Oh, Glorious Urfa

The pilgrimage town of Sanliurfa, aka Glorious Urfa, is where the prophets Job and Abraham trod in biblical times. It is culturally smack-dab in the middle of the Turkey we've seen everywhere else and the Middle East that we're expecting. Here we've seen more than our fair share of men sporting huge moustaches and extremely baggy pants. We've also seen an increasing number of women in their chadors and a few with beautiful purple head scarves and curiously tatooed faces, reminisent of the ones that were all the rage in Ethiopia. While the number of tractors has not decreased, the number of horse-drawn carriages has skyrocketed, and we even spotted a few camels today. It is a facinating and friendly place to visit.

The first order of business today was to visit the town of Harran, about 50km south of Urfa towards the Syrian border. Harran is one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns on Earth and home of some distinctive 'beehive' houses, the style of which dates back to the 3rd century BC (though the ones still standing in town are about 200 years old). They're excellent from the outside, but even better to take shelter in when a storm begins a-brewin', as we found out today.

Harran is also home to the first Crusader castle we've seen on this trip. While it's only partially intact, what remains is very cool and up to third world safety standards with enormous holes in the floor that could lead to a broken leg - or worse - if you weren't careful. Needless to say, while the castle and vistas were excellent we remained on high alert.

Back in Urfa we headed straight for the bazaar for a few hours of noodling around and scoping out photo opportunities. Happily, the Urfa bazaar was one of the happiest and friendliest bazaars we've encountered; vendors were more than happy to have us gawk and take pictures. At one point they swarmed us to take their photo. In the pigeon lane they were happy for us to enter the cages and even handle the merchandise! I really have no idea why they're so keen on selling live pigeson, though..

Nemrut Dagi: land of big stone heads

Now, really, who doesn't love a big, disembodied stone head? These really big heads, which have long since toppled off their bodies, were built by a pre-Roman king who believed that the gods presented were his relatives.

There are actually two sets of statues, one on the West side and the other on the East. In between is a 50 m artificial mountain of crushed rock believed to cover the king's tomb and perhaps that of up to three female relatives, but no one's dug in to check. Having on terrace on each side makes it handy for tours - you go up to 'ooh' and 'ahh' at the West side for sunset, then early the next morning you do the same thing on the East side. There are a few nice differences on the two sides, with the bodies still visible on the East side, and the heads retaining more detail on the West side.

Nemrut Dagi is one of Turkey's three most popular sights, after Istanbul and Cappadocia. After visiting, I can see why - there is something a little magical about the place, though the ruins are small and pretty 'what you see is what you get'. Or maybe that's the early dawn talking...

Cappadocia

We have been looking forward to seeing Cappadocia ever since we saw it on a postcard in Bulungula, Wild Coast, South Africa, in March at the very start of our trip. And when we finally arrived we were not disappointed. From the bus we could see the cave houses near Uchisar and the the fairy chimneys in Goreme, a landscape that is totally otherworldly.

The rock formations of Cappadocia are varied in their apperance, from fat and squat little houses to tall and phalic pillars to the drapery-like white rock on the sides of the canyons. It's the kind of landscape that takes a long time to get tired of looking at.

And in order to see it better, we decided to see it from the sky via a hot air balloon ride. Or a balloon flight as they call it here, but we all know it's really more of a ride than flight. It was the first time for both of us to go up in a hot air balloon (we were intending to go up in Tanzania but we decided to pass since we'd missed the migration) and it was absolutely fantastic. You float magically up off the ground and sweep into the sky in absolute silence except for the occasional blast of hot air. The the wind gently swept us from one valley to the next, with our expert pilot (?) taking us down into most of the valleys, just meters away from the formations. When we landed, we landed exactly on the trailer and were treated to a glass of the finest - and by 'finest' I mean 'cheapest' - champagne. It was lovely.

Besides the hot air balloon, we also did a few walks through a couple of canyons to get a better look at the formations and we visited the underground city in Kaymakli which was interesting in a clausterphobic kind of way. We were sandwiched between two tour buses, but everyone was friendly enough.

Safranbolu

The escape from Istanbul was especially sweet because our next stop was the lovely and incredibly friendly town of Safranbolu, famous for its large number of restored Ottoman houses. One of the perks of the town is that a lot of these houses have been converted into good value pensions and we got to stay in a ripper complete with a decorated ceiling, traditional niches and some of the best hospitality we've had in Turkey.

