Sunday in Athens. Today is the day, it seems, when all Athenians take to the street to shop, walk, chat, gossip or sit in a café and drink coffee. Everyone is out doing something. We sleep in a little after our late night and wander up to Omonia Square to ride the Metro to the bottom of the Acropolis and the uphill walk to the Parthenon and the other remains of the ancient site overlooking the city.

The Acropolis is something we all learn about in school and it is truly impressive to be actually on the site. We climb the hill and navigate on our own. Poor directional signage down below leads up the long way but we eventually reach the ticket office and climb the last 100 meters and enter from the west, by way of the Propylaea.

We move around the site with the thousands other tourists and spend most of our viewing time around the Parthenon. The Acropolis has a wonderful on-site museum with many of the artefacts from the site itself on display. There is also an incredible 360° view of Athens from up here.


From left: the view from below; the Parthenon


From left: the Porch of the Maidens; the Erechtheion; the Parthenon

We stroll back down the hill past Sunday café coffee sippers and end up in the Monastiraki area for lunch in the incredibly busy Sunday flea market. Cheap and cheerful Greek food, a bottle of water and the passing hustle and bustle is what is on the menu. Sore feet mean we opt for the subway home and after the requisite naps, we meet Derek for dinner in Kolonaki. We all feel like pizza tonight and spend a couple of hours talking and eating the “Kolanaki Special” before ending up back at our hotel and sleep, sleep, sleep.

Thank you Derek and Michael for taking some time to show us around Athens. We hope that we can repay the generous favour some day.

Our last day in Athens and only one more day in Frankfurt before continuing west and home. It is almost 5 months to the day when we left Toronto, flying towards the sunset. It seems strange that we have already circumnavigated the globe and are still heading west only to fly east in two weeks to continue our journey.

The first half of this incredible journey has been wonderful, humbling, eye-opening, and in many ways encouraging and hopeful. The most difficult part, both physically and emotionally is completed. We have seen friends and family in California and New Zealand; met wonderful, new friends and experienced future potential in Australia; shopped in Singapore; received gentle and proud welcomes in Bali; savoured the always present “land of smiles” that is Thailand; India, Oh India!; and finally to Greece and Turkey, where modern life sometimes clashes with the ancient.

I can’t say that we are somehow better people or that we have changed in some monumental way by the luxurious and somewhat romantic ability to travel for longer than a typical vacation, but we have seen and experienced some unique and very interesting things that perhaps we will never see again.

We start off with a very low-energy approach to the day – we sleep late and then enjoy a leisurely breakfast, which is, as is normal in Asian and continental European hotels, included in the price of the hotel. Breakfast in Turkey was always delicious, but always the same: fresh white bread, cherry jam and honey, tomato and cucumber slices, feta cheese, hard boiled eggs, black olives, and çay or instant coffee (called nescafé, as in much of the world). Today we come to breakfast and find all of the above, plus fresh-squeezed orange juice, yogurt, stewed prunes, dakos salad, fried and scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, sliced processed meats, many different cereals, many different cheeses, many different breads, many different jams and a huge bowl of Nutella free for the taking. We savour the experience (and skip lunch as a consequence).

After breakfast we head off to an internet café, to update the web, catch up on some emails, pay some bills and do a bit of research. We find a very nice place, with a bit of space to spread out (which is unlike most internet cafés, where they cram you in as tightly as they can). Greg updates the web while I go off in search of the Herald Tribune, and, having found it, sit reading it as we both sip cappuccinos. Somehow, 3 hours pass, quite pleasantly.

We decide that the Parthenon will have to wait until tomorrow, and spend the afternoon sitting on the terrace of our room, 6 floors up from the chaotic traffic, reading and enjoying the sunshine.

About 9 p.m. we head out for dinner, walking south to the Monastiraki area. When we arrive, we find many interesting looking cafés, and we spend at least 30 minutes walking around, checking menus, before we decide on a place – its menu is Greek, but with a bit of a twist, unlike most of the others which seem content to offer the usual fare. The meal is excellent.

At 11:00 p.m. we meet up with Michael, a friend of a friend, who has told us that there is no point in going out any earlier in Athens. He brings along another friend, Derek, who is also visitng Athens. We start at a quiet café on one of the many pedestrian-only streets. After a quiet hour, we head to a disco in Gazi, the converted gasworks area. We are definitely early – there are only a few people there when we arrive – but shortly after the place begins to fill, and soon it is crowded. Soon after, the smoke gets to us, particularly the cigar smoke, and we head out to another club, a taxi ride away in Makrigiani, behind the Acropolis. This place is going full bore when we arrive, and we stay until about 4, when we decide that it is time for bed.

N 37°
E023°

Turkey has been wonderful, beautiful, inspiring, angering, frustrating; in other words, all of the things that make a voyage interesting. But all good things must end, and it is time for us to return to Greece, on the start of our journey back to Canada for our brief visit at home.

Best of Turkey:
Best restaurant: Amedros, Istanbul
Best archaeological site: Ephesus (Greg); Mt. Nemrut (John)
Best non-archaeological site: the Ayasofya, Istanbul
Best hamam: Park Hamam, Istanbul
The bread, always fresh and abundant
Where we will go again: Istanbul, Fethiye, Kas, Antalya
Everywhere we went in Turkey, there were security checks – when we went into hotels, when we went into museums, when we went into bus stations. It was actually very reassuring.

Books Read:
The Man-Eaters of Kumaon; The Temple Tiger & More Man-Eaters of Kumaon; and The Man-Eating Leopard of Rudraprayeg; all 3 by Jim Corbett, who created Corbett National Park, where we went on safari when we were in India.
_________________________________________________

We arrive in Athens to find a beautiful early summer day. The city is in full-scale construction mode – hotels everywhere desperately trying to open in time for the Olympics, sidewalks and roads under construction, buildings everywhere shrouded in scaffolding. Today is the 1st day of a 4 day weekend, and the traffic is chaotic – according to the Montreal-born cabbie who drove us in for the airport, worse than normal because of the holiday. The ride from the airport is quick and efficient over brand new highways and a series of tunnels through the Athenian hills. We quickly come to a bumper to bumper stop when we hit the city limits and it takes well over an hour to make our way to our hotel, in Omonia. A bit off the tourist track, we hadn’t been able to find a room in a better location because of the holiday weekend. But the hotel, when we finally arrive, is recently renovated, offering all mod-cons.

Maybe because we had heard so often how horrible Athens is, and thus have no expectations, we are actually favourably impressed, except of course for the traffic. The air, which we have heard so much about, is actually cleaner and fresher than any air we breathed in Asia or even in most of Turkey. The scale and pace of Athens feels somehow right, and, probably because the Olympics are only a couple of months away, the city feels clean and modern in the way of the best European cities.

Totally without planning where we are going, we go out for a walk and end up strolling through Kolanaki, the very chic neighbourhood that climbs up the side of Likavitos. When we get tired of strolling through the streets there, full of beautiful people sipping coffees in street-side cafés and shopping in designer boutiques, we wander past the Parliament Building and Syntagma Square, over to the Plaka, and find a taverna for dinner.

A perfect way to spend our first day in Athens.

Happy Birthday to Harry Thomas on May 30th!

The Topkapi Palace sits where forts have sat for millennia, on the point of land guarding the entrance to the Bosphorus from the Sea of Marmara. The first palace buildings here were built by Mehmet the Conqueror, shortly after his conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Over the centuries it was expanded by the various Sultans, who lived in it with their families and courtiers until the 2nd half of the 19th century.


Entrance to the Topkapi Palace



Views from the Topkapi: top row left: looking northwest up the Golden Horn; top row right: looking north up the Bosphorus; bottom row left: looking east across to Asiatic Istanbul; bottom row right: looking southwest to the Sea of Marmara

Topkapi is organized into 4 courtyards that go from most public to most private, which was the suite of the Sultan himself. Only the 1st and 2nd courtyards were accessible to the public, and the Sultan used to receive visiting dignitaries at the Gate of Felicity, where you pass from the 2nd to the 3rd courtyard.

The family lived in the Harem, which was not part of the 4 courtyards, but was a completely separate part of the palace, where only the Sultan, his mother (who ran the Harem), his wives and concubines and the eunuchs who guarded and served them were allowed. Harem, we were informed repeatedly, does not mean what we have grown up thinking it means: traditionally, all Turkish homes were divided into public quarters and private family quarters, which are all called harem.

We spend hours today walking around the Topkapi, no longer a royal palace but now a museum. We run out of time and energy before we can visit either the Harem or the Treasury, where the fabled wealth of the Sultans is on display.




