Turkey

1-8th August, 2008

3965km, Lisbon to Istanbul... Let's call it 4000km. The ride is over!!! Our bums are thanking us already.

Turkey is an amazing country, and we had a great time there. The bus ride was alright; coming into Istanbul we realised how bloody huge the city is, and how many mosques there were!

The bus station was a monstrosity of a creation. It was just ridiculously humongous. And traffic was unbelievable; bumper to bumper for ks and ks, 5 cars 4WDing over a traffic island in an attempt to do a U-turn; all typical third world traffic. We were knackered, and over it, so we shoved our bikes in the back of a dual cab ute-taxi (we didn't even need to take our pannier bags off) and got a rip-off ride into Sultanahmet (10km away but the trip took over an hour), the touristy old-town district of Istanbul.

The blue mosque, Istanbul.

Our first task once we got to Istanbul was to get rid of our bikes. Took us a day and a half to organise, find bike boxes, clean and pack the bastards up (an epic, especially with Australian Customs to deal with), but luckily for us the lovely lady in the window above us gave us copious quantities of tea and even lunch! She was so cool.

For the princely sum of $840 USD we got both bikes, our pannier bags, and all our riding gear sent back to Oz. Phew.

After that we could relax and see the place!

Sultanahmet at night.

We spent a couple of days checking out the city of Istanbul. We visited the Blue Mosque, which was fantastic (see our FB album "Turkey" link on the right), and also the Grand Bazaar which was huge and crazy (we didn't buy much from there, just a couple of paintings of whirling dervishes i.e. dudes dancing wearing white robes). We also checked out the Spice Market which was tres cool and bought some apple tea to give to Sam, Aarti, and Arjun, and to Simon and Rosie back in England. We didn't think we'd get it through Australian Customs :( . Apple tea is sooooo good! We drank lots of it while we were in Turkey.

One evening we went for a stroll to a big tower, but the line was massive so we didn't bother going in. It would've given us great views over Sultanahmet, but instead we went to a rooftop restaurant and had a cuppa and some biscuits up there and got a view almost as good we reckon. That's where we took that photo above. We also checked out the big mall there, which was a couple of kms long, and totally crowded with mostly locals and had the usual city mally shops there.

On the Monday we took off for a 2 day tour down to Gallipoli and Troy. This was one of the best things we did. As it was the first organised tour we'd ever been on, we were a little nervous. But when the bus picked us up in the morning, it filled up with young Aussies. There was also a lovely old Kiwi couple. We hadn't heard so many Australian accents in one place at one time for ages.

Gallipoli was amazing. You know how you learn about it at school, it seems pretty bad but it's so far away. Our guide Murat was great; he was a Turk, but had a real interest in Gallipoli and knew a lot about the place. So after watching a doco about Gallipoli on the bus on the way there, Murat took us to some of the memorials and important battle sites on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

The whole experience was quite moving. Just hearing about how many people were killed for no good reason, the countless tactical blunders made by the commanding officers there, and the unusual camaraderie and respect soldiers from both sides had for their enemies, really had an effect on both of us. At every site we were taken to, the tour group was very quiet and respectful. Seeing the trenches and how close some of them were together was spooky - some of them were only 8m apart. Apparently some grenades would change hands 4-5 times before they blew up. Insane.

Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli.

After our tour of Gallipoli, we stayed in a hostel in Cannakale and watched the old classic movie "Gallipoli" starring Mel Gibson. I'd seen it a few times, the last time probably in Mr Cripp's Australian Studies class in grade 9. I forgot how cool it was!

The next day we were off to Troy, scene of many epic battles and home to the Trojan Horse myth. Our tour guide, Mustafa, was awesome. He was the guru of Troy, having written two books about it and is up to date with all the current theories, excavations, and news about the area. So apparently the whole Trojan Horse story may not have happened at all; it could have been a big siege tower or something, or a battering ram... who knows? There's no evidence for there actually being a horse at all. But it makes for a good story. Mustafa showed us around the walls and the excavation areas, and was entertaining and knowledgeable.

The Trojan Horse used in the Brad Pitt movie "Troy", Cannakale, near Gallipoli and Troy.

The model of the Trojan Horse at the historic site of Troy was a bit lame though... it had been rebuilt recently and looked all shiny and crappy. You can see a photo of it in our FB album. The cooler-looking Trojan Horse was the one in the town of Cannakale; this was the actual horse used in the movie "Troy" starring Brad Pitt etc.

After the tour we were bussed back to Istanbul where we got ourselves sorted out for our flight back to London the next day.