Cruisin' the Med

After my heavy duty sightseeing, I decided to relax on a three day gullet cruise along the south western coast of Turkey. I started in Marmaris and ended in Fethiye. A gullet is an older looking sailboat type thing:

There was a captain, cook, crewman and a boy along with 14 guests. There was another solo German lady (but I actually think she was bunking up with the captain), me, two girls who just finished university exams in England, an older Danish couple, middle aged Australian couple, two middle aged Turkish couples from Istanbul (one spoke English) and a retired couple from New Zealand (the man was from Seattle originally but has been in NZ the last 30 years and is now a NZ citizen). So we were a mixed bunch but greatly enjoyed each other's company. 

The sails never actually came out and we motored everywhere. The weather was perfect! Warm with a cool breeze and slightly cold water. The water was cold to me as I'm use to the warm, bathwater-like waters of Bali, Thailand and the Maldives. Yes I know, I have no right to complain about anything :). The water was really blue and clear but not a whole lot of fish to see. We sailed, ate, swam and read. The Danes did teach us a new card game, Plump. I quite enjoyed it. I also got a great restaurant recommendation from one of the guys from Istanbul. I had two days back in town before I flew out. It was amazing :)! 

The cook on the boat was good too. I've never eaten so much eggplant (aka aubergine) in my life. I think he worked it into every meal and I enjoyed it. He was selling some rugs his mom made and so I got one for about $40. I haven't figured out where to put it at home yet though. 

It was good fun and a nice restful three days. And that sums up my time in Turkey.  Here are some pics from the cruise. 

At the bus station waiting to leave for Marmaris.

We stopped at a beach for an hour or so one day. So nice. This side was a rock beach but the pebbles were so soft and smooth. I brought home a few of those as souvenirs too. 

The crewman who shuttled us off the boat. There were lots of gullets docked wherever we went but it never felt crowded and I was surprised to not see any pollution from the tourists. 

We hiked on one island to see some church remains from before the twelfth century. This corridor is from the eighth century. Some of the others were from the fifth century. There were like 8 churches on this one little island. 

Hello :)

My cabin

Remains of a church

Beautiful views 

Breakfast

Lunch or dinner

You can see the rocks here. We think this use to be a building or village or something and then the water level rose. Up towards the shore, you could see piping that was similar to the irrigation or sewer pipelines we had seen in Ephesus. It was really interesting. 

Parachuters 

Turkey - who knew it was in the bible!?!

Usually I plan my own travel, do research, set the itinerary and make the bookings. For Turkey, I did not have the time to do that so instead I found a US lady who's been living in Istanbul and has her own travel agency. Through email and some wire transfers she got me a plan and arrangements made. However since I didn't do the work, I didn't have an appreciation for what was on the schedule. It was not a bus tour, but a collection of different standard day tours with some free time in Istanbul at the end. Other than my lack of knowledge on the historical significance, it worked really great! If you're headed to Turkey, feel free to reach out to Rina (http://www.tour-turkey.com/). 

My first trip out from Istanbul was to Selcuk (pronounced sell-chuck) and a couple American girls from my flight bummed a ride with me and my pre-booked driver. It worked out well because one talked to the driver the whole time (I generally don't like small talk with drivers) and it was a huge mini bus that would have been rather empty without their company. 

From Selcuk, I did a day tour to Ephesus the next day. It was only once I was on the bus with the tour guide and he mentioned something about the book of Ephesians that I realized we were going to the city of the Ephesians, Ephesus. Duh me!?!

It was a city of ruins. It was on the water and a harbor city. But now due to different plans by Mother Nature, the water is a long way off (3 miles or kilometers). The most amazing sight was the facade of the library. It is something like 75-80% original pieces rather than being restored. Pretty amazing. 

We also visited Mary's House which is where it is believed she lived after Jesus's death and was brought here by John I think. As I entered, a group of tourists from somewhere (not sure where) were singing a hymn of some sort. It was very moving. 

I met an American who has been transplanted to Australia for the last five years and her Australian friend on the tour. We did dinner that night and were also signed up for the tour to Pamukale the next day. Pamukale was a historic site of city ruins as well, but they have some mineral springs there which makes it more of an attraction. There is calcium in the water that turns the rocks it flows down into these white snow covered looking hills. The hills have also formed into different levels of pools. It was really fun although it was a quick visit. I didn't get much more of the history that sunk in :). 

Pics from the tours:

Statue of Mary 

Mary's small home 

Wall of prayers (although I heard someone call the wishes, but I left a prayer)

In high tourist season, this road down to the library is packed with people. Good timing for me. Ruins are often hard to appreciate in pictures. This is the walk through town. 

Our guide explaining how a wheel symbol that we saw in lots of the marble was a way Christians could subtly add their mark but not get into trouble. The Greek letters representing different things are all captured in the wheel. 