Around the Topkapi Palace

The palace is quite stunning – the quality of the design and the workmanship is really amazing. Although built over many years, by many Sultans using many architects, there is a harmonious feeling; it does not have the topsy-turvy aspect that one might expect in the circumstances. My favourite place in the entire palace is in the Sultan’s private quarters, where on a terrace there is a beautiful covered veranda, with a spectacular view up the Golden Horn, where the Sultan took his breakfast during the summer months.


The Sultan’s breakfast nook

Our last day today in Istanbul and Turkey, we spend the rest of the day doing some last-minute shopping along Istiklal, the pedestrian-only street in Taksim where the more trendy and fashionable stores are. The streets are teeming even at 3 pm on a Thursday. We end up back at the hotel for a quick drop of goods and grab our second Turkish Bath, again in a very historic hamam that has been operating for centuries, before we indulge in our last meal in Turkey. We are heading back to a restaurant called Amedros in our neighbourhood where we had stopped for a beer two nights earlier. It is warm and inviting and serves wonderful traditional Turkish food with a flare and we enjoy great food and conversation with staff and in particular with Istiklal. Istanbul has wonderful cafés and restaurants both in Sultanahmet and the newer and trendier Taksim. There is lots of choice if you have time to linger and savour all of the café culture in Istanbul, and I could happily spend another week exploring it all.

Congratulations to our friends Robert and José, who were married in Toronto on May 17!

At 10:00 we are at the ferry piers along the Golden Horn, the long, narrow bay that bisects the European side of Istanbul into 2 parts, and forms a perfect natural harbour. We have walked down the hill from our hotel, underestimating how long it will take to get here to catch the 10:35 ferry that goes up the Bosphorus, stopping on both sides along the way, going almost to the Black Sea.

The ferry is full by the time it leaves, full of tourists and, surprising to us, hawkers selling maps, guidebooks, fake Rolex watches and fake Lacoste sweaters. They, and the guys selling coffee, tea and yogurt, all walk around soliciting interest at the top of their lungs.

We have dressed in many, many layers – unlike many of those on the boat. Istanbul has been unseasonably cool, mid-teens, since we arrived, and today on the boat the wind is brisk. Because of our itinerary on the trip, we don’t really have the right clothes for this type of weather, and finally, after about 1 hour, we retreat into the inside, no different from the outside except for the lack of wind.

We watch with interest as we go along the Bosphorus, which – like the Dardanelles – is a hugely important trading and military route. Other than the occasional fort from long ago, and the location of the Topkapi Palace (which we will visit tomorrow), there is little to indicate that this is more than a recreational location – the palazzos and mansions of the rich line the water, without end, many of them restored Ottoman treasures, while others are more recently constructed.


The Topkapi Palace, on the western side of the Golden Horn, where the Bosphorus, Sea of Marmara and Golden Horn meet



Along the Bosphorus

The ferry reaches the terminus of the route, still well inside the Bosphorus, and still in suburban Istanbul, which seems to stretch out along the Bosphorus almost all the way to the Black Sea. (Istanbul is a much bigger city than we had expected before we got to Turkey – somewhere between 13 and 15 million people.)

There is a fort at the top of the hill, and we climb up to see the view of the Black Sea. When we get there, we find many people sitting up their, a fair number of them having a “piknik” (Turkish spelling). We are panting from the climb, and are glad we did not have to do it with a fully-stocked picnic hamper.


The fort guarding the entrance to the Black Sea


From left: the entrance to the Black Sea seen from the fort; looking back towards Istanbul from the fort; the entrance to the Black Sea seen from the ferry

We head down the hill, and have lunch by the water, basking in the warm sun, protected from the wind. This is still a fishing village, and there are fishing boats tied up behind the restaurant. The fishermen sit, smoking and darning their nets, young boys helping their fathers. On the ferry home, we don’t brave the outside, but nap like cats in the sun that streams through the window.

Today is Mosque day and we set out to see a number of them. I am still battling my cold which has left me sneezing and coughing through the last week of our Turkey tour and now I bring it to Istanbul. It is very hard when you are travelling to stop and look after yourself properly. However, I am drinking about a litre a day of orange juice and trying to get my rest. Istanbul has proven to be cool - we are averaging a daily high of about 20° and are layering the clothes on to keep warm in the wind. According to the International Herald Tribune we are keeping the same temperatures as Toronto. We again, seem to be followingspring.com.

Our unofficial itinerary today will take us to two of the most important edifices in Istanbul and one that is a little off the beaten track. We walk up and across the top of Sultanahmet (where we are staying) and wind our way around the Grand Market, avoiding the aggressive touts, down through the local markets; first clothing, undergarments and pyjamas through hardware, plumbing supplies, shoes and paper goods. Twisting, narrow streets lead into more twisting narrow streets until we end up by the harbour and the Egyptian Market, more commonly known as the Spice Market. We wander through to the usual choruses of “where are you from” and “can I ask you one question” until we exit through to a small back alley, teeming with mostly local men sipping chai, selling used shoes and worrying on their worry beads.


From left: The Spice Market, outside the Rustem Pasa

John finds the seemingly hidden staircase that takes us up to the terrace of the virtually deserted Rustem Pasa Mosque. This mosque was built in 1561 by the Grand Vizier to Suleyman who, in turn, had built the Suleymaniye Mosque. It was not proper for the Grand Vizier to build a bigger mosque than his boss, so he decided to build a more splendid and ornate mosque. And he did.


The Suleymaniye Mosque is above left, the Rustem Pasha mosque is under the minaret on the right

Famed for its beautiful Iznik tiles, the Rustem Pasa’s interior is covered in beautiful whites, blues and reds, including the dome. It is an intimate yet glorious space that sparkles as the light reflects off the tiles. As in all these mosques, the huge circular chandeliers (once oil burning, now electrified) sit just above head level, attached to the dome some 20 meters up. The ancient grandfather clocks sit in the corner, signalling the prayer callers to their daily calling. We spend a lovely, solitary half hour strolling around until we head back to the terrace and put our shoes back on, ready for the next one.


The Rustem Pasa Mosque


Those tiles

We head back up and head to the Blue Mosque, aptly named because of the blue tiles that abound. This is one of Istanbul’s most popular tourist sites and today is no different. We are trying to beat afternoon prayers so we rush through the gardens and up to the main steps. We are approached by a young gentleman in a grey suit named Murat who does the “talk” and then proceeds to give us the 5 cent history of the mosque. As had been the case many times in India, I am expecting to have to pay the guy for his limited knowledge. He tells us he will wait for us when we are finished.

The Sultanahmet Imperial Mosque or Blue Mosque, built between 1609 and 1616, is much bigger than the Rustem Pasa. It is easily recognized from various vantage points in Istanbul by its distinct six minarets. Others may disagree but we find the Rustem Pasa much more beautiful. The Iznik tiles in the Blue Mosque are placed at ground level, leaving the rest of the walls, ceiling and the dome painted to represent the beautiful tiles. It is still, however, an impressive building. The sheer size of the space is remarkable. Four massive columns support the dome and the windows are elegant stained glass. We don’t spend as much time within this mosque and quickly grab our shoes and head out into the tourist filled courtyard. Our friend Murat is there waiting for us to take us to his shop to sell us – carpets! We aggressively decline, again, always, and cross the park to the very convenient Ayasofya Basilica/Mosque.


From left: the Blue Mosque; the 6 minarets of the mosque; courtyard at the mosque

The Ayasofya (or the Hagia Sofia as North Americans know it), built by Constantine the Great in the 4th century and reconstructed by Justinian in the 6th century, still is one of the architectural wonders of all time. It was once the biggest church in all the world and still ranks in the top five. Its immense dome rises 55 meters above the floor and is 31 meters in diameter. It is renowned for its beautiful Byzantine mosaics.


The Ayasofya

Built as a church, the Ayasofya was converted to a mosque immediately after the conquest of Constantinople, in 1453. It was used continuously as a place of worship until after the creation of the Turkish state when Ataturk suggested, and the government agreed, that it should become a museum in tribute to its impressive history and use as a place of worship by both Muslims and Christians.

Despite the immense scaffolding that covers about 1/5 of the floor plate and reaches the top of the dome, we are still quite overwhelmed by the immensity of the interior spaces – this dome was built 1,500 years ago, and is still the 4th largest in the world, after St. Peters in Rome, St. Pauls in London and the Duomo in Florence, all of which are at least 1,000 years younger.


2 photos at left: on the upper gallery of the Ayasofya; at right: the Sultan’s loge

We are also moved by the uncovered mosaics – all of which were plastered over and have been uncovered. Installed over centuries starting around 1,100 years ago, they are sublime and still luminescent.


