Agra is synonymous with the Taj Mahal, but I don’t want to take you there just yet as there is more to see in Agra than just that. We arrived at the train station in the middle of a very hot day and got an official taxi (non-air conditioned) driven by a guy who looked like a mix between Kapil Dev and a washed up Bollywood star. He had the bouffant hairstyle favoured by Indian cricketers of the 80s and a matching moustache. With big aviator sunglasses and an intriguing scar on his cheek he looked like a character but turned out to be very polite and – apart from pushing a few shop stops – he was a good choice to not only take us to the hotel but drive us around the sights.
The Red Fort in Agra is even more impressive than its Delhi counterpart both in scale and detail.
We hopped from shady spot to shady spot in a bid to shelter from the scorching sun but eventually had to concede defeat and move on to the tomb of Itmad-ud-Daulah, otherwise know as the Baby Taj. While nowhere near as grand as its bigger sibling the Baby Taj is incredibly detailed. The marble inlaid with semi-precious stones are stunningly beautiful and the site was blissfully uncrowded. We had a nice time wandering the grounds and soaking up the atmosphere.
On the way out a troupe of monkeys trotted past, some scaling a wall with the help of a rope as though they were cat burglars. Monkeys are seen as a problem here. We saw one stealing a tomato from a roadside vendor who, paradoxically, threw food at it to drive it away. They congregate at the intersections where drivers sometimes toss edible items out.
As the sun went down we visited the park called Mehtab Bagh on the other side of the river to the Taj Mahal and watched the sinking sun tint its white marble, excitedly anticipating our dawn visit the next day.
The Taj is even more majestic up close. We arrived soon after it opened in the cooler post-dawn air when the crowds had not yet built up. Unlike a lot of landmarks which seem familiar on seeing them in person, the Taj still invokes awe and wonder at its scale. Not only is it stunningly elegant, it’s a massive building as well, something that is hard to appreciate without being there. While it has this huge scale it also has intricate detail in the Arabic, floral and geometric carvings and decorations which draw you in. It really is a remarkable building. Built out of love as a tomb for Mumtaz Mahal, the third wife of Shah Hahan who died while giving birth to their 14th child. Heading inside the mausoleum it is remarkably peaceful. The wind wistfully whistles through and even the guides sound like ghosts.
We headed from there straight to the train station, disappointing our driver by deciding not to buy a carpet even though we had a very interesting demonstration of how they make them (and we accepted a cold drink while watching them unroll dozens of carpets in front of us). At least the driver was honest about the commission he got if we bought one. At the train station the first cracks started to appear in our Indian rail experience. The train we were catching was a couple of hours late, and we were a couple of hours early as well. We trudged around the station checking whether we could get another ticket, being sent from counter to counter and waiting in line as people pushed in at the counter, lining up in the Indian horizontal fashion rather than vertically. We eventually discovered that there were no other options and brushing aside the stupidly overpriced taxi quotes we headed to the platform where we at least had seats on a hard wooden bench to review photos in the sweltering heat while waiting for the train to pull up. Our only consolation were curried crisps, a mass marketed brand but much more flavourful than an Australian brand would be. The packet listed a dozen different spices that were used to get just the right tang.
At the appointed hour of arrival the train was delayed by another hour and when it finally pulled in and we piled on the train sat at the station for another ninety minutes in the broiling heat. We had not managed to get an air-conditioned berth for this trip so we were doubly grateful when the train started moving and graced us with a breeze like a blast from a hairdryer. We were sitting in a sleeper compartment with a very nice Indian family, a mother travelling with her adult son and a couple of other unrelated gentlemen, all of whom had been on the train for over twenty hours but were still smiling. Sarah’s views on marriage not being essential shocked the mother, although she didn’t show it. The son assured us that she was indeed shocked and he would not get away with espousing such views himself. The mother gave Sarah some good tips for what to look for when buying saris. She is in the sari business herself and travels the country buying fabrics. Her son was a former television host and typical of the ‘new’ India full of optimism and opportunity. He had quit his media job to try his luck at a start-up, filming properties for the real estate market to appeal to time-poor, cashed up middle class tenants too busy to go to open houses all over town.
I was plugged into my phone listening to Late Night Live podcasts and trying to hang in there. We eventually made in back to Delhi and the coolness of Master Guesthouse where we showered, ate and collapsed.
It is no surprise to me now that India has so many novelists. Stories ooze from the pores of this country. With over a billion people and 300 million Hindu gods, the streets are full of life: wandering cows, rickshaw riders, chai wallahs, lime soda stands, spice sellers and an endless stream of humans. We arrived with our energy reserves a little low after having too much fun in Turkey. The early morning hot-air balloon followed by a tour of Capadoccia, Sarah’s birthday dinner, an early start the next day, two flights interspersed with a lunch in Istanbul and a late arrival in Dubai had drained what little energy we had. Arriving in India feeling a bit tired was not a prospect we were looking forward to but Delhi was kind to us initially. The wide roads spread the chaos out to the peripheries and we just floated through in the car sent to meet us by our accommodation. Master Guesthouse in Delhi was a fantastic choice, so calm and modern but also imbued with effigies, incense and principles of the strong Hindi faith of the owners. The young men who work there have an hour off each afternoon to practice yoga, at the encouragement of the owners – Sarah was envious. We felt immediately at peace and enjoyed tucking into their Indian food for dinner and breakfast.
