Turkey

NOTE: To better view photos, double click and they will enlarge

It was a very long and hot bus ride from Sofia to Istanbul, but we made it and even managed to find our way to the hostel (Chill Out Hostel) in the city center with little issue. Of course that discounts the Turkish visas we had to buy at the border without having any $ or Euro or Turkish Lira. After a long look of annoyance from the Turkish visa officer, he grudgingly accepted the Bulgarian Leva we had in ample supply. You would think this a normally accepted currency at a ground transport border crossing, but he took it none the less and as there were no ATMs to be found, we were very grateful! The Chill Out is definitely a hostel but the people working there are just amazing. They were our first face of Turkey and set the mood for the entire 2 weeks. We spent the evening nearby and had a wonderful dinner and retired early. Wednesday we toured the old city and saw the Blue Mosque, Agia Sophia Museum (the Red Mosque) and the Cistern. Of course we had to sneak in a fish sandwich from the floating boat/restaurants near the Galata Bridge for lunch with the locals. It was a wonderful intro to Turkey. We had been introduced to a few friends via a Turkish buddy, Tolga, from SF. So, we rang up Dano and he met up with us for the evening to show us a little of Istanbul’s night life and met great friends of his from around the world, including his girlfriend Aysha, friends Alex and Banu. Dano is an American from San Francisco who moved to Istanbul 4 years ago and has immersed himself in the culture and loves it. Our initial stop in Istanbul was just 2 nights and Thursday, bright and early, we hired a car for an 8 day tour down the western Turkish coast of the Agean south along the Mediterranean coast, north to the Black Sea and back to Istanbul. Over breakfast at the Chill Out the morning before, one of our hosts, Oner (who to our amazing luck is also a tour guide) sat with us to discuss his favorite spots and highlights. In the end, he actually just pulled out some scratch paper and wrote us a suggested entire itinerary! Oner was so friendly and generous, seems to be the Turkish way. Charlie did some fancy driving getting us out of Istanbul with all of the honking and tailgating (not Charlie, the locals!). However, we forgot that outside of the US, rental cars are delivered and returned on empty, not full. So we were on the main highway out of Istanbul desperately looking for a gas station, running on fumes. At last the glorious yellow plumes of a Shell signed loomed over the horizon, but just barely…whew! On the road again. We headed West and drove to the Gallipoli Peninsula (yes, the same one immortalized by Mel Gibson’s earliest film) and caught a ferry across the Dardanelle straight and drove down towards the coastal town of Ayvalik, on the Agean. The drive down this part of the coast was lush and picturesque reminding us of the Chilean island of Chiloe. Shortly after disembarking the ferry, we got a great example of the dichotomy of Turkish traffic rules. Although they drive like mad men and pass around anything and any time, the speed limit is STICKLY enforced. Charlie found this out with our first speeding ticket of the trip (shockingly true!) 106 in a 100. Yes, 6km over the limit; which is about 3 mph. 100 Turkish Lira later and a good laugh with an incredibly friendly policeman, we were back on the road. However, upon arrival in our first port of call, we weren’t impressed at first sight. As we were to learn along the way, many of the villages along the Aegean (this changes along the Med a bit) have the poorer sections (read block housing) at the entrance of the towns, farther from the seafront. After making our way through and to the other side of the village, we found the Ayazma Butik Otel (sound it out). It was indeed a “butik otel” (ditto on the sound out) and we were their only guests so we got a deal, water facing room with private balcony and breakfast on the terrace included! Can’t beat that. We wandered through town and found a fish restaurant on the water for dinner. We can’t say enough about our entire experience here… yummy mezes, divine wine and fabulous fish! We turned in for the night in anticipation of ancient sites/cities on Friday. On our way out of town we stopped by the small waterside, hilltop outlook called Seyton (pronounced “cheytan”) Sofrasi. Unfortunately, it was a bit too hazy for decent photos, but the view is 360 degrees of Aegean Sea, islands and inlets. Amazing! Quick side note: written Turkish uses variations on “S” and “C” for a “sh” and “ch” sound. Sorry to our Turkish friends if we couldn’t figure that out on our key board!

