19/09
In the morning we were woken by
the humming of the boats engine as we were waking our way on a 3 hour journey
to the port of Kas, a small coastal village predominantly famous for its silver
jewellery. But after a couple of hours cruising, halfway to Kas we were treated
to some breakfast. Then, after motoring a bit further it was time to dock in
Kas and as we hopped off the boat we were ready to explore the city. But after
half an hour walking we were of the consensus that if you were a guy and not
really into silver there really wasn’t much to the town- despite Harro
investing in a Turkish beach towel! So the group consensus was to pull up
stumps, access some wifi and grab some Turkish ice cream or dondurma. After
purchasing some ice cream from a crazy ice cream vendor who in his broken English
was claiming the viagral properties of the nuts he garnished our ice cream I
skyped Megan. Expecting to be left in peace and quiet to skype, in stead I was
surrounded with all of the restaurant’s waiters as well as the ice cream man-
in appropriately fellating the ice cream he had just made himself. After skype, we headed back to the boat.
Whilst harro and I were scared that at any moment the nuts would kick in, at
the boat we cranked out the touch ball, threw it round with Daniel and lil Josh
and then it was time for afternoon tea and then to set sail.
That night, after the usual
delicious dinner and a few beers, we thought some sort of communal game might
be nice. Ditching 500, we invented some
sort of non heavy drinking Kings Cup. Whilst some drinking was required there
were a few rules that instead of drinking required some unique challenges.
These included walking the plank and placing 10 grapes, then 20 grapes in your
mouth etc for 4 minutes. Great fun but it was soon time to head to bed- again under
the stars!
20/09
Today started like any other day until Finlay and I were ask
by John the old Canadian guy over breakfast in front of everyone, “so are you
two gay? not that there is anything wrong with that of course” …. No we aren’t for
the record. Obviously John hadn’t been convinced by the whole “Megan” story.
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| And John thought we were gay? |
The sunken city was up next, another old bunch of ruins
destroyed by the many earthquakes in turkey however this one was more than half
underwater so you couldn’t actually see it. Only where it had been. Riveting…
Next up we visited the Castle on the island of Simena where
the challenge was set for the two teams to take the best Ellen picture using
their surroundings on the island. Carly and I knew we had the money shot after
finding a Teslar inspired power station scene to work with. While Finlay and
Carine produced some average material (see photos below). To decide the winner
we put them to the vote of the 20 person boat. It came down to the captains
vote with The Bananas up 10 to 9 and the captain to decided. He chose the other
and therefore no winner.
For the last night we were told about a bar called Smugglers
Inn and jump into a speed boat with about 20 people and headed off into the pitch
black. We arrived at this little wooden bar in the middle of nowhere and
disembarked straight to the bar. Settling into a few drinks it was only our
boat plus a few people from another boat. I got chatting to this Aussie girl
who lived in London who was trying to tell me that it was super cheap there and
even cheaper than Turkey, outrageous claim! She also had purchased an Audi convertible
which I thought strange/stupid for England being a rainy place. Anyway after
ripping this girl for being a spoon hit up some delicious shots and bossed the
dance floor….well Finlay and I did. After most people got tired and left we
stayed and Ilias and his pirate mates cooked up some late night munchies.
Amazing poached eggs with butter and paprika! He told us stories of his pirate
days, smuggling Somalians from the Greek islands to Turkey and booze as well. Then
he met a Dutch girl who took him to Holland for five years and worked as an
Engineer, then had a kid. However the call of the ocean was too strong for him
and decided to return to the sea life, so here he was. On the topic of
smuggling, Polly told us how she had brought Ilias a small green present from England
which she placed on the 2nd choice shelf for her plane ride. This
appeared a little to normal to her. As things got weird we decided it was time
to got to bed and caught the speed boat back home.
