A quick summary of this holliday to start with: 5 days (about 120 hours), 46 hours spent travelling (by bus, train, plane, boat and minuvan), only 24.5 hours sleeping in an actual bed, one night spent completely awake and out under the stars, on Dawn Service but no Easter eggs.
Being in Europe for ANZAC Day (which nobody over here except the Turkish knows about) I couldn’t miss the opportunity to go to Gallipoli. So Nakita (Sydney) and I joined a Top Deck 5 day tour which took us around Istanbul and over to ANZAC Cove for the Dawn Service. It was a mammoth trip – travelling ALL day on the Friday and Monday to get there and back(including almost 2 hours we spent STUCK IN TRAFFIC on arrival. With a population of 13 million people and another 4 million or so who commute in and out of the city, Istanbul really needs a better traffic solution :S)
Regardless, we made it there alive (just – our minivan driver from the airport gleefully informed us he was a “cray driver”) and were able to fit in the most delicious roadside kebab (for just 5 turkish lira, or a couple of euros) and a beautiful walk around some of the Mosques, fountains and garden parks all lit up at night before crashing into bed. On the upside, this tour we were staying in a hotel, not hostel - splurge!
Day 280 (Sat) Getting to know Istanbul
We only had one full day in Istanbul so we made the most of it by packing in a walking tour (including a look inside the beautiful Blue Mosque and a stroll in the palace gardens - I just LOVE the architecture there, like nothing I've seen so far, so different from the Gothic churches in middle Europe etc, just beautiful), lunch near the old bazaar, a boat tour on the bosphorous strait which separates the city of Istanbul – the only city to be on two continents at once with a European side and an Asian side - and then dinner and a belly dancing show to finish off the night. Although it sounds cheesy, the belly dancing was actually quite impressive, the women so skilled and strong, and a few hilarious dances by a couple of blokes. Late in the night some of the locals got up to dance and it was fascinating to see the differences in the way they danced compared to some of the Aussie and Kiwi yobbos on our trip who also gave it a go. The Turkish guys and girls just didn’t touch each other, at all. They were quite obviously flirting with their dancing, but it was all in the eyes and the smile and the way they reacted to each other’s dancing, none of that D-floor bumping and grinding you see on a Saturday night in most clubs. And the Turkish women, even tho weren't belly dancers themselves, had so much rhythm and grace, and really seemed to know what they were doing and didn’t seem awkward at all. Whereas the tourists that got up there were embarrassingly stiff and trying too hard. It was just really interesting to see the cultural differences come out in that way.
Blue Mosque
Aya Sofia
view out over the Bosphorous Strait
Bridge between the European and Asian sides of Istanbul
view from our boat cruise - partiorism running high all over Istanbul, flags like this everywhere!
the hilarious men belly dancing
Day 281 (Sun) To Gallipoli and beyond...
There was no rest for the wicked on this trip – we were up and waiting for our bus to ANZAC Cove at 6.30am the next morning. Unfortunately the first bus broke down and we didn’t get going on the second one – clearly the B-grade back up as it was completely falling apart! – until 8.30am. It was remarkably quiet as we drove across the Turkish countryside as everyone tried to catch up on lost sleep. We stopped briefly at a supermarket to pick up supplies for the night and day ahead but it was the most confusing experience of my life. Honestly, I’m sick of trying to figure out new supermarkets – new brands and none I recognise, all the ingredients in another language, varying qualities of fresh goods (note: the fruit and veg were not in great shape in Turkey)etc. I stood in front of the cold meats section for so long trying to find something that looked like the kind of ham I would eat before giving up and buying a bread roll and some French Laughing Cow cheese – not because I even particularly like it but because I recognised the brand and therefore knew what I would be getting!
