Turkey... Part 2

With my Iranian visa application stuck in geo-bureaucratic hell somewhere between London and Istanbul, I had time on my hands to exlpore Turkey. Not knowing anything about the country, I flicked through a tour brochure to get some general ideas as to where to go, and set about visiting them independently. My first stop was Kayseri, in a region called Cappadocia. It is at the heart of Turkey, almost plum centre, and was home to the first recorded human settlers in the country. I had heard about the landscape, and the famed balloon rides, but that was that. I was travelling blind.

Outside the airport I sat on the curb and waited for what I assumed would be a shuttle bus into town. There I got talking to an American couple, Carlos and Tammi, who had booked a private tour of Cappadocia. They kindly offered me a place in their shiny 4x4 for the day, which, needless to say, solved a few problems. After some confused negotiating with the driver ("Them - no problem. You - problem") I got a ride for 75 lira and the tour for free.

The climate was noticably cooler - we were at an altitude of almost 1000m. Nothing compared to the behemoths that await in Kyrgyzstan and China, but it was still a breath of fresh air after the sweaty streets of Istanbul. We were driven through canyons, orchards and gulleys, glimpsing the bizzarre and beautiful homes built into rock formations, where people lived for hundreds of years.

Our first stop was the enormous ancient underground city of Kaymakli, the largest of its kind in Turkey. The first Christian settlers lived here, and could stay for months at a time to protect from attacks by invaders from the West. Archaeologists estimate that over 10,000 people lived here at one point, which seems almost impossible to imagine once you're inside. The city is a labyrynth network of caves, many of them impossible to navigate without crouching or even squatting. The technology involved was immense - they constructed ventilation shafts, kitchen compartments, graveyards, and even wine-making facilities. All of this conducted under mere torchlight. (Look at how modern I am, belittling fire.) I didn't have my camera with me, but if you search for "Kaymakli underground city" in Google images you'll get a good idea.

We had a delicious home-cooked lunch in a shaded garden: Me, Carlos and Tammi, Kamil the guide, and the driver. Here, for the first time, I realised how glad I was not to be mixing with English people. Meeting young English travellers abroad is generally a deflating experience. As a rule, the closer they are to my age and background, the less interesting I find them. After all, that's the reason we're both here - to meet a different sort of person. Often it makes you realise why you got on the plane in the first place, namely to avoid conversations like the one I had on my very first night in Munich:

English traveller: Where are you from, then?

Me: Shropshire.

English traveller: Oh... Bye.

If you're ever abroad, and want to avoid talking to English people, tell them you're from Shropshire. I swear it works every time. Typically Londoners are the worst - one girl in Istanbul started the "where are you from" rigmarole with an original approach: "So you're a Londoner, yah?" I explained that I wasn't. She seemed confused - disappointed, even. I skipped the Shropshire bit and simply explained: "I'm from between Wales and Birmingham." This did not help her. Asking a Londoner to envisage the West Midlands as a geographical entity is rather like asking a dog to do your internet banking. The dog is not mentally equipped to carry out such a process. Better it stay on its favourite carpet and chew its own foot for a bit. Or complain about having to wait a whole ten minutes for another bone to arrive.

A church inside a wall of rocks

Kamil and Tammi

Before I left, my mate Loz warned that the quickest way to bankrupt oneself abroad is to go boozing. This may well be true, but at this rate I'm barely losing a penny due to the amount of people who have bought me a drink after hearing my travel plans. So far I've been bought a beer by people from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, Finland, Scotland, England (ok, there are some advantages to meeting the English aborad) Japan, and Germany. Usually they're over 30, and feel a mixture of pity and admiration for what I'm attempting. Every time I've offered to get a round in, they've refused. So much so that I've almost taken it for granted, and feel disappointed when someone doesn't get me one. You really can have too much of a good thing.

In Istanbul, watching the Stoke-United game in a bar, I got chatting to a Scot named Hamish, who was in town for a wedding. Except he wasn't, as his wife had fallen in, so he snuck out to the pub. When I told him I was going to Iran he puffed out his cheeks, and proceeded to buy me drinks. This was mightily generous of him, but he knocked off pint after pint so fast that I could barely keep up. He said that he worked on the floor of an investment bank, supervising the traders. After some interrogation he admitted it was RBS. I told him that I wasn't a taxpayer, so he had nothing to worry about. He duly bought me another beer.