Mosaics in the Ayasofya

For dinner we meet up with David again. We walk through Taksim and Istiklal and find a restaurant, populated by stylish young locals, drinking raki and smoking into the night.

After our 23+ hour bus ordeal, we arrive at our hotel at 8:30 this morning. We have said goodbye to all of the group except Haluk, and when we arrive it is time to say goodbye to him. Haluk has been a joy to travel with: his knowledge of Turkey, its history, its geography, its politics, it huge, and he has shared it with us with enthusiasm, although he must have repeated these facts and stories hundreds of times. Greg has very affectionately nicknamed Haluk the Oracle. Thank you, Haluk, for helping us feel like we have experienced the best of Turkey!

We spend most of the day napping, but we do venture out for a couple of hours. Our hotel is right in Sultanahmet, the heart of tourist Istanbul – near the Ayasofya, the Blue Mosque and the Topkapi Palace.

We have been given an introduction to David, by Neil, who we met and hung with in Mykonos. David is a lawyer in the Istanbul office of the firm Neil is with. David is also a Canadian, a great virtue! We meet up with David for drinks and dinner, and he shows us a bit more of Istanbul, in Taksim, on the newer, trendier, side of the Golden Horn.

Happy Birthdays to Christopher Thomas (May 26) and to Primo Gazzoli (May 27)!

N 40 °
E 029 °

We leave Sanliurfa about 9 a.m. – this will be a long day on buses for Greg and me. The first part, which takes 4 ½ hours (including a quick stop for lunch) takes us to the Syrian border, where we say our goodbyes to Jan, Sarah, Frank and Matt, under the careful watch of the well-armed Turkish border guards. Those goodbyes are quick, heartfelt, and with choked-back tears. We drive away before they exit the Turkish border station and begin their 80 metre walk across no-man’s land to the Syrian border station.

Our second stage takes another 6 ½ hour, with only a pit stop, to get us to Aksaray, close to Cappadocia. This drive takes us from Upper Mesopotamia into the Taurus Mountains, where we have some really beautiful vistas, and then back into the Central Anatolian Plateau. At Aksaray, we say goodbye to Erin, who is heading back to Cappadocia for the night before going tomorrow to Ankara and a couple of days of touring around Turkey before she heads to New York for a few days stopover on her way home to Manly Beach in Australia. We leave Erin entrusted to our wonderful driver who takes her right to her pension. Night, night, Erin!

After an hour in Aksaray, Greg, Haluk and I board the overnight bus back to Istanbul. Completely full, the bus is ½ hour late because there are a number of guys starting their military service aboard, and there were such large family send-offs at the station that the bus couldn’t leave.

After a night of disturbed sleep, I wake at about 5:00 a.m. We are in the far suburbs of Istanbul, driving along the Asian side of the Sea of Marmara. It seems to take forever to make our way across the Bosphorus to the European side and the bus station. Finally, about 8:30, we arrive at the hotel, after which we sleep.

Thank you, gang, for being such good traveling companions for the last 2 weeks. We will miss you all, and hope that your continued travels are fun, happy, and safe.

Allaha ismarladik!


The gang: clockwise from top right: Matt, Jan, Erin, Greg, Sarah, John, Haluk, Frank

Mt Nemrut:
N 37°58.882’
E 038°44.462’
2,168 metres

Sanliurfa:
N 37°08.873’
E 038°47.864’

Antiochus was king of Commagene, a tiny kingdom strategically placed on the Euphrates, bordered by the Roman Empire on the west and the Parthian Empire on the east. Using diplomatic and military skills, he kept both the Romans and the Parthians at bay, and protected the sovereignty of his kingdom. To shore up his rule, he declared himself to be a god, and to commemorate himself built a magnificent hierothesium (combined temple and tomb), called the Throne of the Gods, at the top of Mt. Nemrut. There is an eastern and a western terrace, and between them there is a 50 metre high man-made summit of crushed rock. Both terraces included 8 metre tall stone statues of various gods, including Antiochus – due to earthquakes, the heads of the statues on the eastern and the complete statutes on the western terrace have tumbled.

We start our trip up the mountain at 6:30 a.m., well after sunrise. Most tourists leave much earlier, to experience sunrise at the top. We can drive most of the way up, a long, tortuous route, but must walk up the last 500 metres. As we go up we are passed by tour bus after tour bus coming down, and when we get to the top we discover the virtue of the late start, as we are the only people at the summit.

The view over the valley, including the Euphrates, is amazing, but the site itself is more so. I wander the site, thinking of the labour required to construct this place, on the top of this forbidding, windswept mountain, and the conceptual and engineering ingenuity required to plan and execute it. Over 2,000 years after Antiochus died and almost as long after his tiny kingdom was conquered by and absorbed into the Roman Empire, this place stands as a beautiful and powerful reminder of a brilliant, if somewhat egotistical, leader.


From left: Mt. Nemrut; gods heads in front of their bodies in front of the man-made summit; Antiochus


From left: the Euphrates; relief; inscriptions tell the story


On the western terrace

From Mt. Nemrut, we head off to Sanliurfa, a 3 hour drive south, crossing as we go the Euphrates, crossing into Upper Mesopotamia. Sanliurfa means “Glorious Urfa” – it was renamed after the residents defeated an attempted invasion by the French shortly after the end of WWI. It is also known as the City of Prophets, for it is famed as the birthplace of Abraham, the city in which he was immolated by the Assyrian King Nimrod and where God saved him by turning the fire into water and the coals into fish. Our first stop is the town’s main mosque, originally built as a Crusader church. We walk through town, visiting the covered bazaar, the cave in which Abraham was born, and the sacred pool that was created when the fire was turned to water. It is full of huge carp, who sit at the surface with their mouths open – they have been well-trained by the hordes of pilgrims, who buy fish pellets and feed them.


From left: the bell tower of the Crusader church, now a minaret; at the market


From left: the city walls, out of which King Nimrod had Abraham thrown into the fire; the sacred pool that flowed where the fire was; the fish that came from the coals

After naps and showers, we head out for our final dinner together. Tomorrow, the group separates. We go to the Press Club, a private club Haluk has managed to get us into, for our meal, and dine under the stars on the roof terrace. We stay long after the meal is over, chatting and reminiscing about the trip, each one talking of his or her favourite part, not wanting the evening to end.

This morning seems a little warmer and Haluk has promised temperatures of up to 31° when we arrive at Mt. Nemrut. We are heading farther east today and have an 8-9 hour drive which takes us into Kurdish Turkey and towards the Syrian border, where on Sunday we will drop Matt, Frank, Sarah and Jan, who are continuing on to Cairo. Erin is going to wander Turkey a bit on her own which leaves John, Haluk and I to suffer the night bus back to Istanbul on Sunday evening. We will have a full day of travel on Sunday – 9 hours of day travel and then another 10-12 hours of overnight driving.

We are travelling the fabled Silk Road today and it is hard to imagine camel caravans travelling 45 km a day through a treeless, brown and faint green landscape, strewn with the occasional butte or sharply angled hill. This area is known as the Central Anatolian Plateau and the only prominent landmark is the snow-capped and cloud grabbing Mt.Aegerciyes at an impressive 3,696 metres. It dominates the view.

The Sarihan, c.1249 (The Silk Roads equivalent to a truck stop), Mt.Aegerciyes

Our drive continues into the mountains and every two hours the scenery changes. Rugged brown and gold rock outcroppings with tumbled down boulders predominate. Way off to our right, the snow capped mountain range guides us further east. We arrive into a brown, dirt-washed alpine town dotted with pine trees. The mountain air is fresh as we get out of our bus for lunch. It is just gone 12 and the call to Friday prayers fill the valley from the mosque across the street. Friday midday is the busiest time for prayers and the locals dutifully head into the mosque.

We have stopped in a fairly small town and we grab lunch in a small cafeteria style Turkish restaurant, reminiscent of our time in India. I have some rich lentil soup and John the warm yogurt soup. There is a large plate (as always) of fresh bread on the table to accompany the soups. Frank is already seated and enjoying a bowl of fresh cold yogurt and for dessert, more bread, butter and fresh honey still in the honeycomb. All for C$1.50.

Lunch is just enough for the next five hours of our trip and we head back to the bus. Erin and Jan are carrying wild roses picked from an upper meadow by a young man and presented to them. Just as we are about to drive away, another young man presents Sarah with a fresh strawberry, a big smile beaming. The Turkish Hospitality is renowned but it is these simple acts of generosity that we will remember most.