Indian breakfasts are quite different to what we would eat in Australia. The two Indian options on the Master Guesthouse menu sum it up nicely: paranthas or puris. Paranthas are fried, stuffed flat bread served with mustard pickle (very spicy) and yoghurt. Puris are puffy deep fried bread and they were served with potato curry. All this with sweet lassi (a yoghurt drink) on the side – it was quite delicious. I am inspired to learn how to make paranthas now as they were ubiquitous for breakfast during our trip throughout northern India. Delhi was having a typical run of hot weather with every day over 40 degrees. We were ok in our air-conditioned room but the bathroom felt like a jungle and the cold water taps ran hot. While it was baking hot at least it was a dry heat so we sweated buckets but drank buckets of replacement water.
That calm feeling didn’t last too long. We went on a mini tour the next day, passing the world’s largest presidential palace which you can only admire briefly between the bars of the gates, then to India Gate, a war memorial inspired by the Arc de Triomph which we wandered up to along the parched grass, fending off the hawkers to take a couple of snaps. This area of Delhi partly has the grand feel of a capital with enormous boulevards and monuments, but the other images of India you carry in your mind are there in the groups of people sleeping under bushes, the emaciated mongrels and the rubbish-strewn waterways festering in the heat.
The next stop was the Tomb of Humayun, cruelly outshone by the Taj Mahal but still lovely on a smaller scale. The building uses the red sandstone for which the area is famous. It was built by the Mughuls in the 16th century, an empire that swept into India from Central Asia bringing Persian infuenced art, religion and food with them. They Tomb of Humayun features that mix of Persian and Indian styling which makes art from that era so distinctive. There are beautifully carved marble window screens giving glimpses of the tomb inside.
Delhi started to heat up when we went to the Old City via the impeccably modern and blissfully air-conditioned metro. Old Delhi probably doesn’t have more people per square kilometre than New Delhi, but they are crammed into much more narrow streets. Here was the India we had been imagining, jostling crowds competing with cows and motorised rickshaws for space, sidestepping the rubbish and excretions. Amidst all the chaos the Red Fort stands tall, its red sandstone – if not exactly gleaming in the weak sunlight penetrating the pollution – at least looking grand and impressive. The rest of India obviously thought so as well because the line for tickets was about half a kilometre long. For once it was a benefit paying more for the foreigners’ ticket as there was no line at all for these tickets, which cost about thirty times as much (still not that expensive). Sarah had planted herself in the line to get into the fort, so once I had the tickets we joined the women in colourful saris and the men in long pants on a day when the temperature was nudging 40 degrees. I had light long pants as well so as not to draw any more attention to myself than strictly necessary. Legs are a shocking sight in India and we try not to offend local custom if we can. Despite not flashing any skin, once inside the fort we were constantly pestered for photos. I’m really not sure why all the locals want photos with foreign tourists. They showed very little interest in finding out where we were from, they just wanted a snap with the exotic white-skinned creatures. It truly felt like being an animal in a zoo sometimes, although it wasn’t rude or hostile. This happened all across India and we submitted most of the time but I cracked it on a few occasions when people were constantly rotating to get their photo and we had better things to be doing with our time than be ogled.
The Red Fort feels more like a facade to the big park inside and the old Mughul living quarters facing the barren river. Even without furnishings or decorations these buildings are sumptuous with carvings in the white marble inset with precious stone. In its heyday they must have been quite a sight. You can also see the influence this style continues to have, for example the new Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi which is reminiscent of this.
After the fort we barged through the crowds on the footpath made narrower by the impromptu stalls on either side selling cheap clothes and other paraphernalia, presumably shipped the short distance from China. We made it to the Jama Masjid mosque and a few photo requests later we made it up one of the minarets for a sunset look at this very flat and endless city.
On one of our Delhi days we took the B&B’s recommendation for lunch and were taken to the kind of grand hotel that we would never go to while travelling in a developed country simply because of price. In India a five star lunch is hideously expensive by local standards but just normally draining on our bank balance back home. The restaurant was in the Imperial Hotel which was very fitting because it was like time had stood still since the British Raj in here. The décor was very fresh and modern but the waiters in their over-the-top uniforms and formal manner harked back to the colonial era. It’s one of the great contrasts of India that you can easily get through a security check (white skin helps) and escape the poverty and chaos of the streets in an instant, being transported to an eerie air-conditioned calm. In the bathroom I was startled by an Indian attendant who had not been standing by the basins when I entered, but on my way to the sink he turned the tap on for me, pumped soap into my hand and passed me a towel. In retrospect I can see that he was expecting a tip, and the look on his face when I didn’t give him one was like he had just bitten a lime in half, but I just found it a bit awkward and in my social confusion he just got a hearty thank you. The food was pretty good and I had some lovely South Indian pancakes. The restaurant was not saturated with foreign tourists. There are plenty of locals making enough money to eat and stay in such places. India is a highly divided society which we were to see in much closer detail in our onward travels.
