Nadir in Barcelona

As we arrived in the country, the Clingon cheerily announced that Barcelona was in for three days of rain. We had the third day yesterday. (I hope he was right about only three days.) The heavens opened--thunder, lightning, rivers coursing down the kerbs. I was out, desperately trying to find my way back to the accommodation after dark: an uncomfortable position I find myself in regularly.

I knew I was close, but a combination of not having every road marked on my map, not being able to read the streets that are marked on my map because of rain on my glasses (and nothing dry to wipe them with), not having every street sign displayed on every corner, not having enough light to read my map by, the fact that all the streets look the same to me (thanks for laying it all out in a perfect grid, Ildefonso Cerdá), and my spatial ineptitude, found me running from corner to corner, awning to awning. So, I must have been within 300 metres of our accommodation for about an hour last night, as the lightning struck and water pounded the streets and myself, and could not find the Hostal nohow. I rushed down the street, up the street, crossed the street, went back, recrossed the street. I wanted to cry, but the picture that presented itself to my mind's eye of a bedraggled 60 year-old, sobbing as she begs a kind passerby for directions, stopped me.

I tried ringing the Clingon to beg him to come downstairs and find me, but he had helpfully turned his phone to "Do Not Disturb", so he was not picking up. Why did he do it? Who is bothering him with incessant phone calls? Who else has the phone number? I ask you readers. I have worked hard to make sure we can contact each other in foreign places by getting us both a Travelsim and keeping it topped us so that we can always call & text each other in an emergency. What goes through that tin head?

I don't have the energy at the moment to go into the details of our stay in this city. I've reached the lowpoint of the journey (I hope), and can't think of anything at the moment that doesn't make me want to cry. Later, when the trauma of wandering the dark rain-lashed streets subsides, I'll fill you in on Barcelona.





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Selçuk to Barcelona

Laid over in Istanbul for a few more hours yet. Got up at 4.30 this a.m. to get on the shuttle--which the hotel owner drove--to Izmir Airport. (The shuttle cost more than the flight Izmir-Istanbul.)

The Clingon does not function well on little sleep, unlike your informant, who has become accustomed to little sleep over the last eighteen years.

Celçuk: we visited the house in which Mary is reputed to have died, not because we particularly wanted to, but it was on the tour hit list. Unimpressive, except for the strange wall on which visitors left notes and prayers for the good health of the living and repose of the dead.



On the way to our next stop, Ephesus, we drove past a German statue of Mary, which made her look like a basketball player. I guess the Germans like their gods big and athletic.

Below is a much more aesthetically pleasing statue. I've included it for my sister-in-law. It's the goddess of wisdom, who is her namesake.



Ephesus was impressive. Only about 20% has been excavated at this time. When they finish the job in two hundred years or so, it should be even more so.

Everywhere in the city, the cats come out to pose and preen on the ancient pillars, like a feline version of Facebook.



After a smorgasbord lunch in a local restaurant, we visited Siriçe, which was a Greek village, well-known in the area for its wine-making, but abandoned by its inhabitants in the 1920's during the population exchange. It's a Unesco World Heritage Site, and draws hordes of tourists into its narrow cobbled streets, down which there is no motorised traffic except for tractors.


It was delightful!

Now we've got another hour or so before we can drop off the luggage and check in for our flight to Barcelona. We will have been here in Instanbul Airport for 6 hours by the time we take off, but that's all right. Gave me a chance to update the blog. Next time I write, we'll be in Barcelona. Talk to you then.





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Pamukkale

Had a great time in Pamukkale, traversing the Travertine. . . Well, maybe not such a great time. Glad I've done it once, but didn't expect to have to walk 700 metres up a wet limestone slope in the middle of winter, without shoes.

Cold, it was, and I'm a tenderfoot. I never walk about in bare feet in Sydney, not even in the house.


I guess visitors have to climb barefoot to protect the limestone slope. It's a Unesco world heritage site. Stunning sight it is. When I first clapped eyes on it from the restaurant of the Melrose Viewpoint Hotel, I thought it was a mountain covered with snow.

When the Clingon and I got to the top of the slope, we walked around for a bit among the ruins of Hierapolis of Phrygia. The Clingon was cold and unhappy, so he sloped off down the limestone again, supplied with lunch money. I thought all my birthdays had come at once. I could spend as long as I liked taking each photo. I didn't have to listen to whining and complaining: hurry up! you've already taken a photo of that; come on; let's go; etc., etc.