We settle into our drive, some with books, some with a snooze and end up in Katha at quite a nice hotel for a change, only to find that they are over-booked and don’t have room for us. This is quickly resolved as we move to the hotel next door (of course, not nearly as nice, in fact, no comparison at all) and head out for our town orientation. Jan goads Haluk with “oh, you were just teasing us with that first hotel”.

We have started the final bit of our Turkey group tour today and will miss the fun and camaraderie that has developed with our group. I can imagine the hit and miss of these instant relationships that make up the core of any tour group, and having to spend 14 days with people that you don’t necessarily have anything in common with or don’t particularly like can be trying and exhausting. It is the personalities and the relationships of your fellow travellers that make or break the tour. We have been fortunate with this lot. (I hope everyone else in the group feels as positive as I do about our time together!)
John and I will spend 4 days in Istanbul getting to know the city before we head to Athens for 3 days and then home to what looks like a whirlwind tour of friends and family.

Yesterday was cool and wet. Today is sunny and, protected from the wind, warm – but we are on the Central Anatolian Plateau, which ranges from 800 to 1,200 metres above sea level, and generally it is cooler than it was on the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. Ever the optimist, I start out in shorts and flip-flops, but quickly head back to the hotel and change.

There is no schedule today, and after yesterday’s marathon of touring and the late night festivities at the Turkish Night, everyone sleeps a bit late. Greg and I wander along the main road of the little town we are staying in, and find an internet café that is, surprisingly, blazing fast, and check emails.

We wander some more, grab lunch, and then sit in a patisserie on the main square, drinking Turkish coffee and eating pastries. Greg works on his journal, while I read the Herald Tribune, and then we switch; then we head back to the internet café to post our entries.

The group assembles around 7:30 p.m. to walk up the main street and find somewhere for dinner. Haluk tells us about a local specialty – soups and stews cooked in individual-sized iron pots, where the pot is then covered with bread dough, which cooks on the outside while the soup or stew cooks on the inside. We decide that this sounds like it’s worth trying, and so it proves – delicious.

N 38°
E 034°

Greg gently shakes me at 7:00 a.m. The bus is in the station. I discover that Greg and I have had the best night’s sleep of our group. Others have gotten off the bus are various stops through the night, have watched the police go through the bus asking all the Turks (but none of the tourists – we must be very obvious even when asleep) for their IDs. I guess Greg and I have done more red-eyes than others, and have figured out the routine (a very simple routine, actually: go to your doctor and tell him or her that you are going on a trip that will involve a number of red-eyes – it works for us!)

We are shuttled a few kilometres to a small town, where we will stay for 2 nights. Although as a group we all look ready for bed, we have a busy day ahead of us touring Cappadocia – Kapodokya in Turkish. This area is famous for its strange landscape, made of tufa from 2 vocanic explosions, overlaid with basalt, which have eroded differently, so that there are these pillars with hats everywhere.


Rock columns

Long before Constantine converted to Christianity and Istanbul/Constantinople/Byzantium became the centre of Christianity, Cappadocia was a region where Christians in this part of Asia sought refuge, carving homes and underground cities into the soft tufa rock. Humans lived in cave homes more or less continuously until after WWII.


Cave homes, old and new


From left: in the underground city; in a cave church; enjoying the view: front: Jan, Sarah, Erin, Frank; back: Greg, Matt

We move from fascinating sight to fascinating sight, climbing hills and going into valleys until the early afternoon, when we are taken to a carpet cooperative, for as if the Cappadocia region were not travel-worthy enough on its own, it is also a centre of world-class hand-made carpet manufacture. We tour the establishment, seeing yarns being dyed with natural dyes, seeing silk-worm cocoons being soaked and then spun into thread, and watching women weave the various types of carpets. Finally, we are shown scores of carpets, and we succumb, buying a beautiful gold hall runner.


Dyeing wool; making silk; weaving a carpet

A few more stops – at a valley in which the eroded rocks resemble animals, at the longest river in Turkey, and it is finally, late in the afternoon, time to go back to the hotel for our naps, for the day is a long way from being over.

After naps and hot showers (showers are for afternoons in Turkey, because hot water is dependent on sunny days, not hot water heaters) we all gather at 8:30 for the short trip back to the main town of the region, where we will have dinner and watch a show of traditional Turkish dancing. The dancing, and the traditional costumes, are wonderful. As is often the case with traditional dancing, the men’s dances are very athletic, many of them similar to Russian dances.



No evening of Turkish dancing would be complete without a belly dancer! We are amazed at the stamina of the dancer – she goes for a good 30 minutes.



By the time we get back to our hotel, it is midnight and Erin, Jan, Frank, Haluk, Greg and I have all gotten our 2nd winds. So we head out to a club that Haluk knows, where they play music from the 70s and 80s. There are only a few people in the place when we arrive, but that quickly changes, and soon the place is hopping. We are amongst the very few tourists present – most of the patrons are locals, which makes for an enjoyable hour or so, until we are finally driven out by the smoke.



Enjoying the evening: top from left: Haluk and Frank; Jan; bottom from left: Haluk; Raki Attack: Jan, Sarah, Haluk, Erin and Matt

We have our Turkish breakfast this morning in the garden of the hotel. I say breakfast but it is more like lunch for us westerners. Black olives, a slice of feta, a hard boiled egg, cucumber and tomato slices, all washed down with either Nescafé, Turkish coffee (if you are game) or çay (tea). Don’t forget to tell your waiter “no sugar”! Every meal in Turkey comes with lots of freshly baked bread and for breakfast you usually have cherry jam or if you are lucky enough, some locally made honey.

We have to be at the harbour for 10:30 a.m. for our six hour cruise. We will do some touring and stop at a beach for 2 hours. Lunch included: 20 million Turkish lire (about $19 Cdn). Sarah has opted out of the cruise and decides to spend the day exploring the city. The rest of us arrive, get onboard and about 11:00 head out into the ocean; ours is the first boat out of the harbour. The city is bigger than our first glance and you can really get a sense of it from the water. Hotels dot the coast as we head out into the Mediterranean. Jan, Erin, Matt and I head up to the front of the boat for some sun and a bit of sea splash. 20 minutes into our 6 hour trip, our skipper honks his horn to bring us in from the front of the boat and we head back to the shore, the sea being too rough to sail!

What ensues is some tough negotiation with the owner of the boat for our money back. He actually says he has no power over the weather and blames it on “the gods!” We settle for 50% and the lunch that we would have had on the water and we sit in the harbour, noshing on fresh fish and cucumber and tomato salad. We watch all the other boats returning from the rough sea. Later in the afternoon, Erin and Jan pass another tout selling boat tours; they were still taking people out and bringing them right back in.


Views of the harbour during our 20 minute cruise

We now have the rest of the day to fill so John and I decide to have a traditional Turkish bath. We arrive at the “hamam”, which is really old (its advertising says the building has been operating as a Turkish bath continuously for over 700 years) not knowing what to expect. We are quickly led into a change area where we are given wraps and sandals and proceed to the first aspect of the bath – the steam room. It is a beautiful domed, white marbled room with a square slab in the middle of the room that is heated from underneath. We steam and wash and then wait for the body scrub, the soap massage and for me, a hair wash. We finish the bath with an oil massage and sit exhausted with a bottle of water, a little sore from the rough treatment but feeling great and completely clean.

It is now late afternoon and we decide to head over to one of the bars on the cliff and enjoy the sunset over a couple of beers. The group meets for dinner tonight and Haluk, our guide, takes us to a local haunt where we have doner and pide (Turkish pizza). We are being picked up at 8:30 to be transferred to the bus station for our overnight, 10 hour bus ride to Cappadocia. None of us have been looking forward to this part of the journey, and we have another overnighter on our way back to Istanbul, so we try to organize being as comfortable as we can. We arrive to the usual pandemonium and an oversold bus! Some European tourists have our seats and aren’t budging. Strangely enough, we pull out of the bus station right on time at 9:30 and drive about 500 meters before stopping for 45 minutes to try and sort out the seating issue. They can’t say the buses don’t leave on time in Turkey!

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We head today to the jewel in the crown of the turquoise coast, the city of Antalya, for a full two days of sightseeing and some downtime. Antalya is a big city nestled on the Mediterranean whose main focus appears to be the hustle and bustle of the tourist trade, but we spend most of our time in the quaint and charming old city walking amongst the old Ottoman houses and carpet sellers. The old city is nestled around an ancient Roman harbour with bars, hotels and restaurants perched precariously on the cliffs leading up to the bustling streets. Across the bay lie beautiful, sharply peaked, mountains, constantly shrouded in big white clouds. The views are spectacular from everywhere within the harbour.