Mustafapasa

Finding a decent hostel has been made ten times easier by - you guessed it - the internet. I use hostelworld.com, which has a database of thousands of hostels, campsites, guesthouses etc. all over the world, complete with customer reviews, pictures, maps and detailed price lists. I can book ahead with just a few mouse clicks, paying a small deposit up front. After each stay you are invited to rate individual aspects of the hostel, and leave a comment. Consequently it separates the wheat from the chaff, and has generally helped to drive up standards. If your hostel has a poor rating, or receives negative feedback, then you can wave goodbye to any business. It's not entirely trustworthy - there's always the odd eejit who complains about the wi-fi reception in his room that he's paid the grand total of €3 for. But, as a general resource, it's incredibly useful.

There's a theory that the internet has taken the true spirit of adventure out of travelling. Personally, I can't comment, as I'm from a different generation. I'm a touch skeptical, though. Michael the German had little time for hostelworld etc., and explained how back in the day, if he had no money left and couldn't find accommodation, he would go to a bar, find a girl and sleep with her. Thank goodness then, in my case, for hostelworld. (If you're reading this, Michael, that was called self-deprecation. It's what us English indulge in to pretend we're comfortable with our football team being awful, among other things. *Update - our rugby team as well*)

Pumpkins!

The primary criticism of relying on the internet is that, since you can plan and pre-book almost every facet of your journey, you rarely experience the thrill of spontaneity. Well, the other day I was twiddling my thumbs in Istanbul, and had a causal browse of a budget airline website. 24 hours later I was in the back of a 4x4 driving through Cappadocia and the most extraordinary countryside I have ever seen. All thanks to the near-infinite knowledge and practicality of the internet. Maybe if I had ditched the guidebook and hitchhiked into the middle of nowhere, I could have met some fascinating people - but I did anyway. In my opinion the world wide web is a phenomenal resource for the traveller, and anyone who dismisses it outright should be openly mocked. Also it gives me a platform to witter on without interruption (aka this blog.)

I stayed for two nights in a hostel in Goreme, probably Cappadocia's most visited town. Turkey overall has pound for pound the best hostels I've stayed in. Often when venturing into Europe, particularly with your mates, you begin by seeking hostels that are known for having the best 'atmosphere,' closest to the liveliest bars, clubs etc. After three weeks on the road, when you've just been on an overnight bus from Plovdiv and haven't shaved in two weeks, the only thing you ask yourself is "do the showers work" and "are the bedsheets clean?" Everything else is inconsequential. You create your own fun, and wherever you go you'll meet interesting people. It's a bit like going off to university - if you haven't made a bunch of friends in your first two weeks, then you're doing it wrong. Just talk to people, that's all.

I'm fortunate to be blessed with the golden currency of travel: command of the English language. In a typical European hostel, you will meet French, Swedish, American, Latvian, Aussie, Portuguese, Chilean, Korean, or indeed any nationality, all conversing in English. (It goes without saying that all the staff speak it too.) It makes me feel vaguely embarrassed to have such poor language skills myself. In Zagreb earlier this summer, a French guy asked me: "Comment t'appelle tu?" (What is your name?) He may as well have been speaking Vietnamese. He scolded me for not even having a basic command of a language that I had been taught for three years. To be honest, he was right. As for my estimation of the teaching of foreign languages in English state schools... well, I won't bore you.

In Goreme I met another Scot, Duncan, who modestly revealed that he had in fact already been to every country that I plan to visit, shattering my illusions of intrepidness. He mentioned some good walking routes nearby, so I decided to set aside a whole day for exploring on foot. Armed with a vague, flimsy map, I decided to follow the main road for a bit, which climbs up to the top of a long ridge. After 20 minutes I was looking down onto the whole surrounding area, which looks extraordinary regardless of where you're viewing it from. I spotted the greenish valley that Duncan described, and proceeded to climb down a steep slope, with the help of an old woman whose garden I had clambered through. From the bottom you realise that many of the rock formations look completely different from below than above. I had yet to notice the bizarre ledges that stick over from the top, which are so smooth and attractive that it's hard to believe they were created by chance.