21/09
Waking up slightly dusty after a
few drinks with a few pirates at the Smugglers Inn the night before, we headed
to breakfast hoping eggs would cure our ills. With limited success we were soon
below deck packing and readying our things to say goodbye to Ilias and friends
and disembark the boat in Demre. From Demre we were to catch a minibus to
Antalya where we would then catch an overnight bus to Goreme, the main town of
Cappadocia. The minibus from Demre to Antalya was eventful to say the least.,
With the bus packed full with all the recently disembarked touriss it was then
packed further with some locals including a young lady and her young child.
With Harro the closest person to the child it was going to make for an
interesting bus journey. It wasn’t probably half an hour in that the kid
vomited all over her mum, narrowly missing Harro. With the smell of baby vomit
moving through the bus everyone had resorted to sleeping off the stench.
However, the bus soon stopped allowing mother and child to get into a new
change of clothes. But this didn’t stop the baby crying its eyes out for the
rest of the trip- Antalya couldn’t come soon enough.
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| Beers at the Smugglers! |
Arriving at the bus station, we
got to the bus desks and soon found a company that would take us to Goreme-
either at 1900 or 2200. Thinking we would want to spend 8 hours at this bus
station- oddly full of young Turkish men with dog tags, pink shirts and slash
marks on their arms- we chose the 1900 bus that would arrive at 0430. After
having dinner with Ben and Sharon we were on the bus ready to sleep off an
eventful day.
22/09
Arriving in Goreme at 5am after a night bus is not one of the best things in the world, delirious from lack of sleep and unable to check into any hostel as none were open at that time we opted for the park bench. We both selected our bench of choice rugged up and attempted to sleep homeless styles. After being rudely awakened by the call to prayer we headed to the local tea house with all the old men flooding out of the Mosque for some chai and backgammon. After some punishing lessons, Finlay finally learnt how to play the game and won his first. At 7am It was time to find some accommodation and as we strolled to the info centre we saw a man in the distance sitting at a coffee shop, and who else could it be but our man Daniel Zaltani! After having a good ol chat, getting the goss on his week long adventures in rural Turkey we thought it might be a good idea to find somewhere to sleep.
Using the free accommodation
service at the bus station we found a cool hostel in the side a hill called
Travelers Cave Dorn and after checking in we crashed for a few hours. Waking up
were ready to grab a pide before we thought it might be good to get a glimpse
of the Rabbitohs vs Doggies Semi-Final.
But after discovering that streaming it was only possible if you paid
for it, we resorted to skyping Elies and Leah with the web cam directed
straight at their big screen tv. Althought the wifi struggled with the load
watching the average quality was enough- plus by the time we set it up the game
was essentially over. Doggies Storm Final! For dinner we met up with Zoltani
and eat a Cappadocian special which is a beef stew done in a clay pot. When the
dish is served the waiter cracks the top of the clay pot off with a knife. Up
there with one of the best feeds in Turkey so far! Post-dinner consisted of
Zaltani teaching us two new card games, Gin Rummy and OG which we played till
fatigue set in and we settled for an early night.
23/09
Over dinner the night before we had decided that while we
were in Goreme it might be a good idea to do some serious sightseeing. So we
decided that we would hire a couple of mountain bikes and do what they the
tourist companies called the red trip- a round trip from Goreme to Cavusin, to
Avinos, then via Zelve back to Goreme. There were some great road- long
straight sections broken up with long down hill sections as well as long
uphills.
However about 6km from home, I diagnosed my bike with a
front flat- so close to competing the 33 km loop, none of us wanted to call the
dudes to change the tyre and come and get us so as we stopped to check the
damage we were closely followed by a group of Swiss mountain bikers riding
around thr region for the next 5 days. With their neutrality and kindness they repaired
my tyre with 3 of their best tyre patches to fix it,. Then as we resumed our
run home we had 2 more blow outs. Now only 4 km from home and 2 bikes down the
consensus was that Fin and I ran the bikes home while Zaltani rode his back. We
made it!! After departing at 10 am we arrived back at the bike shop at 4 pm.
After a brief argument with the bike shop guys explaining that their tyres were
shit and the gears were broken we got away paying 10 lira for the flats and
headed to the coffee shop in need of some urgent nourishment.