From there we headed south for our main destination for the day, Ephesos (yes, that is the way it is spelled, spellcheck be damned)! We drove south using the ring round around Izmir (3^rd largest city in Turkey) stopping to take a lunch in Selcuk before a driving up to and walking around the ancient town of Sirence up in the foothills. This town in known for two main things: idyllic winding streets of wine stores and the ancient church of St. John. While the wine wasn’t spectacular, the people and the town were charming and the Church was eerie in its desolation and history. This is the location where Jesus left his mother Mary in the protective trust of John the Baptist to go back to Palestine to meet his fate. Be you a religious person or not, Jesus the man or Jesus the religious figure was an inspiring person at the least and Turkey is rife with pre-Christian and Christian history. Just mentioning this because it seems most westerners think of modern Israel and the tradition Mid-east as being the site of all biblical stories. We’re here to profess, not so! On to the ancient city of Ephesos. This is one of the largest and most intact Greek ruins sites and we were awe struck. We added several pictures, but you can’t really get the size unless you go there. They even had a public bathroom (ie. WC) with continuously running water (see picture of Rawson). Founded as early as 600 B.C. this was once a port city, but now is 15 km away from the coast. From there we settled on Didim to end our day’s journey. We found the town but not the charm. Driving all about the town, we stumbled on a tiny beach community and a pension for the night. It was nothing our folks would have enjoyed, but fine for us for a night. We wondered down to the beach for a waterside dinner which greatly made up for the town exponentially. Saturday we backtracked a bit and drove east inland to see Pamukkale, which in Turkish means Cotton Castle. Pamukkale was created when earthquakes gave rise to a number of very hot springs whose mineral content, particularly chalk, created this 2700 meter long 160 meter high natural castle. We decided that it looks exactly like a glacier, but there are people in bathing suits in the water. This is a site worth stopping to see if you are in the neighborhood, but 45 minutes was enough of the overrun of Russia tour busses and we were back on the road. On to Datcha!

Datcha (the name of the peninsula and a town on it) is kind of on the corner of the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas. Datcha has a rich history, like most of Turkey, and has been under the rule of the Persians, Romans, Greeks, Ottomans and Turks… did we miss anyone? No matter who has had control the area, it’s quite a lovely little town situated on hills and the beach valley overlooking the ocean. We spotted the Bora Hotel and Rawson made her first negotiation! We got the big room with the water view for the little room price! Way to go. While walking along the boardwalk we ran into a fellow who we saw at the hotel, a local, and struck up a conversation. Like all of the Turkish people we’ve met he was very excited to speak to Americans. What a refreshing change after so many years of feeling like you have to travel “incognito”. Of course, the first question (as we have heard the world over) was: You like Obama? We won’t pander our politics here, but if you have any question in your mind that the WORLD is enamored with our new president and hoping for new kind of America, put it out of your mind and wash out your mouth with soap! Enough on that. Dinner was once again on the beach, about 2 meters from the water with waves practically lapping at our table. As we’ve said before… This does not suck! We could have stayed in this town/peninsula for at least a week. Picture the steep rolling hills of California highway 1 and put water on either side every time you crest a hill. You’ve now got the Datcha peninsula. Splendid! Sunday, lovely breakfast on the terrace and off to Kaş on the Mediterranean. Along the way… ancient ruins, lots of farm land, more police, no tickets. We arrived in Kaş, parked and looked for a spot to have a drink overlooking the water. Rawson had to use a restroom so badly that she just wanted somewhere, anywhere, it didn’t matter. So Charlie chose the upstairs bar that wasn’t even opened. But in true Turkish manner the fellow from the downstairs restaurant asked if they would open just for us. They did, even thought the band for that night was practicing for the show. A little bit of a strange spot for an afternoon drink, but a good one it turned out. One of the guys in the band hooked us up with a room in a B&B for a great price. We liked Kaş so much we changed our plans and stayed 2 nights. Fabulous meals, friendly people, stunning views… on and on and on. We could have spent a week there and will definitely go back. Beside gorgeous beaches and excellent restaurants, it is a destination for scuba diving and paragliding. Next time! Tuesday we had a short drive over to Myra, an ancient city that was part of Lycia. Actually the entire time we were driving along the Med, we were on the Lycian peninsula which was a collection of ancient Greek towns that formed a federation separate from the Greek mainland. Very interesting history in this region, the town of Myra is known for the stunning cliff tombs built for the elite of the civilization. Our final destination for the day/night was Olympos, not the one in Greece. As we drove into the town, if you can call it that, we felt that we’d moved into a totally different world. Olympos was an ancient city right on the Mediterranean. Today Olympos has ancient ruins, but is a little hippie dippie campie town with what they call Tree Houses, which are cabins made of raw wood. We weren’t sure at first, after coming from Mediterranean paradise, but we stopped at one of the pansyons (pensions) and had lunch and asked to see a room. It was exponentially better than we expected and CHEAP! So we took it, dumped our stuff and headed to the beach. We had a chill evening at the tree house and arranged for an early breakfast to get a jump on our very long drive on Wednesday.

