89 South West Turkey

Sunday 6^th November

We escaped from Istanbul and headed East along the coast. The sat nav decided it would be a good idea to take us on another boat trip so we obliged accordingly. A very pleasant and friendly crossing saving us about 80 miles of highway.

Gentle 80 miles down the line.

Then, after a fair bit of driving we wild camped at the side of Lake Sofka and enjoyed the sunset. We weren’t disturbed by any army manoeuvres.

Monday 7^th November

We spent the first couple of hours sticking all our stickers on the outside of Gromit, so we look like seasoned travellers now.  We had about 30 that we have collected and we still managed to look quite bare.  It was lovely just being in the sunshine and hearing all the local wildlife. 

Still very functional, but looking bare!

Our journey took us on through some really beautiful scenery, very undulating and green and other parts very flat and parched looking.  

A very proud nation.

Dry and parched

Almost could be America.

 Today is a public holiday, it is for the festival of meat, and is in full swing.  Driving around we had seen many small vehicles with trailers on the back which contained one cow or one sheep.  Little did we appreciate that these animals were on their final drive.  On the side of the road we next saw them, dead and being butchered, which appears quite gruesome, but is the Turkish way of life, ( and only because I’m used to it all being done behind closed doors and in Tesco’s), nothing goes to waste.

We arrived at our destination of Pamukkale.  Ray had located a little campsite which we booked into as we wanted to visit the white tavertines, and also some ruins of the town of Heirapolis.  The advert said, electric and showers, the reality was this

Comfy and cosy enjoying the site

Would you plug into these?

One speed, one temperature, nothing aimed at you and freezing cold.

We got settled and it was quite funny, Leon went for a rummage round and came back just as quickly, there were large chickens running around the field. Brings real meaning to the term “ scaredy cat”.  We went out for a meal and sampled  some very nice red wine and some local Raki, which is very similar to Pernod or Ouzo.  Needless to say we slept very well again.

Tuesday 8^th November

We couldn’t use the showers so it was wet wipes and dry shampoo to the rescue and we headed up to the tavertines.   Pamukkale is special for its white tavertines , surrounded by cotton fields and this is the literal meaning of Pamukkale, “cotton castle”. The thermal water contains large amounts of calcium,(chalk) and hydrogen carbonate.  The waters are also known for their health giving, besides being the life source of the tavertines.  We walked up about a 100m and then you have to take your shoes and socks off and walk up the white chalk in bare foot.

Ray looking splendid before he realised we were going to be able to at least wash our feet properly

My feet are now clean due to the flowing water.

Ray was going for a quick bath, but it was almost as cold as the shower on site.

Fabulous, speaks for itself

Still a bit too cold for bathing, but very comforting

The real beauty of nature.

and again

We made another tourist walk over the sharp bits to get this!

Amazing

Debateable, but in my opinion, more amazing......

 The ground is very hard, but smooth and running water the whole way. There a lots of pools along the way and the higher you go, the warmer they become. It was all quite novel and good fun.  At the top you get dressed again and this part is called Heirapolis.  It is the most important ancient city located in this area and consists of many interesting ruins.  It is known as the Holy City owing to the large number of temples and sanctuaries found within. The city lost its Helenistic style during the reconstruction after the earthquakes and it was conquered by the Turks at the end of the 12^th Century. 

The above say it all.

We spent the next 3 hours wandering around in glorious sunshine.   We had lunch back in the town at a fantastic little restaurant, complete with smoking lounge. 

Then headed off towards our next stop which is Bodrum, mostly a holiday resort and with a campsite.  We planned to stay for 4 days so we could unload Gromit and tidy her up.  The site is very primitive again.  Rays definition of tepid and mine are definitely two different things.  So cold showers all round.  The washing machine was broken, but the lovely little guy who ran the site took Ray to a local laundry and we managed to get everything done.

The worst thing about the site was the number of stray cats.

Unfortunately cats read my head sign which says "Sucker".

They all gravitated to us, (might have had something to do with the fact I gave them some food), didn’t make Leon very happy though.  We put the big tent up at the back of Gromit and could sit out and eat food and just enjoy the area.

We did stay for the next three days and we hired a quad bike so that we could travel round and do some exploring, but it was awful, nowhere near as good as my Dad’s one on the farm, so we took it back and complete with silly little helmets that nobody wears anyway, swapped it for a scooter.  We found a few expats who had settled in the area and they gave some ideas for site seeing.  

 The weather is beautiful and apparently very unseasonable, and we were easily spotted as tourists because of the shorts and t-shirts, everybody else had jumpers and coats on.  Ray came down with “flu”!!!!