Our first experience of the Indian train system went fairly smoothly. We had gone to the Tourist Bureau at New Delhi station to pick up some ‘foreign quota’ tickets by flashing our passports. The trains were very full due to the Indian summer holidays so we were thankful for this system which reserves a few seats on key trains for foreign tourists, and were lucky to get tickets on the air-conditioned sleeper compartment to Agra, the home of the Taj Mahal. It’s extremely difficult to book tickets on Indian trains from overseas (Sarah can give you a very detailed account of this if you have a spare thirty minutes to kill).
Indian train stations live up (or down) to expectations. Anyone can wander in so the teeming multitudes of Indian life can be found here, from the poor beggars sleeping and covered in flies, emaciated dogs lying in places that could not be more in the way if they tried, children walking along the tracks collecting rubbish to sell for recycling, mothers holding their kids over the tracks to go to the toilet (which would explain all the turds – and urinating on the tracks is not limited to the kids), hawkers selling watches and snacks, middle class families heading off for holidays, porters moving huge containers in carts or just strapped to their heads, men brushing their teeth at the shared water spouts. Just before a train leaves the platform becomes packed with people who have to shove their way on to unreserved seating in the third class carriages and end up hanging out of the door as the train pulls away in their effort to squeeze onto the overcrowded carriage.
For our journey to Agra we joined an Indian family in the sleeper compartment as they were having their breakfast after being on the train overnight. We settled down on the ends of the firm beds and watched the scenery unfold.
Capadoccia’s ‘fairy chimneys’ do have a magical look to them, even drifting by them at night from the bus. You can see why people used to think that fairies lived in them. Now they mainly have tourists but the cute little windows fixed into these stone structures still make them look like something out of a fairy tale.
We stayed in a cave hostel. It is unusual to find a hotel in Capadoccia without ‘cave’ in the title. They burrow into a hill or, in our case, were made from the same crumbly rock quarried from the hills. There was an initial ‘wow’ factor on entering our room. It was cavernous compared to most of our accommodation on this trip, had lovely lighting and was warm. We could overlook the fact that it was built with stone bricks so wasn’t strictly speaking a cave, that pale stone dust settled on everything over the course of a day (the cleaning folk around here really earn their money), but we couldn’t overlook the mild electric shocks that we got from the shower. Still, we took a day to report the issue and they moved us into a room with a nicer bathroom that was indeed carved cave-like into the hill.
The view from the terrace for breakfast is fantastic and otherworldly. Photos will do more justice to the unusual landscape than I can (photos are not strictly from our hotel, but you get the idea).
We walked to the open-air museum along the road and were passed by grumpy looking tour bus operators, we thought because they wanted us as passengers on their tours, but maybe just driving a tour bus is enough to piss you off. The open-air museum is an incredible collection of cave churches dating from Byzantine times when there was a stronger Christian presence in this area, although the fact that they were worshipping in caves that the locals thought were cursed tells you how accepted they were. This museum at its peak gets 6,000 visitors a day, which would be horrendous as the caves only fit 30 people at most at a time so you would spend the entire day queuing. The churches are basic, as you would expect from a cave, with the odd colourful fresco still intact, but the atmosphere, once you filter out all the other tourists, is magical. The most extravagantly decorated church is known as the ‘dark church’ because it is up a flight of stairs and has no external light source. They have kindly put LED lighting in to show the amazing frescoes that line every inch of the walls and ceiling, telling the story of Jesus in brilliant colour and good style. Just across the road from the open-air museum you can climb up into and clamber all over old cave houses that are basically abandoned to all comers. They stretch as far as the eye can see and some of them are quite roomy. If they were located in the cliffs of Eastern Sydney they would probably fetch $100k minimum.
This landscape stretches into Rose Valley where we wandered around with a hotel tour at sunset. The clouds lifted a little at just the right time to give us a nice evening night. For the rest of the walk through the valley Sarah made yet another friend, this time with a Korean woman called Li and Tom her husband. They were avid fans of Australia, having lived and studied in Sydney and Adelaide in the past. We were the beneficiaries of their Aussie-enthusiasm, as they were extremely complimentary about both the country and, by extension, us. They were slightly obsessive but in a nice way. When Li met me she said, “you are so beautiful”. It’s hard to come up with a response to that.
The hot-air balloon ride the next morning was magical. Just us and 22 strangers jammed into a basket filling the sky along with the 100 other balloons launching that morning. The other balloons made a great backdrop and once we were in the air it was nice and peaceful. It really was a perfect day for it, still with clear blue skies. In Capadoccia they lower the balloons into valleys until you’re no more than 10 metres above the ground, then quickly pump in the heat to get you over the looming hill. It’s a great way to see the landscape.
After a quick nap (given our dawn start) we hopped on a bus for the tour around Capadoccia’s other interesting sights. The underground city of Derinkuyu is incredible, 18 levels all underground of which 8 are currently accessible to the public. It was too claustrophobic for a couple of members of our tour who headed back to ground level and you can’t blame them. The corridors are single file and to get to the lowest level you crouch down and descend a twisting tunnel, praying that there isn’t a power failure. The city was used to hide from aggressors and could support thousands of people for months at a time. It was only discovered in the 20th century by a shepherd stumbling into a hole, so well hidden is it (and so numerous are the other ruins in Turkey). The city has a church, school, air and communication shaft, dry store, kitchen and bedrooms.. It would have been a miserable existence while it lasted but preferable to being skewered by an invading army.