The Fluted Minaret, the symbol of Antayla

Our bus ride has been longer than expected today but we are rewarded with some spectacular scenery on the coastal road. Beautiful turquoise coloured sea crashing up to meet pine covered rocky cliffs. In some ways it reminds us of the Coast Highway, heading south from San Francisco to L.A. We arrive about 2:00 p.m., drop our bags, and quickly head down for our usual orientation and walking tour. Our hotel is, as most of the hotels have been on our Turkey tour, basic. They all seem to be family run with the husband running the front of house and the wife doing everything else.


Views of the Roman Harbour

We spend the rest of the day walking the old city and getting our bearings before we head back to the hotel for a nap (me) and internet updating (John). We haven’t been able to update the web site or properly respond to email for the last 9 days. Turkey hasn’t grasped the concept of high speed internet yet so this has been difficult.

Our group is planning to meet for dinner tonight but John and I bow out and plan a nice, intimate dinner for just the two of us perched on a cliff overlooking the harbour. Loreena McKennit is playing as we arrive at the restaurant. She is very popular in Turkey and one of her more popular melodies has been adopted by the Turks with new Turkish lyrics. We laugh as we tell our waiter (who seems to be a big McKennit fan) that John comes from Stratford, where Loreena lives. The waiter is awe-struck.

It is actually quite cool here, about 20° and we need layers to keep us warm from the cool ocean breeze. John has already negotiated a six hour boat ride for the group for tomorrow so we linger over our bottle of wine and walk the cobbled, windy streets back to our hotel, ready for bed.

Happy Birthday to David Scammell

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3 more buses, another 5 hours, and we arrive in Kas, a beautiful town on the Mediterranean. We stroll the streets, sitting in the waterfront cafés, and we think this could be the Italian Riviera. It is really quite romantic.

Just outside town there is a Greek amphitheatre that was later rebuilt by the Romans, situated so that the audience looks out over the sea. We climb up to the top and the whole group is entranced by the view. Just across the water is an island that, by some accident of history, is part of Greece. The view is so idyllic that we come back around dusk, and watch the light fade.


Sarah and Matt and the spectacular view from the amphitheatre; a little piece of Greece

A free day. Most of the group head for the beach, followed by the mud baths. They collectively decide to take a pass on the ruins – we have all been feeling a bit ruined out, and there are more to come.

Greg and I, however, have decided to go diving. We are picked up at 8:30 this morning by Murat, who will be our divemaster, and his girlfriend Ann, who will stay on the boat when we are diving. On the 30 minute drive around the mountain to another town, Sarigerme, right on the Mediterranean, we talk about places we have all dived. Murat and Ann tell us that we must forget all our previous dives – diving in the Mediterranean is different. We had been forewarned of this, and tell them they need not worry that we will be disappointed.

We get to the most beautiful long white sand beach. It all belongs to a huge resort, with 700 rooms. Murat and Ann tell us that 500 new guests will arrive later today from Germany. (Germans appear, in our experience, to have a good fix on all the best beaches!) They tell us that although the season, which goes from late April to the end of October, is in its 3rd week, it has been slow so far this year, and they are looking forward to the arrival of these 500 people.


The beach

We get our gear organized – this will be different for us, for the water is only about 20°, so we will wear thick wetsuits, a double layer over our torsos, with hoods as well. We head out in a little inflatable Zodiak to an island about 15 minutes away.

The dive is – different: great visibility, but little marine life. The island is a mountaintop, and it has steep cliffs both above and below water. We circle around, swimming through crevices, looking at the dead coral, looking way down to the bottom. This could be the future of the Great Barrier Reef if something doesn’t happen soon to stop what was all too apparent there. We see some pottery shards, although this is not an ancient wreck site. Greg sees a stingray, but I do not. Towards the end we see more fish than we have seen so far, but upon seeing us they flee. Unlike most of the fish in the locations we have dived previously, these fish have learnt to be wary of humans.

For our 2nd dive, we head to the mainland not too far from the island. This will be a cave dive, again different than the caves we have been in before, because this cave is an underwater tunnel, open at both ends, and we will swim through it, then back around the point to our starting place. We backflip off the boat and down we go. We enter the cave, and as Murat has promised, we hear a booming that we feel more than hear, the competing waves coming into the cave from both sides. At the midpoint, both in front and behind the entrances are beautiful opalescent blues. We see a solitary lobster in the cave. We exit, turn out our lights, then have a nice swim around the point. There is more life on this dive. Murat tells us that one of the fishes we see, flutefish, is not endemic to the Mediterranean, but were brought here from the Red Sea during the time of the Greeks, 3,000 or so years ago.


Greg, Murat, Ann, John

We meet up with the group again and head out for dinner to a restaurant on the side of the river. Greg and I are revelling in the fresh produce that every restaurant in Turkey serves – wonderful tomatoes, lettuces and cucumbers. On a TV at the side of the restaurant is the pre-show for the Eurovision Song Contest final, where the winner will be chosen from the remaining countries. Haluk and I had watched a bit of the preliminary round a couple of nights ago, back in Selçuk; Haluk had expressed disappointment because virtually every country’s singer had sung in English. Tonight, as part of the pre-show, they roll the names and years of previous winners across the screen, and I gasp with amazement when I see that Céline Dion was the 1988 winner, representing Switzerland. Although embarrassed to admit that she and I share the same nationality, I find that I am offended that entered the contest on the Swiss ticket.

Happy Birthday to You, Paige Brodie!

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A travel day – 3 different buses, 8 hours in all, with a 90 minute break for lunch in Fethiye, on the Mediterranean. Haluk takes us (by another bus) into the town centre of Fethiye, famed for its ice cream. We have reached the start of the Turquoise Coast, and also of the summer tourist areas. The town is full of clothing shops, expensive watch (real, not counterfeit) stores, and big sailboats available for charter.


At the bus station; masts at Fethiye

Finally, we get to Dalyan, smaller than Fethiye but also touristy. Dalyan is home to more Greek and Roman ruins, including some interesting rock tombs, a beautiful beach, mud baths and a sea turtle nesting ground. As was the case with Fethiye, it isn’t actually right on the Mediterranean, but is slightly upriver, sheltered from the worst of the storms.


Rock tombs by day and by night

We wonder around, exploring, checking out the offerings in the various stores and restaurants. We find the only internet café in town, and as has been the case everywhere we’ve been so far in Turkey, they only have a dial-up connection on the computer, not fast enough to update our website. We find that we can’t even check email – their computers all freeze everytime we try to log into the webmail site.

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Pamukkale hosts another ancient Roman city, Hierapolis. It was located here because of the thermal springs, thought to promote good health. What makes it stunning and different is that the springs have, in flowing down the mountainside over millennia, have formed travertines – calcified formations that cover the side of the mountain – from the road yesterday we thought we were driving onto a glacier.

After we get settled, we walk up the hill, over the travertines. When you walk over them, you must remove your footwear, to help preserve them. Walking through the flowing water is wonderfully refreshing, and as we go we pass people wading in, covering themselves in the mud, hoping it will cure whatever ails them, or simply make them more beautiful.


From left: Erin starting the climb; 2 views of the white travertine terraces

We have been promised a thermal spring at the top, but when we get there, we are disappointed. It looks like a bad swimming pool, and at the price being asked (15,000,000 Turkish Lira each – about C$15), we aren’t so interested. Instead, we walk up behind the pool to the ruins of the Roman Amphitheatre, then around the top of the ridge into the old town, which spreads up the hills behind us. We can see the ruins of the houses stretching out into the distance – this must have been a good sized city.


From left: at the theatre; the VIP seats; the main street of Hierapolis

Our hotel tonight is family owned and run. The husband, Mustafa, is very big and very funny. He has a joke or a funny face about everything, and in every language. He keeps asking us how long Kim Campbell was prime minister of Canada, and why she now lives in the U.S.?

Our tour group is quickly figuring out each others quirks and quarks: who is an early riser, who likes to stay up for that extra Efes beer at night. Who eats breakfast and who doesn’t. The loners and the outgoing participants. We are a mixed and varied group, both in age, background and budget but we all seem to be getting along just fine. This is day four of our 17 day odyssey. Jan, Sarah, Frank and Matt will leave the Turkey part of the trip at the Syrian border on day 15, for a 3 week continuation of their trip through Syria, Lebanon and on to Cairo. Erin, John, Haluk and I will head back to Istanbul on an overnight bus.

