburbs only.

So, what do you do when you get to the right suburb in an extremely congested busy city. Ask a local!

This was a good plan as the Turkish people love to help. The only difficulty is finding somewhere to park without being honked and then being understood. Outside of tourist areas there is a lot of one word English spoken (yes).

We found three very kind people who tried to help. Each time we got closer.

They drew us maps (see photo)

We were pleased when we correctly guessed that a lamp was a traffic light.

Turkish motoring - the good the bad and the ugly

As we have now driven across a third of Turkey (1500kms) I thought it was time for a summary. WOW - It has been an experience.

We have stopped in out of the way places and seen much kindness. At a small town baker they wouldn't take our money for bread.

At a petrol station buying water and soft drinks we were presented with two homemade ice creams. 

In another small town some teenage girls were delighted to talk to us in English. We can tell that these are school taught, as across Turkey the chats have always started with "what is your name?" followed by " where are you from?"

When we hit the motorway things changed.  These need serious concentration. Most are four or six lane divided road. Nice and safe eh?

One or two problems....

No lanes and lots of speed.

Turks respect the straight line, even when the road bends. They also like to judge their steering by centering on lane lines. If you need to pass you flash your lights or toot.

The motorway speed limit is 120 unless you are a police car or a motorist.

The tractors take the outside kerb, at twenty kph. The local drivers and very old trucks the first lane at 80kph.  The middle lane is for 100 - 120 and the inside lane is for overtaking.

This sounds very sensible except that

No one uses indicators and

No one uses only one lane and 

the inside lane is for BMW'S, VW'S & Mercedes' travelling at 140-160 kph.  

It is seriously scarey when you think you are alone on the road and you are suddenly buffetted by a passing car and before you can look across it is gone.

To help you recover there are many "truck stops". These are not the McDonald's style, they are serious business.

At our first one we were amazed by the complimentary car wash and the gourmet deli.

At the second one we couldn't resist sitting by the fountain and browsing the suit and dress shops whilst our car was washed (again).

Unknown Ancients

We have driven north to central Turkey to a beautiful farming area which has ancient ruins as old as the Egyptians. 

Before the Romans and Greeks there were the Hittites.  They ruled Turkey, bits of Iraq and Syria in the 2nd millenium BC about 1700 to 1200BC. 

They had the first recorded peace and mutual support ( in war) treaty, with Ramses II of Egypt.

Their capital Hattusas covered many acres on an amazing hillside with a view for miles. They built in stone and the foundations of over twenty temples have been excavated along with hundreds of metres of fortified wall.

Strange rocks and balloons

Cappadocia - strange rocks and balloons

The landscape is dominated by rock spires and in some places these have hats on. The area has three dormant volcanoes and 100 million years ago was covered in the rock from volcanic eruptions. This resulted in a soft layer of rock covered by a harder layer. Wind and rain has done it's work to leave thin points of rock with large harder caps.

This scenery is spectacular and to best appreciate it a local ballooning industry has flourished. We had the great thrill of a flight today.

Some of you will know Ross is scared of heights. I was not sure if this would be terrifying but we chanced it. The flight was amazing. 

The first shock was just how big the balloons are.  They are almost the size of an olympic pool. The basket held about twenty and felt very solid . I was anxious as we prepared to take off, however the actual takeoff was so smooth that if your eyes were closed you would miss it.

There was no wind or sense of rushing air and no sudden drops - Nice!

There was an amazing view and sense of freedom. The pilot was rather skilled and knew it. He scraped the top of a tree as we went over a cliff and joked that he was sweeping the bottom of the basket. We dropped into a narrow gully only five metres above ground and then we rose to 800 metres.  He went within a metre of the top of a rock spire and at one time we touched another balloon. 

The flights all start about 5.30am to get the ideal wind conditions and on our day, there were over fifty balloons in the sky.

The views of the landscape were spectacular and they were even better with the other balloons sharing our trip, above below and every direction you looked.

As we descended we watched the support trucks winding along dirt roads as they tried to anticipated our landing place. We were amazed when our pilot landed the basket on the back of the truck - wow!

Cappadocia (Goreme)

We we are in the centre of Turkey in an area famous for its somewhat lunar landscapes.

The early Christians lived here (from about 1000AD). Partly to protect themselves and partly to make use of very soft crumbly rock,  they built into hillsides and also underground. 

We have been able to view it all from a hot air balloon (amazing) and also went deep underground in a city dug five stories below the stoney surface.

Many of the man made hillside cave areas have churches, communal rooms and also graves with interconnecting tunnels or doorways.

In one photo there is a long table and a surrounding bench carved directly out of the rock where the community sat to eat.