hey,
So the day after I arrived in Istanbul I walked through the Topkapi palace. It was pretty amazing. Very, very beautiful. And the Treasury was incredible! there were sooo many pieces of intricate and elaborate Jewelery and thrones and stuff. Oh and swords and guns! I wish I could have taken photos, but of course I wasn't able to, but I got some postcards which show some of the pretty cool stuff.
That day I also met up with Molly, Chris and Bahaa. It was great to see some friends again, because being alone I was starting to get a little bit bored. They were leaving the next day for London.
The next day I caught a ferry for 17.5 lira up the Bosphorous. The weather had cleared up by this stage, so it was a great day to do the cruise. When I got on, some young Turkish man realized pretty quickly that I was alone, and so he sat next to me and asked all the usual questions. 'Where are you from?' etc. When he started taking photos of me, i started getting a little creeped out. So I was a bit rude and just got up and walked away from him and found two english speaking ladies and asked them if I could stand with them because I had a unwanted suitor who wouldn't leave me alone. They were great and let me hang around them. We ended up spending the whole day together and had lunch. The cruise was great. Got to see lots of beautiful palaces and houses and eventually we got up to where the bosphorous meets the Black sea.
On wednesday I went to the Archeological museum, which was a little bit boring. I thought the Museum in Syria was much more interesting. Then I ended up in Taksim.
The next day I went for a walk to the Dolmache palace (ok the spelling is way off, but it's something like that). And i walked for a long time! and when I got there, it was closed. So that sucked. Then I tried to find some iron church place, but I couldn't find that and ended up in some suburb called Ortokoy, and that was lovely. Found a nice little cafe for lunch and found a super cheap designer store warehouse, so bought some more pressies for ppl.
The next day was Friday and that was the day I had to catch a flight to Beirut. I went to get money out, and all of a sudden realise my debit card is not in my pouch. So I raced back to my hostel to search my bags, and still no sign of my debit card. So that caused me a lot of stress. But i still have a credit card, so now i'm living off of cash advances, which isn't what i want to be doing, but I don't really have a choice.
That night I caught a flight from istanbul to Beirut. It was painful! To start off with, my flight was delayed by 2 hours. then the kid in front of me was terrified of flying and screamed the WHOLE way!!!!! So once I got through customs, and passport and visa stuff, i met my taxi driver at like 3am! Luckily he was still there waiting for me! even though I had booked him, I didn't think he would still be there.
So I arrived at 3:30am to my hostel, and woke the poor girl up sleeping in the dorm room with me, and then I finally got to bed and crashed.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Sunday, February 15, 2009
back to istanbul
so the last two days I just lazed around Selcuk. On Friday I went to have a traditional Turkish hamam (turkish bath). It was good. a little weird, but good. Because this town I was in is a small town, the hamam isn't a touristy thing, it's the real deal. These women spend ALL of Friday afternoon at the hamam. It's like the local gossip place...ok so I don't speak Turkish, but I can tell the tone that is used when women gossip... (and on this particular day I'm pretty sure I was the topic of gossip! i don't think they get a lot of tourists at this hamam. and i realized pretty quickly that this was the place you came to be seen... haha that sentence works literally as well... It's so weird to be in a world where it is the norm to be covered up, and expected to be covered, but as soon as ur inside the hamam, it's NOT normal if you are covered up. so strange for me...
i wanted to go out yesterday to see a little beachside town called Kucadasi, but it was thunderstorms and rain and hail all day... so i had to entertain myself until 10pm when i had to catch my bus. so i got very bored. but then i caught my bus. good bus company. they served good cake...the marble kind! (we judge the quality of the bus company on the type of cake they give you!) nah it was a very comfy ride... until I got woken up and booted off at 7am, 2 hours before we were meant to get to istanbul. I got directed in my bleary eyed, semi-conscious state to a servees, and tried to communicate in them with a mix of broken english and arabic (because of course that's what Turks can understand!) that i needed to go to Sultanahmet, not some other suburb, all the while trying to count my bags (suddenly realising I had left one on the bus with mum and dad;s awesome and slightly expensive wine jug in it!) don't fret though! I got it... im just so used to counting three bags... not four. this extra luggage thing is gonna take some adjusting to.
so once all my bags were accounted for, I got onto this servees, slightly fuming because I was told that i would have to catch the metro at Aksaray, and catching the metro with 4 bags was going to be a real pain in the ass. and then they don't even drop me off at aksaray!!! they drop me off way earlier thinking i'm a stupid tourist, i won't know where I am. So i got more annoyed, but the guy had already pulled my bags off before i could argue with him, so i just got off...
and then had to haul my luggage down the stupid stairs to buy the stupid ticket, and then haul them all back up to the top to get on the tram... only to then realize that i am on the wrong side of the tracks... (i'll never get used to this right hand road driving thing!) and so i crossed the tracks, with my four bags, only to THEN be questioned by the officer dude where my ticket was coz he thought i had come in from the road, but hadn't seen me come across the tracks. So i rambled in really fast english, in a really annoyed voice what I had just gone thru, and you know how there is a gossiping tone...well there is an annoyed tone too, and it's the same in every language... well at least in turkish, and he got the idea and left me alone.
and THEN... i had to find my hostel. well. Turks love to be helpful... and i got about 5 people telling me where my hostel was... all pointing in different directions of course. After about half and hour, and 2 litres of sweat drenching my clothes, i stumbled across the Antique HOTEl.. not hostel. hotel. i needed hostel. So because I'm super prepared and all, I didn't have the addy of my hostel on a piece of paper, but i had it on my laptop. So i put all 4 bags down, sat on them, got my macbook out, got the addy. then got a taxi driver to take me there. to then find out they were all booked out.
but the good news is they have a sister hostel. just as nice. around the corner. adn i had a room all to myself! for a few hours anyway, and now I'm sharing with a japanese guy, but he's really nice, so it's cool.
and today i did a bit of shopping. went for a big walk. found out about an awesome topkapi palace tour which is cheap! and then had dinner. and now i'm looking at going to bed real soon, coz I'm stuffed.
love me
i wanted to go out yesterday to see a little beachside town called Kucadasi, but it was thunderstorms and rain and hail all day... so i had to entertain myself until 10pm when i had to catch my bus. so i got very bored. but then i caught my bus. good bus company. they served good cake...the marble kind! (we judge the quality of the bus company on the type of cake they give you!) nah it was a very comfy ride... until I got woken up and booted off at 7am, 2 hours before we were meant to get to istanbul. I got directed in my bleary eyed, semi-conscious state to a servees, and tried to communicate in them with a mix of broken english and arabic (because of course that's what Turks can understand!) that i needed to go to Sultanahmet, not some other suburb, all the while trying to count my bags (suddenly realising I had left one on the bus with mum and dad;s awesome and slightly expensive wine jug in it!) don't fret though! I got it... im just so used to counting three bags... not four. this extra luggage thing is gonna take some adjusting to.
so once all my bags were accounted for, I got onto this servees, slightly fuming because I was told that i would have to catch the metro at Aksaray, and catching the metro with 4 bags was going to be a real pain in the ass. and then they don't even drop me off at aksaray!!! they drop me off way earlier thinking i'm a stupid tourist, i won't know where I am. So i got more annoyed, but the guy had already pulled my bags off before i could argue with him, so i just got off...
and then had to haul my luggage down the stupid stairs to buy the stupid ticket, and then haul them all back up to the top to get on the tram... only to then realize that i am on the wrong side of the tracks... (i'll never get used to this right hand road driving thing!) and so i crossed the tracks, with my four bags, only to THEN be questioned by the officer dude where my ticket was coz he thought i had come in from the road, but hadn't seen me come across the tracks. So i rambled in really fast english, in a really annoyed voice what I had just gone thru, and you know how there is a gossiping tone...well there is an annoyed tone too, and it's the same in every language... well at least in turkish, and he got the idea and left me alone.
and THEN... i had to find my hostel. well. Turks love to be helpful... and i got about 5 people telling me where my hostel was... all pointing in different directions of course. After about half and hour, and 2 litres of sweat drenching my clothes, i stumbled across the Antique HOTEl.. not hostel. hotel. i needed hostel. So because I'm super prepared and all, I didn't have the addy of my hostel on a piece of paper, but i had it on my laptop. So i put all 4 bags down, sat on them, got my macbook out, got the addy. then got a taxi driver to take me there. to then find out they were all booked out.
but the good news is they have a sister hostel. just as nice. around the corner. adn i had a room all to myself! for a few hours anyway, and now I'm sharing with a japanese guy, but he's really nice, so it's cool.
and today i did a bit of shopping. went for a big walk. found out about an awesome topkapi palace tour which is cheap! and then had dinner. and now i'm looking at going to bed real soon, coz I'm stuffed.
love me
pammukkale and heliopolis. or heriopolis.
So the next day another Canadian guy rocked up to my hostel (oh yeah, i had the whole place to myself that night! it was great!) and he came with us on the three hour trip to Pammukkale. sucked for him, coz he just got off an 11 hour bus trip to get to Selcuk, only to get back on another bus! but he wanted to.
Pammukkale was sweet. It looks like snow, but it's calcium formations and there are hot springs nearby so there are pretty little pools around. We had three hours to explore the place, and the ruins of Heriopolis/Heliopolis can't remember which city it was, are directly behind the calcium stuff. So we wandered around the ruins for a few hours. This city was HUGE! way bigger than Ephesus. Maybe not as well preserved as Ephesus or Jerash, but it was sooooooooooo big. We found the place where Phillip was martyred too, so that was cool.
Then we headed back home on the bus, although this time it was 3.5 hours... and all went out for dinner, and got some tasty mini kepaps (they spell funny here in turkey!) oh yeah and before we left pammukkale steph and josh found Magnum icecreams, which they thought was great coz they don't get them in Canada.
Pammukkale was sweet. It looks like snow, but it's calcium formations and there are hot springs nearby so there are pretty little pools around. We had three hours to explore the place, and the ruins of Heriopolis/Heliopolis can't remember which city it was, are directly behind the calcium stuff. So we wandered around the ruins for a few hours. This city was HUGE! way bigger than Ephesus. Maybe not as well preserved as Ephesus or Jerash, but it was sooooooooooo big. We found the place where Phillip was martyred too, so that was cool.
Then we headed back home on the bus, although this time it was 3.5 hours... and all went out for dinner, and got some tasty mini kepaps (they spell funny here in turkey!) oh yeah and before we left pammukkale steph and josh found Magnum icecreams, which they thought was great coz they don't get them in Canada.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
mary's house, jo leaving, and getting sick. again.
Yesterday we met up with Steph and Josh and got a lift with Harry to Mary's House. this house is supposedly the house that she ended up in because Jesus told John to look after his mother, and this is the area that John ended up in. Also some Catholic nun who was invalid and had never left Germany had a vision of where her house was and the description was exactly like the house found outside of Ephesus. The place was a little overrated and way too expensive. But I think Granny Flo will appreciate the photos. And I bought her some Holy Water.
After Mary's house, Harry took us to his brother's ex-wife's ceramic workshop. This was one of the best places we've seen for pottery so far, and his ex-sister in law was really lovely too. They gave the four of us the huge demonstration on the pottery wheel, and the ladies who hand paint ALL their ceramics. No design is the same, which is pretty cool. And then we were shown the way they were coated and fired again. Then of course after that we were shown the gallery and "please don't feel you have to buy anything, but it is low season, so everything is half price". haha
So of course, we found many things we loved! The really great thing about the clay from this area is that it has a quartz mix and its very strong and very light. Great for a backpacker. I found mum and dad a Hitite wine jug and bargained it down to less than 100 lira! And then the special creation of this particular ceramics place is their lanterns. No where in Turkey or the Middle East have I seen these, and they were just soooooo beautiful. I had to get one. It cost a bit. But i just had to. And so did Jo... We all bought stuff that day, the canadians and us, so the shop people were happy. we were happy. even if someone was getting a commission.
Next we headed to the bus station to send Jo off on her way to Greece. That was a bit sad for me, 'coz I was now by myself, and I'd been with Jo all since Jordan. But I'll see her again when I get back to Aus.
Once she left, Josh, Steph and I, caught a bus up to a town in the mountains called Sirence. It was a beautiful little village and the name means 'lovely' or 'beautiful' or something. This never used to be it's name. According to the LP, the people who founded it actually name it 'Ugly' so that no one would come to their little piece of paradise that they had found. But the Turkish government changed it's name a while ago.