Our itinerary tells us that today is a free day but the obvious and most desirable event on everyone’s agenda is a visit to Ephesus. This site is one of the best examples of ancient town life that exists in Turkey and indeed in all of Asia Minor and is a popular visit for all tours including coaches, cruise ships and backpackers. This ancient town started out Greek but was later rebuilt by the Romans. Our group, lead by Jan (one of the early risers), decides to be out the door and there by 8:30 and we are duly rewarded for our early approach. We get the site to ourselves for a good 90 minutes before the hordes of tourists descend on the ancient town, sporting their loud clothing and impractical shoes, trailing their bored guides, group standards flung high, flapping in the early morning sun.

We spend almost three hours on a self-guided tour with the help of both Jan’s and Erin’s Lonely Planet guidebooks, each one taking time to read out loud the unique aspect of the particular house or temple or building we are looking at. And it is quite the town. We begin with Harbour Street and quickly connect to the Main Theatre. Delightfully deserted! We continue down Celsius Street to one of the main attractions, Celsius Library, in its day as important as the Library in Alexandria, and take many photographs in the hot sun. Our aloneness quickly diminishes as we see busloads of tourists washing down the ancient street, a noisy, gaudy wave bearing down on us from the north gate. We continue our journey up to the end of the town and spend some time in the Odeon before we walk the 3 km back into Selçuk.

On our way we stop at the Temple of Artemis, once considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Unfortunately all that is left is a pretty lagoon and a single column, telling us of its former glory.


From left: The Theatre; Harbour Street; Celsius Library from the main road


From left: 2 views of Celsius Library; The Odeon as the tourists decend!

The group drives up into the hills about 6 km to a beautiful small Greek town of Sirince (meaning “loveliness”) for a simple meze dinner with two bottles of local wine. It is truly a lovely place to sit and enjoy dinner and the views across the valley.

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Today we have an 8 hour bus ride today to get to Selçuk, close to the ancient city of Ephesus; fortunately for Greg, the bus will leave at 9:30, so we do not need to be up at the crack of dawn. The drive is quite beautiful, following the coast of the Aegean southward, the sea as beautifully blue as every photo of it shows. Haluk tells us this is known as the olive coast, and for most of the drive, we see mainly olive orchards, interspersed with vineyards and apricot orchards.

We arrive in Selçuk almost an hour early – we were lucky in our connection in Izmir and didn’t have to wait. After a few minutes to rest, the group heads out to explore the town – we have as long as we want tomorrow to explore Ephesus. Despite not being as old as Ephesus, Selçuk has some wonderful ruins of its own (in fact, it apparently is Ephesus I and III, what is known as Ephesus is really Ephesus II), many of which, in particular the columns of the old aqueduct and of the Temple of Artemis, are now homes to storks. It is a very pretty town in its own right, and we happily spend the rest of the evening exploring before meeting up with the group for dinner.


Ancient Selçuk from the Temple of Artemis

When we come back to our hotel after dinner, we discover a Henna Party in progress in the lobby and restaurant. A party to celebrate an upcoming wedding, in this case to be celebrated on Thursday, around 150 people are there to celebrate with the couple. The women dance a line dance together, circling the bride and covering her head with a red cloth. Then the men all dance together, dancing again with the red cloth. Then the bride and groom dance together, followed by more line dances, segregated by sex. I ask if I may take some photos and am given willing permission.

Later, before the party ends, a few of us from our group are sitting to one side of the lobby, playing cards, and 1 of the party guests comes over to watch. I try to teach him the game (Hearts), but it is time for the men to do their dance. He grabs me and drags me onto the floor, where I help celebrate the upcoming nuptials, dancing in my flip-flops.


The bride-to-be

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There is confusion at 6:30 a.m. – Haluk tells us this is the Turkish way. The shuttle that has arrived to take us to the public bus station is too full to fit the 8 of us. We stand around waiting while mobile calls get made and mobiles ring, and finally a 2nd shuttle appears. Haluk is confident that the bus to Çanakkale will not leave without us, and he is right. We arrive at the station, we get on the bus, and off we go, later than scheduled. We will be taking buses for our tour of Turkey – Haluk tells us that Turkey has good roads, but doesn’t have good trains, and that flying here is still very expensive. And the day certainly proves him right as to the condition of the roads.

We have to go across Istanbul, and the traffic is not bad – much easier than yesterday evening. The city doesn’t go on forever in the manner of western cities, but ends very quickly, and soon we can see the Sea of Marmara, on our left. The land is absolutely lush with the myriad greens that signal late spring. We drive through Thrace, following the coast for a couple of hours, and then the highway veers inland. 3 hours later we come over a hill and there are the Dardanelles – the Hellespont. It is amazing to me to see them, they are so famous, both from Greek mythology, and from many wars fought to control access to Istanbul and the Black Sea.

We drive to the little town on the European side of the Dardanelles, where the bus will get on a ferry to cross to Çanakkale. Our group gets off, because we are taking a tour of Gallipoli, and so we transfer to a smaller bus. After a nice lunch in a restaurant with a view of the bend in the Dardanelles – you think you could see all the way back to Istanbul – we head off.


Looking down the Dardanelles towards the Sea of Marmara; Looking across the Dardanelles to Çanakkale

Gallipoli is overwhelming. An extended campaign to gain control of the Dardanelles, and thereby to force Turkey out of WWI and gain a year-long shipping route to Allied Russia, well over 100,000 people died on these hills, about equally divided between the Expeditionary Forces (chiefly Australians and New Zealanders – the ANZACs, with a few others – British, Newfoundlanders – thrown in for good measure) and the Turks. After 9 months of intense, protracted battle, with high casualties on both sides, the advances made by the Expeditionary Force were miniscule, and the Expeditionary Forces were finally ordered out. Everyone should visit this place to see the uselessness and futility of war. Frank says that he wishes that Bush and Blair had visited before starting the war in Iraq, and notes that that situation has some striking similarities to Gallipoli.


From left: The Dardanelles, objective of the Gallipoli campaign, as seen from the battleground; the landing place, seen from the Turkish position; the hills that were to be taken, seen from the landing place

It is also interesting to see with Ali, our guide for Gallipoli, who is a retired Turkish Navy Colonel. He presented the events from a Turkish point of view. Clearly not a fan of war, he also had some wisdom that I wish had been thought about in Washington and London: the Turkish view of the defeat of the Expeditionary Forces is not that the British blundered significantly, which is the western side of the story. It is that the Turks were fighting for their homeland, and that despite the Expeditionary Forces having significantly better technology and supplies than the Turks, the Turks could not be beaten because of what they were fighting for.


Kiwis and Turks, friends after all, in front of the New Zealand Memorial at Gallipoli

We sleep in as late as possible today, for 2 reasons. First, we indulged last night in our normal Mykonos routine. Second, we are traveling today to Istanbul, where we hook up with the small tour of Turkey that we are taking, and it will be a long day.

It has surprised me how quickly we have created little patterns for ourselves as we travel around, and then, when we move on, they change completely. Last night we started a bit differently, because we walked 50 metres up the hill to Neil’s hotel to watch the sunset. Although we had a great view over Mykonos town from our room, the deck at Neil’s hotel has a spectacular view! The sunset is less than, however, as there is a low-lying cloud that means the sun doesn’t hit the Aegean. But the view over the sea, with Tinos as backdrop, is wonderful.

Then, per normal, the 3 of us do the 10 minute walk down the hill into town, discussing on the way what we are feeling like for dinner. It is a beautiful night, and we decide on a restaurant on the square behind the cathedral, where we can sit outside. From there, we head to Katarina’s, for our nightly update of news of the day (the Mykonos news of the day, that is) and a good visit with Darren, who also tells us our agenda for later, because with his ear to the ground he knows which places will be hopping when the town starts to get going, which is certainly never before midnight.

When we do move on, I am somewhat surprised (still?) by the number of families we see, walking the streets, grandparents and young grandchildren and moms and dads all out together, at 12, at 1, even at 2 in the morning. As an aside, I also like the fact that there are still lots of people who live in Mykonos town; in Thira, on Santorini, the whole town was hotels, restaurants and shops – nobody seemed to live there.

Because it is our last night on Mykonos, we stay out later than usual, and the sun is beginning to rise in the sky when we finally shut the door to our room.

This morning, we pack and check out of the hotel, but our flight is not till 3, so we walk up the hill once more, and sit with Neil by the pool, drinking cappuccinos and copious amounts of water. Finally, it is time, and we head to the airport for our uneventful flight to Athens, where we have a 3 hour layover before our flight to Istanbul.