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Swiss Mountain Bikers/Lifesavers!  |
Over coffee and cake it was decided that after some rest and
relaxation (C&C and some R&R) we would reconvene at 7 pm at the coffee
shop to head for some nachos- nachos that we had viewed the night before and
frothed over! The night consisted in essence of beer, nachos, cards and stick
ball before Danny Banjami hit the hay to prepare for his early start the next
day! Harro and I finished the night with a trademark Cornetto and then we were
off to bed sore and sorry after our long ride.
24/09
After a long ride the previous day
we were sore and exhausted so decided we would chill out before our bus at 7 pm
to Kayseri. From Kayseri we would get the overnight bus to Kahta the best base
from which to see Mt Nemrut and other
remains of the Kommagene kingdom. So as we hung out round the hostel all day,
it was soon time to head to the bus station.
On the way to the bus station we
thought a feed was essential. So as Harro indulged in another awesome nachos I
demolished a mushroom sactava- some kind of mushroom stir fry with rice. Then
the shuttle arrived and we jumped on and only a couple of hours later we
arrived in Kayseri. With a new, large and flashy bus station Kayseri seemed the
place to be. But it wasn’t long before we realised that this in fact that wasn’t
the case. Harro made friends with this ultra creepy guy. Once his new friend discovered he was
learning Russian, he just kept speaking Russian at, not ‘to’ him, while sensuously
stroking Harros knee. After a couple of hours of dealing with this creepy guy
we had no energy left so headed outside to wait for the bus ,With the bus
delayed it meant an extended wait and a choice- wait inside with the creepy
dude or wait outside in the cold. With our new friends from Barcelona by our
side, it was safe to head inside. Not long inside and the bus had arrive and we
were all on our way to Kahta. Overnight bus this time was awesome- many empty
seats and a smooth ride made for a lot of sleeping.
25/09
As we woke up in Kahta, we were
of the realisation that we were now in Eastern Turkey- a more conservative region
where Islam is adhered to by the majority of the population. The women mostly
wear hijabs and the men rock these awesome trouser/vest combo with the lowest
crutch I have ever seen on a pant. We jump off the bus and having seen our accommodation
from the bus on the way to the bus station prepare ourselves to make the short
walk to the hotel. But as we put on our packs a man from the same bus company
as our recently disembarked bus hands us a phone, where a man speaks English on
the other end. He tells us he is the man from our hotel and says he is going to
come and pick us up as this is a free service as part of our booking. As we
arrive at his hotel we are delivered caj and invited to have breakfast while
our room is prepared. After some amazing breakfast which included stringy
cheese, tomato, cucumber, a ridiculous amount of delicious bread.
After breakfast we were shown to
our room and dropped our bags off and got clean after a sweaty and stuffy overnight
bus ride. When we were clean we thought it would be a great idea to head back
to the bus station to check tickets to our next destination- Trabzon. But in
our best attempts at Turkish and the bus companies best attempts at English,
including sign language, we discovered the bus was full leaving us wonder how
we would progress from our current destination to any destination closer to
Georgia. Anyhow, our thoughts soon turned to lunch and a supermarket lunch we
decided it would be- a can of dolmades, a can of brown beans in tomato sauce
and a bit of fruit. Following lunch in our room we headed back to our accommodation
ready for our tour to start at 1 pm.
Everything in Turkey is done by
tours which is annoying but we have rolled with it. The tour at 1pm took us to
Arsimenia, and other ruins of the Kommagene
kingdom but the most amazing was Mt Nermrut, mountain adorned with stone
sculptures of animals, leaders of the kingdom and other god-like figures. As we
watched the sun set behind the mountains in the distance we thought about the
romantic nature of the whole experience but we resisted holding hands- worried
about the impression we had previously given off on the boat. After it was dark we jumped on the bus back
to kahta. As we got back into the hotel
, we saw Mark and Laura chilling out so invited them to dinner with us. We had
earlier found an iskender kebab restaurant so we hit that up for a couple of
iskenders, some tea and then headed home to hit the sack after a long day on
the tour wagon.