The town specializes in fruit wines. So we tried cherry, melon, strawberry, blackberry, tangerine, quince and something else. It was all pretty awful, as you could imagine. BUt I guess some people might like it. Then we headed up to a little jewelery store which turned out to be the jeweler who made all the jewelery for the movie Troy, as well as some for Lord of the Rings for Aragon. neways, i have been looking at buying a ring over here, ones with ruby, emerald and sapphire stones in them. Good ones are really expensive, and I found one in this shop, but wasn't being serious when I asked to look at it. Well the price started off at $100... and in the end he dropped it to $35... so I bought it! i spent way too much money that day!
we headed back to Selcuk and got dinner... and as soon as we had ordered and the bread was served, a wave of nausea hit me, and I had to race to the bathroom. After about 10 minutes in the bathroom I realised I wasn't going to be able to eat my meal that had just been served to my table, and left some money with the Canadians, and walked as quickly as possible back to the hostel. and i was violently ill for a good hour or so. too bad if anyone needed to use the one share bathroom we had. A Brazillian guy was lovely though, and got me water and helped me to my bed. and i slept, and when i woke, i was hungry, so Mehmet, the owner, made me vegemite toast.
so it was some form of food poisoning i imagine. But i hurled my stomach up so good that I got it completely out of my system and I have been fine since! which was great because the next day we decided to head to Pammukkale, and I really wanted to see that place.
After Mary's house, Harry took us to his brother's ex-wife's ceramic workshop. This was one of the best places we've seen for pottery so far, and his ex-sister in law was really lovely too. They gave the four of us the huge demonstration on the pottery wheel, and the ladies who hand paint ALL their ceramics. No design is the same, which is pretty cool. And then we were shown the way they were coated and fired again. Then of course after that we were shown the gallery and "please don't feel you have to buy anything, but it is low season, so everything is half price". haha
So of course, we found many things we loved! The really great thing about the clay from this area is that it has a quartz mix and its very strong and very light. Great for a backpacker. I found mum and dad a Hitite wine jug and bargained it down to less than 100 lira! And then the special creation of this particular ceramics place is their lanterns. No where in Turkey or the Middle East have I seen these, and they were just soooooo beautiful. I had to get one. It cost a bit. But i just had to. And so did Jo... We all bought stuff that day, the canadians and us, so the shop people were happy. we were happy. even if someone was getting a commission.
Next we headed to the bus station to send Jo off on her way to Greece. That was a bit sad for me, 'coz I was now by myself, and I'd been with Jo all since Jordan. But I'll see her again when I get back to Aus.
Once she left, Josh, Steph and I, caught a bus up to a town in the mountains called Sirence. It was a beautiful little village and the name means 'lovely' or 'beautiful' or something. This never used to be it's name. According to the LP, the people who founded it actually name it 'Ugly' so that no one would come to their little piece of paradise that they had found. But the Turkish government changed it's name a while ago.
The town specializes in fruit wines. So we tried cherry, melon, strawberry, blackberry, tangerine, quince and something else. It was all pretty awful, as you could imagine. BUt I guess some people might like it. Then we headed up to a little jewelery store which turned out to be the jeweler who made all the jewelery for the movie Troy, as well as some for Lord of the Rings for Aragon. neways, i have been looking at buying a ring over here, ones with ruby, emerald and sapphire stones in them. Good ones are really expensive, and I found one in this shop, but wasn't being serious when I asked to look at it. Well the price started off at $100... and in the end he dropped it to $35... so I bought it! i spent way too much money that day!
we headed back to Selcuk and got dinner... and as soon as we had ordered and the bread was served, a wave of nausea hit me, and I had to race to the bathroom. After about 10 minutes in the bathroom I realised I wasn't going to be able to eat my meal that had just been served to my table, and left some money with the Canadians, and walked as quickly as possible back to the hostel. and i was violently ill for a good hour or so. too bad if anyone needed to use the one share bathroom we had. A Brazillian guy was lovely though, and got me water and helped me to my bed. and i slept, and when i woke, i was hungry, so Mehmet, the owner, made me vegemite toast.
so it was some form of food poisoning i imagine. But i hurled my stomach up so good that I got it completely out of my system and I have been fine since! which was great because the next day we decided to head to Pammukkale, and I really wanted to see that place.
Troy and Ephesus.
The next morning it was raining. Like always. We had packed up all our stuff, and I was trying to decide if I should leave my boots behind because they were falling apart, but I love them so much and they help keep me jeans dry(mostly) and I had remembered seeing a shoe repairer around the corner. So in the end I decided to get them fixed, and it only cost 5 lira and he did a great job of replacing the sole. I’m not sure if they’ll make it home to Australia, but hopefully they’ll last ‘til the end of my trip.
We ate a traditional turkish brekky at out hotel. Boiled egg, bread, cucumber, tomato, cheese etc. Then we headed for the mini bus that would take us to Troy. It took about 40 mins to get there, and cost 15 lira to get in. We met some Canadian folk on our way there. Steph and Josh. (At least I think that’s what there names are, I’m not entirely sure coz even though I have now travelled with them for the past few days, we never actually introduced ourselves, but she calls him Josh, and I’m pretty sure he called her Steph today! Haha. I was gonna get around it by asking what their full names were so I could add them on facebook.)
We took photos on the big replica of the horse from the legends...which to be honest, was the most exciting thing there. But we knew there wasn’t a lot to see there... Well nothing amazing. You kind of go to Troy just to say that you’ve been there. It was still worth doing. It was very pretty all around it. And green. I’m so used to seeing ruins in the desert.
After Troy, the Canadians and Jo and I all caught a bus to Izmir together, ‘coz we were all headed to Ephesus next. And it was an AWFUL bus ride. Ok it wasn’t that bad, but it was meant to be a 5 hour trip, and it became a 6.5 hour trip because they stuffed around and let people off at their houses and the driver was slow, and they didn’t give is the free cake until right at the end, and I sat next to the door so it was always cold, and always got the cigarette smoke from out bus steward who opened up the middle door every 5 minutes to have a fag, We were so mad by the end.
But we eventually got there, and then caught another mini bus to Selcuk, the town where Epehsus is and where we were staying that night. We parted ways with the Canadians, whose names we still didn’t know, and we headed to the ANZ Guest house. We were the only ones for our first night here, so we had the whole place to ourselves. The owners have been fantastic. So helpful and kind and friendly! They ordered us dinner ‘coz we arrived so late at night and then Mehmet gave us a full on orientation of Selcuk and Ephesus and all the thinngs to do around here. After a couple of cups of apple tea, we went to sleep.
Next morning was Ephesus. I was pretty excited ‘coz so much stuff in the Bible happens here, and it was really cool to be in such a historic place. I still think that Jerash was more spectacular, however I knew more about this place, so it was rather special going here. We bumped into the Canadians again, and grabbed some lunch with them after we left Ephesus.
We ate a traditional turkish brekky at out hotel. Boiled egg, bread, cucumber, tomato, cheese etc. Then we headed for the mini bus that would take us to Troy. It took about 40 mins to get there, and cost 15 lira to get in. We met some Canadian folk on our way there. Steph and Josh. (At least I think that’s what there names are, I’m not entirely sure coz even though I have now travelled with them for the past few days, we never actually introduced ourselves, but she calls him Josh, and I’m pretty sure he called her Steph today! Haha. I was gonna get around it by asking what their full names were so I could add them on facebook.)
We took photos on the big replica of the horse from the legends...which to be honest, was the most exciting thing there. But we knew there wasn’t a lot to see there... Well nothing amazing. You kind of go to Troy just to say that you’ve been there. It was still worth doing. It was very pretty all around it. And green. I’m so used to seeing ruins in the desert.
After Troy, the Canadians and Jo and I all caught a bus to Izmir together, ‘coz we were all headed to Ephesus next. And it was an AWFUL bus ride. Ok it wasn’t that bad, but it was meant to be a 5 hour trip, and it became a 6.5 hour trip because they stuffed around and let people off at their houses and the driver was slow, and they didn’t give is the free cake until right at the end, and I sat next to the door so it was always cold, and always got the cigarette smoke from out bus steward who opened up the middle door every 5 minutes to have a fag, We were so mad by the end.
But we eventually got there, and then caught another mini bus to Selcuk, the town where Epehsus is and where we were staying that night. We parted ways with the Canadians, whose names we still didn’t know, and we headed to the ANZ Guest house. We were the only ones for our first night here, so we had the whole place to ourselves. The owners have been fantastic. So helpful and kind and friendly! They ordered us dinner ‘coz we arrived so late at night and then Mehmet gave us a full on orientation of Selcuk and Ephesus and all the thinngs to do around here. After a couple of cups of apple tea, we went to sleep.
Next morning was Ephesus. I was pretty excited ‘coz so much stuff in the Bible happens here, and it was really cool to be in such a historic place. I still think that Jerash was more spectacular, however I knew more about this place, so it was rather special going here. We bumped into the Canadians again, and grabbed some lunch with them after we left Ephesus.
Gallipoli and the Boomerang Bar,
Hey hey,
So a few days ago we got to Gallipoli. After I wrote last, we got on the ferry and crossed the Dardanelle channel to a town on the other side called Ecabat. When we got there, a man from the Crowded House Hotel met us and told us to wait in the lobby until our guide arrived. If you’re ever going to visit Gallipoli, you have to stay at this place! It’s brand new, comfortable, modern, and has Australiana stuff all over it! The guys there were really helpful and while were waiting gave us heaps of info on places we could stay in the next couple of towns we were going to. Their names were Paully and Simon. And they’ve hung around Aussies a LOT.
Anyway then we got told that we were having a private tour because we were the only ones to come on the tour that day, so we had our guide and a little taxi all to ourselves. It was fantastic, and our driver knew so much about the Gallipoli campaign and told the stories so well. I wish he could’ve been my history teacher in high school... I probably would have remembered stuff a lot better. Because it’s winter here too, it’s dead quiet so we saw all the sites by ourselves, which was great.
It was a pretty somber experience being there. I didn’t have any family in that battle or anything, but it was still really emotional to look at graves of 20 year old men, and go, ‘that could have been my brother or my friend’. It’s hard to describe. But what is really amazing is the friendship the Turks and Australians have now, even though all that time ago they fought and killed one another. Turks love Australians here. Well in this area anyway. The words of Attaturk were pretty amazing too...
So after Gallipoli we headed back to the Crowded House Hotel to wait for the next ferry. The guys there ended up giving us a beer and chatting to us and asked if we’d like some dinner. So we walked up to the Boomerang Bar and they made a salad and cooked fresh fish on the open fire, which was soooooooo yummy, and we tried Rake, a Turkish drink kind of like Absynth, and tastes just as awful. We both had one sip each and handed back our glasses. These guys were great and they had so much helpful advice for us!
After that we headed back to Cannakkale on the ferry and had an early night.
So a few days ago we got to Gallipoli. After I wrote last, we got on the ferry and crossed the Dardanelle channel to a town on the other side called Ecabat. When we got there, a man from the Crowded House Hotel met us and told us to wait in the lobby until our guide arrived. If you’re ever going to visit Gallipoli, you have to stay at this place! It’s brand new, comfortable, modern, and has Australiana stuff all over it! The guys there were really helpful and while were waiting gave us heaps of info on places we could stay in the next couple of towns we were going to. Their names were Paully and Simon. And they’ve hung around Aussies a LOT.
Anyway then we got told that we were having a private tour because we were the only ones to come on the tour that day, so we had our guide and a little taxi all to ourselves. It was fantastic, and our driver knew so much about the Gallipoli campaign and told the stories so well. I wish he could’ve been my history teacher in high school... I probably would have remembered stuff a lot better. Because it’s winter here too, it’s dead quiet so we saw all the sites by ourselves, which was great.
It was a pretty somber experience being there. I didn’t have any family in that battle or anything, but it was still really emotional to look at graves of 20 year old men, and go, ‘that could have been my brother or my friend’. It’s hard to describe. But what is really amazing is the friendship the Turks and Australians have now, even though all that time ago they fought and killed one another. Turks love Australians here. Well in this area anyway. The words of Attaturk were pretty amazing too...
