What I most anticipated about this trip was leaving the
blazers at home and living in chucks for a week, basically I was after a
chilled out non western travelling experience, I got that, sort of, there was
little relaxing.
All of Saturday was spent travelling as we lost 3 hours when
arriving in Turkey. A lovely man at the airport noted our roof gazing and
wandering in circles then gave his assistance on getting us to our
accommodation thank goodness, he even asked us if we were in the right country.
Kelly and I have a theory that we’ll figure it out when we
get there, it’s worked so far.
We stayed in the old town of Istanbul; our first two nights
were at Sinbads hostel in a 6 bed room (no snoring either night’s woohoo). Upon
arrival we explored our surroundings and soon learnt a lot about the Turkish
men, let’s say if you are starved of compliments got to Turkey and you’ll come
back not wanting to hear another! Turkish men and kiwi men, different ends of a
spectrum for sure!
We went to dinner in a little old back street restaurant and
dined on mezze platters, Kebabs and baklava for desert. Our waiter Mehmet
taught us our first 6 words in Turkish… Of which I can remember one.
While walking home I thought to myself, this is a long way
from Te Puru.
After an amazing sleep in slightly dingy hostel, only to be
disturbed by barking dog, we rose and went to a restaurant near the Aya Sofia
mosque. I had my first Turkish coffee! I wasn’t told till after that you
weren’t meant to drink the dirt in the bottom, here I was thinking I was being
a bold traveler by downing the whole thing!
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We then explored the Arasta Bazaar and met many carpet
dealers. One convinced us into his little shop to see his ‘magic carpet’.
Everyone, everyone! Offers you apple tea here! We politely declined and
complemented his carpet flicking skills and made our way to the ocean to walk
along the shore into the town.
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| Magic Carpet |
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| Arasta Bazaar before the crowds |
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| Strolling along the waterfront |
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| First of many kebab stands |
We went through the spice market harassed by touts the whole
way which was quite off putting, there seemed to be less of them after we swapped
our jeans for skirts because we were so sick of the ‘complimenting’. The Spice
Market is a really colourful place though bustling with humans and hustling
salesmen.
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| Spice Market |
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| Grand bazaar |
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| Beautiful lamps |
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| So many trinkets |
The only time ventured out of the old town while staying in
Istanbul was to pop across the bridge for a roof top lunch. The restaurant had
squatty toilets and I was attacked by a pigeon, luckily the view was amazing
looking back over the old town at the mosques.
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| View from restaurant where pigeon attack took place |
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| One of the mosques |
After lunch we headed up to the Suleymoniye mosque where we
lost our shoes and gained some headscarves in order to go inside the mosque!
They are beautiful but slightly strange looking big things. There are so many
of them around.
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| Courtyard of the mosque |
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| All wrapped up and ready to go |
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| Inside the mosque |
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| Loving that Vitamin D |
After a beer in the sun we head to the Turkish baths…. In
case you haven’t heard what a Turkish bath involves… You put your bikini and a
silly pair of clogs on go into a 600 year old big room and lie on a slab of
marble for 40 minutes (The room is between 40-60 degrees) to get all the toxins
out. A Turkish man (some baths use old naked Turkish women) comes and gets you
and proceeds to exfoliate your body, put you on aother marble slab and clean
you, followed by a massage. You come out and are wrapped in cloth then sent on
your way, red faced and ugly but with a few less layers of skin and dirt! A
must do if you go to Turkey.
When we got back to our hostel after the bathes we found
barking dog has now been painted purple, that will teach silly barking dog, or
so we thought.
We waited to meet friends later that night who never showed
as one got a bit ahead of himself (Rowan Edwards handle your drink!) so we went
to another bar to meet other Topdeck crews and our old flatty’s from Tooting
Kerry and Tim. We had a taste of some of the night life in Istanbul, one type
of beer on tap, Efes, lots of shesha and cushions!
The next day we encountered two missions, #1 find my missing
camera #2 find out where our meeting point for our tour was. The missing camera
turned out to be mission impossible. The missing location was luckily sent
through to us last minute. That was some max stressing. We took a wrong turn
somewhere on our way to the hotel and ended up walking through the Grand Bazaar;
literally thousands of people and streets that look exactly the same while
carrying our heavy luggage in the hot sun.
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| Fueling for our missions |
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| Steep hills to climb... |
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| Thoroughly enjoying the callouses getting larger on our hands |
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| Sea of humans to pass through |
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| Best afternoon tea ever |
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| Turkish treats are my absolute favourite |
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| Nom nom chewy pistachio ice cream |
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| Chilling by the chulips |
We finally arrived at our Hotel and were upgraded to a five
star for the night! We had a catch up with our tour group and all headed out
for dinner and drinks and a get to know one another.
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| View from the roof top of our 5* hotel |
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| Epic pool on roof top |
We had to get up at 5am to head to Gallipoli so after a
couple of hours sleep we were on the bus. We stopped in a very small village
for an hour along the way. There was on small café that had probably never had
some many customers in it life and public squatty toilet which a Turkish man
soon took liberty of occupying as his business for the afternoon and charging us
all a Lira to use.
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| Man selling bread at roundabout |
Once we arrived at Anzac cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula we
were pleasantly surprised by the beach that awaited us. It could be compared to
any beach along the Bay of Plenty and ironically brought back memories of home.
Plus it was nice to feel some sand between the toes as any Antipodean Londoner
will tell you.
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| Poppies! |
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| Could be Bay of Plenty right? |
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| Chilling on the beach then.... |
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| Out comes the sunshine.... |
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| Off come the shoes! |
Once through the security after a 4 hour wait we quickly
found spots to set up camp, the 5am start really was worth it! We laid our
tarps down and soon layered up the possum wool and hoodies and tucked into our
sleeping bags. Although there were things going on throughout the night,
lights, documentaries, music and people arriving, we were all out to it by half
9 and probably had the best sleep of the trip.
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| Just got through security charging on through to camp |
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| The wait! |
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| Kerry and Tim! |
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| Our campsite for the night |
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| Getting cosy |
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| Beautiful view from our
accommodation |
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We woke just before the dawn service started. It seemed very
appropriate that my first dawn service be at Gallipoli. Camp was quickly packed
up and then we started our 8km hike uphill to Chanuk Beir where our NZ service
was held, we sat roasting in the sun for another couple of hours waiting for it
to begin.
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| Still smiling the morning after |
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| At the memorial |
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| One of the cemeteries along the way |
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| Chanuk Bair |
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| Where NZ memorial service was |
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| Aussie PM Julia Gillard |
I don’t really know what to say about the services, attend
one if you want to know the feeling but I feel proud to have attended and paid
my respects and to have finally learnt a lot of what the whole mission was
about. Although it was a royal ‘stuff up’ and waste of human lives I think it’s
important respects are paid to the people who lost their lives there even now
we are a few generations on.
After the service we boarded our bus for another 5 hour trip
back to Istanbul. For our final night we went out for dinner and drinks again.
On our last drunk-walk-home-via-a-kebab-shop, drunk tour leader in tow, we were
graced by (sleazy) Turkish men folding napkins into roses for us, probably the
most class I witnessed from Turkish men the whole time we were there.
Our final day was spent travelling back to London, we
arrived with sunburnt skin and heavy backs to a very grey wet airport, where
the ‘other passports’ line, usually empty, was chocka with Kiwis and Aussies
returning from Gallipoli.
Turkey a must as is heading out to the Dawn Service if you
are ever over these ways around this time of year.
The warm weather was such a tease though and my tan is now
fading so I feel a trip to somewhere hot and sandy is in order!