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| MUNBATs at Mt Nemrut! |
26/09
Waking up I thought I may actually die. I realised that I
had drank tap water from the restaurant last night. However this was not a day
to be sick as we had to try and make it to Georgia, so I popped a bunch of Imodium
and maned up. Although the hostel guy was very helpful he constantly was trying
to get us to do things his way and go on his tours. We said a difficult “no”
and eventually got a much needed lift to the bus station and found a Dolmus to
take us to Siverek. I luckily got a window seat and sat tight with a plastic
bag and bottle of water and off we went. On the way to Siverek we had to cross
the Attaturk dam (apparently the 5th largest dam in the world which
is mainly used to supply water to grow cotton….effectively in an arid region…)
and boarded a barg with a whole bunch of cattle which smelt delicious! Arriving
in Siverek changed to another Dolmus and set off to Diyabakir. As we rocked
into Diyabakir the Otogar station went past and we both looked at each other
and wondered when the bus would stop, asking a local he chatted to the driver
and we worked out this only went to the Dolmus Otogar and not the main Otogar
which we wanted. However the driver offered to take us there for an extra two
dollars via his personal shopping trip. He purchased a bunch of bread which we
had to eat and I tried to stomach the bread which wouldn’t go down and
proceeded to stuff it in my pocket so he would think I ate it. Finally at the
Diyarbakir Otogar we found a bus company that could take us directly to Tbilisi
leaving at 7pm, stoked!
I assumed the foetal position as Fin entertained himself the luxuries of eating and booked our Tbilisi hostel. I was still feeling terrible and another 15hour bus journey called for more Imodium and a few antibiotics just to make sure. Boarding the bus I went straight to sleep although in the morning as I found our things weren’t as pleasant for Finlay who described me as “rotting from the inside”. Anyway we set forth to Tbilisi! or so we thought….
27/09
As we woke up, we were still on
the bus and waiting for our next pit stop- ready for breakfast. But as we
arrived at our next stop we were told the bus was terminating. After showing
the conductor and then the bus station manager we were given a refund and then
directed to a bus that would take is across the border to Georgia to a town
called Batumi. At the bus station Harro also purchased in my behalf a green
Rizespor snap back- one which Lutty is going to froth over! But soon enough we
were on the bus on the way to Batumi and even sooner we were at the Turkish-
Georgian border.
Our helpful conductor directed us
off the bus and told us to head through the Turkis border. Waiting in line we
had our passports stamped and then proceeded through no man’s land to the
Georgian entry border. As we sweet talked and smiled to the Geoorgian passport
control we were let in and into a new country. But as we met the bus on the
other side of the border the driver pointed back to no mans land where we saw
our bags lying there with the bus conductor. A misunderstanding across
languages meant we had to then exit Georgia collect our bags and enter back
into Georgia via the same passport ladies who had let us in. They must have
thought that we were complete nufties! Anyhow, with bags in hand we headed to
the bus and we were on our way to Batumi.
As we arrived in Batumi, we
disembarked the bus in a crowded as bus station- so crowded that our bus even
struggled to fit in the only available parking spot. With our bags in hand we
askeed the conductor for maybe some directions to the Tbilisi bus but with
little/no English he took that as taking us straight to the Tbilisi bus, paying
our bus driver and putting our bags in the back. What a legend!
With 400 km in a small minibus
stopping often to pick up and drop off passengers it was a long ride- nearly 7
hours of minibus pain made worse by the driver inflicting some of the
worst/best euro pop doof doof songs ever recorded. As we arrived at the Tbilisi bus station we
were approached by a taxi driver who offered to take us to our hostel for about
7 bucks. Taking his offer we successfully got to our hostel where he then
informed us that it was not a 15 lari ride but 15 laris per person. But 15 buck
later we had a bed and we could drop our stuff after about 25 hours in a bus!
After a feed we headed to the local Georgian cuisine chain restaurant for some
pie and dumplings. Stuffed to the brim after an $5 pp meal we hit the hay
exhausted from a whole day of travelling! But we went to sleep knowing we had
made it to Georgia!!!!!!!
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