So after Gallipoli we headed back to the Crowded House Hotel to wait for the next ferry. The guys there ended up giving us a beer and chatting to us and asked if we’d like some dinner. So we walked up to the Boomerang Bar and they made a salad and cooked fresh fish on the open fire, which was soooooooo yummy, and we tried Rake, a Turkish drink kind of like Absynth, and tastes just as awful. We both had one sip each and handed back our glasses. These guys were great and they had so much helpful advice for us!
After that we headed back to Cannakkale on the ferry and had an early night.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
road to Gallipoli
Last night Jo and I left our hostel at around 9:15pm to head to the bus station. We said goodbye to Belinda, she is flying out of Istanbul on Monday. She would have liked to come to Gallipoli with us but she didn’t want to risk not getting back in time for her flight to Amman.
Before we left we had asked the Tourist Info guy at our hostel how, where and when we could get a bus to Canakkale. He was extremely unhelpful and was more interested in making a commission out of us than helping us, so much so that he even booked us on a tour even when we just asked about prices and hadn’t decided! That is one thing that we haven’t liked about Turkey. No one helps you unless there is something in it for them. So once we cleared up that we DIDN’T want to spend $200 on a day trip to Troy and Gallipoli (That price doesn’t even include accommodation!) we decided that we would have to do this by ourselves. The Lonely Planet said that we could find cheaper tours in the town, so we trusted that information.
To get to the bus station we had to catch the tram all the way to a stop which connected with the Metro line, which then took us to the bus station. It was pretty easy, however lots of steps to carry luggage up ad down on, which kinda sucked, but each time I had to haul my luggage up a massive flight of stairs there were (in both cases) men aged over the age of 40, picking up my bag and carrying it for me. So I have decided that I like all turkish men over the age of 40. The rest have to prove themselves.
When we got to the bus station at around 10pm, we found out that the bus left at 12:45, so we had to wait a couple if hours, but that was fine. Once on the bus we tried to get some sleep, but the ride was very, very bumpy, and I’m not one for getting car sick, but when I woke up at 2:30 am, I was suddenly feeling very unwell. At first I thought that maybe it was food poisoning, but my tummy didn’t hurt like food poisoning, but nonetheless I grabbed the nearest bag, which unfortunately was the same bag had all my nuts and dried fruit in from the spice market, and was sick. I was so annoyed, not that I was sick, but coz all that food went to waste!!!! And it wasn’t cheap either... And it was meant to last me the next few days for snacks. But anyway. I felt fine after I threw up, so I guess that’s good.
So we got here this morning and headed to the Yellow Rose Pension, however no one answered, so we went a got breakfast (at this bakery and I was eating bread with vegemite and the baker thought it was chocolate spread and asked if he could try some, haha, he didn’t like it very much, but it was funny) and tried an hour later, but still no answer, and after peeping inside the place looked like it was in the middle or renovations. So We walked down the road to a place called Anzac Hotel...but that was 155 a night for a double. So then we walked around the corner to Anzac House Youth Hostel, which is the place I originally booked before coming. Anyway they were extremely unhelpful saying the hostel was closed, they were only running tours, but I argued that I had a booking with them, so how could they be closed? And he was totally useless, and pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about. Anyway so we walked up the road and checked out this place called Konak Hotel and it was only $50 for a double. A little more than we wanted, but we had no hostel to go to.
After we checked in, we went out in the pouring rain to get some info from the tourist office... But of course, with the luck we were already having, it was closed! So we went back to the Anzac Hotel and asked them about tours and they were really really helpful! It’s only 50 lira for a tour of Gallipoli, which we will go on at 12pm today, and we will have to go to Troy tomorrow morning.
Before we left we had asked the Tourist Info guy at our hostel how, where and when we could get a bus to Canakkale. He was extremely unhelpful and was more interested in making a commission out of us than helping us, so much so that he even booked us on a tour even when we just asked about prices and hadn’t decided! That is one thing that we haven’t liked about Turkey. No one helps you unless there is something in it for them. So once we cleared up that we DIDN’T want to spend $200 on a day trip to Troy and Gallipoli (That price doesn’t even include accommodation!) we decided that we would have to do this by ourselves. The Lonely Planet said that we could find cheaper tours in the town, so we trusted that information.
To get to the bus station we had to catch the tram all the way to a stop which connected with the Metro line, which then took us to the bus station. It was pretty easy, however lots of steps to carry luggage up ad down on, which kinda sucked, but each time I had to haul my luggage up a massive flight of stairs there were (in both cases) men aged over the age of 40, picking up my bag and carrying it for me. So I have decided that I like all turkish men over the age of 40. The rest have to prove themselves.
When we got to the bus station at around 10pm, we found out that the bus left at 12:45, so we had to wait a couple if hours, but that was fine. Once on the bus we tried to get some sleep, but the ride was very, very bumpy, and I’m not one for getting car sick, but when I woke up at 2:30 am, I was suddenly feeling very unwell. At first I thought that maybe it was food poisoning, but my tummy didn’t hurt like food poisoning, but nonetheless I grabbed the nearest bag, which unfortunately was the same bag had all my nuts and dried fruit in from the spice market, and was sick. I was so annoyed, not that I was sick, but coz all that food went to waste!!!! And it wasn’t cheap either... And it was meant to last me the next few days for snacks. But anyway. I felt fine after I threw up, so I guess that’s good.
So we got here this morning and headed to the Yellow Rose Pension, however no one answered, so we went a got breakfast (at this bakery and I was eating bread with vegemite and the baker thought it was chocolate spread and asked if he could try some, haha, he didn’t like it very much, but it was funny) and tried an hour later, but still no answer, and after peeping inside the place looked like it was in the middle or renovations. So We walked down the road to a place called Anzac Hotel...but that was 155 a night for a double. So then we walked around the corner to Anzac House Youth Hostel, which is the place I originally booked before coming. Anyway they were extremely unhelpful saying the hostel was closed, they were only running tours, but I argued that I had a booking with them, so how could they be closed? And he was totally useless, and pretended he didn’t know what I was talking about. Anyway so we walked up the road and checked out this place called Konak Hotel and it was only $50 for a double. A little more than we wanted, but we had no hostel to go to.
After we checked in, we went out in the pouring rain to get some info from the tourist office... But of course, with the luck we were already having, it was closed! So we went back to the Anzac Hotel and asked them about tours and they were really really helpful! It’s only 50 lira for a tour of Gallipoli, which we will go on at 12pm today, and we will have to go to Troy tomorrow morning.
istanbul
Hey,
So we have just spent the last 5 days in Istanbul. It was pretty cool. We stayed at a hostel called Cordial House. For $12 a night it was fine, nothing as good as the place in Goreme though. Goreme had a great atmosphere about it, and the staff were so friendly and helpful.
The first day we went to the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya. The Blue Mosque was beautiful, but I still think the best mosque I have seen so far is the Ummayed Mosque in Damascus. The Blue mosque is amazing architectually (yes that’s a word) but the Ummayed mosque had the most stunning courtyard.
But by far, the best building I have seen is the Aya Sofya. That was indescribable. Not as beautiful as the blue mosque on the outside, but the inside was just so awesome. Note: Both the Ummayed and the Aya Sofya were churches before they became mosques... Interesting that they are the best I have seen so far :). Anyway, The Aya Sofya still had some Christian paintings and designs and mosaics even though it is now a mosque.
Our hostel was in Sultanahmet, which is a really touristy area. We were about 400 metres from the Aya Sofya and I would not recommend staying in this area. The prices were triple in terms of food etc! Not good for students on a tight budget. But by the 3rd day we took a tram to Beyoglu and that was a much nicer place. No hassling from restauranteurs or shop keepers wanting you to come into their business. I though Amman was bad with men, but here...unbelievable!
We went to the Grand Bazaar a few times, and we got lines like “sweetie, kiss my lips”, “lady, lady, you dropped something!” I made the mistake of turning around... “My heart!” they would reply. And I also got...” I saw you yesterday!” I just kept walking this time... Another man asks him “when, when did you see her?”... “in my dreams!” the other would say. Arghhhh it was awful! We got followed once to by the worst stalker in the world. He was so bad and so not subtle about it. In the end I think we scared him more than he scared us. I just turned around and stopped and glared at him as if to say “I know what your doing...and you suck at it” and when he realised we knew he was following us, he got scared and left us alone.
The Grand Bazaar really was crap compared to the souqs in Syria, both Damascus and Halab. I guess we are so used to bargaining and getting things dirt cheap, but here they won’t have any of it. I asked one guy how much the price of these copper painted plates were and he said 35 lira!!! In Jordan you could get them for 5JD, so 10 lira, (10AU), so I told him that, and he said to me rather rudely “well go back to Jordan and get it then!”, and I replied, “Well I am going back there, so I will!” and stormed out. The Turks are way more ruder in the souqs than in Syria and Jordan. They hassle you, especially ‘coz we’re girls, and when we ignore them they follow us and insult us. So I didn’t really like the Grand Bazaar that much. The Spice Bazaar was nice, lots of turkish delight and dried fruit, but ridiculously expensive. It’s one of the big tourist hot spots, so the prices are crazy.
So all in all, Istanbul was ok, I’m going back there for a few days after this trip to Gallipoli, Tory and Ephesus. I still want to see a few more things there like the Topkapi Palace, and take a boat up the Bosphorus. Jo and I have just arrived in Canakkale (pronounced with a Ch)
So we have just spent the last 5 days in Istanbul. It was pretty cool. We stayed at a hostel called Cordial House. For $12 a night it was fine, nothing as good as the place in Goreme though. Goreme had a great atmosphere about it, and the staff were so friendly and helpful.
The first day we went to the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofya. The Blue Mosque was beautiful, but I still think the best mosque I have seen so far is the Ummayed Mosque in Damascus. The Blue mosque is amazing architectually (yes that’s a word) but the Ummayed mosque had the most stunning courtyard.
But by far, the best building I have seen is the Aya Sofya. That was indescribable. Not as beautiful as the blue mosque on the outside, but the inside was just so awesome. Note: Both the Ummayed and the Aya Sofya were churches before they became mosques... Interesting that they are the best I have seen so far :). Anyway, The Aya Sofya still had some Christian paintings and designs and mosaics even though it is now a mosque.
Our hostel was in Sultanahmet, which is a really touristy area. We were about 400 metres from the Aya Sofya and I would not recommend staying in this area. The prices were triple in terms of food etc! Not good for students on a tight budget. But by the 3rd day we took a tram to Beyoglu and that was a much nicer place. No hassling from restauranteurs or shop keepers wanting you to come into their business. I though Amman was bad with men, but here...unbelievable!
We went to the Grand Bazaar a few times, and we got lines like “sweetie, kiss my lips”, “lady, lady, you dropped something!” I made the mistake of turning around... “My heart!” they would reply. And I also got...” I saw you yesterday!” I just kept walking this time... Another man asks him “when, when did you see her?”... “in my dreams!” the other would say. Arghhhh it was awful! We got followed once to by the worst stalker in the world. He was so bad and so not subtle about it. In the end I think we scared him more than he scared us. I just turned around and stopped and glared at him as if to say “I know what your doing...and you suck at it” and when he realised we knew he was following us, he got scared and left us alone.
The Grand Bazaar really was crap compared to the souqs in Syria, both Damascus and Halab. I guess we are so used to bargaining and getting things dirt cheap, but here they won’t have any of it. I asked one guy how much the price of these copper painted plates were and he said 35 lira!!! In Jordan you could get them for 5JD, so 10 lira, (10AU), so I told him that, and he said to me rather rudely “well go back to Jordan and get it then!”, and I replied, “Well I am going back there, so I will!” and stormed out. The Turks are way more ruder in the souqs than in Syria and Jordan. They hassle you, especially ‘coz we’re girls, and when we ignore them they follow us and insult us. So I didn’t really like the Grand Bazaar that much. The Spice Bazaar was nice, lots of turkish delight and dried fruit, but ridiculously expensive. It’s one of the big tourist hot spots, so the prices are crazy.
So all in all, Istanbul was ok, I’m going back there for a few days after this trip to Gallipoli, Tory and Ephesus. I still want to see a few more things there like the Topkapi Palace, and take a boat up the Bosphorus. Jo and I have just arrived in Canakkale (pronounced with a Ch)
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
cappodocia
We just spent the last few days in a town called Goreme in Cappodocia. It was so amazing. You have to check out my facebook photos to see what the landscape is like there, because it's way too hard to explain.
