While I have some time on my hands (more on that later) I thought it was just about time that I wrote another update. Right now I am sat in Van but since my last update I've gone from Istanbul to Cappodocia.
So Istanbul seems a bit of a blur now but bloody hell it was a fantastic whirlwind of excitement; on the run again, with inordinate amounts of amazing art & architecture and a bucket load of çay (that is, chai, شاي, tea). Certainly the highlights were the ones I'd read about before, and happened to be on my doorstep; the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. The Hagia Sophia is a huge and incredibly ancient former church, mosque and now museum. It's scale is something incomprehensible (it makes English cathedrals look like chapels) but it's more than just a big, old building. Its covered with meticulous, glittering mosaics of Byzantine emperors and various religious chaps which are a definite highlight. The low point however, is that even in depths of winter and the low season it was still full to the rafters with obnoxious tour groups (fast becoming my least favourite thing, even more so than touts). The Blue Mosque was then something refreshing. Less grand (but still monolithic) it is still a working mosque and has still got that air of being a reserved place (no giggling or shouting please Mr & Mrs Obnoxious). Better still I arrived just after morning prayer and it was basically deserted meaning that I got to sit under one of the huge elephant feet columns and spend my time looking at the ceramic tiles that cover the walls and domes for which it is named (it is actually relatively grey from the outside, the "Blue" is the inside). The smaller scale is a lot nicer for being able to see anything (n.b get glasses) as the Hagia Sophia reaches so far up that I struggle to even glimpse the domes.
Besides these two wonders I managed to cram in the ridiculous ornate, sprawling Topkapi Palace which almost puts Versailles to shame (you can understand why the Turks got rid of the failing Sultanate now you can wander through their cosseted domain of golden thrones and diamond encrusted candle sticks (No, seriously). I also got to see Abraham's saucepan, Moses' staff and various other religious relics which I assume of are quite dubious authenticity. With all that I'd barely left Sultanahmet in the old city, so the next few days I wandered, found good food, good drink and enjoyed life on the continental crossroad.
After rushing through Istanbul (I spent five days there and felt like I only saw a smidgen of it) I shoved everything back in my backpack and got on a bus to Goreme in Cappadocia. I left at 7 O'Clock and arrived at 10 in the morning. Suffice to say it was uneventful and utterly hideous. But waking up stiff and tired I stepped off the bus to be greeted by snow and the strange, beautiful and utterly astonishing Martian landscape of Cappadocia.
Nothing, photos nor words, will justly describe how entrancing the landscape is. It appears that termite mounds have erupted all over this vast, flat plateau but as you drive down the precarious mountain roads to Goreme you see that those termites mounds are huge connicle homes to the people who live, and have lived for thousands of years, here. The whole region is like this, doted with these cave homes that cluster around rock formations and in the near vertical walls of the valleys. Not only are they above ground but there are also numerous underground cities, burrowed into cave systems as refuges fornthe first few communities of Christians who lived here from the glory of the Roman Empire to the fall of the Byzantine Empire and they left behind tiny but exquisite churches, cut into rocks and decorated with thousand year old frescos that were only saved by having pigeon shit preserve them. The sheer concentration of things to see is astonishing,p and everywhere you walk there is a cave or church or cliff just waiting to be discovered.
So what else to do in this amazing place but go exploring? So with Luke and Luke, who I met on the bus from Istanbul, we set off down a valley that should have taken an hour or two to get to the next town. However, we set off down the wrong path that took us down a tiny canyon which we clambered up only to discover we had to cross three valleys which took a couple more hours than expected (read: all day). Eventually we had to abandon the walk back down the right valley when, half way down and in the dark, the valley floor dropped off by a good 50ft. We took the road back. Far from a failure, our of the beaten track tour was an amazing way to get to grips with the landscape and I got to drink çay overlooking the amazing citadel of Uçhisar.
So I spent a few days in Goreme exploring the rest of Cappadocia and making it back to Fat Boys, the Aussie bar in town, for a few beers and some food that wasn't a kebab (for once) before deciding to hit the road again before I got too comfortable. And so another lovely long coach journey was scheduled. I say scheduled, my transfer to Kayseri, the main transport hub, involved hoping into a car that sounded like a wheezing, asthma ridden mule to flag down a local bus on the way. Typical. But I got there in the end and spent a lovely night curled up on a bus next to a fat, old Turk who sputtered, snorted and snored. Next stop Van, pronounced pretty much like "one" (please imagine the hilarity of trying to get anywhere: "One for Van, Van for One, Van, One?!". Absolutely impossible, very Beckett).