The other spot of luck was the weather. It wasn't warm, and it looked like rain all day, and did rain lightly a couple of times. Good for me because it kept the other tourists away. I wandered around the ruins, not having to contort myself or stand on rocks to avoid having a French tour group in my shot. The only time I shot other tourists was when they were an asset to my composition.
Hierapolis was impressive. Would love to go back again and see it at sunset, but that won't be on this trip. Next time I might come in spring, or autumn again, as we did this time. I wouldn't come back in summer. Too crowded; too many tour buses.


We got the local bus from Pamukkale to Selçuk this morning. Beautiful sunny day, blue sky. Tomorrow we're looking round Ephesus and a few of the other places close to here. Hope the weather is not as nice as it was today.

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By the Sea: Side

Thought I'd take a little time this early morning to get something down. I had nearly a whole entry composed but because we weren't connected to the internet, I lost it somehow. So, here is what I remember of it. You should understand that the web address for this blog says a great deal about the experience of the kind of travel we're doing: you need time to take it all in, think about it, if you're going to remember it in five years, or even five hours. And the past few days, we haven't had the time to slow down and look at where we've been.




This morning Dawn's rosy fingers are over the horizon and we're looking at the blue Mediterranean. It is the Clingon's first sight of this sea. We arrived in Side after dark last night. (Sunset is 4.30 now.) We'd spent a night in Avanos and then a night in Konya. I'd booked all this accommodation over a month ago, and now, with the benefit of hindsight, I would not do the same again. The bus trips are too long. I would cut a couple of places, and book the accommodation when I arrived in the country. At this time of year, the hotel's and pansions are almost empty. (I think we are the only occupants of this hotel tonight, and they were very surprised to see us emerge from the yellow taxi last night. They thought we had got the hotel name wrong. There seems to be a bit of a laissez faire attitude to their hotel bookings at Sunprime Dogan Side Beach.

We were lucky enough to find a restaurant open at the time we were ready to eat at about 8.30 last night. (The Sunprime's bar was open, but they had no food in the house and no cook. I reminded them that we'd be wanting breakfast so that they'd get their act together this morning. We've got another bus trip, this time to Pamukkale, this morning at 10.30.)




Konya: I booked Konya so that I'd be able to see the dervishes. Didn't know I'd see them in Istanbul too. Also didn't know that the Clingon would have such a strongly negative reaction to the experience. He said it was the most boring experience of his life; I think he was not remembering some of the bone-numbingly boring speech days and assemblies he--and I--sat through during his school years.)

But, the Konya experience was a lot more authentic and spectacular--thirty whirling dervishes, not just 9 or 10, coloured lights, in a specially-built amphitheatre built to seat thousands--and it was totally free. In Istanbul we weren't allowed to take photos; when the minder saw people taking photos, she shone a green light on their heads to force them to stop. We were told not to take photos in the Konya performance, the Clingon told me afterwards, but although I registered that the speaker had segued into English, I didn't understand what he had said, so I didn't feel guilty snapping away with the twenty other photographers sitting in the front row of the amphitheatre, their SLRs fitted with long lenses and resting on tripods, all in full view of the speaker and the rest of the audience.

So as we look at the water, and I try to get myself in the mood to get out of bed, shower, and get ready to go again, I'll just pause to wish the Clingon a very happy birthday. (He is the most avid reader of this blog; his favourite character in the text is, of course, the Clingon.) The Clingon is a man today. At the moment he's chomping through a horde of chocolates and lollies we picked up at a shop last night, in preparation for his birthday breakfast.







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The Weather in Cappadocia

Today we moved on from Göreme.

This morning the Clingon asked about the strange noise outside. I'd recognised it: rain. Something I didn't imagine we'd encounter in this high, rocky, dusty country. We've been lucky with the weather, so far, though the Clingon says snow is predicted tomorrow where we are now: Avanos.

We flew over the landscape in a balloon on our first morning in Göreme. The balloons haven't been up since due to winds, and now, rain.




Wednesday morning we hopped into a minibus provided by the Flintstones Tour Company, and went off for the day with 12 fellow travellers from China, Korea, Spain, Italy, and our guide Selim. After a quick shifti at the panorama of Goreme, we went to Derinkuyu underground city, where the Hittites/Phrygians hid out from their enemies between the 15th and 12th centuries BCE. Four underground floors in this city, and stables, kitchens, but bathrooms consisted of clay pots.




Hundreds of underground cities in Cappadocia with tunnels linking many of them. A 14 km tunnel from Derinkuyu to the next city.