Saturday 12^th November

We had packed up last night so set off this morning to visit a market in a coastal town outside of Bodrum, called Turgutreis. Ray bought a new sweat shirt and nearly had a punch up with the pushy salesman who wanted him to have the track suit bottoms to go with it.

Other than that it was a lovely little seaside town and we got back on the road and carried on to Fethiye, again still on the coast.

88 It’s Istanbul not Constantinople

Friday 4th Nov.

Istanbul....WooHoo...another fantastic mixed up of cultures.

We seriously like this place. Its friendly, madly busy, colourful and mental.

I am starting to get my head around the hooter thing. They use it like an extra car control and most of the time it is not used as a rebuke - I am chillin with it !

View from our hotel. overlooking the sea of Marmara (part of the Med)

Having taken advice from the hotel manager who spoke good English, we set off this morning for the 150m trek to the local bus stop on the main Highway. We were advised to get the small  busses that looked a lot decrepid.

We took a picture of the highway turn off sign by the bus stop - an insurance policy.

We caught a bus almost immediately and it was packed. All up close and personal like. After the initial shock we began to enjoy the experience. The cost was 1.5 lire (about 52p) for  a 7 mile trip into town. What made us laugh was that people would get on, ignore the driver and sit down. Then a couple of minutes later they would pass a note or some change down the bus from person to person with the destination passed on like chinese whispers and the driver would take the money, sort out the change and pass it back to the person behind him for passing on to the initiator. The driver did all this whilst driving the bus, the horn and his mobile phone.

The next stage was a 2 km boat trip back to Europe. 2 lire and 10 minutes later we were in the centre of old Istanbul. 

View across the harbour.

The main, 4 scud, mosque on the hillside. We visited the smaller 2 scud version to the left of it.  (Scud = Russian cold war missile like we showed a few days ago on the back of a launcher !)

The Asian side

What an amazing place (now that I did not have to drive in it !). We started out by visiting one of the main Mosques as in the above photo.

Entry was as expected. No shoes and women had to have their heads covered. They got around this problem with tourists by having a big box of plastic shopping bags outside the entrance and everyone took their shoes off on the mat and placed them in the bag and you just carried it inside. Also at the entrance was an old man who was in charge of issueing headscarves to women. Karen was given a pink one. Whilst I was taking photos, Karen carried the shoes....like this..

For some reason she did not want me to publish this !

It was quite incredible, the architecture and decoration were to behold. 

Outside there were men washing their feet and heads in purpose built faucets.

As we exited the Mosque we found the spice market. This just blew us away....

There was very little that was not for sale here.

Along with all the usual pet shop type animals, they also had....leeches. Nice

I wanted to buy a belly dancers outfit and Karen said "No", You already have a nurses outfit and that will do.

Surprise Surprise......Spices

........Good looking women.....

....and more spices...

Need I say more.

They had just had their national day (29 Oct) and all the flags were still out. On top of this they have a 4 day meat festival starting on Monday.

Fancy a smoke mate ?

We then stopped in the centre of the market for some grub, unfortunately, the spice market and the cafes were in the grounds of the mosque so no beer for us.

Wot....no Beer....(it was a false smile !)   Do you like the furniture ?

Once out of the cafe area we saw a nasty man with a big knife.

Karen fancied a trip up the river so we walked over to the docks and paid the grand sum of £3.50 each to do a 1 hour cruise up and down the canal that seperates Europe from Asia.

Don't know what this is but it was pretty.

The bridge we neglected to pay on. Built by a firm in Darlington.

These people have the biggest flags on the planet.

The sun was setting as we returned.

And with the setting sun, the city illumination came on.

The lit up boat is actually a kitchen (actually there are several in a line). They pass the food pricariously to the waiters on dry land. It was especially funny when the cruisers went past.

One half of the old bridge joining two parts of the European side. To the left side is a lift bridge (Like Tower Bridge) and either side of that are hundreds of restaurants of which we had a little sample.

We then caught the ferry shuttle back across to Asia and then that was where the Highway turn off sign picture we had taken earlier came in handy. I ran around like a demented chicken asking all the bus drivers for the correct bus to take us to the place my finger was pointing to on the picture displayed on my camera. It worked very well and 2 minutes later we were on the right bus heading back to our hotel. We had the usual chinese whispers and the passing of the cash back and forth. It was highly amusing and good to see a side of life that very few tourists get to see.

Once at the hotel we crashed out and watched "Game of Thrones" in English with Turkish sub-titles. Nice.

Saturday 5th Nov.