A couple of hours into my hike I came across a tea house in the middle of nowhere, run by an old man named Hassan. I asked if he had a toilet, which he did not. Instead he pointed to a rock tunnel nearby, and gave me a handful of napkins. I drew upon my skills gained in Bucharest, and afterwards covered up my waste. I ordered some chai, out of gratitude for letting me use his tunnel, and he offered me bread and fresh peppers taken from the valley. I tried to pay for the food, but he was having none of it. As I said my goodbyes, he reached into a plastic bag and pulled out a small souvenir model of some Cappadocian rocks. Oh right, I thought, that's why he was being so generous - he's tricking me into buying his cheap tat. I was about to refuse, until he handed me the ornament and said, "present." Mea culpa. I was still in that Western mindset which confuses human generosity and spirit with some ulterior motive driven by greed. The old man just wanted to look after me. I walked on through the valley feeling a touch guilty, but also grateful that I was in a country with people like Hassan.

Hassan the Man

Uchisar

At the end of the valley was Uchisar, a small town on a hill overlooking everything. In the castle I bumped into a Dutch girl who was staying at my hostel, Denise, and two of her friends. We estimated that we had two or three hours of sunlight left, so we descended from the town in search of the sinister-sounding Love Valley, which would take us most of the way back. After much walking around in circles, we abandoned the idea, and decided to walk back along the top of the ridge, and get to Goreme before dark. We found a good spot to sit and gawp at the panorama, and I dug out Hassan's peppers and bread for a sunset picnic.

It was soon after that I met an American, Georgios, who happened to be taking the same picture of the same dead tree in the same spot as myself. He told me how to cheat your camera to take effective shots at sunset (like the one above), and later we went for dinner. Over Turkish pide he reminded me that life is short, and that we should spend our money on things we want to do, rather than wait glumly for a rainy day. He told me about his nephew, who died in a motorcycle accident on the one day of his life that he hadn't been wearing a helmet. To compound the tragedy, his head had struck the wall of the local church, where they prayed every Sunday. We agreed that we should savour every enjoyable moment that life allows us.

On this note - remember that flash flood from my previous post? It killed three people.

Georgios

That wasn't all I learned about fate and death in Goreme. Firstly involving myself - if the old woman hadn't been there to guide me, I would have traversed the tight hand side of the rock and dropped vertically for about 30 feet. Scary, but not as scary as a story Duncan told me about a bus journey he took from Turkey to Iraq. Only three other people boarded the bus (I can't think why), so he ignored his ticket and went straight to the back. The bus driver, though, insisted that he sit in his assigned seat, so he returned to the front. A few hours later, in the middle of the night, he woke up to the sound of screeching brakes, as a herd of sheep ran across the road. A few seconds later, another bus slammed into the back of them at 80mph, utterly destroying the rear half of the coach. If it wasn't for the pettiness of the driver then you wouldn't be hearing this story. (If that isn't chilling enough, another passenger received a phone call five minutes after the crash. It was his sister, who had just woken up from a bad dream, involving him: "What happened?" she said. He hung up with a face like death.)

Not a bad writing spot

Cappadocia is the most astonishing place I have ever been to. It's a strange and beautiful region, utterly unique, full of endless surprises. By the end I had a headache just from looking at things. At the top of the Goreme ridge, depending on which direction you look, you could be in four separate continents. The rocky brown ridges are remininscent of the Utah desert; the rolling dunes look as if they have been planted from the Sahara; the terraced hilltop town of Uchisar could be Italian; and everything else belongs on the moon.

And then there's the balloons. I didn't go on one - at $220 a pop I couldn't justify the expense. Watching them all float up at daybreak is an experience in itself, and one that doesn't cost a penny. About thirty of them drifted in complete silence, and I got a few decent pictures.

Istanbul

Where to start?

Ok, the horns. I don't mean the Golden Horn, which splits the European side of the city in two. I'm referring to the horns on people's vehicles. In Istanbul there's 20 million of them. This is assuming that each vehicle has one horn - if the taxi drivers could have multiple horns, they'd be in heaven.

The traffic moves at around 2 mph, all furiously beeping away at each other with unnecessary regularity. In more sober parts of the world, beeping the horn is used as the last resort, to avoid an accident or to scold somebody for careless driving. Here, beeping the horn is usually the first resort. Often it's an attempt to get the traffic moving, but it rarely works. In a log jam of 20 taxis, 19 of them beep away like mad, imploring the leading car to stick his foot down and run over some tourists, or smash into the tram passing in front of him, or whatever happens to be blocking his path. Obviously, he can't do this - nor would they. Consequently the horn has lost all of its effect, as it's so utterly pointless, like two chihauhas yapping at each another from opposite sides of a fence.