A wander around the Selime Monastery. Had a lunch of river trout beside the river and then a short hike up the Ihlara canyon, the second longest canyon in the world, according to Selim, our guide. It's a Unesco World Heritage Site. We stopped at a church carved into the rock with extant paintings of Jesus and various saintly types, all of which were achieved with natural pigments: the white is pigeon poo, of which the ancients had an abundant supply. You can still see the pigeon houses carved into the rocks.

The Romans really hated the early Christians and chased them down, and then the Crusaders invaded to finish the job. Here I was thinking that the Crusaders invaded to flatten Islam, but no, they were just as anti the Orthodox Christians.

After the hike, we were whisked off to place where they tried to flog us onyx and Zultanite, a newly discovered gem that changes into 5 different colours in different lights (though they only managed to demonstrate two colours). The next day--for the Clingon and I signed on for a different tour with the same company the next day, dear readers--they tried to flog us pottery and carpets, which took up more of our time. So, not so many photos on that day. I'm all for seeing the way they harvest the silk from silkworm cocoons, that was interesting. As was the information about the different carpets, but it went on too long for me, especially as I don't travel to shop. I'm still recovering from the hard sell.




This morning our lovely hotel owner drove us here to Avanos, where my Googling back in Sydney had told me there was a market.




We visited the market--quite small and not particularly colourful, but worth a run through, I thought. The Clingon was not of the same opinion, I think, and remains singularly unimpressed with Avanos.

After the market, I dragged my reluctant fellow traveller to visit the old part of town, where I walked gingerly around the ruins, shooting the dilapidated houses of the Greeks who were forced out in what the locals refer to politely as "the population exchange" of the 1920's.




These abandoned houses, the falling walls and roofs, were exciting for me to shoot, but also, the sight was sad. Imagine the reluctant exhangees. To this day, nothing has been done about those decaying houses. Couldn't read the signs I saw around, so I don't know whether anything is planned for them, but I hope not. They are a poignant reminder of a history of tears.


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Göreme

A long day, and I'm exhausted. Arrived at Göreme yesterday in time to see the sunset at what I thought our concierge was calling "the sunset pint". Willy is from Afghanistan, but speaks, so he told the Clingon, six languages: English, Turkish, Arabic, Uzbek, Hindi/Urdu and Farsi. Strange about this place: every street you walk down, men ask where you're from, hoping you'll step into their restaurant or shop. I always ask the same question back, and so far I've encountered no-one who's "from" Turkey: Kazakstan, yes; Turkey, no.



This morning Butterfly Balloons picked us up from the hotel at 5.30 and drove us down to their headquarters for breakfast, after which we were transported to the balloon lift-off pint. My urge to see the fairy chimneys was the main reason for coming here to Göreme. And I was not disappinted. The landscape is unbelievable. And most of it is out there, waiting for people to experience for free. There's a great deal of it in the outdoor museum, available for a price, which we paid. But too many other people paid the same price and it was a bit of a tourist frenzy. When we left the company of all the other tourists and went for a walk among the fairy chimneys, we were left to ourselves, with the sunshine, the landscape and the birds. We even saw a couple of raptors right overhead; the Clingon was of the opinion that they were stalking us, waiting for us to die.



Thank god there's no hope of getting a tourbus down into those magic valleys.

We walked towards what we were promised would be the Rose Valley, but every sign we saw, no matter how far we walked, said it was 2 km ahead. It was difficult walking, with lots of going up and down slopes slippery with loose sand and gravel, so when we saw the cafe, we decided we'd visit. Surreal, among the weird shapes of the eroded valleys to see a cafe where there are no houses or people, except for the few tourists, who aren't on buses. It was surreal in another way, too. It was a cafe with no coffee or tea or food. The only thing for sale in this cafe was pomegranate juice. We bought a large glass. The cafe guy was blonde, deaf and with dirt-engrained hands, which he used to push dried apricots into my mouth.




Finally, an old man came clopping up to the cafe in his horse and cart; he offered to take us back to town for 20 TL. I declined, but thought better of it when it was too late. It was 4km back to town and by the time we arrived I was not good for much except sitting on the bed and groaning. I could not even drag my sorry arse out to the sunset pint.



So here I am, in bed, nice and cosy. Eyes almost closing as I write, but I must finish this.




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Bye Bye Instanbul

Sadly, our time in Instanbul has come to an end, and I did not see half the things I wanted to. As I mentioned in the last entry, we intended to go to Taksim, Tunel, etc yesterday. I told you that those places were on the Asian side, but, because of my map reading skills, I was mistaken. In fact those places are on the European side, just on the opposite bank of the Golden Horn from Sultanahmet, the old city, where we are staying.
Here is a google map of Instanbul. If you blow it up, you can see that Beyoglu, and all those places I mentioned in the last blog, are clearly on the European side of the city.