A chill day. We rested AM and went shopping in the afternoon. That was an experience in itself. The Turks shop like they drive. They have absolutely no regard for anyone else in the shop (Carrefour - like a French owned version of Tescos). They stop and chat all over the place and block the isles all the time. The funny thing is that no one seems to mind except us ! On top of that, it is Saturday and the world has bought her husband and kids to the supermarket. It was mobbed. We did not spend long there and made a hasty retreat back to the hotel to complete our day off.

87 Leaving Romania, through Bulgaria and into Turkey

Tuesday 1^st November

We left Bucharest after a couple of false starts, mainly serious traffic accidents and headed down towards Bulgaria.  We had to get on a ferry to leave one and enter the other.  

The incoming ferry loaded similar to ours.

The roads looked like this too!

 There were two lorries and 3 cars in total on the ferry and needless to say we caused quite a bit of interest again, with Leon playing to the crowd.  There were no problems crossing the border and we were soon on the road, looking for our next destination.  Bulgaria is far more scenic and green compared to the other countries we have been in and the roads are all good surfaces. 

More of the Russian legacy.

Not sure if these are scare crows or non russian legacy or maybe they don't have recycling.

There are still a lot of horse and carts and there seems to be fewer stray dogs too.

Ray had plotted a course for the coast on the Black Sea, he just forgot to mention that it was an assault course for 4 by 4’s.  After much bumping and ruts and mud holes we came out of the woods to a glorious clearing and the beach.   We wild camped and set up a fire and enjoyed the freedom and so did Leon.  Although a touch cold we were happy to be back in the tent and drifted off to sleep with the sound of the waves gently lapping the shore.  At about 4.30am I woke up and found Ray was awake too. It was then we heard another vehicle approaching.  Ray looked out and saw it was another Land rover, and it just drove on the beach and then drove off.  I snuggled back down into my sleeping bag and a short while later I heard another vehicle coming. Ray again got out and as he did so, I could hear voices.  From my position it sounded like we were surrounded, and at that point in time, I didn’t know what to do for the best, so I stayed where I was and then I heard ”Hello” and Ray replied and then the sounds of many footsteps and car doors slamming and the vehicle drove off.  I called out to Ray and thought I’d better get a number plate number if I could in case he’d been whisked away but he came back up the ladder laughing.  Apparently only the driver had spoken to him, the others completely ignored him and Gromit and the only conclusion we could draw was that it was a military exercise, or the local hikers took their hikes very seriously. None the worse for the excitement we both dropped back to sleep. 

Wednesday 2^nd November.

After one of the best night’s sleep in a while and the best tea and coffee we’ve had in ages, we waited for the sun to rise, but it was a little bit too cloudy, however it was lovely.  Leon had a run around, but stayed close, we hadn’t seen any, but there were dog tracks in the sand.

Leon sticking close

Rough camping and demanding cats.... how is a woman to cope?

We enjoyed the morning on the beach for a couple more hours and then headed back on the dirt track, a slightly different one and sure enough we came across a fenced off area for the military.  We continued on towards Turkey and passed through an area called Nesebar.  We popped into the town, as it was on the coast.  It was absolutely crammed with holiday apartments and hotels and everything advertised open 24 hours, from English bars, German bars, every food choice was catered for and it is obviously quite a busy resort.........in season.  Everything was boarded up.  Nothing was open at all.  There was a small supermarket that looked after the locals, but that was it.  It was like being in a ghost town, tumble weed and a few stray cats and dogs.  Really weird. 

I think these speak for themselves, very sad.

As we left town, we could see that at some stage there was a lot of money being poured into the area, but now 5 storey hotels were abandoned in half finished states.  The whole place was actually very sad.   

At about 4.30pm we hit the Turkish border.  It was our first time in Turkey, but Gromit had been before, apparently on her way to South Africa last year (or so the woman at the first check point told us !)
After a lot of faffing about by quite surly and rude border civil servants we were on our way.  We were heading to a little place called Kirklareli.  We knew it had at least one hotel and unfortunately it was buried deep with the narrow streets all going one way – the wrong way.  We abandoned that plan which was a shame because it had looked like a really buzzing little place. We headed in the general direction of Istanbul and found a hotel on the outskirts of a town called Buyuk  Karistaran and on parking up were surrounded by Turkish gypsy kids offering to look after Gromit.  We weren’t sure how much of Gromit would be left by morning so we took off again.