As you might guess the other stops on the tour were also carved out of rock. There was the church in a lovely valley, frescoes still clearly emblazoned on the walls. We walked along the river to the restaurant for lunch where they treated us like the tour group we were but served up pretty decent food at a fast clip.
The next stop was possibly the most impressive, the Selime Monastery. Almost an entire mountain has been carved out to create what was a monastery with huge and numerous rooms. Star Wars fans take note: this was intended to be the site of filming for the opening scenes in the original Star Wars movie but the military leaders in charge of Turkey at that time refused permission to film so they went off to Morocco. I think it would have been better in Turkey.
The final stop was at a jewellery store masquerading as a tourist attraction by showing how onyx stone is cut and polished into a shiny egg, but this is starting to get into Sarah’s Birthday, which warrants a post of its own.
Sarah’s birthday started at the end of tour around Capaddocia tour in the traditional tourist rip-off shop where she spotted a nice pair of silver earrings and gave me big puppy eyes. They suit her very nicely. We had dinner that night at one of the best restaurants in town which had a lovely view of the fairy chimneys at night.
This was just the warm-up to Sarah’s birthday, you understand, but due to a quirk of travel planning the actual birthday fell on the day we were leaving Turkey, flying from Capadoccia to Istanbul early in the morning, then flying on to Dubai to arrive at the end of Sarah’s birthday (strictly speaking). I was amazed that none of the airlines stuck a candle in a dessert after sneakily ascertaining that it was Sarah’s birthday from her passport. I guess you don’t get special treatment in the air any more.
The early morning start to the birthday day was amazing. It was another clear blue day and the hot-air balloons drifted over Goreme, the town in Capadoccia we stayed in. As we drove around town in the airport shuttle picking people up we had great views of the balloons drifting lower to come and look at us.
Despite the early flight we had a great (last) half-day in Istanbul walking down Istiklal Cadessi once more and stopping halfway along it for lunch in a stunning restaurant with an amazing view. The food was easily the most imaginative we had in Turkey and probably the best tasting as well, which in a country with such tasty food is a big compliment. The waiter serving us hadn’t been briefed about the dessert surprise though and didn’t have great English, but we got it through to him that there was a birthday taking place (I think the waiter thought it was mine) and received a beautiful chocolate fondant pudding with one elegant white candle.
Waddling off lunch we headed down to Galata bridge and caught a tram and the metro out to the airport. A short flight later and we were in Dubai (yet again) where the hotel gave us a free upgrade to a suite which had a bathroom bigger than most of the hotel rooms we’ve stayed in. Too tired to appreciate it, although thankful for the quiet room, we sank into a post-travel stupor.
We’ve celebrated four birthdays on these travels, Sarah and I as well as Jackie and Rick, Sarah’s parents. I think the ladies had the best of it. Sarah’s will be hard to top. Hot-air balloons in the morning, an incredible lunch with a view in the capital of capitals and a night in a suite in Dubai. Jackie did very nicely as well with a drink in a hip bar in Jerusalem and a fantastic Moroccan feast. I had the best decorations ever when the hotel in Aqaba, Jordan went nuts on my room and then a very good seafood dinner out on the Red Sea. Rick drew the short straw with pizza in Irbid, the horrible town we got lost in and almost ran over a child (although that was on a separate day). The travel gods did not smile kindly on him that day. Never mind Rick, there’s always this year!
Our jaunt around the Mediterranean coast of Turkey continued in Antalya, a sprawling town with a lovely old quarter overlooking the sea. Coming into the town is not inspiring as you pass ugly modern apartment blocks and a busy commercial district, but then you pass into the old part of town which cars have to pay to enter, vastly reducing their numbers, and the winding streets are quiet. Our hotel was incredibly cheap for its beauty. The old stone construction and large quiet courtyards would be valued much more in Australia, but here it’s just one of many such hotels in the tourist quarter. We had a cracking little lunch in an alleyway, served by an old lady who I suspect was the cook as well. Cats lurked and were rewarded with a little chicken but they didn’t get any of my wine!
We trooped off to the recommended museum on the tram, doing our duty as cultural tourists. The tram took us past the old city gates, yet another edifice built to impress the Roman Emperor Hadrian, then along the cliffs above the sea. The museum is one of the biggest in Turkey, mainly because of all the ancient statues recovered from the ancient city of Perge which used to produce them for the empire, particularly Roman emperors and Greek gods in suitably statuesque poses. Impressive as these are I preferred the smaller items: a baby’s cup made of stone which fed ancient bubs long since passed away, tiny delicate gold rings engraved with images of women, miniature gold statues of animals, all dating from thousands of years before Christ.
The next day Sarah went down to the marina’s rocky private beach (deck chairs included) where she sunned herself next to the yachts. I took a break from the sun and sat in the lovely hotel courtyard catching up on blog posts.