We didn't know that a marathon was running, but the trams weren't, so we walked along the tram line, to the Galata Bridge and across to the other side of the Golden Horn, and Beyoglu. The walk was pleasant--everyone else was doing the same thing--and the roads were easy to cross; we weren't dodging cars (even on the footpaths) and trams. First intention was to visit Istanbul Modern, but the entrance appeared to be firmly shut. Oh well, I thought, perhaps they'll open again later when the the Marathon's over. We kept walking.


The runners (actually, only the walkers and laggers at this late stage) were still streaming by. The road was coated with empty water bottles and sponges, and crews of cleaners were clearing up. Then we noticed a group of tardy walkers ahead; they'd stopped completely and were all pointing their camera phones excitedly at something we couldn't see, just around the corner. When we came up to them, this is the sight that greeted us. (Just the stairs, silly, not me sitting on them. I haven't managed to be in two places at one time yet. That's spooky.)


(I hasten to point out to you, dear reader, that I had not been swigging the local amber as we walked. That was something the Clingon decided to retain in the image as a joke on the woman who bore him inside her body for nine months.)

I had intended to visit these stairs but had forgotten about their existence in the rush to see all the other features of the city. And here we were upon them without planning.

We walked up all those stairs . . . and back down again, when we realised we'd have trouble getting to Taksim from the top. My knees were protesting, we were sweating. We both divested ourselves of layers.




We stopped for tea at an expensive up-market cafe when we reached Taksim. And then we followed the crowds to Istiklal Cadessi, the most famous shopping street in Istanbul. Also devoid of traffic. Not sure whether it's always like that, or was only that way yesterday because of the marathon.

We had lunch, the trams started running again, and we got on. The Clingon was of the opinion that we had to change trams, so we got off that one. It filled to overflowing before he realised that he had made a mistake, so we walked back to Sultanahmet.

Called the airline to confirm flight and tried to do check-in on-line. The Turkish Airways website told me that my flight hadn't been ticketed. (I have a ticket number, and a reservation number.) Worrying! Didn't know what to do, so late last night I called the travel agent I'd bought the tickets from. He told me he'd check at the airlines and get back to me. When he did, he said that yes, the flight had been ticketed, but Turkish Airlines didn't know which plane was flying to Kayseri yet (???????), so they couldn't let us check in on-line. So anyway, that's the way it stands at the moment. The shuttle will pick us up at 9.00, in a couple of hours, and I hope I don't have too many (mis)adventures to report to you in the next instalment.


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Predawn Shoot

Enjoying my interactions with the Turks. I think I expected them to be like the Greeks I encountered in Greece. I found them to be generally unhelpful. But there's a sweetness about the Turks, and I feel completely safe in Istanbul, confident to go about before dawn to take photos. The only thing that does scare me is barking dogs, which I encountered yesterday morning.

I was walking to the waterfront from the hotel before dawn, when a taxi stopped for me and dropped me where he said I could take good photos. I walked down a little hill to the water and two great dogs lunged at me from out of the shadows. The dogs' handler appeared from nearby to quiet them. They were chained up, but they were big and I wasn't going to trust the chains to hold them. The dog whisperer waved me on down the street, but a fence was blocking my view and I wasn't sure about the safety of the industrial setting. I went back to the main road and followed it--Kennedy Caddesi--and my nose to a tram stop. Such a delicious smell in the air: baking. I was hungry.

There was no movement at the tramstop. So, further up the road I wandered, taking photos of a beautiful hotel. Still following that delicious smell. Ah yes, a bakery, with lights on. Could I buy what was baking? A cat sitting out the front. (Cats are everywhere in Istanbul.) The baker was moving about inside, but the doors were quite firmly locked against me. I wasn't able to go in and have coffee and biscuits, but I got a killer image--the best shot of that predawn shoot.



A few shots of the New Mosque (Yeni Cami)--completion between 1660 and 1665-- in Eminomu, and then I spied movement at the tramstop. Those fishermen must know the timetable.

Back at Sultanahmet, I found an open cafe. The young waiter invited me to sit down under the heater, and then went off to get a blanket which he draped around my shoulders. First breakfast of lentil soup and cafe latte. A full bowl of baguette hunks rounds on the table.

More photos around Sultanahmet and Ayia Sophia, and then back to second breakfast at the Grand Peninsula.



