Turkey

Well I have seen enough Mosques and Museums for a while. Certainly saw some
pretty neat stuff, so much history here, so many civilizations placed there
mark in this city. The oldest buildings are 4500 years old, and some of the
detail on the marble work is so amazing, even way back then.

The weather here has been nothing short of perfect. If you like clear blue
skies, and weather in the low 30's. I am certainly not complaining.

The tour of the Bosphorus yesterday was pretty interesting, I stepped into
Asia for the first time. Istanbul is the only city that straddles two
continents. Had a pretty decent guide, that is the risk on going on a tour,
will you get a good guide who isn't so sick of repeating the same stuff day
after day, and are you with a decent group of people. I got lucky and had
both, the group was mostly older people though. Went and toured the
Dolmabahçe Palace, this was the only place I have seen so far where you had
to pay your entry fee, and then another fee to be able to use your camera
inside. Hopefully this is not a trend.

After the tour I had a beer at the hostel, and got talking with a couple of
girls, who convinced me to tag along to a Whirling Dervishes dance show. It
was interesting enough, but I think it was rather a rip off price wise,
apparently there are better ones that are less commercial and expensive, but
of course we didn't find that out till after.

Today I saw the Hagia Sofia a Christian Cathedral that was built in 537 A.D.
And then converted into a Mosque in 1453. It was pretty amazing, how they
built something so big 1500 years ago. Then went to a decent museum that had
lots of ancient pieces in it from 4500 B.C. and spanning all the
civilizations here.

I am done with walking around in the heat, so I am going to take it easy for
the rest of the day. I leave for Bucharest Romania tomorrow afternoon. I am
flying again, the plane ticket was pretty much the same price as the train
ticket, and 20 hours vs. 2 hours. I do want to take some trains in Europe,
perhaps from Romania to Hungary I will train it.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well the weekend flew by. Friday after settling into the hostel and
exploring the surrounding area I went for dinner in a little cafeteria, and
then had planned on going out. I had a beer at the hostel bar, which was
very dead. I suddenly got very tired, I think getting up at 6am didn't help,
so I went to bed nice and early, and slept for nearly 12 hours straight, I
think I must have been fighting something, as that is pretty unusual.

So Saturday I wasn't really in the mood to be a tourist, so I just wandered
around a few bazaars and shops looking for a watch, I didn't find anything
that excited me that was inexpensive. Lots of really tacky watches with
fake diamonds, and huge watches, I guess to go with everyones huge sun
glasses.

Istanbul is by far one of the most annoying cities in terms of harrasment.
Every shop owner calling out to you, crossing the street to try to talk to
you even, and then random people on the street every two minutes. Ignoring
them works for most of them, but some will walk a good block or two trying
to get you to talk to them. I tend to only go to restaurants or shops that
don't call out to me, but if I did that I would be pretty hungry. Other than
that Istanbul is quite a lovely city, so much history here, it's like one
huge museum.

Saturday night I was all rested up, and well fed after a large Mexican
dinner. I was getting a bit tired of Turkish food, which is pretty similar
to Moroccan for the most part, so a few weeks of eating that was enough. I
took the tram to the night life area with a couple danish guys from the
hostel. it was very crowded, there was some Football game that just ended
and everyone was driving around and waving there flags. So we wandered
around for a while trying to find a reggae club that was in my guide book,
all the time being harassed by other club staff to come into there clubs,
lots of shady characters, and there are many stories of people going in, and
getting approached by local girls who seem friendly and start ordering
drinks, and then when you want to go, you find out that you have to pay for
the girls drinks which were 50euro each. So we had our guard up. We asked
around for this pangea club, and one guy goes, oh yes that is my club let me
take you there, so we followed him for a few blocks, and as we get there he
goes, oh we changed the name of it last week, and led us to some seedy strip
club. So we quickly turned around and got away from that guy. We ended up
at this club called Vanilla, which from the outside looked like quite a nice
hip-hop club. We payed our 20 lira cover charge (15cdn) and went in. It was
nice, but really small, but the music was ok and the drinks were cheap so we
decided to stay for a while.. Nothing to exciting happened, found out that
the district we were in was more for small clubs and pubs, which is all we
really saw, and the nightclubs where farther into the city. Learnt that
Coolio is playing in a big club on Thursday. I may go, but it depends on
when I can get my plane ticket out of here, I am planning on going to
Bucharest Romania either Thursday or Friday, so we will see.

Today I got up, and booked a Bosphorus tour that takes a boat ride around
the city and to some various sights, as Istanbul is a pretty big city to
explore on my own. I then checked out a couple sites, the Basilica Cistern
which is a pretty amazing cistern built in 532. It was built to provide
water to the city in the case of a seige. Then I went to the Topkapi Palace,
which was the Sultans palace converted into a museum. Sultans certainly
lived a pretty lavish life. I have never seen so many emeralds and gold on
one place before, and a diamond the size of a large lime. Needless to say
the jewels were pretty well guarded.