Our abiding memory of Antalya will be relaxation and good food. That night we went to a little cafe with a plant-filled courtyard and listened to some traditional music being played. A cat successfully begged from us, pretended to be a patron sharing our table, then got a bit scratchy so I tossed him off my lap.
Our Mediterranean love affair ended in Antalya but all was not lost for we were heading to one of the most unique tourist spots in Turkey, the fairy chimneys of Capadoccia.
Fethiye (pronounced fet-ee-eh) came like a breath of fresh sea air. A pretty port town on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast surrounded by hills with multi-million dollar yachts bobbing in the harbour. It had the feel of Sydney’s Middle Harbour at the start of summer. The guesthouse we stayed in had one of the smallest toilet/showers we had ever seen (like on a boat) but it was clean and more than made up for this shortcoming with a gorgeous view down the hill to the harbour and into town. Despite thin walls it was in a quiet part of town and we gratefully sucked up some more sleep.
Fethiye was the most glamorous city we had been in since Istanbul and despite being small the foreshore had some bling. We walked along the harbour to the canal, followed that inland for a time then started walking up towards the local castle. Along the way were some ancient Lycian sarcophagi (tombs) sitting abandoned in an overgrown patch of park and in an intersection. Turkey is full of neglected ruins. There are just so many of them that it must be hard to keep track of them, let alone maintain them. Instead they adapt to new urban lifestyle, often with a coat of graffiti and a scattering of beer cans and broken glass at their base. These tombs had the extra interest of grazing chickens to keep them company. We continued wandering uphill getting delightfully sidetracked in small alleys with abandoned houses before finally clambering up past a canoodling couple in some undergrowth to emerge at the crumbling castle that overlooks town, and the excellently placed bar where we had a drink after clambering over the ruins.
This part of the world also has a lot of caves which were carved into Petra-style tombs in the 4thcentury BC with the same ornate columns, albeit on a smaller scale. To round out the day we had a nice dinner, then while wandering back to the hotel we spotted a musical soiree underway at the small Roman theatre, so we camped our bottoms on the same stone steps as thousands of generations have done before us.
An essential part of any stay in this part of the world is a trip on a gulet, a Turkish sailing boat, which takes you, well, wherever you want to go really. We just did a day tour of the islands around the harbour as our time in Turkey was running out and the weather wasn’t warm enough just yet. The boat was huge with a sunning deck and lots of comfortable seating. It powered out of the harbour and then, when the conditions are right, the crew hoisted the sails so we were gliding above the turquoise blue water. It was slightly too cold to swim but that didn’t stop us jumping in. The water is lovely though brisk at that time of year. The weather closed in later in the afternoon and when our last stop turned into people sheltering from the rain we called it a day slightly early and headed home.
Another jaunt that we earmarked early on in Turkey was a walk on the Lycian Way, a 45-day walk along the coast between Fethiye and Antalya which covers rocky shorelines, sandy beaches and tonnes of incredible ruins. We could only devote one full day to it, but it was an amazing day. We got a dolmus to the ghost town of Kayakoy which was occupied by Greeks before they were swapped with Turks from Greek Macedonia in a population exchange deal at the start of Turkey’s independence. The Turks they moved into this area didn’t cope so well with farming the rocky landscape and they left the town to look after itself, which it has done fairly well. It’s a sizable town and the abandoned church captures the atmosphere of the place, peaceful and lonely.
From Kayakoy we walked over the headland and left the crowds behind. Far below us was the sparkling turquoise water of the Mediterranean, unnatural in its brightness. A yacht bobbed in a secluded harbour, dwarfed by the towering bush-covered hills near the coast.
The walk took us down to the beach which, although one of the nicer beaches on the coast, had been ruined by the resort feel and faux English pubs serving Yorkish pudding and roast beef. Why this particular part of the coast had been overrun by Poms was unclear but we didn’t dig the atmosphere. There were paragliders leaping off a nearby hill, one of which almost landed on our heads as we were walking along the footpath. Sarah was tempted to join their ranks and jump off the nearby mountain but the fear of potentially lower safety standards held her back. Ironically this didn’t stop us later going on a hot-air balloon ride in Capadoccia where they have had a fatal accident.
We got a bit lost shortly afterwards, accidentally taking the coastal road and then getting a dolmus even further along. A short taxi ride corrected our error and we found ourselves in a pine forest at the official start of the Lycian Way. The path went uphill on a rocky path without much cover for the next hour or so which gave amazing views back down the coast and of the paragliders still gliding down over our heads. We walked through tiny villages precariously places beneath landslide-prone scree slopes, the fields full of goats and sheep. We were surprised to hear a man yelling from behind us we walked along, the sound coming closer to us at a fast rate. When we looked back we were even more surprised to see not a man but a big goat charging down the road uttering a guttural yawp at fearsome decibels. Sarah braced herself in fear that we would be charged but the old billy goat stopped by the side of the road and bellowed downhill at another group of goats who seemed to be wandering off in a direction he wasn’t pleased with. They bleated back at him to pull his head in and he redoubled his roar for them to come back immediately. We walked on with the conversation echoing around the hills.