On our first night, we were escorted to a little restaunt in town by one of the women working at the pension. We walked through amazing little alleyways, up and down a valley, past mosques and fountains, always amazed by what we were seeing and quite confident that between the two of us we'd be able to make it back. And perhaps in the daylight this would have been the case, but after our yummy dinner the sun had well and truly gone down and we were stuck ambing through unfamiliar streets with the constrant refrain 'does this look familiar?'. The town appeared to be deserted; we hadn't seen anyone in ages. Eventually we bumped into a young guy who was getting picked up by his friend. We sheepishly pulled out the hotel's card and asked, mostly through gesticulation, if he could point us in the right direction. After a few words to his friend, they said 'please get in. We will take you there' and they did! For free! It is one of those amazing little situations that would surely never happen back home and really demonstrates the goodness of the people out here. Needless to say, we thanked them profusely.

Istanbul

We were both very excited about what Istanbul had to offer and worried about hitting one of Turkey's major tourist hotspots during Bayrami, the festival that celebrates the end of Ramadan and includes a sweets holiday. And we were right to fear it; the town was chock-a-block with international and Turkish tourists.

The sights in Istanbul were good. We checked out the amazing old basilica cistern which fed water to the city in the mid-500 AD and is gorgeous and a little eerie inside, even when it's packed with whispering tourists.

We were not particularly enthralled with Tokapi Palace, but dutifully walked around, weaving in between tour group and entering most of the rooms (except for the ones we couldn't squeeze in to). We paid the extra to enter the harem which was well worth the money because the rooms are beautiful and because tour groups don't bother to pay the extra.

Aya Sofya, built in the mid-500 AD, reigned as the greatest church in Christendom until the Conquest is 1453 when it was converted into a mosque. In 1935 the Ataturk changed it into a museum.

The interior is amazing, with a stunning domed ceiling that soars upwards. The ambiance of Aya Sofya is one of awed silence, with only muffled whispers exchanged between tourists and some slightly louder hissing of information from guides. Besides the gorgeous architecture, the mosaics that remain are amazingly beautiful, and the upper gallery that houses them gives some sense of the height and scale of the building.

Our last tourist stop was to the Blue Mosque, one of Istanbul's most famous and most photographed sights. Unfortunately the day we visited it was raining cats and dogs outside, so we were hustled in just before the closure for midday prayers with officials yelling 'Don't stop! Take off your shoes before you enter! Do not stop!' - an acrobatic feat, especially when you're squashed in with hunderds of other wet tourists with potentially eye-gouging umbrellas. Inside the mosque was very serene and nicely decorated. It was wonderful to see a living mosque, not just a historical relic/museum.

Because of the holidays, the Grand Bazaar was closed as was the interior of the Spice Bazaar. We made the horrible mistake of trying to visit the Spice Bazaar one of the days we were there and got squashed 'love parade' style between hundreds of locals, none of whom appeared to be moving.

In an attempt to escape, we stumbled upon Yeni Camii, another lovely mosque, and the Galata Bridge which is an area famous for its fish sandwiches. Phil bravely lined up and tried a sandwich that came complete with every bone in the fish; after a bit of picking he gave it up as lost cause. Still, it was great to see the fillets being cooked on the decorated boats as they violentely bobbed around in the waves.

We were more than happy to escape the 'bul which has its fair share of lovely people but a higher-than-average number of wankers.

Afyon - the town of free sweets

We stopped by the little town of Afyon both to check out its fort - whch is excellent- and to break up an otherwise long bus ride. The fort is great, perched atop a rocky outcrop that overlooks the city. Hearing the haunting ezan (Muslim call to prayer) echo as it bounces off the stony hills all around was amazing. It also gave us excellent views of the town, especially the older part which has its fair share of Ottoman houses and mosques dotted every few blocks clearly visible because of their distinctive minarets.

But what made Afyon so remarkable wasn't its great fort, but its great people. The Turkish people are among the friendliest we've ever met and Afyon is a town that probably doesn't see that many foreign tourists so the locals were quite curious about us and very happy to help us out. Turkish people also love to handout free samples of their food, including delicious baklava and lokum (turkish delight), occasionally dripping honey on the shop floors.

Pammukale and Hierapolis

Pammukale is a town often featured in the always-faded tourist photos of Turkey that usually grace the walls of the budget hostels where we stay. We saw one of these in Bodrum and were excited to see what it would look like now (and if those short-shorts so popular in the 1970s were still in fashion).

Pammukale is known for its pure white tarvertine shelves and pools which were created when the calcium-rich warm water of the area cooled onto the land and cliff edges (and less naturally onto the cement retaining walls of the pools). To enter the site, you have to walk up about 200 m through pools and travertines which is very beautiful but a little hard on the feet. It was even better coming down as the sun was setting with all of the little shadows making the texture more visible.

