On Sunday 17th April we got up at 5:30am to give us lots of time to catch our bus to the airport from Rome to Istanbul, via Budapest (crazy, I know). The bus left a bit late, after 6:50am, but it still got to the next stop early and arrived at the airport early, about 8:00am. We found our terminal, and the check-in gate eventually. I got patted down at security - do I really look that sus? We got breakfast at the airport but my chocolate croissant was disappointing.
Eventually we got on our plane, via another bus. We left 20 minutes late which was quite worrying seeing as we only had 35 minutes leeway to catch our connecting flight at Budapest. We literally had to run from one end of the airport to the other for the 'last call' for our flight, but, luckily, we made it! We got a cheese roll for lunch, nothing compared with Lufthansa on our Berlin trip.
Descending at the end of the flight, it felt like we were going to land on the water, the airport was that close to it. The queue for VISA/passport control took ages, then, after we waited for the whole conveyor belt full of luggage to go through and no hint of ours, we got a bit worried. At lost & found they told us our luggage was still in Budapest. Of course it was - we'd had to run to catch the plane, how could our luggage have got there? One of the guys working there came with us to find our Topdeck representative who was picking us up for our 9 day ANZAC tour, to get the address of the hotel we'd be staying at so they could send our bags.
We got a shuttle with a few other people to our hotel (yes, HOTEL, no 's'!). I sat in the front and it was a very scary ride - the driver drove like the worst drivers in Melbourne, weaving in and out of gaps, on the phone, almost ran people over.
Once we checked in, we took our bags up to our room... verrryy nice! So good after a bunch of hostels. We went back downstairs to 'meet people' but as you can imagine we were all very tired, so I had a short nap then Rose, Aisling & Georgie arrived and we all headed out for dinner. Since we'd arrived a day early, we were with a lot of Aussies/NZers doing the 10 day tour plus our tour leader Michelle and Turkish guide Tolga. We walked a fair way, on a pretty confusing route. We got to a little strip of restaurants/bars and Rose, Caitlin & I ended up sitting with some Tassie guys and some others. Instead of boring bread you get while you wait for your meals, we got REAL TURKISH BREAD! So yummy. Then I had cous cous with tomato and vegie sauce which was tasty too.
We got tired and left eventually, finding our way back somehow. It started raining a little bit and the mosques looked incredible all lit up against the night sky, almost like Disney Land (is that disrespectful?)! Luckily I'd packed my toothbrush and toothpaste in my carry-on bag so I could feel somewhat clean when we went to bed at 11pm.
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We got up before 9am on Monday 18th April, chucked on the only clothes we had and went down to breakfast. It was so different from any other breakfast we'd had at places we'd stayed - 3 different types of olives, bread with choc chips, real honeycomb (crunchy but soft at the same time), delicious cheese, dried apricots, sultanas, dried figs, fantastic breads, chocolate brownie thing, some sort of soup, scrambled egg, tomato, cucumber, weird Cocopops. Yum!
We went back up to our room and, still quite tired, relaxed for a while. We went down and sorted out our change in accommodation - 2 double rooms plus a triple (Georgie's friend would be joining us) for the next 2 nights instead of 2 triples.
We headed out to check out the Grand Bazaar and by now it was raining. The place was amazing though - a big indoor market with over 4000 stalls full of gorgeous jewellery, scarves, lamps, plates and so much more, with all the vendors trying to get our attention by calling us 'Charlie's Angels' or 'Spice Girls'. Pretty funny. We weren't really sure what a reasonable prince was yet, plus the courtesy is to haggle (but we didn't know how much), so we just looked. It was VERY crowded as you can imagine.
After a couple of hours of being amazed mostly by jewellery we came out at a different exit from the one we came in. We found a place on the street to eat, I had a cheese/egg/vegie pide for 7 Turkish Lira (less than half for £, about 3/4 for $AU?) which was yummy. Almost made me feel like I was back in Sydney Rd.
We walked back to the hostel via one of the many baklava shops. Janet and I swapped a piece each but for some reason they tasted weird and almost fishy to me. When we got back our luggage had finally arrived so we had showers, got into new clean clothes and relaxed a bit more.
We headed downstairs for a briefing at 6:30pm then headed out to dinner about 7:30pm, just like the night before. We even ended up eating at the same place as the night before (as a group this time) - I had a vegie kebap - before moving next door for more drinkies. There was another ANZAC tour group there called Fanatics and they were already totally out of it, but very funny, a huge blowup kangaroo and cheap Turkish hats included. And I drank more than a sip of wine for the first time, which we felt a bit when we got up to go to a karaoke bar across the street. Didn't stay too long, some of the Fanatics were dancing on verrry precarious tables. So Caitlin, Sarah & Kasia (on our tour, who we met that night) and I headed back. I got ready for bed then took our room key down to reception so Janet could get it when she came back. Realised just 3 glasses of wine makes you a lot tipsier than the same amount of other drinks. Slept about 11:30pm.
