Canakkale

Full set of Cannakale, Troy and Bandirma photos are hiding behind the links

In travelling from Istanbul to Eceabat, the Gallipoli peninsula and Gockeada island we had been exclusively in the small European side of Turkey.  The vast majority of the country is on the Asian side which is anything south of the Black Sea.  This sea leads into the Bosphorus Strait dividing the European and Asian sides of Istanbul, into the Sea of Marmara entirely surrounded by Turkey and leading to the Dardanelles with the European Gallipoli peninsular to the North and the rest of the Aegean Turkish coast to the South.

This long-winded explanation is to explain that by catching the ferry from Gockeada to the Gallipoli peninsula and then another ferry across the Dardanelles we had entered Asian Turkey at the city of Canakkale, not that you would know it.  It’s Asian in name only and like the rest of the Western coast of Turkey it has a very Mediterranean feel.  We had fresh grilled fish for dinner in a cute little waterside restaurant and I tried the life blood of Turkish drinking, raki, otherwise known locally as ‘lion’s milk’ for the way the clear spirit becomes cloudy when mixed with water, which is how everyone drinks it.  Raki is the most popular drink in Turkey and is most similar to ouzo, although they would claim that raki is much better.  It is a good food drink and goes very well with fresh fish.  I dare say I could cultivate a taste for it, but hopefully not to the extent that Ataturk did.  Raki pulled him into the grave via cirrhosis of the liver, but more on the impressive Turkish independence leader later.

Canakkale is famous for two things. The first is hosting Antipodeans during ANZAC Day commemorations, although the Turks have their own celebrations on the 18th of March, the anniversary of when the Allied ships tried to bombard the forts in the area into submission and instead lost several ships to mines.  The other famed attraction is the ancient city of Troy.  Canakkale is the nearest big city and as such they have the honour of housing the wooden horse from the execrable modern film version of the Troy legend. I’ll cover ANZAC Day in a later post.

Although the ruins of Troy are given short shrift in many guides, and are admittedly not on the grand Roman scale of other sites, there is something in the air when standing on the ancient mounds looking at the setting described in Homer’s Iliad.  The landscape is beautiful, vast plains being farmed, grassland peppered with flowers and a small hill which contains the nine ruined cities of Troy jumbled up together in their urban tomb.  The site is difficult to get a grasp on as the cities have crumbled together and excavation is not complete, and may be impossible to finish in any coherent way, but enough of the walls and rooms have been exposed to give an impression of the place and it’s hard not to feel the force of history here in so celebrated a spot.  Even out of tourist season there were crowds of German tourists being led around and a crowd of cats begging food from them.  The German archaeologist Schliemann was the first to uncover Troy and he looted the jewellery that he found, mistaking it for jewellery of Homer’s Troy when it was in fact from a much earlier period.  He had a very uncivilised approach to excavation initially.  He dug an enormous trench right through the middle of the city, destroying much of it in the process, but he gets credit for discovering the site and apparently he became more circumspect in his approach in later years.

Getting around Turkey after the trials of Africa is blissfully easy.  The big coaches are comfortable and modern, many with wifi access and all with free soft drinks and snacks served by a waiter moving up and down the aisle.  In addition to that they offer free pickup from the centre of town in smaller mini buses that take you out to the main bus station.  It could not be more convenient.  For smaller trips there is the dolmus (pronounced like doll-moosh) which are the Turkish version of the dalla-dalla or bush taxi in Tanzania.  Unlike their African equivalent the dolmus drivers do not try to break the world record for most number of people in a minivan. Everyone gets their own seat and possibly there will be one or two standing for a short time.  Dolmuses travel set routes but will pick up or drop off passengers anywhere along it, rather than at fixed stops. The dolmus system would be the perfect public transport solution for Canberra where buses come infrequently and struggle to fill up, while taxis are exorbitantly expensive.  Who better to man Canberra dolmuses than all the retired public servants who could get out of the house and meet new and interesting people?  We think it would make a huge improvement to life in the capital.

From Canakkale we passed through Bandirma, staying overnight in a super cheap but comfortable hotel with a nice view of the harbour on the Sea of Marmara. We had a super cheap dinner to match the hotel room but it was super delicious.  There is a type of restaurant in Turkey known as the lokantası that does a small buffet from which you compose your own meal, but not in the Western sense where food is left sitting for days.  This stuff is freshly cooked and excellent.  You just point at the rice and the bean stew and they arrive at your table with a massive basket of fresh bread.  Happy days.  Bandirma was also the location of a nice piece of Turkish honesty.  Everyone we met in Turkey was friendly and there was remarkably little hassle but the taxi driver in Bandirma made us feel bad for haggling with him.  We were still in African mode and bargaining for how much the ride from the bus station into town would cost.  He told us that it would be 20 lira (about $10) but we said, no, no, 15 lira.  That’s when he pointed out that he had a meter which made haggling redundant.  It was a reasonable distance into town and when we arrived at the port the money owing on the meter was 23.16.  I gave him a 20 and a 10 but he refused to take the 10, saying that he quoted us 20 so that’s all he would take.  It was a small gesture but very kind.  Then there was the young guy who bought us a chocolate bar each just to be genial.  They really are a kind people.

In the morning we caught the fast ferry from Bandirma back to Istanbul, disappearing into this inland sea, as big as a Canadian superior lake.  After picking up our Indian visa in the capital of capitals it was time to head out east, along the Black Sea coast, starting with the Ottoman town of Safranbolu.

Full set of Cannakale, Troy and Bandirma photos are hiding behind the links