Having decided to take a more cruisey time in Lycia, we had opted out of the long haul to Cappadoccia, and instead went straight north to the Black Sea coast. This 11 hour day was a haul, but we got to see some cool sites along the way. In particular, the town of Nicaea was cute and rich in history. If the name rings a bell, this is the site of the Council of Nicaea, called by Emperor Constantine in 362 AD to review all the “books” about the different beliefs of early Christianity. Unfortunately, the result was to burn every book the majority tossed out of the running. There were said to be over 300 writings from which the New Testament was chosen; among the burned was the book of Mary Magdalene. For glimpse of the old town, see the attached photo of several arches of red and white brick going down a path (sorry for Charlie’s shadow in the middle!). In the end, we landed in the evening (literally racing the sun) in the town of Agva on the Black Sea, a small town along a meandering river flowing into the Black Sea. After saying goodbye to the umpteenth dog that we wanted to adopt, we headed west along the coast back towards Istanbul stopping along the way in the beautiful town of Sile. This was the spot for us! Incredible overlooks of the sea and cool little coffee houses on the cliffs. Our whirlwind of the coasts complete, we rolled back into Istanbul in the afternoon to meet up with our good friend Angela Osborne who came to meet up with us for a few days.

Meeting up with one of Tolga’s good buddies, Kerem, we had a nice dinner and drinks out on the town in the cool little walking district of Nevizade (off of Takcim) and late evening cocktails at Alex and Banu’s. Kerem is an up an coming film producer in Turkey. An amazingly interesting and warm guy, watch for this man in the future. He will have an incredible sounding documentary with BBC coming out in the next year on some newly discovered ruins in southern Turkey dating back to 10,000 BC! That is not a typo. Next morning, early up and off to see the sites of Istanbul and meet up with some other friends visiting from the states by coincidence at the same time, John and Rachel. This evening we got to meet up with Kaan, another buddy of Tolga’s and to see his (and Dano and Alex’s) new project, a speak-easy! The space isn’t yet completed, but it looks amazing and we wish these guys the BEST OF LUCK with the new venture! H, you have an outstanding and eager invitation to Istanbul to guest bartender! Our final two days were seeing more of the local sites, a boat trip up the Bosphorus and gracious invitation (which eagerly accepted) to attend the Istanbul Fashion and Film festival organized and thrown by Dano in what had been an ancient Armenian church in the heart of the new town.

What can we really say? Turkey was arguable our favorite leg of the trip so far. The people, the places, the history…absolutely off the charts by any standard. If you haven’t been yet, put it at the top of your list. Our warmest and special thanks to Tolga for the intro’s and to all our new friends in Turkey, Kaan, Dano, Kerem, Alex, Aysha, Banu and the rest. Thank you and hope to see you in SF some day to return the hospitality! On to Jordan!