The first day after we arrived we went to the open air museum and looked at all these churches and caves which had been carved into the rock. It was so incredible.
After that we headed back into town and bought some lunch at this little cafe. The food was great! Jo and I had these turkish crepe things with spinach and a really yummy salad. In syria they are similar to saj's but i can't remember the turkish name for them atm.
In that cafe we got talking to the owner about what were the best things to see, and he offered us one of his employees to drive us around for the day, which was really nice. It;s winter here, so business is sooo slow for these guys, so they kinda pick up whatver work they can. So this guy took us around to all these places and was really helpful, getting us in an out of the fairy chimneys, and when he couldn't understand us, he rang the guy back at the shop to translate. At the end of our tour, we gave him $20, he didn't want to take it, but we made him.
The next day we went on a tour of an underground city and for a hike through the ilhara valley. It was a fantastic tour, and was worth the fifty lira we paid for it. Again, you have to see the photos to see what I mean. But we had to share a bus with these whining brits. We knew them already becuase back at the hostel they complain about EVERYTHING!!!!! "my foods not hot enough... fix it" nah it wasn't that bad... we just had to put up with it for a good 8 hours.
That night we caught a 7pm bus for istanbul. 11 hour trip... it wasn't too much fun at the start. we got the back row seats, and it took us about three hours to work out that our seats do in fact lean back... we just couldn't find the buttons... our bad. after that it was easier to try and sleep. i've had worse bus rides, but it proabably wasn't the best. but i did get to sleep most of the way.
So this morning we arrived in Istanbul. Took an hour to find a hostel, with thanks to the helpful locals who had conflicting directions :) but eventually we found it. it's quite nice. and only $12 aussie a night, so no complaining there. We couldn't check in until 12pm so we went to get a coffee and went for a walk around the Sultanahmet part of the city where we are staying.
One thing that sucks about Istanbul is that it's expensive. Especially compared to Jordan. Food prices are still better than Australia, but it kinda sucks when you have to eat out for every meal. So we've already sussed out some of the cheaper options.
Not sure if I'm gonna stay here for a full week and then head onto troy, ephesus and gallipoli once Belinda and Jo leave, or if I do it with them in the next few days and then head back to Istanbul. I leave here on the 20th for Beirut, so I've got plenty of time.
Ok keep you all posted
lots of love
carly
The first day after we arrived we went to the open air museum and looked at all these churches and caves which had been carved into the rock. It was so incredible.
After that we headed back into town and bought some lunch at this little cafe. The food was great! Jo and I had these turkish crepe things with spinach and a really yummy salad. In syria they are similar to saj's but i can't remember the turkish name for them atm.
In that cafe we got talking to the owner about what were the best things to see, and he offered us one of his employees to drive us around for the day, which was really nice. It;s winter here, so business is sooo slow for these guys, so they kinda pick up whatver work they can. So this guy took us around to all these places and was really helpful, getting us in an out of the fairy chimneys, and when he couldn't understand us, he rang the guy back at the shop to translate. At the end of our tour, we gave him $20, he didn't want to take it, but we made him.
The next day we went on a tour of an underground city and for a hike through the ilhara valley. It was a fantastic tour, and was worth the fifty lira we paid for it. Again, you have to see the photos to see what I mean. But we had to share a bus with these whining brits. We knew them already becuase back at the hostel they complain about EVERYTHING!!!!! "my foods not hot enough... fix it" nah it wasn't that bad... we just had to put up with it for a good 8 hours.
That night we caught a 7pm bus for istanbul. 11 hour trip... it wasn't too much fun at the start. we got the back row seats, and it took us about three hours to work out that our seats do in fact lean back... we just couldn't find the buttons... our bad. after that it was easier to try and sleep. i've had worse bus rides, but it proabably wasn't the best. but i did get to sleep most of the way.
So this morning we arrived in Istanbul. Took an hour to find a hostel, with thanks to the helpful locals who had conflicting directions :) but eventually we found it. it's quite nice. and only $12 aussie a night, so no complaining there. We couldn't check in until 12pm so we went to get a coffee and went for a walk around the Sultanahmet part of the city where we are staying.
One thing that sucks about Istanbul is that it's expensive. Especially compared to Jordan. Food prices are still better than Australia, but it kinda sucks when you have to eat out for every meal. So we've already sussed out some of the cheaper options.
Not sure if I'm gonna stay here for a full week and then head onto troy, ephesus and gallipoli once Belinda and Jo leave, or if I do it with them in the next few days and then head back to Istanbul. I leave here on the 20th for Beirut, so I've got plenty of time.
Ok keep you all posted
lots of love
carly
Sunday, February 1, 2009
turkey!
oday we woke up at 5:30 to a call to prayer gone wrong! It kept making feedback screeches and then would cut out, and then the imams voice would start again. I couldn’t help but laugh...but it was quite an annoying way to wake up.
We grabbed breakfast at the bakery, some cheese bread thing, and then grabbed a taxi to the bus station. Turkey is definitely going to take some getting used to because we had to pay 12.50 for a trip to the bus station, and in Amman that would have cost us 3.00 aussie dollars. But food is relatively cheap here When we got to the bus station we tried to find a bus directly to Goreme in Cappodocia, but none went there direct, so we caught a JET bus for 7 hours to a town called Aksaray, which was an hour away from Goreme. When we got to the outskirts of Aksaray the bus stopped at a rest station and we got a bit worried because normally when buses stop, they stop at a bus station, so we tried asking if we were going to be going to the bus station, or if the bus was just going to continue onto Ankara. Well... Let’s just say Turkey is not a country that you can get by in easily with no language skills. We were lucky that another man walking past overheard us and came up saying in English “I think I can help you”.
So it turns out that the bus wasn’t going to go to the bus station but they arranged a Servees to take us there instead. So we got in the servees and didn’t really know what was happening. He rambled something off in Turkish and the only words we recognised were ‘Bus’ and ‘Goreme’. So that was fine until he drove straight past the otogar (bus station). And we’re like “we wanna go there”... And he rambled off again...and we didn’t understand...again... But we knew he could understand a little Arabic, so we just spoke in Arabic to him. Anyway, so he took us to some bus company office, but they didn’t have a direct bus to Goreme, only to a nearby town, and we didn’t wanna stuff around and be waiting for buses in the dark, so we said to our servees driver “no, take us to the otogar!” But he wouldn’t listen and tried spinning some bull dust story that the otogar closed at 4pm and continued to take us somewhere else. By this stage we were pretty pissed off ‘coz we were in some strange town with a taxi driver who was more concerned about getting a commission than getting us to Goreme. At the second place he took us to Jo lost it at him and in really forceful, slow arabic, shouted... “NURIIDO AN NATHABA ILA OTOGAR” which means ‘We. Want. To Go to. The. Otogar!!” and he let off what must of been a few swear words in turkish and finally drove us there. We were then worried what he was going to charge us, because he’d been driving us around for half an hour! But he charged us nothing, so that was good.
At the otogar we found a direct bus at 6:30pm to Goreme, accept coz the guy knew it was the only bus he charged us a mint, and even the student line and the begging didn’t help us. Not to worry, because we finally got here and the hostel picked us up from the bus station. The place we’re staying in tonight is soooo cool. It’s in caves kinda like cooper peedy and its sooooo beautiful. We have only seen the surroundings at night, but we can’t wait to see everything tomorrow morning! The hostel does food here too, which was great coz we were starving when we arrived. So we all got a lovely home cooked stirfry and it was so yummy! And this place has internet access thank goodness coz I don’t have a phone and I hadn’t been able to contact home for 2 days.
So tomorrow we might do a tour around the place on foot. Maybe by bus... You can do balloon flights over Cappodocia, but its like 140 euros... So not gonna happen...
Oh yeah we drove through snow today on the way here!!!! It was so awesome. My first time seeing snow... Yeah I know, call me a hillbilly from sunny Australia, but it was soooo coool. I took lots of photos!
Well I’m off to bed... It’s amazing how tired you get from sitting on a bus for 9 hours all day!
Love carly
We grabbed breakfast at the bakery, some cheese bread thing, and then grabbed a taxi to the bus station. Turkey is definitely going to take some getting used to because we had to pay 12.50 for a trip to the bus station, and in Amman that would have cost us 3.00 aussie dollars. But food is relatively cheap here When we got to the bus station we tried to find a bus directly to Goreme in Cappodocia, but none went there direct, so we caught a JET bus for 7 hours to a town called Aksaray, which was an hour away from Goreme. When we got to the outskirts of Aksaray the bus stopped at a rest station and we got a bit worried because normally when buses stop, they stop at a bus station, so we tried asking if we were going to be going to the bus station, or if the bus was just going to continue onto Ankara. Well... Let’s just say Turkey is not a country that you can get by in easily with no language skills. We were lucky that another man walking past overheard us and came up saying in English “I think I can help you”.
So it turns out that the bus wasn’t going to go to the bus station but they arranged a Servees to take us there instead. So we got in the servees and didn’t really know what was happening. He rambled something off in Turkish and the only words we recognised were ‘Bus’ and ‘Goreme’. So that was fine until he drove straight past the otogar (bus station). And we’re like “we wanna go there”... And he rambled off again...and we didn’t understand...again... But we knew he could understand a little Arabic, so we just spoke in Arabic to him. Anyway, so he took us to some bus company office, but they didn’t have a direct bus to Goreme, only to a nearby town, and we didn’t wanna stuff around and be waiting for buses in the dark, so we said to our servees driver “no, take us to the otogar!” But he wouldn’t listen and tried spinning some bull dust story that the otogar closed at 4pm and continued to take us somewhere else. By this stage we were pretty pissed off ‘coz we were in some strange town with a taxi driver who was more concerned about getting a commission than getting us to Goreme. At the second place he took us to Jo lost it at him and in really forceful, slow arabic, shouted... “NURIIDO AN NATHABA ILA OTOGAR” which means ‘We. Want. To Go to. The. Otogar!!” and he let off what must of been a few swear words in turkish and finally drove us there. We were then worried what he was going to charge us, because he’d been driving us around for half an hour! But he charged us nothing, so that was good.
At the otogar we found a direct bus at 6:30pm to Goreme, accept coz the guy knew it was the only bus he charged us a mint, and even the student line and the begging didn’t help us. Not to worry, because we finally got here and the hostel picked us up from the bus station. The place we’re staying in tonight is soooo cool. It’s in caves kinda like cooper peedy and its sooooo beautiful. We have only seen the surroundings at night, but we can’t wait to see everything tomorrow morning! The hostel does food here too, which was great coz we were starving when we arrived. So we all got a lovely home cooked stirfry and it was so yummy! And this place has internet access thank goodness coz I don’t have a phone and I hadn’t been able to contact home for 2 days.
So tomorrow we might do a tour around the place on foot. Maybe by bus... You can do balloon flights over Cappodocia, but its like 140 euros... So not gonna happen...
Oh yeah we drove through snow today on the way here!!!! It was so awesome. My first time seeing snow... Yeah I know, call me a hillbilly from sunny Australia, but it was soooo coool. I took lots of photos!
Well I’m off to bed... It’s amazing how tired you get from sitting on a bus for 9 hours all day!
Love carly
on the road
So my travelling has begun! The last week in Amman was pretty full on and unfortunately had a bit of an incident with some people living in our apartments, so for safety myself and my roommate moved in with Rohan and Sandi and Amelia for the last few days. Rohan and Sandi are the lovely, amazing people who took all of us in for Christmas. It was so nice of them to have Alyson and I for the last few days. I have learnt so much from this family over the past 2 months, which I am so grateful for.
So Belinda, Jo and I left at about 9am on Thursday morning. We headed to Abdali bus station in downtown amman, but we missed all the buses to Damascus by about half an hour. It was pretty funny actually. We got taxis right down to the bottom of the station and ended up hiking, with ALL our luggage to the top of the hill for a couple of kilometres... In the end we got a service taxi which only cost 10JD each and took about 2 hours off the time it would’ve taken if we had caught the bus.
Once in Damascus we stayed in the Sultan hotel near the Hijaz Station. Some of the guys stayed in this hotel last time we were in Syria. It’s was a nice, clean hotel and had hot water, so we decided to go there again. After ditching our bags we took Belinda to the main Souq’s and places we visited when we were there after Christmas. We had dinner at Jabri House again as well. It’s a really beautiful restaurant that has fairly cheap food.