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We went down for breakfast at 8:30am on Tuesday 19th April, where we met G's friend Kate who arrived late last night. We started our walking tour at 9:15am, which took us down the main street past the Constantine Column, traditional Turkish baths, the Grand Bazaar and the Blue Mosque, where we all lined up, took our shoes off and carried them in plastic bags inside. It was dark with beautiful ceilings, candles hanging down, stained glass windows. Outside stood a tall obelisk, complete with Egyptian writing. Kate & I decided that we would go to the expensive (125TL = £50) traditional Turkish dinner that night so we paid for that and got a bit excited.
We had from 11:30am till 2:15pm to do our own thing so we went back to the Bazaar. Kate was really good at haggling (we found out you should be able to haggle down to about 1/2 the asking price) so we all got into it and I ended up with a scarf for Mum for fairly cheap. Some more funny salesmen: 'Are your eyes from your mother or your father?' and 'Are they real?' while gesturing at his eyelashes. Also ended up getting pretty matching bracelets with Kate since we got the price down a lot.
We went outside for lunch, us vegos got vegie wraps with lots of sauces, salad plus chips - inside the wrap! - for only 4TL. We also bought yummy honey sweets from a little stall on the road on the way back to our meeting place. After meeting with the rest of the group we walked a fair way to the sea and caught a ferry down the Bosphorus, which separates Europe and Asia. It was a bit hard to hear Tolga explaining things over the PA but it was just nice to relax. We saw a castle-type structure, graveyard, few bridges and biiiig buildings. An hour and a half later we hopped off. We went inside the Spice Bazaar with lots of free Turkish Delight samples, plus lots of teas and, you guessed it, spices. Like the Grand Bazaar but smaller, and almost more crowded because of that.
We followed the tram tracks all the way back to the hotel. It was about 6pm and we had until 8pm to meet for dinner so we just relaxed some more, utilised the free wifi, had showers, tried on Mum's scarf and ended up wearing it out. The bus took about half an hour and Kate and I chatted all the way.
The place was pretty amazing - a dark and crowded restaurant (not just our tour group), with a stage in the centre, chandeliers. Over the night the entertainment was 4 belly dancers, a couple of traditional dance groups, a Turkish singer and a magician (awesome). Getting food for vego (me) and gluten free (Kate) was a bit of a hassle but we ended up with 4 dishes each - for me antipasto platter to start with, cheese/potato samosas, vegies/rice/chips/salad, and fresh fruit and ice-cream for dessert. Plus we managed to get through a bottle of wine just the 2 of us, even though neither of us liked wine. So full by the end!
After the acts they started playing mainstream music so the section where the stage was turned into a dancefloor and we all had fun dancing all the food off. The bus ride back seemed a lot shorter, I guess there was more traffic and we were hungry and desperate on the way over.
I picked up the key from reception, assumed Janet was still out but after turning on the lights, had a bit of an 'oh s*!t' moment when I saw her in bed. Slept about 12:15am.
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Had to wake up at 5am the next morning, Wednesday 20th April, to get packed, take our bags down and have breakfast at 5:30am. Felt like I was still full from the night before. We all got our tour hoodies which was very exciting. They were really warm and snug but left fluff on whatever you wore underneath.
On the bus I sat next to Margot, a woman in the group, and opposite Rose and Caitlin. We drove about an hour and a half to the seaside then drove onto a ferry and were on there for half an hour. We went upstairs to watch the journey from higher up but it was very windy outside, although the cold sort of woke me up. We all got back into the bus before we hit land again then we drove a bit more. A car drove into the bus as we were nearing our stopping place so that slowed us down: had to wait ages for the bus driver to fill out forms, etc. Apparently the car's driver was intoxicated and ran away from the car because it is a huge offence in Turkey.
Eventually we stopped in Bursa; the Grand Mosque we were supposed to be visiting was closed to tourist groups on that day - bad planning? I think yes. We did have a bit of a wander through the silk markets and went with Kate to find a padlock (which we discovered is 'kilit' in Turkish), finally we found one at about the 3rd place. We wandered back through what we supposed was the silk market, felt nice scarves and piles of silk/wool. I got a non-silk scarf for 1TL. We also found a stall with awesome gem rings for 5TL but they were all too big for me :(
We waited for the bus then drove 1/2 hour or so more. During the driving bits we did a bit of get-to-know-you come-up-to-the-front-of-the-bus stuff - name, nicknames, where you're from, travel plans, 'traffic lights'/relationship status, embarrassing moment/random fact which was entertaining in parts. We stopped at a big shopping centre for lunch. We even had to go through a security thing like at an airport to get in, crazy. We found the food court but didn't know what anything was, how the prices worked, or what was vego so I just stuck with spaghetti with tomato sauce/olives/feta.