The flight to Istanbul is also uneventful – no view, unfortunately. We arrive at Istanbul airport right on time, about 8:15 p.m. There is no problem with luggage, we are met by the tour agency as promised, and we drive into the city. We are surprised by how western Istanbul feels, at least from the expressway – the expressway system reminds us of LA, there seem to be expressways going everywhere, and the traffic jam at 9:00 on a Sunday night is also highly reminiscent of LA.

We arrive at the hotel to find that the tour briefing started just a few minutes earlier. We meet the group we will be traveling with for the next 17 days: Haluk, who will be our fearless leader, Sarah, Jan (both from New Zealand), Frank, Erin (both from Australia), and Matt, from Illinois. Our wake up call for tomorrow morning will be at 5:30, as we will need to leave for the bus station to catch the bus to Çanakkale by 6:30.

The briefing over, we head to the room, dig out the Turkish language cheat sheet our friend Sarah, who loves the Turkish language, made up for us months ago before we left home, and then repack, as we will leave as much luggage at the hotel as we can. Then it is a very happy lights out experience.

Happy Mother’s Day!

The cobalt blue shutters of the hotels and small pensions are being cleaned and painted in anticipation of the blitz of tourists hotly anticipated to arrive on Mykonos. Canvas is being scrubbed and hung as shade against the pervasive Mediterranean sun. Pools are filling and lounges unfolded. Everywhere there is activity. It is already the first week of May and things are only now beginning to open for the expected charters and cruise ships. We still remain on limited selection of food on menus in the restaurants and some of the more popular bars and night spots open for an hour and then closed again quickly. Sticking a cautious toe in and testing the very cool waters.

We have been chumming around with Neil from London and Uwe from Austria the last couple of nights. As always, we are told by the owners and managers of the restaurants and bars that “it is still early, the season has just opened.” I get a feeling that they are trying to convince themselves that there will be a season. Not that there is any indication that there won’t be. The manager of our hotel tells us that everything was up and running in April last year. Our pool hasn’t even had the last bit of winter debris swept out from it. Maybe this is just the Greek way. Wait until the very last minute to get things done and then scramble 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to get it all ready.

We have all agreed that this seems like the perfect time to be in Greece – warm sun (when there is some), cool evenings for walking, a lovely breeze from the ocean. If I was coming from North America for two weeks of balmy beach weather and glorious sun tans, than perhaps I might not be so content with the weather and the lack of crowds and tourists. But I have already had my beach holiday after all.

We say goodbye to Greece tomorrow as we head to Turkey for 19 days. Our tour is an organized one and we will be spending those days with people that we hopefully will connect with.
We aren’t sure of what to expect in terms of internet availability while we are in Turkey so please bear with us.

The sun shines brightly this morning, and the day turns into one of those magnificent late spring days that you never tire of. We spend the morning walking around town, down alleys and lanes, lost but who cares?

At lunch, we sit at a café overlooking the harbour, watching the ferries and cruise ships come and go. We read the International Herald Tribune, full of news about yesterday’s bombings in Athens and the effect they may have on the Olympics. As close as Athens is, it feels a million miles away – nothing can interfere with the beauty of the day.

A couple of hours later, paper read cover to cover and coffees drunk, we resume wandering the town. Then it is back to the hotel for naps and books. A wonderful, relaxing, soul-nourishing day.


Mykonos

John and I have already discussed the guilt associated with doing nothing except staying in bed, reading a book or writing in our journals. Even when you are in a place that is extremely beautiful, albeit cool and rainy, you have to fight the feeling that you must be doing something to enjoy the mystery and allure that is your destination of choice. Missing the beach, not grabbing some sun or lounging by the pool (if they were filled!), all are things that have to be managed on a daily basis.

And so it is with these feelings that we awake, put on our woollies and rain jackets and greet the Greek day. No chance of sun today through the thick cloud cover. The rain is persistent and consistent. We head into town and seek out an internet station to respond to email and update the site. We are starting to organize family and friends time while we are home for the first two weeks of June. It is already looking to be a logistical nightmare. Lunch is a Gyros and Greek salad, sitting bundled-up at one of the local Mom and Pop fast food places that abound.

The afternoon is spent in bed, listening to music, napping, reading and watching the photos our laptop screen saver randomly chooses for us to reminisce over. Our time-ignorant rooster occasionally reminds us that it is time to get up.

BBC World and CNN tell us that 3 small bombs have gone off early this morning in Athens exactly 100 days before the start of the Olympics. We feel for the Greeks with an already over-stretched and late schedule of building and infrastructure to clean up. They now have additional security issues to deal with.

There is no talk of the morning’s events in the bars and tavernas as we head out for dinner. It appears Mykonos is focused on the approaching warm weather and anticipated tourist dollar.

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The morning has arrived with a high, flat cloud cover, much different from the clear, sunny brightness of the last two days. I awake feeling much better although I still have some stomach issues. The ferry is scheduled to leave the new port at 11:10 and we don’t have much packing to do since we really didn’t unpack when our bags arrived. Our star bag porter arrives and further impresses us by carrying both big bags back up the gazillion steps to the lobby and then through the cobbled streets to the taxi stop. Well worth the €5 tip, I say.

Our ferry is on time and we are travelling on the fast boat this morning. Four hours to Mykonos instead of 6. Our trip is uneventful and we arrive in Mykonos with a group of 25 students from Virginia studying the classics. Pandemonium ensues as we realize that we are all staying at the same hotel and management hasn’t sent a big enough bus to transfer all of us. Two trips and a car ride later, John somehow gets to the head of the line for check-in and we are given a quaint room with a small patio and a lovely view overlooking Mykonos Town, no more than a 5 minute walk up the hill from the town centre.

We share our view with a local slice of Mykonos flavour. An elderly gentleman’s green garden, not yet planted, his ground preparation at a snail-like pace; an over-zealous rooster who cannot tell time and his friends, the barking dogs. Further up the hill, some young Greek “guys”, tight jeans, mirrored sunglasses all, Honda motor bikes. Under-employed. And of course the standard Greek grandmother, probably the saintly wife of the green gardener, her scarfed head protected from the hilly wind. I watch with fascination and try to figure how they all interconnect. Other than the occasional burst of blue sky, the weather is cool, overcast and rainy.

We completely unpack. This is the first time we have done that since we left Bali. It is cool and seems like fall to us. I am actually enjoying it; John finds it “cold”. Long pants and long sleeves.

We walk into the labyrinth of streets and alleys that is Mykonos Town and quickly get lost. We pass Diesel and DKNY shops huddled beside kitschy Greek souvenir shops. High end clothes with low end junk. Smutty T-shirts abound. Taverna’s and hole-in-the walls selling cigarettes and worry beads. The occasional white-laced window, someone’s home, anticipating the warm weather to open up and welcome or curse the tourists. Lots of dirty-aproned old women in slippers sitting on stools, watching and waiting for summer to begin. We keep heading to our left and eventually end up by the water in Little Venice for a quick beer (2 small beers = €12!!! Another huge change from Asia).


View from our hotel, Little Venice, Typical Mykonos


Mykonos Town

Even this early in the season people don’t eat until later so we do the 10 minute glute work-out back up the hill to our hotel and grab quick naps and extra layers of clothes and head out about 8 o’clock in search of supper. I, in particular, have noticed how a change in diet can affect your physical well-being even in a 24 hour period. Gone are the spicy paneers, alloos and tandooris of 2 days ago, replaced by olive oil and feta cheese. Roast chicken and moussaka are the predictable and reliable foods on the menus here. I generally love Greek food but after India and Thailand, it is very boring. No heat and, in particular, no variety. But it quickly takes the form of comfort food in this familiar but strange cold climate and we gobble it down with a .5 litre of the house red. Just enough to wet our whistles. We wander a bit and stumble onto a deserted bar called Katarina's, named in honour of the first female ship captain in Greece, managed by Darren, a wonderful guy from Toronto, who is full of useful information about life on Mykonos. Then we watch the full moon lunar eclipse from the small balcony at Katarina's, overlooking the bay.

It is late when we wake – almost 12 hours of wonderful sleep. Sometime during the night our bags arrived from Athens.

Greg: What has also arrive in the middle of the night is a case of the flu for me, announced by an incredible case of heart burn that wakes me out of my sleep. We have no luggage and therefore no Tums and no Alka Seltzer to deal with this intense pain in my stomach and throat. I roll onto my back and elevate my head to try and stop the reflux. I think I fall back to sleep for a minute or so when all of a sudden I start to violently cough and quickly realize I’m about to vomit. Fast forward. My stomach is cleared and the pain is gone but I am slightly feverish and realize that my lower back and legs are aching like crazy. I fall back to sleep. In the morning I feel worse than the night before. Head-achy, no energy, lethargic. John heads up to breakfast and I stay in bed until 10. I feel guilty about contemplating spending a beautiful, clear sunny day in Santorini in bed so I get up, pull some clothes on and we wander out into the town.