There are 17 million people in Istanbul, and three million more cars. It's hard to fathom - you couldn't build a more car-unfriendly city if you tried. There's an extensive shuttle ferry network here, and a series of reliable tram and metro lines. But still the cars keep coming. Bikes. Vans. Full-sized coaches that happily drive down steep lanes that an Englishman would fret about taking his Fiat 500 through. It's just mental. They say driving a Formula 1 car in Monaco is like riding a bycicle around your living room. The same is true of Istanbul, but with a motorbike.

Then there's the rigmarole of agreeing a fare before getting in a taxi. The cabbie is obviously negotiating from a position of strength, which enables him to quote a preposterous price and hope that the passenger a) agrees up front, or b) barters for a reduced fare that's still far higher than a local would consider paying. It doesn't help being on your own - you can't split the cost, and it's harder to negotiate. There are no rules - only bullshitting. In fairness, it's similar to most of the world, but now I only get in a cab unless I have literally no other choice.

It's also unclear as to who's really in charge of the system. It seems that any bloke off the street can command an entire fleet of taxis provided he can speak five words of English or German. One guy outside Yenikapi ferry terminal was sat on the curb cooking a couldren of mussels, yet when I gave off the merest hint that I was looking for a cab, he leapt up, greasy prongs still in hand, and hurried me into the back of a taxi, only to find a petrified Chinese man sat in the passenger's seat. "15 Lira," he informed the driver, which was less extortionate than I was expecting.

Buying a product of any description in Istanbul is a bit of a nightmare. Price tags? Forget it. The item is worth whatever the shop keeper pulls out of his arse on that given day. You can't just go in and browse, as they're in your face quicker than the two gentleman's outfitters in the Fast Show. You're subjected to a barrage of pleasantries, each expertly tailored to part you with your cash. If you're not careful you can come out of a shop having bought something entirely different from what you originally wanted, such is the effectiveness of their camaraderie. Imagine those irritating Cockney fruit sellers, but at every shop, bar and restaurant. You just have to smile and fob them off.

Topkapi Palace

Last week, having lost my sunglasses, I went out to a nearby street to buy a new pair. Distrusting the knock-off street merchants, I went to a sunglasses shop. I wasn't allowed to try on anything myself, or even examine a pair. Instead I was lined up in front of a mirror, where the shop keeper took a pair off the shelf at random and placed it carefully on my head, lining them up as if he were the Sultan's personal optician. I told him that I was happy with the pair he had selected - after all, sunglasses are sunglasses - but he insisted on forcing more and more pairs on me, again placing each one on my head with the care of someone excavating a dinosaur fossil. Intriguingly, his selection of glasses became progressively more expensive. They all looked the same, so I stood firm on my choice and bought the first one, much to his visible disappointment.

There are more sinister ways to get ripped off, however. The other night I was walking back to my hostel when I was approached by a middle-aged man who asked me for the time. This evolved into a good-natured conversation about his 'friend' in London who he visits occasionally. He then asked me if I would like to come back to his 'cafe' for a 'smoke.' I was pretty tired, so I declined. After this, he didn't want to know me. The next day I found out from a travel website that this sort of thing happens regularly to single male travellers in this part of Istanbul. Usually you are taken to a bar, where after a few drinks you are presented with an extortionate bill (say $500.) If you don't pay up then you'll be taken to a 'back office' and threatened with physical abuse. Some people have even been threatened with death, which I've never really aspired to myself. The problem is that Turks in general are very friendly and hospitable, which makes it easier for the shady types to operate.

Haghia Sophia

I met a German guy, Michael, who was staying in my dorm. He made me think a little more about money, and how to save it whilst abroad. Michael kept a daily log of exactly how much cash he had spent, and where, so that he was always on top of his finances. A model of prudence, I thought, until he told me that last year he and his friends spent over €15,000 on cocaine, and that he would fly to Paris or Berlin for one night just because he was bored. Not a bad way to blow your cash, I thought, but it had clearly changed his attitudes toward money. From now on, maybe I should take a leaf out of Michael's book, and spend my money on cocaine - I mean, keep a daily log of my spending.

The best way to experience Istanbul is to take one of the many shuttle ferries that connect the three sides of the city. They cost about 70p for a ride, and can take you almost anywhere. I boarded one at six in the evening to get back to my hostel, but inadvertently took the wrong trip and ended up heading for the Asian side (I confused Karakoy with Kadikoy. Shocking.) This turned out to be the highlight of the week.