After our 25km walk we stayed that night at a great little set of cabins just above Butterfly Valley, a huge rent in the earth with a lovely beach that you can only reach by sailing in or climbing down the very steep path. But we left that for the next day and enjoyed a well-earned rest in front of a spectacular sunset, then an awesome vegetarian buffet. We woke to find a beautiful day and about 45 minutes later we had clambered our way down the cliff path, abseiling down the steeper parts with the support of an old knotted rope. The valley is rocky and lush with wild flowers along the bottom and a beautiful little beach disturbed only by a few boats coming in for day trips. A small commune is based there, living off shared labour and an open beach bar serving tourists. I left Sarah sunning herself to explore the waterfall at the base of the valley. It was not a huge waterfall but the experience is made more unique by the knotted rope that you can use to pull yourself up through the winding water for a better view higher up. It would be incredibly difficult to climb out of the valley this way but the views are fantastic.
We left reluctantly (Sarah had discovered the hammock) and got the dolmus back to Fethiye through the awful English resort town and enjoyed our last night by having dinner next to a duck pond.
Pamukkale houses the incredible travertines, a cascading flow of mineral rich water which has created white stone pools filled with ice blue water that stretch for a couple of kilometres uphill. You must remove your shoes to walk on the travertines and there is a special shoe guard entrusted with a whistle who reprimands offenders. Wading through the water and over the hard white surface mottled with ripples, it looks as though the trickling water has solidified, which in effect it has, leaving little deposits of minerals as it flows downhill.
The Romans considered these waters to be health-giving, and settled a city nearby – so to add a little extra bang to your tourist buck there are the amazing Roman ruins of Hierapolis on the plateau at the top of the travertines. The old theatre is being grandly restored and has an incredible view.
But first we had to try and avoid the annoying old Dutch tourist who had talked at us non-stop at lunch the previous day. He was staying at the same hotel as us, retired a while ago and travels the world, and just wouldn’t stop going on about all the places he had visited. We spotted him in the distance at Hierapolis, and paused to admire a ruin a little longer than necessary to let him get further away. Unfortunately he cornered me later on while Sarah was inspecting the necropolis, and tried to talk over my answers to his questions, but I just talked over him right back. He wasn’t put off and told me that he used to be an antiques dealer and made ‘rather a lot of money’.
Bores aside, the ruins are fantastic with hills behind and the valley down in the distance, all in easy wandering distance from our hotel in town. Our favourite ruins were in the public pool, a heated oasis on the site of the ruins where you can pay to swim over the top of ancient columns and building pieces which had collapsed in the crystal clear waters of the pool. It’s an amazing experience. Sarah also paid a visit to Dr Fish where small fish in lab coats ate the dead skin from her feet. I’m not 100% on the lab coats bit, but they definitely had degrees.
The walk back down the travertines at the end of the day was incredible. Gathered storm clouds were pierced by a beautiful sunset and, as the sunlight faded, the lights on the travertine took over. Sarah attracted yet another extrovert who talked at her the whole way down but we managed to shake her and have dinner on our own in a nice Japanese restaurant that also served Korean food. The Japanese lady who owned the restaurant had met her husband while on a tour in Turkey. She had a nice golden retriever dog who stalked town fetching discarded plastic bottles to chew on.
For a small town with such big tourist attractions Pamakkule felt strangely underdeveloped, as though this small inland rural farming community just woke up one day with the travertines blinding white in the sunlight and they’re still not sure what to do with them. The only sign that you’re in a touristy place are all the touts outside the restaurants and the scooters and taxis that blast past at every hour of the day and night. The town wasn’t really peaceful or interesting but the amazing sights beyond it made up for that.
The best thing about the hotel we stayed in was the photo plastered on the wall next to the pool with a giant rooster straddling the travertines. We’re not sure why its there, but we like it.
We got to Selcuk (pronounced ‘sell-chook’) feeling a bit jet-lagged after staying up all night for the ANZAC Day dawn service in Gallipoli. Although we had a nap in the afternoon of Anzac Day and an extra night in Eceabat to recover (while the rest of the tour group spent five hours on the bus going back to Istanbul, which must have been hellish) we were still heavily in sleep debt. The bus to Selcuk was simple and the hotel just a short walk from the station. We checked in quickly and had a late dinner underneath the Roman aqueduct, a very delicious home-cooked meal, which we didn’t appreciate quite so much in our dazed state.
Selcuk is a nice little town with a great pedestrian area full of cafes and small hotels. It has a very genial feel with lazy dogs and cute cats everywhere. It was just the place to unwind a little with the only hitch being that the best ruins in Turkey are a short drive away. This threw a spanner into our rest plans, but we graced the ruins with our presence, along with all the other tourists in Turkey. The setting was lovely with red poppies blanketing the grassy hills. Ephesus was a large town in its day, and made the capital of Asia Minor by the Romans, which you partly comprehend when you learn that only about 20% of the city has been excavated and even so it’s a large site. I’m going to sound like a massive travel wanker now, but we preferred the ruins in Jerash, Jordan which were more fully formed and less crowded. Ephesus had some amazing structures, especially the villas which still have a lot of the original mosaics, but it didn’t grab us like Jerash and capture our imagination.