Probably will take it pretty easy tonight, as I want to try to get up early
and check out a couple sites before some of the huge tour buses come in,
fortunately my hostel is a 5 minute walk to most of the touristy places.

Posted by Jason Willock

Just a quick hello. Spent Thursday at Pamukkale, which is a pretty
impressive place, it's a huge mountain of calcium, and the Romans built the
city of Hierapolis. So I checked out the ruins for a bit, and then headed
into the thermal springs, a big swimming pool with water around 30 degrees
Celsius, it was quite nice and relaxing so I relaxed in there for a couple
hours in the blazing sun, went and had lunch, and then the rain came, so it
was perfect timing. Spent the rest of the time in the hostel learning to
play backgammon with the owners, it's an interesting game. I never really
knew what it was about, but it is very popular here in Turkey.

Had to get up bright and early today to catch my flight to Istanbul. I went
to the Denizli airport, which is in the middle of nowhere, very small
airport, but security was very intense, had to walk through two different
metal detectors, had my bag searched, and then when you got onto the tarmac
to board the plane, you had to point at your luggage before they would load
it. All that for a one hour flight. I think it may be because of the recent
instability in Turkey.

Spent a few hours wandering around Istanbul, it's one big city. It has been
a while since I have been in a large city. Took some getting used to again.
I was going to check out the various mosques near my hostel, but it is
Friday, and that is holy day in Islam. (Like Sunday to Catholics), and the
mosques were very busy, so I figured I would save that for another day.
Seems like a fairly large hostel, so I am keen on meeting some new people,
and perhaps checking out the nightlife here, there are lots of warnings of
scams that go one, so I will have to keep my wits about me,

I will upload some photos from Pamukkale tonight, internet at this hostel is pretty slow as well. (6k/s upload speed)

Posted by Jason Willock

I am typing thıs on an ancıent computer wıth a Turkısh keyboard, so excuse any errors.

Tuesday mornıng got up nıce and early to go see the ruıns of Ephesus, I ended up goıng wıth a couple from Toronto from the hostel. Ephesus ıs one of the better preserved Roman ruins ın Europe. We are stıll apparently ın the slow season for tourists here, but wow that place was packed, tons of huge tour busses carrying people of all natıonalıtıes, ıt was quıte the spectacle.

It was a pretty large cıty ın ıt's prıme, and some of ıt has yet to be uncovered. You could almost get a feel of what ıt would have been lıke walkıng down the marble street goıng to the various shops, or to the bath house. I'm goıng to have to start watchıng the TV show ROME again! We go to the theater whıch was quite an amazing sıte, the accoustıcs were amazıng even after 2000 years. So good ın fact that a group of Japanese ladıes started sıngıng some lıttle song, I caught ıt on vıdeo and wıll upload ıt to youtube, as ıt was quıte amusing.

Just as we fınished the ruins, endıng wıth the burial sıte of the Vırgın Mary ıt started to raın, so ıt was good tımıng. We had lunch, and then headed back to the hostel. I went to go get a haır cut later ın the afternoon, I was goıng to try to let my haır grow long, but ıt was startıng to drıve me nuts. The Turkish barber had lightnıng fast hands, it was one of the best haircuts İ have had ın a long tıme. Took the rest of the day easy, as there wasn't much to do in the raın. Just hung around the hostel and chatted with the various peope there, got some good ınsıght on İndıa.

Today got up and headed to Pumakkaleö whıch ıs a very small town of about 4000, that gets flooded wıth tourısts everyday to see the huge calcıum deposıts, and to check out the thermal sprıngs. I haven,t checked them out yet as the weather wasn,t to great, ıt should be better tomorrow mornıng I hope. It ıs pretty rare for Turkey to get rain thıs tıme of year, but they apparently really need the raın, so I guess ıt ıs good for them, just bad for the tourısts.

İ have decided to pass on Greece until twords the end of my European trek, it apparently is startıng to get busy and expensive there. So friday İ am flying to İstanbul where İ will spend a week checking out that city. İ am looking forward to it, from what I have heard ıt's quıte an impressıve city.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I am on my own again, I parted ways with Mike & Denise who were heading
back to Izmir to start visiting relatives, so I went to Selcuk, which is a
little town right next to Efes, which has some of the best Roman ruins in
all of Europe.

Sunday I got into town about 3:30 and went over to my hostel which is pretty
nice and family run, again I am impressed with Turkey hospitality. I was
pretty tired from the night before, we partied it up pretty good in
Marmaris, and there were no injuries this time. It was Mike & Denise's 1
year anniversary, and we went to the same bar that I injured myself, all the
staff was so happy to see that I was ok, it was quite touching. We had a few
drinks there and then headed to a fairly large outdoor club down the street,
it was really busy, but it was some bad techno music, so after one drink
there we headed back to our original place, before finally calling it a
night.