Back on the bus the afternoon consisted of stop-starts, break-downs, tyre changes, traffic jams and LOTS of waiting. It turns out our B-grade bus had been driving with a flat tyre for hours by the time we reached ANZAC Cove, which meant a two-hour wait while our driver tried to fix it. At one point a cheer went up from our group, sitting around in the car park, as we saw this tiny Turkish man wheeling an enormous bus tyre across the asphalt! We originally tried to get into the ANZAC Cove national park through one entrance, got stuck in a traffic jam because of a commemorative service, got sent to another entrance where we encountered a line-up of empty buses and ended up having walk the rest of the way. Long story short, we arrived at the Dawn Service site at 8pm that night! (we were supposed to get there about 3pm…) Unfortunately it meant there were no spots left on the ground and we had to make do in the grandstands, which meant trying to sleep sitting up! That didn’t really happen for many of us, so we spent the night talking, eating, watching documentaries on big screens, listening to the army bands and, for me, watching the TV journos do live broadcasts back to Australia!
fixing the bus tyre
traffic jam Gallipoli-style
walking to the service site after getting off the bus
It was a VERY cold wait overnight, under the stars – I wore 3 hats, gloves, a scarfe, many layers and a puffy feather jacket over the top, 3 pairs of socks including a woollen pair, AND a sleeping back and was still shivering involuntarily from the wind that whipped through the cove. (needless to say I got a cold when we got back to Maastricht!)
trying to stay warm!
the Dawn Service site
However, I know this may sound cliché, but it really did give us an idea of what those soldiers might have gone through. We had all those layers on, we’d eaten, we’d slept recently enough and we were still freezing, tired and uncomfortable. And when the Dawn Service began and we were told how these men had arrived on that beach around that time in the morning and had been ordered to jump out into the water to reach the beach I just couldn’t imagine the temperatures they must have faced. And then to be wet and miserable and far from home, with Turkish gunmen in the hills around you, facing terrain covered in short, hard, spikey little bushes and giant cliffs just shooting straight up into the sky and they were expected to just charge up there, push through it all and make it to the top alive…. :S
I didn’t find the service as emotional as I thought I would, instead it was more though-provoking and sobering. But I must admit I did cry as they began to play the Australian national anthem. One sad realisation was that the scenery was actually so beautiful, the coastline is just stunning and because the terrain rises so steeply so close to the water there are spectacular views. We realised this the next day as we climbed up to the Lone Pine Australian Memorial Service and the New Zealand service at Chanuk Bair. We stopped at points to turn around and look out of the ocean and it occurred to me that those soldiers probably didn’t have much time to admire the view – or would have more likely resented the landscape than admired it.
sunset over ANZAC Cove
an example of the spectacular views
the Cove itself
Day 282 (Mon) ... and back again
After the individual national services, as well as some time to explore the national park, the cemetaries and other memorial sites (including the Turkish memorial - I was, ashamedly, surprised to realise that far more Turkish soldiers died than Australian or New Zealander) our tour group gathered to get back on the bus to Istanbul. Luckily the trip back went much more smoothly and we arrived back at the hotel in time for one last dinner out in Istanbul. Nakita and I headed back to this little restaurant and patisserie that we’d visited the first day, with the funniest bunch of blokes running the joint. They were very complimentary, and a bit cheeky (trying to convince us that if we enjoy Turkish food we MUST enjoy Turksih men…) but refreshingly, they weren’t sleazy and they didn’t take it too far. In fact generally, I was really pleased with the attitude of the Turkish people, particularly the men. I feared being a Muslim country (and not having felt overly comfortable in Morocco) that I would maybe feel a bit uncomfortable in Turkey but the blokes were just friendly and happy and, at the worst, a little cocky! Bless one of the guys who brought us an entire PLATE of hoummus as a starter for dinner! And of course, there was Turkish delight and chocolate baklava for dessert!!!
the Aussie service
the Turkish memorial
hoummus!!!
SO MUCH Turkish delight!
Day 283 (Tues) One the road .... AGAIN
Unfortunately the next morning it was already time to go home ... and also unfortunately, it took us just as long to get home (think the first day in reverse order and minus the rewarding kebab at the end!). But despite the travel time and the lack of Easter eggs (only a couple of hot cross buns on the day we left) it was certainly an Easter weekend to remember.
Dutch I've learned:
Pasen = Easter
Paashaas = Easter Bunny (or Hare)
Paasei = Easter eggs!
Turkije = Turkey
(P.S. thanks to Nakita again for some of the photos)
No comments:
Post a Comment