For a couple of hours, we wander around the town. It is easy to be here. It is early in the season (our hotel opened for the summer only the day before we arrived), and while there are tourists, there aren’t that many.

Greg, who was here 25 years ago, points out to me some of the things that have changed. As we walk around the rim of the caldera, where almost 3,500 years ago most of the island collapsed into the sea in one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of all time, the views change quite remarkably at each corner.

The day is intensely hot in the sun, but the minute you go into shade, it is almost cold. We stop for lunch in a restaurant overlooking the caldera, and are glad that our luggage appeared, because we were able to dig out sweaters, and we need them. After lunch, back into the sun, we peel them off and are glad to be in shorts and t-shirts.

It is a day to do nothing, and that is what we do. We spend a quiet afternoon, napping and sitting on our balcony, watching the sea.

Greg: I am in bed at this point, feeling somewhat exhausted from the couple of hours up and down Santorini’s fabled stairs. I did not have much for lunch and am not terribly hungry. I doze with the shuttered window open to the caldera below and the incredible view from our balcony. The sun streams in across the bed and warms the blanket that is loosely covering me. I still feel some guilt about being in a beautiful Greek town and not being able to indulge in its beauty. John heads into Thira village and buys himself some worry beads and to check email. I spend pretty much the rest of the day and early evening this way. The spectacular sunset arrives shortly after 8 pm and I pull on some clothes to indulge in its beauty. We head up the steep, gazillion-million steps to our hotel restaurant and lobby. I am seeking comfort food; some chicken soup or warm broth and a slice of bread will do me just fine. This is not to be. Most of the hotels and restaurants have only opened for business on May 1and are still primping, painting and cleaning up after the winter. Our restaurant is one of them and has a very limited menu until the season really gets going. I settle for pasta and take maybe ten bites before I call it quits and head back down to the room and bed. I dose up with multivitamins, some aspirin and some effervescing large dose vitamin C and herbal immune travel boosters our friend Larry gave us before we left Los Angeles (thanks Larry). I try to get some sleep. Tomorrow we are heading for Mykonos.



Ahhh…Santorini

Stay tuned…this story does have a happy ending.

N 36°
E 025°

Finally, we are allowed to enter the terminal. All goes smoothly – although our flight from Athens to Santorini is on a different ticket than our flights to Frankfurt and Athens, Lufthansa checks our luggage through to Santorini, and tells us we don’t need to even think about it until we get there. Although we will clear customs and immigration for the EC in Frankfurt, we do not need to pick our luggage up – it will automatically get loaded onto the plane to Athens.

The red wine in the lounge tastes delicious. Most of the planes to Europe leave about the same time as ours, and the lounge is full. Many people talk on their mobiles – we wonder who they’re talking to at 12:30 in the morning, a number snore loudly.

An hour before the flight, a Lufthansa rep comes into the lounge and asks us to go down to the gate – there is a huge line for security, and there has been a gate change. We get through the process of exiting India, and get to the gate just as they start the pre-boarding.

Once on board, we find that Bill and Danielle are sitting right across the aisle from us. From Seattle, we sat with them in the lounge at the Lake Palace in Udaipur, talking into the wee hours of the morning, before we went to bed and on our separate ways the next day. We express surprise at the coincidence of seeing them again, and compare notes on our experiences. We ask each other, and we leave unanswered, the question of whether either couple will come back to India.

We decline the offer of dinner, and are soon sound asleep. Greg nudges me at about 5:30 Frankfurt time (6 ½ hours from takeoff, not a bad night’s sleep considering everything): the flight attendants are serving breakfast.

Everything goes as smoothly as possible – we make our connections in Frankfurt and Athens easily. There is a convenient place right in the Athens airport to buy a prepaid SIM card for the mobile – only Bangkok and Athens, so far, have been this organized. The flight to Santorini is in a small prop plane, big enough for 40 or so. The views of the islands as we fly over them are exquisite.

We are the last people waiting at the baggage carousel. Although we’ve made it easily, our bags have missed one of the connections. The baggage agent expresses dismay that Lufthansa checked our bags through from Athens – they shouldn’t have done that, she tells us. (I reckon that it was time – we have averaged 1 flight every 6 days so far in 2004, and this is the 1st time we’ve had any trouble with our bags.)

The first thing we notice on the drive to the hotel is that everyone is driving on the wrong side. After 4 months in NZ, Australia and Asia, it looks so strange to see cars driving on the right.

We get to our hotel, and as promised, we have a balcony overlooking the caldera. The weather is perfect – a beautiful spring day, mid-20s, windless, intensely hot in the sunlight. We smile – we have the only things we need: a great view, and a bottle of duty free vodka. Tomorrow will be for worrying about things like luggage – the rest of today is for enjoying the view, and getting a good night’s sleep.


We’re surprised by how late the sun stays in the sky – it doesn’t set till after 8. For almost 2 months we have been in areas close to the equator, where day and night are roughly equal all year long. It is nice to have the sun lingering in the sky.



Enjoying the view from our hotel

Today starts the longest travel day – days, actually, for it is most of today and most of tomorrow – of the trip. First we will go back to Delhi, during daylight as we don’t want to do the road after dark. We will be dropped at Indira Gandhi International Airport hours and hours before our flight to Frankfurt, which leaves at 2:25 tomorrow morning. We hope the check-in opens early, and that we can get into the business class lounge and get a good glass of wine – after 7 weeks of almost only beer, the drink of Asia, we know it will taste really good, even if it’s bad. Then tomorrow, we connect in Frankfurt to a flight to Athens, and from there to a flight to Santorini, where we will stop moving for a couple of days.

The drive to Delhi is uneventful. We see where Tibari made the mistake driving up – he somehow missed the sign that told him to turn left for Corbett NP. Oh well.

The newspaper this morning is full of pictures of snow in Kashmir – from the same weather pattern that caused yesterday’s rainstorm in Corbett NP. It was due to some cyclones and was not caused by the early arrival of the monsoon. But in giving rain to places, such as Delhi, farther south, it has provided some relief from the heat, and the dryness, of the summer. Today is back to normal – it is well over 30 degrees outside, the sun baking down. But we pass deep puddle after deep puddle on the side of the road, and see cars and trucks struggling to deal with the mud. We wonder how anything gets done during monsoon, when the sides of every road, and the sidewalks too, will all turn into inescapable mud.

After 6 hours we get to Delhi, and we drive right through downtown to get across town – there is no ring road. We drive around the beautiful India Gate, through the area filled with the mansions the government ministers inhabit. Then past Sonia Gandhi’s house – which has more security than your average US embassy. Past Indira Gandhi’s house, the place she was murdered. Past a sign for the shrine marking the place where Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated. Then through the embassy district.

Finally, we get within seeing distance of Indira Gandhi Airport. And traffic stops. We can see the hangars of the planes, and we cannot move. Tibari tells us this stretch of road is notorious – and it should be. It takes well over 1 hour to get through 1 block, and onto the airport grounds.

We are dropped shortly after 6 p.m. Our flight is not till 2:25 tomorrow morning. We discover that we cannot enter the terminal until 11:25 tonight. There are guards at the doors to see to that. Across the road from the terminal is an air conditioned waiting room – entry: 50 rupees each. Hundreds of people are sitting outside, calmly waiting. We scramble to find 100 rupees – we have been careful not to have too many left. And we pass the rest of the evening, sitting on chairs that need to be replaced, freezing in the air conditioned comfort, but able to use the toilet with any further payment being required, which is not the case for those waiting outside. There is a wireless internet café in the waiting room – the whole airport is WIFI enabled – and we pass some time uploading a week’s worth of journal entries, and downloading email.

What we will miss about India:
Humbleness
Elephants
The Taj Mahal!
Temples, step wells, forts and palaces. The Moghul style in red sandstone
Beautiful coloured saris drifing across a parched, brown field.
The interactions with the children in places tourists seldom go. “Hello. What country you from? What is your name?”
The opportunity to see a tiger in the wild
The food!
The waiter in the thali restaurant in Udaipur
The Lake Palace Hotel
The graciousness and curiosity of the people

In talking about our 15 days here, we both agreed that we liked Ahmedabad best – collectively, the step wells and the Sun Temple were more impressive than the most impressive forts and palaces of the maharajas and the moghuls, and the streets were wonderfully lacking in touts, hawkers, beggars and tourists.

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