This morning we woke up early at 6am, woke up the poor hotel staff sleeping on the couch in the foyer to get breakfast. Surely they could have scored themselves a room, but I guess they need someone maning the desk 24/7. Breakfast was included and they gave us enough bread so that we could made ourselves Vegemite rolls for lunch. Then we headed to the bus station and hunted for a bus to Turkey, but soon found out that there were no buses direct to Turkey until 10pm! So we got on a bus to Aleppo for 4.5 hours. My seat was wet and we couldn’t work out why until it really started bucketing down with rain and it started pouring through a crack above my head! So I moved seats. Once in Aleppo we searched fr a bus to Turkey and this time there were none until 5am the next morning! We really didn’t want to stay the night in Aleppo, so we found a service taxi that would take us across the border.
And it was the best decision we made! It was a nice, new car, and our Turkish driver was so lovely! When we got to the border crossing it was chaos! The border crossings I’ve been through so far have separate lanes for buses and trucks and cars and taxis...well this was insane, it was everyone on a two way road... So one lane in one direction and it was hell!!! Our taxi driver was awesome though and managed to weave in and out of all the buses and trucks... And pissed a few people off in the process as we skipped about 2km of line up! Haha... And the Syrian guards found our Arabic hilarious, but they didn’t make us open up all our bags, which is good, ‘coz it’s such a pain. One guard asked us “Do you have anything not good?” And we are all like “la, la (no no)” and laughed.
I can really tell that my Arabic has improved since I’ve travelled through Jordan and Syria. Most of the time when we travel, everything has been organised for us through Hakeem, so we don’t get to do any kind of bargaining. This has been so much fun so far. As soon as we speak Arabic they’re taken by surprise, and usually lower the cost. Then we pull the ‘taalibaat!!!’ (students!) in a whiny voice and plead with them, and we get the price we want. One guy asked us what we were studying and when we said Arabic, he dropped the price instantly. I think they seem to have a lot more respect for us when we use arabic.
So yeah, then we got through the turkish border and by the way it has been pouring down with rain non-stop since we entered Aleppo. So our bags were drenched...shoes drenched... Our taxi driver took us to the hotel I’m writing from right now called Divan Oteli. This was the hotel recommended in the lonely planet(LP) guide, and we are really impressed so far. Clean, hot water and heating (which we need tonight because some of our clothes got drenched in our bags, still trying to work out how...). So yeah. After we got here we chilled for a bit ‘coz we’d been on the road since 8:30am until 6pm. Then we ventured out for some food. There was a nice restaurant (again LP reco) and it was cheap too. I had lentil soup and some spinach and tomato spiced bread thing. Then on the way home we went to the supermarket to grab some things, and they had turkish delight, and we though it was kind of fitting to eat turkish delight on our first night in Turkey, so we got some and it was delicious!!! Best I’ve ever had... You’d wanna hope so too seeing as I’m in Turkey and all.
But so far Turkey has been very very pretty! Reminds me a lot of the Adelaide Hills. It’s so green! And the houses are very European style. It’s hard to think that we only just left the desert and Arab speaking world. We keep talking in Arabic here! They actually understand us! Which is great, coz no one here speaks English. It was funny even with our taxi driver, whose first language is Turkish, and our first language is English, but yet the only way we could communicate was in Arabic! The same thing happened again in the restaurant tonight. But the further west we travel the less we will be able to use Arabic unfortunately.
Well tomorrow we leave for Cappodocia, so we will probably be travelling again for another 8 hours. So I’d better get some sleep!
Love carly
So Belinda, Jo and I left at about 9am on Thursday morning. We headed to Abdali bus station in downtown amman, but we missed all the buses to Damascus by about half an hour. It was pretty funny actually. We got taxis right down to the bottom of the station and ended up hiking, with ALL our luggage to the top of the hill for a couple of kilometres... In the end we got a service taxi which only cost 10JD each and took about 2 hours off the time it would’ve taken if we had caught the bus.
Once in Damascus we stayed in the Sultan hotel near the Hijaz Station. Some of the guys stayed in this hotel last time we were in Syria. It’s was a nice, clean hotel and had hot water, so we decided to go there again. After ditching our bags we took Belinda to the main Souq’s and places we visited when we were there after Christmas. We had dinner at Jabri House again as well. It’s a really beautiful restaurant that has fairly cheap food.
This morning we woke up early at 6am, woke up the poor hotel staff sleeping on the couch in the foyer to get breakfast. Surely they could have scored themselves a room, but I guess they need someone maning the desk 24/7. Breakfast was included and they gave us enough bread so that we could made ourselves Vegemite rolls for lunch. Then we headed to the bus station and hunted for a bus to Turkey, but soon found out that there were no buses direct to Turkey until 10pm! So we got on a bus to Aleppo for 4.5 hours. My seat was wet and we couldn’t work out why until it really started bucketing down with rain and it started pouring through a crack above my head! So I moved seats. Once in Aleppo we searched fr a bus to Turkey and this time there were none until 5am the next morning! We really didn’t want to stay the night in Aleppo, so we found a service taxi that would take us across the border.
And it was the best decision we made! It was a nice, new car, and our Turkish driver was so lovely! When we got to the border crossing it was chaos! The border crossings I’ve been through so far have separate lanes for buses and trucks and cars and taxis...well this was insane, it was everyone on a two way road... So one lane in one direction and it was hell!!! Our taxi driver was awesome though and managed to weave in and out of all the buses and trucks... And pissed a few people off in the process as we skipped about 2km of line up! Haha... And the Syrian guards found our Arabic hilarious, but they didn’t make us open up all our bags, which is good, ‘coz it’s such a pain. One guard asked us “Do you have anything not good?” And we are all like “la, la (no no)” and laughed.
I can really tell that my Arabic has improved since I’ve travelled through Jordan and Syria. Most of the time when we travel, everything has been organised for us through Hakeem, so we don’t get to do any kind of bargaining. This has been so much fun so far. As soon as we speak Arabic they’re taken by surprise, and usually lower the cost. Then we pull the ‘taalibaat!!!’ (students!) in a whiny voice and plead with them, and we get the price we want. One guy asked us what we were studying and when we said Arabic, he dropped the price instantly. I think they seem to have a lot more respect for us when we use arabic.
So yeah, then we got through the turkish border and by the way it has been pouring down with rain non-stop since we entered Aleppo. So our bags were drenched...shoes drenched... Our taxi driver took us to the hotel I’m writing from right now called Divan Oteli. This was the hotel recommended in the lonely planet(LP) guide, and we are really impressed so far. Clean, hot water and heating (which we need tonight because some of our clothes got drenched in our bags, still trying to work out how...). So yeah. After we got here we chilled for a bit ‘coz we’d been on the road since 8:30am until 6pm. Then we ventured out for some food. There was a nice restaurant (again LP reco) and it was cheap too. I had lentil soup and some spinach and tomato spiced bread thing. Then on the way home we went to the supermarket to grab some things, and they had turkish delight, and we though it was kind of fitting to eat turkish delight on our first night in Turkey, so we got some and it was delicious!!! Best I’ve ever had... You’d wanna hope so too seeing as I’m in Turkey and all.
But so far Turkey has been very very pretty! Reminds me a lot of the Adelaide Hills. It’s so green! And the houses are very European style. It’s hard to think that we only just left the desert and Arab speaking world. We keep talking in Arabic here! They actually understand us! Which is great, coz no one here speaks English. It was funny even with our taxi driver, whose first language is Turkish, and our first language is English, but yet the only way we could communicate was in Arabic! The same thing happened again in the restaurant tonight. But the further west we travel the less we will be able to use Arabic unfortunately.
Well tomorrow we leave for Cappodocia, so we will probably be travelling again for another 8 hours. So I’d better get some sleep!
Love carly
Friday, January 23, 2009
last week in amman
so this week is my last week in amman. in shallah this time next week i will be in dahab egypt, soaking up some sun!
so I have been studing like crazy coz i have my final exam this wednesday. although i have to say the experience has been made so much more fun since having obtained my arabic/english/french/turkish/german/chinese talking dictionary!!! only $200AU!!! very very cheap.
yesterday i packed up a whole lot of stuff to send home. which may or may not weigh around 15 kilos! but i can't carry it aorund with me and there's no way im paying for extra luggage for emirates coz it's like 50euros pe kilo that your over. so i'm shipping it home and hopefully it won't coz too much. need to find a stronger box tho. the one i have might not handle the trip home. note about jordanian post offices. they don't sell boxes, enevelopes... anything that you need to send stuff in and its really frustrating. we've been rocking up to all the grocery stores asking for empty boxes!
I'm really going to miss Amman. It doesn't have the same charm to it like Damascus or Syria, but i guess I just have so many great memories of the time I have spent here that it will be hard to leave. And I have made some great local friends who i wish i could get to know more!
I'm also going to miss all my Deakin friends! It's goign to be so wierd going home and not having them there because they live in a different state. I've already scheduled in two trips to Melbourne when I get home! but hey, free accomodation!
So Molly and I have recruited some fellow students who will now be travelling with us to Egypt and Turkey. Ba'haa, Chris, Ken and Clare. So that'll be great. Ba'haa speaks fluent Arabic and Clare has lived in Egypt for 9months before coming here, so she's gonna help us in egypt and she speaks fluent Egyptian. so i'm so excited for the study to end and the travelling to start.
keep you posted
Carly
so I have been studing like crazy coz i have my final exam this wednesday. although i have to say the experience has been made so much more fun since having obtained my arabic/english/french/turkish/german/chinese talking dictionary!!! only $200AU!!! very very cheap.
yesterday i packed up a whole lot of stuff to send home. which may or may not weigh around 15 kilos! but i can't carry it aorund with me and there's no way im paying for extra luggage for emirates coz it's like 50euros pe kilo that your over. so i'm shipping it home and hopefully it won't coz too much. need to find a stronger box tho. the one i have might not handle the trip home. note about jordanian post offices. they don't sell boxes, enevelopes... anything that you need to send stuff in and its really frustrating. we've been rocking up to all the grocery stores asking for empty boxes!
I'm really going to miss Amman. It doesn't have the same charm to it like Damascus or Syria, but i guess I just have so many great memories of the time I have spent here that it will be hard to leave. And I have made some great local friends who i wish i could get to know more!
I'm also going to miss all my Deakin friends! It's goign to be so wierd going home and not having them there because they live in a different state. I've already scheduled in two trips to Melbourne when I get home! but hey, free accomodation!
So Molly and I have recruited some fellow students who will now be travelling with us to Egypt and Turkey. Ba'haa, Chris, Ken and Clare. So that'll be great. Ba'haa speaks fluent Arabic and Clare has lived in Egypt for 9months before coming here, so she's gonna help us in egypt and she speaks fluent Egyptian. so i'm so excited for the study to end and the travelling to start.
keep you posted
Carly
the jordan baptism site and the dead sea
so last weekend was our last trip in jordan. we bussed it for an hour and a hlaf to the jordan rive baptism site where Jesus was baptised by John the baptist and where John did most of his ministry. we rocked up at the gate and got told that today was the day of the ephinany, which is a major celebration day for the church, especially the orthodox church... and that meant there were 5000 people at the Baptism site. so we were all like nah, let's wait and do it tomorrow. but then our tour guide said that coz today is a special day we get in for free, and being the cheap stingy students that we are, we all changed our minds and decided to brave the crowds.
not the bet idea. first of all the actuall access to the jordan river was closed, so we ouldn't actually see anything. second... there were def more than 5000 people there! it was chaos! but at the same time it was cool to see all these orthodox priests in fancy robes, and it was the only time in Jordan where I was part of the majority of people around me... Christian adn without a headscarf. so that was cool.
after that we headed off to our resort hotel on the dead sea. It was a nice day, not too hot nor too cold, so we all headed straight to the dead sea to float and cover ourselves in mud. it was pretty cool. excpet i managed to get warer in my eyes and it burned like hell for aorund about 10 minutes, until i could cry it all out!
this hotel was by far the nicest we have stayed in! Dinner was so yummy... all this hot meat and roast vegies, and dessert was incredible too!! we were all getting excited about what breakfast was going to be like the night before, because arabic breakfasts include bread, cucumber tomato, boild egggs and cheese... and i'm quite simply over arabic breakfasts. the last couple of trips i took my jar of vegemite with me and toastes my bread on the heater just to have a non-arab breakfast. newho... so the next mornign we were not disappointed!