In Turkey some of the motorways have tolls and we got onto one.  They were not manned, just all automatic, so with logic applied and having watched others go through we approached a booth to get a ticket that we believed was dispensed automatically.  No, I pressed everything, sang a song, did a little jig, waved at the various components, nothing.  By now we were causing a bit of a hold up, so we backed out and went for plan B.  This was park up, and wait till they kick you out. We were approached by a friendly Romanian who told us “just drive through“, which was plan C. I tried one more time and pressed a button for help, and stated English, to which I got some Turkish instructions  back  so in the end we went with plan C and drove straight through keeping an eye out for blue flashing lights. They never appeared which was fine, except when we came to a barrier at the other end of the motorway and we couldn’t get out.  Ray parked up and went to see if he could speak to someone in the control tower.  They also told us to reverse and go through the video controlled gateway which had no barrier, so we did and all sorts of alarms went off, but luckily he must have switched them straight back off and we were off again  We made it to a little place called Corlu and found the Grand Hotel Eren.  It could take us and Leon and as it was getting late we stayed.   I can tell you Grand it aint.  It was more like the YMCA but we were there.  Once settled we headed into town to get something to eat.  Again we got lost in a mass of one way streets and Ray pulled over to see if the GPS could help us out, unfortunately a man with a uniform and big gun came over and told us to move.  Another military base, you just don’t argue with them.  We eventually found somewhere safe to park and by now being absolutely knackered we went to the first Kebab place we could find, (5 yards from the back of Gromit) and inside after a few communication problems Ray told them just “go for it” and they did.  We had enough food to feed six people and we gave up in the end.  We returned to the hotel, grateful in the knowledge that we were still free people.

Thursday 3^rd November.

I awoke at 5.30 am to Ray wide awake and saying can you hear that.  I listened and could hear nothing.  Apparently loud speakers had been transmitting “Allah”. I was then aware that in my dream I had fitted all the Allahing into it so I was actually aware of it, it was just that it was some woman on the telly in my dream. I can even remember thinking what an easy language to learn.  When it got light we looked out of the window and saw we were directly across from a mosque and it had tree loud speakers on the tower.  Moral of the story, get into town in daylight.  

Notice the three loud speakers

One of the local posse, I have never seen so many dead animals on the road, and I stopped looking out of the window because I didn't like hearing the sound of screaching brakes.

Today we are heading to Istanbul and hoping to spend a couple of days there. 

A very proud nation and Ray thinks the size of these flags could be seen by satelite

Our approach into the Metropolis

 We are a bit disappointed, it is raining, the first we have had in a while.Unfortunately it set the par for the day. The drive into Istanbul was straight forward enough. Following that bloody Garmin (GPS), we got completely lost and it took us down narrow back streets, one way streets, these all in themselves are do able, but add to the mix, turkish cabs, van drivers, horns, pedestrians and idiots and you might come close to the thick soup we were in.  Ray kept his cool, (that is until he found our horn, then everything was in play, and all options were open, not that I think we found one that hadn't been tried before). It was an additional bonus knowing our vehicle weighed more than most, so when put to the test they didn't want land rover badges imprinted on their sides.  Anyway I digress, which I had time to do because it took us 2 hours to get out of the European side of Istanbul and across the river into the Asian side.  We hit the bridge and OMG it is another toll. 

This was tame!

This was just before our next conviction!

Okay we can deal with this, get to the other side and I walked into the control centre and asked if anyone could speak English. Could I pay? Tell me please, I have a man on the edge and it's starting to get dark.  I had the most handsome guy behind the counter, but eye candy only eased the pain, but not the process. Turkey does not like western women acting strong, ( tut, get on with it I say).   Computor and Turkish Guy, he say NO.  Thankfully the guy after me spoke English and he translated, it turns out there was nothing we could do, they don't take cards, it would cost 50 euros for two and a half trips, no idea how that works, but there was no cash machine and even if there was it would be Turkish Lira. He then said, " you have English number plate, they do not charge you, go through no barrier gate"   Plan C again, off we went, bells ringing, alarms sounding. I had asked him about that too, the alarms, and he said, if the number plate is dirty the alarms go off, they go off all the time.  I don't mean to be suspicious but has everyone got a sense of humour,  are they  laughing at us, or is this actually correct?  We have read since that you can buy tickets at the bank, but again we don't know, so could you all start saving your change and get a save the two plus cat campaign going just in case. In our defense your Honour, we did try to pay.

Having escaped Dodge, we hunted for another hotel on the Asian side of town.  I could see my husband's blood boiling up,  and I really think there were a couple of Turkish drivers behind us who wished they'd hadn't blown their horns.  Some of them shrunk in stature when they saw he could lean out of his window and pull them up for a chat.  I don't know why I'm laughing about it, my credit card is maxed out from all the fines, only joking Mum.  Anyway we made it safely to a wonderful little hotel called the Anka in the Maltepe district.  They had no problems with us having Leon. Everyone else did. There is the most helpful manager who is practising his English on us and we are testing his Turkish.  We are spending the next 3 days here.