On the top of the cliffs, the Romans built a spa town in order to enjoy the restorative properties of the water and the ruins are pretty good. While the main part of the ruins is over-run with tours, walking out to the necropolis was a great way to spend a few relaxing hours and to see the ruins. One of the highlights here is to swim in a pool complete with a tumbled-down Roman column, but at 20 TL each (about $15 AUD) we gave it a miss. The other highlight (for us anyways) was the number of Russian men wearing nautical captain's hats - why do they seem to buy them en masse?

Efes or Efesus, either way it's near Selcuk

Efes (or Ephesus, depending on who you talk to) is the best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean. It was built before 600 BC and considering how old it is the ruins are in lovely repair. The library is the most spectacular building with loads of detail still clearly visible. The terraced houses require an additional entry fee which deters most tours from checking them out, but they are absolutely amazing. You can still clearly see paintings on the walls and the mosaics on the floor are in stunning condition. There are also lots of signs that have pictures of what they think the rooms would have looked like originally which help to bring the whole thing to life.

Turkey time: Bodrum

We hopped over to Marmaris, Turkey, from Rhodes and immidiately caught a bus to another toursity, coastal town called Bodrum. Why the change, youhref="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju-u7d6_Dtla75cJXv0dtAuAABzgyl1sLd7LomOzqvK58if8zO94T4ttTH8BFaIUNjY_sJeD3cdogG2Sh7qdoIzcZhureYyiJyp6uuERiMdfMao8aaTNhUWWhl_CJ9dkdW2tpIjTXuul0P/s1600/01+bodrum+phil.jpg"> might ask. Diving. Bodrum is one of (or prehaps style="font-style: italic;">the) place to dive in Turkey. It also has a cool fort with a museum inside and loads of the regular tourist shops and restaurants.

But back to the diving: it was pretty good and Ahmet, our diving guide, was fabulous as was the dive shop owner. We did two dives, the first to a little reef about 30 mins from the mainland where we saw a very good eel and some nice schools of fish. The second dive was to a wreck of a coast guard's ship which you could penetrate but as I was having bouyancy issues we gave it a miss. While the diving wasn't spell-binding, it was a great chance to get back under the water.

Greece: a retrospective

Okay, long time no blog, but we're back and should be up-to-date in a few days. Because we're so behind, beware that we will be pretty cursory with the text and will probably rely heavily on Phil's excellent photos (which is probably more fun anyway, especially when they don't take like 5 minutes each to upload).

Greece was amazing, but a bit of a shock coming right after Ethiopia. Happily, it was generally a very positive shock - goodbye injera, hello greek salad - except for the small matter of cost. Suddenly the price of, say, a cup of coffee sky-rocketed from $0.30 to $5.00 - and a sandwich from our hotel in Athens was about 18 euros (needless to say, we gave the food there a miss).

We really enjoyed our time in Athens; we checked out the sites, drank many glasses of house wine and a few beers, and noodled around the shops. It was great to decompress after Ethiopia and generally enjoy being back in the first world.

We met up with Maria and Neil (Phil's parents) on our way out of Athens and over to Porto Heli where Maria has a cousin with some very delux accommodation and amazing hospitality - a huge thanks from the two of us to Mary and Christos for all that they did for us during our stay. We had a wonderful time and really hope that we'll be able to repay their hospitality at some point.

From our base on the mainland, we checked out some amazing sights and towns, including Epidavros, Mycenae, Hydra and Spetses.

We headed back to Athens to catch our first ferry to Mykonos, the party town of Greece. Mykonos is a lovely town with some great food (and some very creepy waiters, well one anyway) and it's one of the few places I've been where night becomes day because of the intense lighting they shine on the streets at night. The only way to tell the difference is crowd density and the number of drunk young 'uns.

From Mykonos we hopped over to Santorini, maybe the most dramatic island ever when you first approach it by sea. The town is built on an expired volcano, up some very sheer cliffs. We did a full tour of the island, checking out a number of the towns and even walking around the smoking caldera during the intense midday heat. But the best of all was enjoying some very tasty meals and some stunning views.

After a few days on Santorini we hopped over to Greece's largest island, Crete. We did a cruisey little road trip, visiting Iraklio, Rethymno, Hania, Spili, and Agia Galini, enjoying each of our stops for different reasons, but enjoying each of them nonetheless. Sadly, we parted ways in Crete with Neil and Maria heading home and Phil and I continuing on to Rhodes to spend a few days enjoying the cool old walled city.

Even though it seems crazy to jump over a whole month of fantastic travel in a few lines, I trust the photos are worth a few thousand words (at least). A huge thanks Maria and Neil without whom we would have had a much different, and much less enjoyable trip. Another great time on the road with the four of us - hopefully we'll be seeing them in the very near future...