Can't remember now what this was, but was one of the ones more in tact. 

View from atop the theatre. The road you see in the distance was the harbor road that ended at the water, which now ends at land. 

Closer pic of the library

Pamukale:

They didn't use marble here, so the ruins were more sparse. 

Water starts here

Great views of he country side. I was told Turkey is pretty self sufficient when it comes to agriculture. We saw orchards next to corn fields next to cotton fields :). 

The pools were pretty cool looking and the water temp quite refreshing without being freezing. 

There is one spot where tourists can walk down through the pools. I had to exit the gate at the end of this to go catch the bus, so I had to take all my belongings on the way. 

What the town looked like way back when. 

Moosejaw is where I got my big green backpack (70L) for this month long trip. 

The walk down. Wish I would have stayed a night here and been able to spend more time. It was a 3 hour drive from Selcuk. 

Istanbul

It's 3am now. I fell asleep at 6:30 last night :). Not horrible jet lag, but should be able to sort it out over the weekend and be good by Monday. So....back to my trip. I think I'm at around June 3rd on my trip timeline. Apologies, but there's lots to talk about with Turkey. I'll start with Istanbul.

My flight left Nairobi at 3:45am. It was a long, long wait in the airport and I was tired by the time we boarded. I slept almost right away and almost the whole way. I received lots of comments to stay safe in Turkey and wasn't sure what to expect when landing. I arrived around 10am with a transfer waiting to take me to my hotel.

My first impression was how nice it looked as we drove in along the coast and there was a park between the road and water and lots of people enjoying the day. Then as we neared the city we went through some old city walls that are still standing in many parts. You get the feeling of quite a bit of history. 

The roads were tricky to maneuver a big passenger van through (narrow, hilly, not well labeled) but my drivers were always experienced and we had no issues. I stayed in Sultanahmet which is the historic touristy area and a river away from Taksim Square where all the nonsense was going on. What is really nice is that it is all very walkable but if it's a little too far, they have a great tram system (i.e. cable cars). The shop guys are pushy but in a muted way. Everyone asked you to have tea, apple tea specifically. They could chat your ear off forever! Then you sorta felt bad if you didn't buy anything. So it was more of a guilt trip than the hard sell. I told one guy I only wanted postcards, so he gave me them for free. Having the excuse of "meeting friends" and being late for that was a big help in getting out of those discussions easily :). 

Turkey's population primarily practices Islam. However, Istanbul's history includes lots of fighting and conquering and power changes. In fact, because it is located across three different after access points (Black Sea, a river I can't remember and the Mediterranean Sea), it was easier to attack. For this reason some smart guy finally moved the capital from Istanbul to Ankara to be able to better protect the capital. However, Istanbul remains a huge city and important port. It has 15 million people and all the problems that come with cities so big. 

I digress. My earlier point was that now Istanbul's skyline is dotted with mosques, many old and very beautiful mosques. However, some were previously churches! At one point Turkey (or maybe Istanbul) was largely Christian. The most famous is Hagia Sofia which was a great church/cathedral remade into a mosque later. They plastered over Christian mosaics which have now been uncovered and somewhat saved. A great example of the mosaics is in the Chora Church which I visited on my last day. The Blue Mosque is another beautiful sight (it is just a mosque). 

Sorry for the long post, but lots of history in Istanbul that is now woven into a huge, modern city. I really loved Istanbul and it has got to be one of my top five cities now! Some pics....

Blue Mosque (built around 1610):

From inside the courtyard

Beautiful designs inside with a lot of blue (hence "blue" mosque) - Islam does not allow use of people, animals, etc in their designs. Thus, there's lots of flowers and geometric designs. Specifically in Turkey the tulip represents God (Allah) and you will see tulips everywhere in Turkey. 

The stained glass was beautiful as well. Tons of natural light.

Hagia Sofia:

It was partially under construction so I didn't get great pics of the outside. It was neat to see the mix of Islam and Christian presence inside. 

The uncovered angel above and the large round Arabic sign referring to Allah.

You can see a few of the archways uncovered to see Christian mosaics and some still intact that were for the mosque. 

One of the partial mosaics uncovered. 

A close up to see the tiles used. Very intricate work. 

One on the treasured mosaics from Chora Church:

Fishing on one of the bridges in Istanbul (New Mosque in the background):

Asia across the way (yes, Turkey and Istanbul span two continents) with Hagia Sofia to the right (look for spires):

Sections of the old city wall:

Ceiling mosaics from Chora Church:

Basilica Cistern that held water - details in the sign below :)

 

I wandered the streets of Istanbul one day and found a glass blowing studio. I bought a fun vase and talked to the artist himself. Very nice and fun guy. 

 

(The dark spots on us are shadows from the sun coming in the front window.)