Turkey

Turkey

A visit to Gallipoli was necessary to pay our respects and to gain an appreciation of just how big a disaster the whole landing was. The idiots in charge couldn't have organised a successful chook raffle. Such a waste of young mens lives.

Also had a run in with the local security when they moved us on from our camp at 4am, which we were under the impression was outside the park. Perhaps their energies would be better spent picking up some of the mountains of rubbish around the area like we did.

The Cappadocia region was a highlight. Touristy of course, but as a consequence pretty clean by Turkish standards.
I say this because treating the environment with utter contempt is something that the Turks (and others around the world) have mastered. Whilst parked at a lay-by a typical scene took place some distance in front of us. One of the small Turk passengers in the back seat for some reason or other needed to be cleaned up.
Grandmother grabbed the kid and the wipes and proceeded to task. Each of the six or so wipes used for the task were casually thrown on the ground. Father in the meantime thought this an appropriate time to clean out the car and threw four empty plastic bottles and other rubbish onto the roadside. What sort of example is this?
In Istanbul and on the major arterial roads in Turkey one could be excused for thinking things are tickety boo but away from the cities its a different story.

On a positive note (for us), the condition of the roads in Turkey would have to be the best we have encountered anywhere. Combine the new roads with all the new apartment blocks for the masses and you can see that Turkey has spent massively on Infrastructure. But it appears that when Governments borrow large amounts of money there are consequences down the track!

Turkey is supposedly where East meets West. But in my opinion the West has won. There are very few signs of 'old Turkey', the Turkey we were expecting to experience.

Gallipoli Peninsula.

Brighton Beach with the Sphinx rock on the right and the grassed area on the left where Anzac day ceremonies are held.

Shrapnel Gully.

Lone Pine.

The ancient city of Troy on the Asian continent side of Turkey. I don't think this is the original!

The numbered white cards dotted up this excavation marks some of the nine cities of Troy built on top of each other over the centuries.

Wells and layers of walls and foundations form the many layers of Troy.

And the excavations continue.

Archaeological students tidy up huge urns.

Unfortunately the Turks have a dreadful habit of throwing their rubbish out where ever they stop as this popular picnic spot shows. 

We saw these fake police cars some with flashing lights beside highways in Turkey. It didn't seem to slow the suicidal driving habits of the Turks.

We camped high above the town of Goreme in the Cappadocia valley and woke very early in the morning to see this spectacular sight.

There must have been about a hundred of them.

And they kept coming. Floating over the extraordinary landscape.

And then they started to land, some amongst the houses but most anywhere they could find that was flat.

We had a prime view of their support crews racing to pick up the passengers.

The baskets looked like they held about twenty people. They were huge.

The town of Goreme with its ancient cave dwellings in unearthly shaped rock formations which covered a vast area.

Buses and big pickups arrived to collect the balloons and passengers.

The tourists on these flights were very lucky cause the next two mornings the wind was to strong hence no flights.

Only a few buses left at this landing site. The balloons have been gathered up and loaded onto trailers.

A few balloons were caught by the wind and ended up a valley below and passed our camp.

This one just missed the trees below us as the wind picked up, heavens knows where they ended up they were going at a good clip. Too dangerous to land at that speed.

We explored many cave houses in the gully below our camp.

This carved out buildings was an ancient Monastery and hospital.

Most of these were carved out around 700AD.

The inside was extensively excavated with vaulted ceilings and columns and some with elaborate frescoes. 

This was called Love Valley, probably because of the shape of the rock formations. I'll leave that to your imagination. Most of the balloon flights started from here.

Most towns in Turkey had masses of the apartment blocks many only built recently.

Sometimes there is just nowhere to camp so there is no other option but a hotel or the street. This is the foyer of the Hotel Grand in Konya with a statue of a Whirling Dervish, 5 star and only $84 AUD a night.
We didn't go and see the Whirling Dervish after hearing that it's incredibly boring. 

A nice peaceful camp beside a salt lake on our way north east to Georgia.

It was fodder cutting time so trucks piled high with bags of chaff were a common sight on the roads.

Another tranquil bush camp beside a lake. We usually start looking for a camp from about 4pm heading off the beaten track and up into the hills away from noise for a peaceful nights sleep in a beautiful location.

There isn't a camping culture in Turkey so camping grounds are almost non existent, so on this occasion it was a hotel.
This one was in Bayburt which was dominated by an impressive walled fortress on a hill overlooking the city. The dinner menu was awful so we cooked in the camper, but the breakfast was a buffet banquet. 

Some of the valley landscapes were beautiful, starkly contrasted with the barren mountains

Under ground aquifers are used for irrigation which we found the case in most of the countries we have visited.

Camped below Bana Cathedral ruins in the middle of nowhere, with views of the valley in the previous photo. Very peaceful.

Surprised to see tea being grown on the shores of the Black Sea. Although the Turks are huge tea drinkers. The supermarkets have larges packets taking up most of an isle.

The bread advertised here is something else, bigger than a soccer ball, you see some people come out with five of them. Wow! Must have a big family.

Soulless apartment blocks all over the country, not much of the old heritage left. As you can see the roads are very good, shame about the crazy drivers which were all men I didn't see any women driving. That's probably why I got so many stares sitting on the left side where their driver usually sits.

We saw this tiny hedgehog stumbling over dried mud tyre tracks as we left a forest camp one morning. He was only about 10 cm long. So cute!

As we arrived in Istanbul we were met by this large police riot truck equipped even with a water canon parked at the entry to the hotel we had booked. They informed us after checking our passports that President Erdogan was also staying at the hotel and everyone had to be vetted.

All went well until Rob went to our truck to collect something and six armed to the teeth plain clothed police surrounded the truck and demanded he came out and explain what he was doing there. They then escorted him up to our room to check my credentials. They even had two technology experts there to scroll through our phones and the hotels concierge to translate the interrogation. 

After checking out our passports and noting all the places we had visited they were satisfied we were harmless retiree travelers and bid us farewell. Thank goodness! And no we didn't see Erdogen he probably snuck in the back door each night, it was all very cloak and dagger stuff.

We finally arrived in Istanbul to see the famous Hagia Sophia Built 532 AD originally as a church.

The dome was the largest in the world for 1000 years an architectural marvel.
                                                                 

This is a painting of how an angel was depicted based on the bibles description, before artists made them look more human. There are two angels painted below the dome.

Always wanted to see the Hagia Sophia ever since I read Richard Fidler's book Ghost Empire about the history of Constantinople and it's Roman / Byzantine intriguing history .

Beautiful detail of the interior.

To think it was built 1500 years ago.

It was built in 5 years 10 months by 10,000 workers an incredible feat in the age when some Cathedrals took lifetimes to complete.

And this is the guy who made it happen Emperor Justinian and his Empress Theodora who was a pretty tough bird in her own right. 

Next door to the Hagia Sophia is the Topkapi Sarayi (Sultan's Palace) and Harem.

Just a sample of the lovely tiles.

The Queen Mothers apartments in the Harem area.

Every room had fabulous ceilings.

One of the Harem rooms, all had these fire places and washing fountains. 

The entry to the palace. There were three huge treed courtyards before you reached the main palace buildings.