That's enough for now. This is already an epic and I have to get on a boat.
Miss you all,
Gx
So Istanbul seems a bit of a blur now but bloody hell it was a fantastic whirlwind of excitement; on the run again, with inordinate amounts of amazing art & architecture and a bucket load of çay (that is, chai, شاي, tea). Certainly the highlights were the ones I'd read about before, and happened to be on my doorstep; the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. The Hagia Sophia is a huge and incredibly ancient former church, mosque and now museum. It's scale is something incomprehensible (it makes English cathedrals look like chapels) but it's more than just a big, old building. Its covered with meticulous, glittering mosaics of Byzantine emperors and various religious chaps which are a definite highlight. The low point however, is that even in depths of winter and the low season it was still full to the rafters with obnoxious tour groups (fast becoming my least favourite thing, even more so than touts). The Blue Mosque was then something refreshing. Less grand (but still monolithic) it is still a working mosque and has still got that air of being a reserved place (no giggling or shouting please Mr & Mrs Obnoxious). Better still I arrived just after morning prayer and it was basically deserted meaning that I got to sit under one of the huge elephant feet columns and spend my time looking at the ceramic tiles that cover the walls and domes for which it is named (it is actually relatively grey from the outside, the "Blue" is the inside). The smaller scale is a lot nicer for being able to see anything (n.b get glasses) as the Hagia Sophia reaches so far up that I struggle to even glimpse the domes.
Besides these two wonders I managed to cram in the ridiculous ornate, sprawling Topkapi Palace which almost puts Versailles to shame (you can understand why the Turks got rid of the failing Sultanate now you can wander through their cosseted domain of golden thrones and diamond encrusted candle sticks (No, seriously). I also got to see Abraham's saucepan, Moses' staff and various other religious relics which I assume of are quite dubious authenticity. With all that I'd barely left Sultanahmet in the old city, so the next few days I wandered, found good food, good drink and enjoyed life on the continental crossroad.
After rushing through Istanbul (I spent five days there and felt like I only saw a smidgen of it) I shoved everything back in my backpack and got on a bus to Goreme in Cappadocia. I left at 7 O'Clock and arrived at 10 in the morning. Suffice to say it was uneventful and utterly hideous. But waking up stiff and tired I stepped off the bus to be greeted by snow and the strange, beautiful and utterly astonishing Martian landscape of Cappadocia.
Nothing, photos nor words, will justly describe how entrancing the landscape is. It appears that termite mounds have erupted all over this vast, flat plateau but as you drive down the precarious mountain roads to Goreme you see that those termites mounds are huge connicle homes to the people who live, and have lived for thousands of years, here. The whole region is like this, doted with these cave homes that cluster around rock formations and in the near vertical walls of the valleys. Not only are they above ground but there are also numerous underground cities, burrowed into cave systems as refuges fornthe first few communities of Christians who lived here from the glory of the Roman Empire to the fall of the Byzantine Empire and they left behind tiny but exquisite churches, cut into rocks and decorated with thousand year old frescos that were only saved by having pigeon shit preserve them. The sheer concentration of things to see is astonishing,p and everywhere you walk there is a cave or church or cliff just waiting to be discovered.
So what else to do in this amazing place but go exploring? So with Luke and Luke, who I met on the bus from Istanbul, we set off down a valley that should have taken an hour or two to get to the next town. However, we set off down the wrong path that took us down a tiny canyon which we clambered up only to discover we had to cross three valleys which took a couple more hours than expected (read: all day). Eventually we had to abandon the walk back down the right valley when, half way down and in the dark, the valley floor dropped off by a good 50ft. We took the road back. Far from a failure, our of the beaten track tour was an amazing way to get to grips with the landscape and I got to drink çay overlooking the amazing citadel of Uçhisar.
So I spent a few days in Goreme exploring the rest of Cappadocia and making it back to Fat Boys, the Aussie bar in town, for a few beers and some food that wasn't a kebab (for once) before deciding to hit the road again before I got too comfortable. And so another lovely long coach journey was scheduled. I say scheduled, my transfer to Kayseri, the main transport hub, involved hoping into a car that sounded like a wheezing, asthma ridden mule to flag down a local bus on the way. Typical. But I got there in the end and spent a lovely night curled up on a bus next to a fat, old Turk who sputtered, snorted and snored. Next stop Van, pronounced pretty much like "one" (please imagine the hilarity of trying to get anywhere: "One for Van, Van for One, Van, One?!". Absolutely impossible, very Beckett).
That's enough for now. This is already an epic and I have to get on a boat.
Miss you all,
Gx