there was cereal! not just one type either... there were 4types... and all this amazing bread and a toaster~!!!!!! and eggs and turkey bacon (yeah turkey bacon...just not as good as real pig) and croissants and pastries and real coffee and juice and omgoodness it was amazing! haha... rian and i rocked up to breaky at 7:30am... i left at 10am... and took about half the food with me... free lunch! except i had to evade the hotel staff coz they knew wat i was up to.:)
so after breaky we went straight into the dead sea again. mainly becoz you know how you're not supposed to swim after eating coz you would drown... and that just wasnt gonna happen seeing as it was the dead sea and all... but the second time in hurt so much more. coz the day before we scrubbed oursleves in mud and it scratched us and so it really really stung!
oh and the day before after we scrubbed oursleves in mud and washed oursleves off in freezing cold water. we were desperate for hot showers and we got to our hotel rooms...and the hot water wasn;t working!!!! it was awful... and we got so mad coz it was such a nice hotel... the hot water should have been working. neways at dinner that night hakeem told us the taps were opposite... so we felt stupid... but at least we didn't do a Nick who called up maintenence and they came in and turned it the other way. they must have thought we were the biggests bunch of idiots!
so yeah... that was my trip to the dead sea... we didn;t get up to much, just relaxing really.
catch ya
carly
not the bet idea. first of all the actuall access to the jordan river was closed, so we ouldn't actually see anything. second... there were def more than 5000 people there! it was chaos! but at the same time it was cool to see all these orthodox priests in fancy robes, and it was the only time in Jordan where I was part of the majority of people around me... Christian adn without a headscarf. so that was cool.
after that we headed off to our resort hotel on the dead sea. It was a nice day, not too hot nor too cold, so we all headed straight to the dead sea to float and cover ourselves in mud. it was pretty cool. excpet i managed to get warer in my eyes and it burned like hell for aorund about 10 minutes, until i could cry it all out!
this hotel was by far the nicest we have stayed in! Dinner was so yummy... all this hot meat and roast vegies, and dessert was incredible too!! we were all getting excited about what breakfast was going to be like the night before, because arabic breakfasts include bread, cucumber tomato, boild egggs and cheese... and i'm quite simply over arabic breakfasts. the last couple of trips i took my jar of vegemite with me and toastes my bread on the heater just to have a non-arab breakfast. newho... so the next mornign we were not disappointed!
there was cereal! not just one type either... there were 4types... and all this amazing bread and a toaster~!!!!!! and eggs and turkey bacon (yeah turkey bacon...just not as good as real pig) and croissants and pastries and real coffee and juice and omgoodness it was amazing! haha... rian and i rocked up to breaky at 7:30am... i left at 10am... and took about half the food with me... free lunch! except i had to evade the hotel staff coz they knew wat i was up to.:)
so after breaky we went straight into the dead sea again. mainly becoz you know how you're not supposed to swim after eating coz you would drown... and that just wasnt gonna happen seeing as it was the dead sea and all... but the second time in hurt so much more. coz the day before we scrubbed oursleves in mud and it scratched us and so it really really stung!
oh and the day before after we scrubbed oursleves in mud and washed oursleves off in freezing cold water. we were desperate for hot showers and we got to our hotel rooms...and the hot water wasn;t working!!!! it was awful... and we got so mad coz it was such a nice hotel... the hot water should have been working. neways at dinner that night hakeem told us the taps were opposite... so we felt stupid... but at least we didn't do a Nick who called up maintenence and they came in and turned it the other way. they must have thought we were the biggests bunch of idiots!
so yeah... that was my trip to the dead sea... we didn;t get up to much, just relaxing really.
catch ya
carly
petra
So I’m way behind with my blog atm. Apologies for that. So two major things that I have done since last writing were 1) Petra and 2) The Dead Sea...so
Petra
Was the most incredible thing in my life. We spent two days at Petra. The first we just wandered around looking at the major things like the Treasury and the tombs around the place. It takes about 1/2 and hour to walk down the Siq and we got swamped by little Bedouin kids and their underfed donkeys, all competing with each other for our butts on their donkeys. We didn’t spend a huge amount of time in Petra the first day, and that night we had a hamam (Turkish bath) where we got steamed, exfoliated and massaged and showered for $30 aussie dollars.
The next morning we arose at 6am to head off to Petra by 7am. This is the best time to do Petra, because none of the Bedouin kids with their donkeys are up yet, and either are all the tourists, so we had the whole place to ourselves, bar a couple of camels starting work for the day. We rode horses to the entrance for ‘tawlib price’-student price... Being a student is awesome... Normally entry into Petra costs 25JD $50 AU and coz we are UoJ students we got in both days for 1JD!!!!!!! ... Newho
So we started the hike up to the Monastery which is in the mountains outside of the main Petra area... You can be lazy and get donkeys up to the top, but it;s so much more satisfying to walk up. It wasn’t too hard, managed to get to the top in an hour and a half. Views were amazing.
And then we saw it...
A white dome in a mountain about 10km away from us and about another 1km in height compared to where we were... Ok maybe not that high.... But it was pretty high.
Aaron’s tomb! (btw Aaron was Moses bro)
Elle and had a new challenge! We were gonna get there and back to the bus by 3pm. So we teamed up with ex-army super man Stewart, and David and Iain and made our way for Aaron’s tomb. All the locals we met along the way thought we were deranged and crazy that we were walking all the way there. One Bedouin man offered us a lift to the top in his car... For 10JD each!!! We kept walking.
We hadn’t had a break at all since starting our walk up to the monastery, so I was seriously needing a rest... But ex-army crazy man didn’t need breaks... So Iain and I had to stop at one stage coz we were so exhausted. And again...and again... We must have stopped about 8 times. I’ve never done anything so physically challenging in my life before... Not even in cadets. I’m so proud of Elle... Her pride fuelled her efforts to keep up with Stewart. She wasn’t gonna let being a girl slow her down.
After about 2.5 hours after leaving the Monastery Iain and I finally made it to the top. My legs cramped with every single step for the last 1km I think! But making it to the top was so awesome! I’m so glad I didn’t give up. Then came the walk back down... Which took another 2.5 hours. It shouldn’t have taken us that long but my knee was slowing me down. I really don’t know how we made it back walking! And we were running late. The bus was leaving at 3pm and at 3pm we were just entering the main section of Petra...it was still another 40 minute walk to the town! So Iain and I ran towards a kid with a donkey who looked awfully surprised that we were actually wanting a ride! I fell off of the donkey getting on coz my legs seized up with cramps! Haha... And then we galloped. Yes I didn’t think it was possible to gallop on a donkey...but it is... And it’s painful! So we belted it up to the Treasury and then paid off another boy to take us up the Siq...donkeys aren’t actually allowed up there, which we didn’t know...so we got pulled over by tourist police on their scary massive horses... So then we had to run full pelt out the Siq to the horses which would take us to the main entrance. And we paid extra for the horses to gallop the whole way! It was like my own Indiana Jones adventure! And we finally made it to the bus... At 3:30pm! But turns out that Hakeem changed the leaving time from 3pm to 3:30... So that was good news.
But man we must have stank on the way home. We walked non-stop for 7.5 hours and my jeans were soaked. My face had a thick layer of dirt on it. My butt hurt from galloping on horses and donkeys. My legs didn’t function... But it was so totally worth every minute of it. I’ve never had such an experience in my life before. If I got to go again I would definitely not do Aaron’s tomb and the monastery in the same day...
So that is my tale of Petra. If anyone ever has the opportunity to be in this part of the world one day...DO NOT MISS THIS... It’s so good.
Peace
Carly
Petra
Was the most incredible thing in my life. We spent two days at Petra. The first we just wandered around looking at the major things like the Treasury and the tombs around the place. It takes about 1/2 and hour to walk down the Siq and we got swamped by little Bedouin kids and their underfed donkeys, all competing with each other for our butts on their donkeys. We didn’t spend a huge amount of time in Petra the first day, and that night we had a hamam (Turkish bath) where we got steamed, exfoliated and massaged and showered for $30 aussie dollars.
The next morning we arose at 6am to head off to Petra by 7am. This is the best time to do Petra, because none of the Bedouin kids with their donkeys are up yet, and either are all the tourists, so we had the whole place to ourselves, bar a couple of camels starting work for the day. We rode horses to the entrance for ‘tawlib price’-student price... Being a student is awesome... Normally entry into Petra costs 25JD $50 AU and coz we are UoJ students we got in both days for 1JD!!!!!!! ... Newho
So we started the hike up to the Monastery which is in the mountains outside of the main Petra area... You can be lazy and get donkeys up to the top, but it;s so much more satisfying to walk up. It wasn’t too hard, managed to get to the top in an hour and a half. Views were amazing.
And then we saw it...
A white dome in a mountain about 10km away from us and about another 1km in height compared to where we were... Ok maybe not that high.... But it was pretty high.
Aaron’s tomb! (btw Aaron was Moses bro)
Elle and had a new challenge! We were gonna get there and back to the bus by 3pm. So we teamed up with ex-army super man Stewart, and David and Iain and made our way for Aaron’s tomb. All the locals we met along the way thought we were deranged and crazy that we were walking all the way there. One Bedouin man offered us a lift to the top in his car... For 10JD each!!! We kept walking.
We hadn’t had a break at all since starting our walk up to the monastery, so I was seriously needing a rest... But ex-army crazy man didn’t need breaks... So Iain and I had to stop at one stage coz we were so exhausted. And again...and again... We must have stopped about 8 times. I’ve never done anything so physically challenging in my life before... Not even in cadets. I’m so proud of Elle... Her pride fuelled her efforts to keep up with Stewart. She wasn’t gonna let being a girl slow her down.
After about 2.5 hours after leaving the Monastery Iain and I finally made it to the top. My legs cramped with every single step for the last 1km I think! But making it to the top was so awesome! I’m so glad I didn’t give up. Then came the walk back down... Which took another 2.5 hours. It shouldn’t have taken us that long but my knee was slowing me down. I really don’t know how we made it back walking! And we were running late. The bus was leaving at 3pm and at 3pm we were just entering the main section of Petra...it was still another 40 minute walk to the town! So Iain and I ran towards a kid with a donkey who looked awfully surprised that we were actually wanting a ride! I fell off of the donkey getting on coz my legs seized up with cramps! Haha... And then we galloped. Yes I didn’t think it was possible to gallop on a donkey...but it is... And it’s painful! So we belted it up to the Treasury and then paid off another boy to take us up the Siq...donkeys aren’t actually allowed up there, which we didn’t know...so we got pulled over by tourist police on their scary massive horses... So then we had to run full pelt out the Siq to the horses which would take us to the main entrance. And we paid extra for the horses to gallop the whole way! It was like my own Indiana Jones adventure! And we finally made it to the bus... At 3:30pm! But turns out that Hakeem changed the leaving time from 3pm to 3:30... So that was good news.
But man we must have stank on the way home. We walked non-stop for 7.5 hours and my jeans were soaked. My face had a thick layer of dirt on it. My butt hurt from galloping on horses and donkeys. My legs didn’t function... But it was so totally worth every minute of it. I’ve never had such an experience in my life before. If I got to go again I would definitely not do Aaron’s tomb and the monastery in the same day...
So that is my tale of Petra. If anyone ever has the opportunity to be in this part of the world one day...DO NOT MISS THIS... It’s so good.
Peace
Carly
Thursday, January 1, 2009
palmyra and back to amman and being sick
Hey hey hey
I’ve arrived safely back in Amman but I’m crook as anything...again! Two days ago Rian came down with a pretty nasty stomach thing...and we all just thought it was food poisoning, and then Iain cam down with it too...and then Elle started chucking her guts up, and then Molly was throwing up all night in Palmyra, and then Kristy stated feeling sick...and then in the Damascus bus station and the WHOLE taxi ride home I managed t0 empty my stomach, and kept throwing up, and kept throwing up...I’ve never been so sick in my life! It was awful! But I’m feeling a little better this morning. Managed to keep down some toast and vegemite this morning, so thats a good sign. And then poor Hakeem got sick too! So obviously it was some kind of virus, but everyone seems to have gotten over it within 24 hours. I think the first time I was sick was food poisoning because it was nothing like the second time.