We decided to hit the museums, as our three day pass would expire, so we followed the hordes into Topkapi Palace. After that we segued into the Archaeological Museum. Lots of cups of tea and pastry to sustain us.


Today we go to the Asian side of town: Beyoglu, Galata, Tunel, Karakoy. I want to visit the Museum of Innocence (a museum created to illustrate the novel "Museum of Innocence" by Orhan Pamuk).

Location:Çetinkaya Sokak,Cankurtaran,Turkey

iSTANBUL!

Arrived at 5 a.m. on Thursday, which is why I found myself up writing my blog at 3.30 a.m. today. Body not keeping up with time zones.

Weather misty, overcast. Light rain at times, but not enough, so far, to keep us indoors.

We are walking round, mouths open, trying to understand the weight of ancient history and stone, the vastness of great open spaces inside and outside. The first photo above shows a dome of the Sultanahmet mosque, called "The Blue Mosque" by outsiders. A wide open floor space, carpeted; quiet, despite the numbers of visitors. Few of the faithful praying while we were there: the middle of a work day. Below is the Sultanahmet Mosque behind the van of a pretzel seller.



People here seem friendly, helpful. The men in the Old City smoke outside their shops and restaurants. The beautiful flagstone streets wear cigarette butts, like punctuation marks, between the stones. The men try to lure you into their shops, but seem polite enough when you refuse. But it's the women that I appreciate most. Every time we get on a tram, a woman gets up and offers her seat to me. One time a woman invited me to sit down, and a man tried to jump into the empty seat. She told him, in no uncertain terms, that the seat was for me. I'm always happy enough to sit down; my knees are suffering from all the walking. I've never been offered a seat in a train or bus in Sydney.

Here are three young women who were happy to allow me take their photo. They're wearing the blue scarf that they were given when they visited the mosque, as I was.





Yesterday we visited the Grand Bazaar and then went for a ferry trip up and down the Bosphorus.







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Location:Çetinkaya Sokak,Cankurtaran,Turkey

Sojourn @ the Chiang Maan Residence

Finally arrived at the accommodation on Sunday evening. A tiny, tiny little lodging in the old town. A young woman in a big white van drove us from the airport. She manoeuvred the van's big bum bravely through the narrow lanes. Thought we wouldn't find the Chiang Maan Residence (a rather grand name for four miniscule rooms below the family house) & we would have to get out and lug our cases through the dark laneways. But she didn't want to let us do that. . . I suspect because of my advanced age. When I found the address on the Internet she said the address didn't help in this part of Chiang Mai. I told her the accommodation was opposite  Wat Chiang Maan, but when we arrived opposite the Wat, we couldn't see it. She drove about, commenting agitatedly, called a friend for help, and eventually found it. There was no light, just a small sign which we couldn't see in the dark. She laughed at me: "You say "opposite" but it behind." Well, in my own defence, it looked opposite on the map, as I didn't know where the front entrance to the Wat was. In fact, I didn't believe the place I had booked on the Internet was real, despite seeing the photo, until we actually arrived. 

Spent Monday morning and this morning wandering around the streets, shooting while the Clingon lay back and caught up with his beauty sleep. It's a wonderful place to explore, but the traffic, the din of it and the fumes, are unrelenting. Today we met a Chinese woman visiting Chiang Mai, as we returned from Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. She was from Beijing; she remarked that Chiang Mai was very clean. There are a lot of fascinating features of this city but its sanitation is not one of them. The Clingon and I wondered about the state of the Chinese capital.

Last night we went to the night markets. I've done something to my knee and I can't walk very fast or far now, so the Clingon left me in the mother-minding area while he explored the markets. They kept me supplied with Singapore slings.

One more day in CM and then it's off to Turkey tomorrow night. 

Airport

So, what a smooth ride so far...I mean from home to gate 60. Thanks to my wonderful driver!

The Clingon ran off to grab a handful of phrase books while I played on the Internet. Tried out the Australia Post travelsim data offer. Turned on the Internet, opened Flickr, and about 2 minutes later had used my $10 daily limit. So, now I know. Then discovered that there is now free wifi at the airport. (About time. Wonder how Macquarie Bank agreed to give anything away for free. Last time I was at the airport trying to use the internet, the twin bandits Telstra and Optus were selling 30 minutes for $20. I see now that Australia Post is just as bad.

Flight boarding families with children now, but unfortunately, the Clingon is too old to be considered a child now.

Will sign off now. I think we'll be called to the queue soon, and I've already achieved my first blog entry.



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Location:Departure Plaza,Mascot,Australia