Back to Sunday night, the hostel offers dinner at a reasonable price
so I said sure I will eat there, had a pretty good fish dinner. Again more
food than I could possibly eat. I ate with the other members of the hostel.
Which included another guy from Calgary, and 2 other girls from rural
Alberta, and couple Australians. This was the first place I have run into
other Albertans, from what I have heard Turkey & Greece are filled with
Canadians. It's good to see other Canadians. We all were pretty beat and
called it an early night, going to bed around 11. I didn't wake up until
10:30! I caught up on some much needed sleep.

So today I took it pretty easy, strolled down to a museum, an old
Mosque, and St. John's Basilica, which was pretty cool, this is apparently
where the Virgin Mary and St. John settled after Jesus's crucification, now
I am just enjoying some fresh cherries, and deciding on where I should go
next. I was originally planning on going to another little town, and then
flying to Istanbul, but I am so close to Greece, I could take a ferry to one
of the islands. As it seems a good portion of the people I have talked to
came from Greece, so I'll have to put my thinking cap on.

I'll upload some photos tonight, it's a pretty slow internet connection and
uploading photos slows it down to a crawl for the other people who want to
use it.

Posted by Jason Willock

Well the plan to take it easy Thursday night kind of went out the window, we
walked to the nightclub section of town after a decent dinner. It was still
pretty early, 11ish so most places weren't too busy, so we found a place
playing some good music, and went in there for a couple drinks. They had 2
for 1 fishbowls, basically a wine decanter filled with alcohol, so we had a
couple of those, and they went down pretty quickly, and before you knew it
we were dancing and partying with some locals, and the owner of the bar.
Much fun was being had by all! Then I had a little accident, I slipped and
fell while 'dancing' and managed to bring a table down on my head, creating
a nice little gash above my left eye, which required stitches, so the owner
helped Mike get me into a cab, and take me to the hospital with Denise, and
they got me patched up. I don't really remember much of this happening, but
apparently I wasn't too good of a patient, and didn't really want to go to
the hospital. At least it wasn't anything to serious, and in a few days I
should be as good as new again. The owner of the club was quite concerned for my
well being, hospitality is genuine here.

Somehow we all managed to get up for the boat tour on Friday morning, and
headed out to sea, unfortunately the weather wasn't too good, it was cloudy
and windy, but all in all it was a pretty decent trip, saw an island where
turtles lay there eggs, some neat tombs that were carved into the side of a
mountain, had a mud bath, and then sat in a hot spring for a while. The
boat ride back to Marmaris was quite rocky, and my tummy wasn't overly keen
on the whole idea, but I managed to keep my lunch down, and made it back to
shore safely. It was a nearly 12 hour journey, and we were all dead tired,
so we had to miss out on the SNAP concert, and got some much needed sleep.
We will go out tonight and party it up, I'll have to behave myself this
time, I think I let my guard down a little too much because I was around
close friends.

So don't worry I am fine and have learnt from this adventure. We are now
going out to buy bus tickets, Mike & Denise are going back to Izmir tomorrow
and I am going to Selcuk to see the ruins, then I will head to Pamukkale to
see the Travertine's, which is a Natural Wonder of the World. So that should
be neat.

PS - Happy 70th birthday Uncle Clayton! Hope you have a good celebration!

Posted by Jason Willock

Well I must say it was nice to see some familiar faces at the airport in
Izmir Turkey. Mike & Denise came and picked me up, and I stayed for a couple
nights with Denise's parents. So very friendly and hospitable, and non stop
food, so much tasty food it was great.

Wednesday me and Mike wandered around Izmir for a while and then stopped in
at a pub and had a couple beers, mind you the beer mugs were 700ml, so two
beers was quite a bit. Then we met Denise's father for another beer, then
back home for a great BBQ.

Today we got up bright and early, and caught a bus to a beach resort called
Marmaris. We took it pretty easy today, strolled along the sea, and had a
good lunch and organized a boat cruise tour for tomorrow, which should be a
ton of fun. Just resting up now then we will go have dinner and check out a
the night life, we will take it pretty easy tonight as we have to get up
early for the boat ride tomorrow. And we want to go clubbing tomorrow night
as Snap with Turbo B is in town and playing at one of the larger clubs.
(There the group from the 90's that did I got the Power, and Rhythm is a
Dancer), so that should be a lot of fun.

After here I am not too sure what I will do. Mike & Denise are going to head
back to Izmir, as Denise has to go around visiting various family members,
so I may go back to Izmir, or I may stay in this section of Turkey for a
bit, as there are some neat places I would like to check out. But I will
have to sleep on that decision.

Posted by Jason Willock