So after we left Aleppo, we caught a bus back to Homs, and from there we caught a servees to the Crac des Chevaliers. By this stage the weather was cold and wet and misty and with a top of around 0 degrees celsius. Ok maybe it reached 1 degree...but no more than that. The Crac was pretty cool... Although we have started to see a lot of old ruins now, and because I’m no archeologist, it may or may not be starting to get a little repetitive, but we’ve still had fun taking photos and climbing things. I’m so much fitter than I have ever been! The amount of walking we do! Plus my biceps have doubled in size, which may or may not have something to do with all the presents I bought in Syria! I had to buy another bag...so Mum and Dad expect a box in the post soon. Hakeem said it’s much cheaper to send stuff home and the more you have, the cheaper it gets. And it’s a lot cheaper than paying for extra luggage.
After the Crac we all piled into a servees again back to Homs and then missed the last bus to Palmyra. Well the last good bus to Palmyra. We ended up on some private bus, that must have had holes in the roof because all the seats were wet, and it had no heating and it looked as if it was built in the 1920’s and it was soooooo cold. Poor Rian was chucking her guts up the whole way, which had to have something to do with the lack of suspension. Or no suspension. Elle and I survived by getting out my laptop and watching the pirated copy we scored of Twilight. It distracted us from the cold and awfulness for 2 hours, no matter how lame and pathetic we might have seem to our classmates. :)
When we got to Palmyra we found a really nice, hot hotel! For only 600 syrian pounds, which is around $AU18. And it had hot water...and it was clean! The place in Aleppo was clean, but it was freezing, so this place was the best by far. That night we were all so stuffed, but the hotel owner said that we HAD to go to this Bedouin dinner. So we did. Well a few of us did. There was bedouin dancing and music and it was great! I’m so glad I went. Except that some Lebanese showgirl who was performing for the next night showed up in the corset with half her boobs hanging out and really tight jeans, and so all the performers were swarmed around her the whole time and then they got her to dance and it was so awful! She was like something off of Hindley Street! And there were all us westerners dressed appropriately! It was so disgusting. Elle hid under her headscarf so she didn’t have to watch. We just couldn’t believe it because Syria is way more conservative than Jordan, and if she wore that out on the street she would get shot.
So that night was the night that Rian, Molly, Elle, Kristy and Iain were all sick. The nest morning only Hakeem, Elle, Jo, Nick and me made it to the ruins. But it was so wet and cold and we didn’t get to see much at all. So that was a bit disappointing, but we couldn’t do much about it. So because of that we managed to catch an early bus back to Damascus, and that’s when I started being sick. We caught service taxi’s back to amman, which cost around $AU20, but we made it there in 3 hours instead of five. My poor taxi driver, he had to put up with me vomiting in the front seat the whole way there...
And then when I got home and out of the taxi... I realised I’ve lost my phone. The last place I had it was in the taxi, so I have a strong feeling that that taxi driver has just acquired a new fone... With my travel sim card... Which is a real pain in the butt. Thankfully I still have my Jordanian sim card.
I’ve arrived safely back in Amman but I’m crook as anything...again! Two days ago Rian came down with a pretty nasty stomach thing...and we all just thought it was food poisoning, and then Iain cam down with it too...and then Elle started chucking her guts up, and then Molly was throwing up all night in Palmyra, and then Kristy stated feeling sick...and then in the Damascus bus station and the WHOLE taxi ride home I managed t0 empty my stomach, and kept throwing up, and kept throwing up...I’ve never been so sick in my life! It was awful! But I’m feeling a little better this morning. Managed to keep down some toast and vegemite this morning, so thats a good sign. And then poor Hakeem got sick too! So obviously it was some kind of virus, but everyone seems to have gotten over it within 24 hours. I think the first time I was sick was food poisoning because it was nothing like the second time.
So after we left Aleppo, we caught a bus back to Homs, and from there we caught a servees to the Crac des Chevaliers. By this stage the weather was cold and wet and misty and with a top of around 0 degrees celsius. Ok maybe it reached 1 degree...but no more than that. The Crac was pretty cool... Although we have started to see a lot of old ruins now, and because I’m no archeologist, it may or may not be starting to get a little repetitive, but we’ve still had fun taking photos and climbing things. I’m so much fitter than I have ever been! The amount of walking we do! Plus my biceps have doubled in size, which may or may not have something to do with all the presents I bought in Syria! I had to buy another bag...so Mum and Dad expect a box in the post soon. Hakeem said it’s much cheaper to send stuff home and the more you have, the cheaper it gets. And it’s a lot cheaper than paying for extra luggage.
After the Crac we all piled into a servees again back to Homs and then missed the last bus to Palmyra. Well the last good bus to Palmyra. We ended up on some private bus, that must have had holes in the roof because all the seats were wet, and it had no heating and it looked as if it was built in the 1920’s and it was soooooo cold. Poor Rian was chucking her guts up the whole way, which had to have something to do with the lack of suspension. Or no suspension. Elle and I survived by getting out my laptop and watching the pirated copy we scored of Twilight. It distracted us from the cold and awfulness for 2 hours, no matter how lame and pathetic we might have seem to our classmates. :)
When we got to Palmyra we found a really nice, hot hotel! For only 600 syrian pounds, which is around $AU18. And it had hot water...and it was clean! The place in Aleppo was clean, but it was freezing, so this place was the best by far. That night we were all so stuffed, but the hotel owner said that we HAD to go to this Bedouin dinner. So we did. Well a few of us did. There was bedouin dancing and music and it was great! I’m so glad I went. Except that some Lebanese showgirl who was performing for the next night showed up in the corset with half her boobs hanging out and really tight jeans, and so all the performers were swarmed around her the whole time and then they got her to dance and it was so awful! She was like something off of Hindley Street! And there were all us westerners dressed appropriately! It was so disgusting. Elle hid under her headscarf so she didn’t have to watch. We just couldn’t believe it because Syria is way more conservative than Jordan, and if she wore that out on the street she would get shot.
So that night was the night that Rian, Molly, Elle, Kristy and Iain were all sick. The nest morning only Hakeem, Elle, Jo, Nick and me made it to the ruins. But it was so wet and cold and we didn’t get to see much at all. So that was a bit disappointing, but we couldn’t do much about it. So because of that we managed to catch an early bus back to Damascus, and that’s when I started being sick. We caught service taxi’s back to amman, which cost around $AU20, but we made it there in 3 hours instead of five. My poor taxi driver, he had to put up with me vomiting in the front seat the whole way there...
And then when I got home and out of the taxi... I realised I’ve lost my phone. The last place I had it was in the taxi, so I have a strong feeling that that taxi driver has just acquired a new fone... With my travel sim card... Which is a real pain in the butt. Thankfully I still have my Jordanian sim card.
aleppo, syria
Asalamu alyakum,
I write to you from my hotel room in Aleppo, or Halab (The arabic name for the city). This is our second night in Halab and our hotel is really, really nice. And only $AU30. But a tad cold. Actually it has been rather winterish here...very cold and very wet. But it’s still a lovely city. We left Damascus at 6am on the 29th for Aleppo. Only just avoided a disaster because Kristy accidentally got left behind...we thought she was in the other taxi, they thought she was in ours.. And none of our phones work here, so we sent the taxi back for her and she eventually got to the bus station. Hakeem has been so fantastic! I don’t know how we would manage without him. He’s looked after us so well. When I get home I’m going to send him a case of wine from work.
The bus ride took 4.5 hours and it was so comfy and professional and we got chocolates and water and we were treated as if we were on an airplane flight! For only $AU6!!!! When we arrived at the bus station in Halab, we took a public transport bus to the Old City. We got chatting to some guy, whose called Ahmed...he is a businessman from Dubai, but Aleppo is his hometown and he’s here on holiday. Anyway, he took us around to all these hotels and recommended this one... And after that he gave us a tour of the city AND took us up to the Citadel which overlooks Halab and gave us tour-guide-quality details!! He was so kind and helpful! Almost all the Syrians are. In the end he spent the whole day with us and he has helped us organise a chartered bus to Crac de Chevaliers tomorrow...Cheap! And he wanted nothing in return! We offered to take him our to dinner, but he needed to go home.
At one stage when we were looking for hotels, we sat down in this square in the Christian quarter of the Old City. I got talking to a boy called Muhammed who was about 12 and his friend Saad. They were so much fun! They couldn’t speak English, so I spoke Arabic to them the whole time and they could understand me! And then this old guy joined in on our conversation...and then an old lady walked past and she decided to talk to me too...but in French!! My mind was working overtime! And I kept using Arabic words when speaking French! But she switched between the two languages. It was so much fun. And then we asked the little boys where we could find hummous...they thought we said khbuz (which is bread in arabic) and they ran off and 5 minutes later they returned with 4 pieces of steaming hot, fresh bread for us! It was so sweet! And we offered to pay him and he said ‘La la la (no no no) It’s a gift’. So we think that the baker must have given it to him for free! Syrian hospitality!!!
Today we got up early and explored the Christian quarter. That was fun, and there were some old Maronite Catholic churches and an Armenian Cathedral from the 15th century that we visited. They were VERY elaborate. Even more so than the Greek Orthodox church I went to in Amman. I would like to learn more about the eastern orthodox churches.
After that we explored the endless souqs which are famous in Aleppo. It was so much fun! And I went a tad over budget, but this is the place that I have done all my present shopping... Mainly coz Syria’s the cheapest place in the Middle East. But they have so much cool stuff! And Halab is famous for it’s olive oil soap which I’m about to use when I have my shower in just a moment! Evidently you can use it for you hair as well as body.
So yeah... Then we went out for dinner... Lentil soup and aleppo kebabs! It was good...and cheap.
I write to you from my hotel room in Aleppo, or Halab (The arabic name for the city). This is our second night in Halab and our hotel is really, really nice. And only $AU30. But a tad cold. Actually it has been rather winterish here...very cold and very wet. But it’s still a lovely city. We left Damascus at 6am on the 29th for Aleppo. Only just avoided a disaster because Kristy accidentally got left behind...we thought she was in the other taxi, they thought she was in ours.. And none of our phones work here, so we sent the taxi back for her and she eventually got to the bus station. Hakeem has been so fantastic! I don’t know how we would manage without him. He’s looked after us so well. When I get home I’m going to send him a case of wine from work.
The bus ride took 4.5 hours and it was so comfy and professional and we got chocolates and water and we were treated as if we were on an airplane flight! For only $AU6!!!! When we arrived at the bus station in Halab, we took a public transport bus to the Old City. We got chatting to some guy, whose called Ahmed...he is a businessman from Dubai, but Aleppo is his hometown and he’s here on holiday. Anyway, he took us around to all these hotels and recommended this one... And after that he gave us a tour of the city AND took us up to the Citadel which overlooks Halab and gave us tour-guide-quality details!! He was so kind and helpful! Almost all the Syrians are. In the end he spent the whole day with us and he has helped us organise a chartered bus to Crac de Chevaliers tomorrow...Cheap! And he wanted nothing in return! We offered to take him our to dinner, but he needed to go home.
At one stage when we were looking for hotels, we sat down in this square in the Christian quarter of the Old City. I got talking to a boy called Muhammed who was about 12 and his friend Saad. They were so much fun! They couldn’t speak English, so I spoke Arabic to them the whole time and they could understand me! And then this old guy joined in on our conversation...and then an old lady walked past and she decided to talk to me too...but in French!! My mind was working overtime! And I kept using Arabic words when speaking French! But she switched between the two languages. It was so much fun. And then we asked the little boys where we could find hummous...they thought we said khbuz (which is bread in arabic) and they ran off and 5 minutes later they returned with 4 pieces of steaming hot, fresh bread for us! It was so sweet! And we offered to pay him and he said ‘La la la (no no no) It’s a gift’. So we think that the baker must have given it to him for free! Syrian hospitality!!!
Today we got up early and explored the Christian quarter. That was fun, and there were some old Maronite Catholic churches and an Armenian Cathedral from the 15th century that we visited. They were VERY elaborate. Even more so than the Greek Orthodox church I went to in Amman. I would like to learn more about the eastern orthodox churches.
After that we explored the endless souqs which are famous in Aleppo. It was so much fun! And I went a tad over budget, but this is the place that I have done all my present shopping... Mainly coz Syria’s the cheapest place in the Middle East. But they have so much cool stuff! And Halab is famous for it’s olive oil soap which I’m about to use when I have my shower in just a moment! Evidently you can use it for you hair as well as body.
