I was in Turkey
Turkey travel guide by travellers for travellers!!
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The cultural dichotomy of Turkey
While walking through Istanbul or any other Turkish city, one cannot miss the coexistence of the headscarf and western clothes. Most people in Turkey are religious at heart. They follow the eastern traditions of being gregarious and hospitable, but aspire to be western. Unfortunately, Turkey is yet to imbibe the best attribute of the West – its work ethic. Fahri spent three years in Delhi working with us. People still... Continue reading...
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Grey Bear-ology
Grey Bear Over Galata
I recently chatted about the day trip my bipedal attendants and I took to Istanbul (formerly Constantinople and Byzantium) last week but I didn't say that we officially started our walking tour of the New City - not that the New City is all that new - only after travelling there by bus, ferry, tram and Istanbul's little one-stop funicular. It's quite different from Lisbon's funiculars and I admit that I was a little disappointed that we were below the city the whole time. I find that underground photos often disappoint.
Van and Mardin
Leaving Do?ubayaz?t we headed towards Van to spend a day or two. We arrived in Van in the early evening and after searching around for a hotel we wandered out around the town to grab some dinner. Van turned out to be a much larger and more developed town than either of us expected and we were completely shocked to find the number of high end stores lining the main street. After a small dinner and some desert we headed back to our hotel to organize tomorrows activities and for bed.
Day 158 Go NeiriAn Bothar Leat (May The road Rise To Meet You)
And so it was time to turn south and away from the Black Sea and begin the 360km hike up to Erzurum. Now when I had left Istanbul this road was still closed due to snow, but (most of) the locals seemed to say it was possible by bike. I was given a great send off from the coastal town of Tirebola. Locals gave me food and vegetables and the old boys in the cay (tea) house examined my map and pointed out the towns I would be passing and rated them between "cold" and "cold,cold,cold,cold". And so most of the next 5 days were spent climbing. It wasn't very steep (never more than 5%) but it was consistent. It was time to put the altimeter to use.
Read more: Day 158 Go NeiriAn Bothar Leat (May The road Rise To Meet You)
Kars and Dogubayazit
After leaving Istanbul we flew across Turkey to start travling in the east and head west. So our first destination was Kars (after flying into Erzurum) which is a ver nice little town in the Northeast corner of Turkey, close to teh Armenia and Georgia boarder. We arrived in the town just as the sun was getting ready to set and our first mission was to find a hotel, something that turned out to be much more difficult than we imagined.
Airport Day for Kim
A little excursion last night to report on and an up-date. Last night after the hammam (Turkish car wash) we went out to shoot some pictures of some Detroit Iron we saw the day before along side the main highway near the posh hotel where we’ve been staying. We wanted to do that because the guy who got the car for us and put us up while we were waiting for the car is, as you may remember, a 50’s and 60’s American car gear-head.
The Kusadasi Car Wash
So here’s the drill. They have a hammam (Turkish bath) here, on site; it’s part of the one-price-for-all strategy.
So this PM, after lunch, we went.
There’s about 15 minutes of sauna, to loosen you up, then you go to a warm room with what looks like a marble drum in the center.
Bring the loot—I’ve got a really big one hooked and just about netted
Well, I am getting so good at Turkish—instead of just one side of one page language sheets as I had last year in the Balkans, the Turkish sheet has two pages---But I hardly need them at all any more.
Read more: Bring the loot—I’ve got a really big one hooked and just about netted
On overused names for flawless places, or, near Tesecu
I try to avoid words and phrases likely to appear in a deceptively balmy brochure, such as spa rejuvenation, massage oil, or 24-hour buffet (the carnivorous geese seldom mentioned), but as of right now, nine in the resurrecting morning, and right here, here, near the Turkish Mediterranean village of Tesecu(Tasucu), I can only think paradise. One would half-expect our habitual haggling with the caretaker has in fact surrendered our grimy souls to a devil with sand between clawed toes. Really, it’s as if we’ve fallen into a postcard from those days when it was possible to live inside an image.
Read more: On overused names for flawless places, or, near Tesecu
Thursday, April 9
On the first AM in Turkey, Wednesday, the 8th, woke up to mezzein calling the faithful to prayer-- which sounds a lot more romantic than it is. And Hell, I'm not even one of the faithful even when I'm home, being pretty active in the free-thought communities in both Seattle and Portland.
Circling the Tour Busses
It’s Wed AM, April 22, as I write this, and we are in Ku?adasi, a port city west of Ephesus and South-west of Izmir, which is the big city in the area.
Every time we have asked in the smaller (50,000 people here in Ku?adasi, less than half that up in Selcuk, where we stayed Monday, which is much more manageable and typical for us) places where we can purchase something—a lens cap, Sudoku books, etc., we are directed to Izmir.