Back in the bus... we stopped a while later at a service station for toilets, massive line for the girls' of course. Gorgeous scenery surrounding us though, and all the drives were just beautiful. On the last part of the journey we watched Wedding Crashers & Anchorman, then slept. We finally arrived at Pamukkale a bit after 7:30pm.
We got our room keys, took our bags up, then took our cameras up to the incredible white hills at the end of the street. It was raining lightly but nothing could dull how excited we were all feeling. We walked back to the hotel and got dinner, which wasn't meant to be one of our included meals but was because we arrived so late - a huge buffet + desserts. Ate lots then had a shower and got to bed about 10:30pm.
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Can't remember what time we got up on Thursday 21st April but we packed all our stuff up and went up for breakfast, another yummy buffet - proper chocolatey cereal, random cheeses, olives and more. Then we drove to the calcium hills we visited last night and wandered around for a couple of hours. Amazing views. There were also thermal springs, which I was eventually persuaded to put my feet in. I was told it wasn't slippery and my camera would be looked after but I still managed to slip. Straightaway. In front of everyone. Very embarrassing. Decided I might as well just go in now and the hot moving water was very nice. Hopped out and kept walking around for a bit, taking lots of photos (need I even mention that?).
Back at the bus, we then headed to Aprodisias, which was lots of old ruins and things. Took group photos in the 'theatre'. On the way to Kusadasi we stopped somewhere for lunch where we got lentil soup, cheese/meat pides, vegie skewers with cous cous, and strawberries. There were adorably cute little puppies just wandering around and our group kind of adopted one that came inside. We were also serenaded by a guy playing mandolin around the table.
We watched 40 Year Old Virgin until we arrived at our beachside resort. We put our things in our room, then came out onto the balcony only to find the rest of the group doing the same. We didn't have the best view but you could see a patch of sea. Georgie, Aisling & Kate's view from their triple room was much better - higher up with a view straight over the sea including sunset. We all put on summery clothes (feeling optimistic) and walked over the road to the beach, took photos of the sunset. We found a 'supermarket' - very small - and bought cornettos and corn thins (about the only thing that wasn't chips or biscuits). We sat on the beach and ate our food then got ready and went up to the others' room for a bit of pre-drinking before we went out with the entire tour group plus the other Topdeck group.
Instead of Turkish clubs, we were taken to 2 'Irish Pubs' opposite each other. We had lots of fun dancing on tables, getting free shirts advertising the places, trying to steal roses from guys walking around with them. We left about 2:30-3am and pretty much went straight to bed.
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Being on a mainly Aussie tour, they understand that you need your sleep after a big night out. So we were able to get up after 9am on Friday 22nd April. Didn't feel too bad either. We had a nice breakfast - real cornflakes, cheese, olives, and took a boiled egg for later. Maybe weird but turned out well. We brought our packed bags downstairs, then walked along the beach road to a proper supermarket to buy lunch stuff - got a big loaf of bread, 2 apples and 2 bananas for Janet and me to share.
We left for Ephesus, another ancient city with another theatre, a 'library', ancient toilet holes,and a random fake gladiator fight. We got a 'pro' group photo taken in front of some ruins, the library possibly, which a few of us bought later for 5TL.
We then drove to a restaurant for lunch, where some people had a buffet inside, and we sat outside and ate the things we'd already bought - egg then banana in roll. We sat in the sun, and sap unfortunately, which still hasn't come out of the skirt I was wearing.
We randomly stopped at some leather place for a fashion show, free apple tea and people trying to sell us €1000+ leather jackets. We think they must have been Tolga's friends or something.
Back at the same hotel as the night before, we relaxed on the beach for a few hours - writing journals, eating ice-cream, and talking to young Turkish girls trying to practice their English, very sweet. Everything was gorgeous, with an amazing view of the sea in front of us and a huge hill to the left covered in buildings (lights the night before).
We got dinner about 7:30pm, another included meal of bread, soup, cheese, pasta, rice with vegies, potato salad. We sat outside to take in the gorgeous sunset over the water again. Another cat was hanging around too. There was also so much dessert: profiteroles with so much chocolate sauce, 2 cakes, plus more, and baklava appeared after we'd finished :(
We went back to our rooms, got ready for another night out, back up to G, A & K's room. Rose, Kate & Georgie decided to stay in that night (very wisely) so Aisling, Caitlin, Janet & I headed out, while the rest of the tour had gone a bit earlier. We had a much shorter night, but with more free tops and a free shot. Stuff happened and we ended up leaving very early, not particularly happily. It was also very interesting back at the hotel but that needn't be explained (read: don't ask). Let's just say Janet ended up sleeping in the bathroom in our room. Literally got into bed at 12:30am, how embarrassment.
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The last week of our holidays to come soon.
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