So yeah... Then we went out for dinner... Lentil soup and aleppo kebabs! It was good...and cheap.
damascus, syria
Damascus is by far the most amazing city I’ve been too! Not that I have seen much outside of Jordan. But it is the most beautiful, charming, interesting place! I woke up this morning feeling a LOT better than yesterday, thank goodness, and headed out to get breakfast... A herb bread and pomegranate juice. The tastiest breakfast ever!
At 9am, we all met up outside our hotel and headed off to the national museum. That museum was so incredible! We didn’t have enough time to search through all of it, so I want to go back. There were things dating back to the Bronze Age... And stuff as old as 2000-2500 BC!
After the museum we all met up at the Handicrafts Market. This place was cool...lots of stuff like scarves, jewellery, rugs, woodwork, metalwork... I bought a few presents. And then I stumbled across this shop where the man made all his scarves from his loom! I went in and he showed me how it worked! It was incredible! I filmed some of it so you can see it when I get back! (internet connection will never be fast enough for me to upload photos. I was so stoked to find this place, because sometimes you don’t know if the scarves you’re buying are from China... But I can really tell the difference now.
The Syrian people are so lovely. There is a huge difference in the attitudes between Jordanians and Syrians. Syrians are much nicer. The men don’t harass you in the street like in Amman and I feel much more safer here. There are also a lot more tourists here than in Amman.
So after doing a bit of shopping we headed to Saladin’s Shrine in the Old City. Us girls had to get changed in the “Putting on Special Clothes Room”...haha we looked ridiculous. Kind of like brown penguins, or funny coloured smurfs crossed between a monk. The Shrine is right next to the Ummayed Mosque, which we then entered. That was pretty incredible. The design and architecture and craftwork was exquisite! My photos don’t really do it justice...mainly coz I have a crap camera, and I suck at taking photos... Haha but there was all this old school beautiful artwork and handicraft and marble, and then smack bang in the middle of the beautiful marble courtyard is this new, sleek, modern, floor polisher. It was just so out of place! But I guess the need to keep those marble floors shiny so all the kids that come can have fun sliding and skidding all over the floors... Seriously, there are kids going crazy playing all over the mosque... I guess it’s a pretty awesome playground...
After that we wandered the souq’s and I bought more presents. Molly and Kristy have decided that I suck at bargaining and have ordered me not to buy anything without them nearby. I just feel bad... I feel like these people need the money... Even though they probably do charge double what it’s worth.
Then we had dinner at this really pretty restaurant! I had lentil soup again ‘coz it’s the best new food...falafels and hummus are great...but there is only so much you can eat!
At 9am, we all met up outside our hotel and headed off to the national museum. That museum was so incredible! We didn’t have enough time to search through all of it, so I want to go back. There were things dating back to the Bronze Age... And stuff as old as 2000-2500 BC!
After the museum we all met up at the Handicrafts Market. This place was cool...lots of stuff like scarves, jewellery, rugs, woodwork, metalwork... I bought a few presents. And then I stumbled across this shop where the man made all his scarves from his loom! I went in and he showed me how it worked! It was incredible! I filmed some of it so you can see it when I get back! (internet connection will never be fast enough for me to upload photos. I was so stoked to find this place, because sometimes you don’t know if the scarves you’re buying are from China... But I can really tell the difference now.
The Syrian people are so lovely. There is a huge difference in the attitudes between Jordanians and Syrians. Syrians are much nicer. The men don’t harass you in the street like in Amman and I feel much more safer here. There are also a lot more tourists here than in Amman.
So after doing a bit of shopping we headed to Saladin’s Shrine in the Old City. Us girls had to get changed in the “Putting on Special Clothes Room”...haha we looked ridiculous. Kind of like brown penguins, or funny coloured smurfs crossed between a monk. The Shrine is right next to the Ummayed Mosque, which we then entered. That was pretty incredible. The design and architecture and craftwork was exquisite! My photos don’t really do it justice...mainly coz I have a crap camera, and I suck at taking photos... Haha but there was all this old school beautiful artwork and handicraft and marble, and then smack bang in the middle of the beautiful marble courtyard is this new, sleek, modern, floor polisher. It was just so out of place! But I guess the need to keep those marble floors shiny so all the kids that come can have fun sliding and skidding all over the floors... Seriously, there are kids going crazy playing all over the mosque... I guess it’s a pretty awesome playground...
After that we wandered the souq’s and I bought more presents. Molly and Kristy have decided that I suck at bargaining and have ordered me not to buy anything without them nearby. I just feel bad... I feel like these people need the money... Even though they probably do charge double what it’s worth.
Then we had dinner at this really pretty restaurant! I had lentil soup again ‘coz it’s the best new food...falafels and hummus are great...but there is only so much you can eat!
christmas day and gingerbread making
Hey guys! So I am writing this blog in my hotel room in Damascus... Btu I have a little bit to catch you all up on...
So last weekend on Saturday, we went to Mt Nebo and Madaba. Mt Nebo was the mountain that Moses died on that overlooks the Promised Land. It was pretty cool, but unfortunately the photos aren’t brilliant ‘coz it was a really hazy. I still can’t believe how many amazing, historical things I’ve seen. Its also kinda cool, coz you read about all these places in the Bible, and you know how you read a book and then they make a movie of it, ad then when you read the book again, you seem to be able to picture it clearer... I think that’s kinda what it’s like now reading the Bible...coz I can actually picture some of these places now. So yeah...I’m very blessed.
Classes have been good... Not as challenging as I thought it would be, but I am still learning a lot. I caught up with my friend who studies Medicine here at the University of Jordan, and that was great because I was forced to speak nothing but Arabic for a couple of hours.
We also had Christmas this week! It didn’t really feel like Christmas was coming at all, but then two days before I started making the gingerbread house and that brought on some Christmas spirit. The house wasn’t a total disaster... We had a bit of a scare when it started collapsing on us, but some skewers and cardboard did the trick, so it held together AND made the taxi drive to the house where we had lunch.
Christmas Day was great. I went to bed at 1am...woke at 3:15am to get to the innternet cafe to talk to my family and James at 4am!! I am really glad I went... But I wasn’t thinking that on the walk there... We got absolutely saturated! It was bucketing with rain and it was so damn cold, and our shoes and socks were drenched!! But it was worth it. It was so god being able to see everyone eating Christmas lunch...
We got home at 6am, thawed out, and slept for another 2 hours before we got up again. We had Christmas lunch at the Deputy Head of the Australian Embassy’s house with his family! He is studying at the UOJ language centre too, and he has been coming on all our weekend trips with his wife, Sandy and daughter Amelia. The taxi drive there was one of the funniest experiences I have had since arriving in Amman. There must have been about 8 taxi’s in a convoy and NONE if them knew the address, so Hakeem was on the phone to all of them...some of them were getting really angry (our’s was nice... Although he did call us names in Arabic and told us we’d be better off if he just drive us to the airport and we catch the next plane home...several times...) So yeah...we must have taken 45 minutes to get to a place that is 15 minutes away from our apartments. But we made it.
Their house was AMAZING! It was sooooo big. And they had it all decorated and they had SOOOOOOO much food. Plus all of our apartments brought a couple of dishes each. They had also invited some of the embassy staff from the Australian, British and US embassy’s... So there we were, a bunch of rowdy students talking politics and religion with some pretty important people. It was so good! Sandy and Rohan are just the most amazing people and so incredibly kind. It really felt like Christmas being at their house.
So yeah.. Then today we got up at 5 am to catch an early bus to Damascus, Syria. But as soon as I woke I realised I was pretty sick with some kind of stomach thing. So all day I have been pretty ill. Kristy gave me some drugs to stop the nausea and they worked well...plus I had a bunch of people praying for me...alaamdillhillah (thank God in Arabic). So after sleeping all afternoon I was well enough to wander the Old City. Still not 100%, but I had lentil soup for dinner and was able to keep it down, so that’s a good sign. Still not sure if this thing is viral, or if it’s food poisoning.
Damascus is so beautiful! I love it here. It is so clean, and there is a mixture of arab as well as french style architecture and the shops are SOOOO much better here than in Amman. And cheaper too! So I think I’ll be doing my main present shopping here. The dresses here too are so much more beautiful! And today I bought this scarf which is made here in Damascus, and the quality is so good...you would have to pay like $80 for a scarf that quality in Australia. I paid 500 syrian pounds for it, which is $15 aussie dollars!! Btw, buying presents is really hard... ‘coz everything I see I want for myself as well!
Hopefully I can find an internet cafe soon so I can post this!
Lots of love
Carly
So last weekend on Saturday, we went to Mt Nebo and Madaba. Mt Nebo was the mountain that Moses died on that overlooks the Promised Land. It was pretty cool, but unfortunately the photos aren’t brilliant ‘coz it was a really hazy. I still can’t believe how many amazing, historical things I’ve seen. Its also kinda cool, coz you read about all these places in the Bible, and you know how you read a book and then they make a movie of it, ad then when you read the book again, you seem to be able to picture it clearer... I think that’s kinda what it’s like now reading the Bible...coz I can actually picture some of these places now. So yeah...I’m very blessed.
Classes have been good... Not as challenging as I thought it would be, but I am still learning a lot. I caught up with my friend who studies Medicine here at the University of Jordan, and that was great because I was forced to speak nothing but Arabic for a couple of hours.
We also had Christmas this week! It didn’t really feel like Christmas was coming at all, but then two days before I started making the gingerbread house and that brought on some Christmas spirit. The house wasn’t a total disaster... We had a bit of a scare when it started collapsing on us, but some skewers and cardboard did the trick, so it held together AND made the taxi drive to the house where we had lunch.
Christmas Day was great. I went to bed at 1am...woke at 3:15am to get to the innternet cafe to talk to my family and James at 4am!! I am really glad I went... But I wasn’t thinking that on the walk there... We got absolutely saturated! It was bucketing with rain and it was so damn cold, and our shoes and socks were drenched!! But it was worth it. It was so god being able to see everyone eating Christmas lunch...
We got home at 6am, thawed out, and slept for another 2 hours before we got up again. We had Christmas lunch at the Deputy Head of the Australian Embassy’s house with his family! He is studying at the UOJ language centre too, and he has been coming on all our weekend trips with his wife, Sandy and daughter Amelia. The taxi drive there was one of the funniest experiences I have had since arriving in Amman. There must have been about 8 taxi’s in a convoy and NONE if them knew the address, so Hakeem was on the phone to all of them...some of them were getting really angry (our’s was nice... Although he did call us names in Arabic and told us we’d be better off if he just drive us to the airport and we catch the next plane home...several times...) So yeah...we must have taken 45 minutes to get to a place that is 15 minutes away from our apartments. But we made it.
Their house was AMAZING! It was sooooo big. And they had it all decorated and they had SOOOOOOO much food. Plus all of our apartments brought a couple of dishes each. They had also invited some of the embassy staff from the Australian, British and US embassy’s... So there we were, a bunch of rowdy students talking politics and religion with some pretty important people. It was so good! Sandy and Rohan are just the most amazing people and so incredibly kind. It really felt like Christmas being at their house.
So yeah.. Then today we got up at 5 am to catch an early bus to Damascus, Syria. But as soon as I woke I realised I was pretty sick with some kind of stomach thing. So all day I have been pretty ill. Kristy gave me some drugs to stop the nausea and they worked well...plus I had a bunch of people praying for me...alaamdillhillah (thank God in Arabic). So after sleeping all afternoon I was well enough to wander the Old City. Still not 100%, but I had lentil soup for dinner and was able to keep it down, so that’s a good sign. Still not sure if this thing is viral, or if it’s food poisoning.
Damascus is so beautiful! I love it here. It is so clean, and there is a mixture of arab as well as french style architecture and the shops are SOOOO much better here than in Amman. And cheaper too! So I think I’ll be doing my main present shopping here. The dresses here too are so much more beautiful! And today I bought this scarf which is made here in Damascus, and the quality is so good...you would have to pay like $80 for a scarf that quality in Australia. I paid 500 syrian pounds for it, which is $15 aussie dollars!! Btw, buying presents is really hard... ‘coz everything I see I want for myself as well!
Hopefully I can find an internet cafe soon so I can post this!
Lots of love
Carly
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