I've never before encountered a place where so many people are doing something as in Istanbul. No one ever relaxes here, except the tourists. Whole jobs have been invented just to keep people occupied - take the poor sod I saw pushing a wheelbarrow of bottled water from restaurant to restaurant, inquiring if their stock was low. Invariably the answer would be a "no," and he'd go trundling along to the next stall. It's also incredibly easy to get lost, as I found out as soon as I had gotten off the train. I said to myself, "whatever happens, I'm not going to get caught in a crowded market with all my luggage." Two minutes later I was stuck in the spice bazaar, frantically rotating my map, wondering why the hostel couldn't just come to me instead.

Istanbul is a place that you can be totally fed up with one day, and in thrall to the next. It plays by its own rulebook - I guess that's what makes it so special.

I wanted to spend a couple of days out of town, so I bought a ferry ticket to Bandirma, where I would take the bus to Gallipoli. I dragged my bags half way across the city to the ferry terminal, and was not best pleased to find that it had been cancelled. I tried to take a different bus, which would take me all the way there, but I missed the last one by five minutes. I wasn't going to get put off that easily, so I hastily booked an organised tour to Gallipoli for the next morning, with a visit to Troy thrown in for good measure. I thought this would guarantee my arrival, and that I wouldn't have to worry about a thing. The next morning I fell asleep on the bus, and woke up to this...

For about half an hour we looked on as this great brown river swallowed whatever town we were passing through. The driver had sensibly taken us to a junction high up on a road bridge, otherwise we would have been royally stuffed. After we had escaped the deluge, everyone's bags were taken out of the hold for inspection, all of them soaking wet - except mine, which I had stowed away back in Istanbul, anticipating such a biblical event. The Aussie passengers, who comprised most of our party, had no such luck.

We got there in the end, after 6 hours on the coach, and were treated to a decent lunch on the shores of the sea of Marmaris. The Gallipoli peninsula is stunning - much of it is a national park, and has been protected from development. The area is dotted with different cemeteries and memorials to the war dead - British, Australian, Kiwi, French, and, at the highest point of the peninsula, the Turkish, who lost more lives than any. Our tour guide explained in detail the calamity that was the Allied invasion in 1915 - firstly landing at the wrong beach, a mile along the coast from the intended spot; then the bloody charge up the steep hills and valleys; and the brutal trench warfare which dominated most of the campaign. At one point the ANZAC (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) and Turkish trenches were only eight metres apart. Both sides swapped gifts - food, cigarrettes etc. - until the orders came to fire, at which point they would shoot at each other without mercy.

Brighton Beach - where ANZAC were supposed to land...

Where they actually landed

A sunken British boat

A buoyant Turkish one

As the months dragged on, the corpses were piled so high that it was possible to walk from one trench to the other without your feet touching the ground. Dysentry spread fast, and claimed more lives than the actual fighting. Some men were so weak from disease that they fell into the latrines, where they literally drowned in their own mess. The Turks always had the higher ground, and simply waited for the Allies to launch over the top of the trenches to be fired upon. At one point the massacre was so bad that the Turkish general ran across to the New Zealand trench shouting 'Dur! Dur! (Stop! Stop!)', because his men couldn't bear to slaughter yet another futile charge of ANZAC troops. By the end there were half a million dead or injured on all sides. It's hard to comprehend that a place as beautiful as the peninsula could have borne witness to such losses.

Gallopoli is considered a pilgrimage site by many Aussie and Kiwi travellers. It is their great national tragedy. Britain, meanwhile, lost more men at the Somme on one day than in the entire Gallipoli campaign (60,000 vs 20,000.) But that does not mean that Gallipoli should be overshadowed - it was the Royal Navy's mistaken landing instructions that sabotaged the campaign from the start, and resulted in a terrible loss of life, particularly for ANZAC. The British officer class who commanded the war stuck by trench warfare until the end, until it dawned on them that we were actually running out of young men aged 16-25. I count myself lucky that I am not from that generation.

The next day we were taken to Troy. My camera's battery had run out, which became more of an irrelevance as the day went on, as there was nothing really worth taking a photo of. 90% of the site is still underground, and much of what isn't was destroyed by a German archaeologist/treasure hunter named Heinrich Schliemann, who bulldozed through the site in the 19th century looking for gold necklaces. The day was memorable only for the Japanese tour group who asked whether the 50ft wooden mock-up of a Trojan horse was the original.

I got on well with the Aussies, who took me under their wing as the only solo traveller among us. All of them generously offered to put me up if I ever were to head Down Under. I can't promise anything, guys, but if I can't get into China...