We made an attempt at going to the local beach but it was windswept and not a patch on the beaches back home. Back in Selcuk we joined another couple clambering up to the church in the area where apparently John the Baptist ‘retired’ to with Jesus’ mum Mary. We paid a random Turkish guy to show us the back way in which yielded some nice sunset shots, including of the grave of John the Baptist. Really, the best bit of Selcuk was eating in nice cafes and enjoying the breakfast on the terrace of our hotel, bathed in sunlight with killer views of the town below and castle above on its perch.
The dawn service at Gallipoli (known by the locals as Gelibolu) was never part of our plans. In all our meticulous research for major events happening in the countries we were visiting we totally forgot about the Australian hajj so it came as a surprise to figure out a few weeks before we flew to Turkey that we would be there at the right time to make the booner pilgrimage. We thought we might as well go, seeing that we would be in the area. The stories of drunk Australian nationalists damaging headstones combined with staying up all night didn’t sound like an attractive combination but in true Aussie spirit we decided to give it a red hot go.
Rather than figure it all out ourselves we opted for a tour so that we could become travel jellyfish for a few days, swept along with the tide of the group. Before we hopped on the tour bus some of our group were having 10am beers and had to be fetched from the pub for our departure. This didn’t fill me with hope for the rest of the tour, but luckily the bus had a mixture of ages on board and the young boofheads didn’t dominate. On the way down an Irishman, the only non-Anzac with us, sang the song ‘The Band Played Waltzing Matilda‘ that inspired him to become interested in the Gallipoli campaign, a theatre of war that is neglected in Irish history. It was a moving rendition and set the tone nicely as we came into Eceabat, the small town on the northern shore of the Dardanelles that we had passed through on our way to Gockeada island. The town was more lively now but our main concern was our sleeping arrangements. The tour company we went through turned out to be brokers who farmed us off to another company. Luckily this other company was ok, but we had opted for the ‘budget accommodation’ so were in trepidation. Our worst fears were realised when our names were all read out in the lobby with the people we were sharing rooms with! The rooms were tiny with just enough room for six beds and our bags, but thankfully no bunks. It was our luck (or good arrangement) to be put in the room with the other old fogeys on the tour, a seemingly gay middle-aged couple, he a pharmacist from Australia and him an airline worker based in Singapore. They kept up a ‘just friends’ act and we didn’t have the heart to let them know it wasn’t entirely convincing. Unfortunately for the Singaporean, he became locked in the bathroom in the first hour after check-in, when the lock malfunctioned just as we were all introducing one another. In typical laconic male fashion his friend went to inform the owner and then just sat around waiting for him to be freed. I don’t think he was in there for longer than 20 minutes but shouting out your name through the bathroom door is one of the worst introductions to a group that I can think of. We were also joined by the Irishman, an extrovert performance art graduate turned organic farm certifier. They were all jolly nice and didn’t keep us up late, although the Aussie pharmacist had a wicked snore which I blocked with earplugs and sheer fatigue.
We had a group dinner which was over mercifully fast and were then peer-group pressured into going to the Boomerang Pub where we had a long-winded conversation with a couple from Sydney heavily involved with the scouts (but hadn’t met Bear Grylls, disappointingly for Sarah). The pub owner was an eccentric Turk with an out-of-control beard who liked to play a practical joke on people by squirting water at them from a small pipe in the floor. After Sarah finished her insipid non-alcoholic beer and as the same dance tunes that have been following us around the globe started to kick off, we snuck out and went to bed early.
The next day we did a tour of the Gallipoli battlefields, which, as is often the case with places that have hosted nightmarish horrors, is itself serenely peaceful and beautiful. The hills look innocuous now but if you imagine trying to run up them in wet clothes with a full pack and dodging snipers, they take on a different dimension. The war cemeteries are nicely preserved by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but don’t give a full impression of the death count; and their peaceful environs are in stark contrast to the horrors of the war where the Allies and the Turks were locked in a pointless trench battle of attrition, including characteristic brainless charges against machine guns. The grandstands were all set up at Anzac Cove for the dawn service the next day, and at Lone Pine where the Australian service would be held later the same morning. We saw the remains of some trenches, worn and eroded with time, and a shadow of the extensive trench and tunnel system that would have been here during the first World War. The New Zealand memorial is located on Chunuk Bair which is the highest point on the peninsular. It gives amazing views of the countryside, and would have inspired a feeling of hopelessness for the Allied soldiers who had to try and fight their way up this huge hill embedded with Turkish soldiers. As well as forging the modern identities of young Australia and New Zealand the Gallipoli campaign was also an essential element in the legend of Ataturk, the commander known at the time as Mustafa Kemal, who was one of the few war heroes to emerge for Turkey and went on to found the modern Turkish nation. Gallipoli is as much a foundation myth for Turkey as the Anzacs.
The cemetaries on the penisular are also in heart breakingly beautiful spots next to the sea and seeing all those young boys buried there brings home the waste of potential. Young lives were thrown against the machine guns for little tactical gain. It is impossible to convey the enormoity of the loss and the full horrors they went through. Interestingly some gravestones do not include a cross which indicates that they were aetheist, and there are also gravestones for Indian soldiers killed in action.
We had a day off before spending the night out at Anzac Cove ahead of the dawn service. Coincidentally this is the day Turkey celebrates its little kiddy-winks (‘Children’s Day’) so outside our hotel there was a parade and lots of children trying to dance the choreography assigned to them by a very enthusiastic teacher who didn’t look entirely satisfied with the results. I was taking it easy in bed and enjoying the sunny room with a view of the Dardanelles, revelling in blissful alone time before the night group exercises where the Anzacs would once again invade the Gallipoli peninsular.
It was the warmest night before the dawn service in years which made the evening bearable. We missed out on the grassy area which was dominated by one tour group in matching outfits. We had to make do with the bleachers, sitting on hard plastic seats. I set myself in the frame of mind for a long distance flight. An extroverted German woman solo traveller proceeded to chat with Sarah for much of the night, even giving the Irish performance artist a run for his money (he decamped and found some other Irish people to talk to). Luckily the German lady was doing some research on the director Peter Wier so she went off to interview people about their thoughts on his film, Gallipoli. In a show of stubborn intransigence I refused to be interviewed, shunning her puppy-like eagerness in favour of a constant quietude, trying but failing to put myself in the mind of the soldiers as they waited to land on this night almost 100 years ago.
Gallipoli is not a peaceful place at 3am just before the dawn service. There are documentaries playing on big screens, a military band belting out peppy hits of old wartime, and an MC to guide you through the night. It felt more like a government-run sporting event than anything else, and when dawn finally broke the haunting traditional grieving songs by Maori singers gave it some class before some fairly dull speeches delivered in a dull fashion, some helicopters flying overhead and at last the Last Post, but by the time that haunting piece filled the air the sun was well up and the any chance of magic evaporated with it. The most moving testimony in the evening was from a 70s documentary from New Zealand where an old safari suit-clad presenter wandered around Gallipoli recreating the battle, interspersed with first-hand testimony from Kiwi soldiers present at the battles and it was they who described the horrors of war in the grittiest detail.
The Australian service on Lone Pine mimicked the dawn service almost exactly, making it seem entirely redundant. The main point seemed to be for Prime Minister Julia Gillard to press the flesh along with Ben Roberts-Smith the enormous Victoria Cross (VC) winner who was described as a hunk by one young lady.
Our tour operator illegally parked his buses at the exit, but sweet-talked the police chief giving him a (traditional, Turkish and quite hetero male) kiss on the cheek, and after the separate New Zealand service the roads were opened and we sped out first, ahead of 100 plus tour buses line up behind us. After being awake and sitting up all night, it felt like the sweetest moment of the entire tour. Although the night had not descended into drunken mayhem (as signs posted on gravestones instructing people not to use them as pillows indicated had happened in the past), the reality of the war and sorrow of the losses were not really conveyed. Much more powerful was the book I was reading at the time which gives first-hand accounts of the battle from letters home. I thought it felt very sterile in that way that Australia can produce, cheerfully efficient and dull. Sarah felt moved, but mostly by seeing the graves of the young men the day before the dawn service: their youth, how quickly they died after landing, and the tortured but stoic messages on the tombstones from their bereaved parents. The ideas of war as masculine and virtuous, necessary and heroic, just seemed utterly old-fashioned and pointless in the beautiful, windswept setting and on these foreign shores of Turkey where we were so warmly welcomed as visitors. Ataturk summed up this feeling beautifully.
Istanbul is the kind of city you could spend months exploring but we had to content ourselves with a little over a week in four separate visits. After Eastern Turkey Istanbul felt beautifully warm and sunny. The tulips had bloomed while we were away and added a splash of colour as we explored the Topkapi Palace, the seat of Ottoman power where the sultans stored their harem in exquisitely decorated surroundings on a hill overlooking the Bosphorus and Golden Horn. The palace now houses numerous treasures given to the sultanate by royal families in Europe and Iran in an obscene pissing contest for the most elaborately expensive objects you could imagine. There was also one of the world’s largest diamonds, called the ‘Two Spoons Diamond’ because it was found in a rubbish dump by a beggar who exchanged it for two spoons. There was also a room dedicated to the Islamic Prophet which included various texts and items from his life, including miniscule pieces of his beard. The opulence of the palace was stunning. Once the Turkish Republic was founded, the sultanate were kicked out by Ataturk and spent their exile in Paris.
Sarah spent the morning by herself as I was felled by a dodgy kebab. It had to happen at some point I guess and at least this bout of food poisoning was a lot more mild than in Cuba, but it still left me as weak as a puppy. While I recovered in the excellent pension in Sultanahmet with fresh pide and views of the Blue Mosque from our window, Sarah visited the Istanbul Gallery of Modern Art, had a fresh fish sandwich at Eminonu underneath the Galata Bridge, and took a turn up the Bosphorus in a ferry.
I arose from my sick bed the following day to take a quick look at the Basilica Cistern, an underground water storage area that is more grand than its name suggests. The cistern is a huge stone tank that was used as a water collection area in Byzantine times. It has ludicrously ornate columns given that they are underground and for most of their life underwater. The cistern also has a couple of carved Medusa heads, as you do. These heads are often carved into sarcophagi to ward of evil spirits, turning them to stone.
And before we knew it, the tour to Gallipoli was about to start.
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