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I called in sick to work today, because I really need to catch up on some sleep. Between an intense schedule this week and moderate insomnia, I've been running on something less than fumes, and my eyes resemble those of an addict after a week-long bender.
We emerged from The English Channel into northern France so rapidly that it took C—who had once before taken this train ride—some convincing that we were really in France, and that I wasn’t imagining seeing signs in Francais. The rolling countryside passed quickly before we reached the first signs of development and heard an announcement in French on the loudspeaker that we inferred was to inform us that we were about to arrive at the Paris Nord train station. This—as it turned out--was the last moment for a couple days in which we felt at ease about our travels. A number of our greatest highlights on the trip took place in France, but the week wasn’t without some serious stresses, mostly revolving around money.
For starters, getting to where we needed to be in the train station proved to be quite an ordeal. We waited a good 20 minutes in a line, only to find out from the attendant, who was almost no help at all, that we were in the wrong line. After a couple more false starts, we eventually found out what Metro line we needed to get to the other train station from which we could catch our TGV train. This led to a ticket machine that wouldn’t accept our credit card, C making change at a store, and yet another wait at a ticket machine that did in fact work on cash. After another long wait for the Metro RER train to arrive, we boarded a jam-packed coach in which nearly all the passengers were congregated around the doors, some of whom were annoyed that my large backpack was an inconvenience—but my sympathy for others was at an all-time low by this point.
At the TGV station, another never-ending maze of a queue (We were seriously worried about being able to get on a train to Avignon by then) brought us to a ticket agent who told us the ticket price, which was at least four times greater than what the travel agent back home had quoted. We reluctantly paid the fare, realizing we'd been ill informed by the travel agent’s advice that we should “just wait until we get to Paris to buy the train tickets.” With little breakfast and no lunch in our bellies, we boarded the train, feeling that the week was off to a terrible start.
The approximately 3-hour train ride to Avignon was pleasant enough, as we read, napped, and enjoyed the quickly changing scenery. We got off the train to a warmer, sunnier climate and were regaining some of our optimism about the trip. The shuttle bus to the Avignon city centre was free (cool!), and it quickly took us to where we figured we should be.
We needed just a few minutes to figure out where we were and how to follow the directions on our printout to the hotel. We walked in both directions down a tree-lined boulevard and down a few alleys, until we realized we were on a wild goose chase and that the postal code on the printout wasn’t matching those on the addresses around us. (Shit!) In desperation, we walked into another hotel to get some perspective on where we were and where we needed to be from a desk clerk. The clerk, who seemed reluctant to help us at first, as we had no reservation in his hotel, tersely informed us that we were in the wrong city. Our hotel was in a town about 5 kilometers away across the river. We then realized we were reading directions for a hotel the tour group uses for most of the year but not in July and August.
We caught a bus that we were only vaguely sure would lead us close to our hotel. The driver, in very broken English, confirmed that we were indeed on the right bus, though he drove us up and down hills and backstreets for upwards of 40 minutes before letting us off at an intersection and pointing the way toward our hotel—a direction that looked quite unpromising at first, though he seemed nice enough not to lead us astray. Alas, we did see the sign for Hotel Cube—we later discovered it is walk-able from where we’d been in Avignon. The desk clerk inquired about us by name—as with our adventures in Cappadocia, this is always a good sign. He said we should meet our tour group on the rooftop terrace and then come back down to check in. Sure enough they were up there, and all seemed copacetic.
Unfortunately, our tour guide, who turned out to be first rate, confirmed a suspicion we’d had about a cost on the tour. It turns out we still owed $500 Euros as a local fee for the tour, something we’d previously thought was included in the initial cost. Although we technically had the money, between the inflated train fare and this extra expense, on top of everything else we’d had to contend with that day, things were looking downright daunting for us. We remained as composed as we could for the extent of the meeting—though we wanted to scream--and then joined the group for dinner (the first of seven three course dinners we’d have as a group) at a seafood restaurant along the Rhone. The atmosphere and the great food had a calming influence. We knew at least we were in good hands and had a quality tour ahead of us, so we decided to just eat it, pay the extra cost, and try to forget about it.
The next morning, we found a boulangerie up the street and had some outstanding quiche, almond croissants, and coffee. This put us in a good mood when we met our group and guide for a tour of Avignon. We walked up and down various narrow alleyways in the city, seeing signs for street performers in the art and music fair taking place called the Festival d’Avignon. Some of these same performers handed out leaflets. We were intrigued about the performances, even if it did seem like an excessive amount of paper waste. The tour concluded with a picnic along the Rhone, with some absolutely scrumptious baguettes. There had been another issue with our train ticket, and our guide drove us to the train station to resolve it. It was amended without further cost, and things seemed to be shaping up.
The next morning found us back at the same boulangerie (good!) and another failed attempt to get cash from the nearby ATM (not so good). We proceeded on the tour to see the Pont du Gard aqueduct, the Roman amphitheatre in Orange—we were able to check out just enough money for lunch in Orange—a winery (Our card worked there, so at least we still had some money left), and a chocolate-making place. It was one of the finest days on the tour, sight seeing-wise, but we couldn’t quite let go of our money fears. 
We were even planning to bow out of dinner that evening and just grab a cheap baguette somewhere. C finally reached the bank on a calling card. It turns out the fraud department had put a hold on the account, because of the activity in Europe and they couldn’t get a hold of her to verify the transactions (I found out later my card was similarly put on hold). Anyhow, they removed the hold, informed her how much was left on the account (plenty!), and put her and me both in much better spirits—even if we were still rather pissed off at them for cutting off our cash flow when we most needed it. We joined the group for dinner after all and had probably the finest meal on the trip, if not in my lifetime! The blueberry tart I had is something I’m still trying to find words to describe. Afterwards, we caught some musicians and dancers from the festival and enjoyed some French cider as we people-watched. At last, we could relax a bit and really enjoy France.
We checked out of our hotel the following morning, as we had reservations that evening in Arles. We drove around to various villages, including one with outdoor market stalls and another village, in which the buildings were largely created from the ochre rock among the region. 
We had a free morning to explore Arles. It’s another medieval, walled city, though we couldn’t find a lot of points of interest, save for the Van Gogh café, which thrives because of its reputation as the inspiration for his Café Terrace at Night—incidentally, although he painted it a yellowish color, it wasn’t yellow at the time, only later painted that way to please tourists. 
In the afternoon, we drove to a beachfront town along the Mediterranean—ironically, I think this was the only day of the week in which it was cool and overcast. We drove around the region to a spot that typically attracts flamingos hunting for shrimp and other seafood in the shallow water. According to our guide, they often come much closer to shore, though we had to settle for watching them from afar. We also saw a small village that had been assembled for the nearby salt processing plant, which turns the water a funky pinkish color.
Friday, we were off to Aix-en-Provence, at which was our third and final hotel of the tour. After showing us around the city, another medieval, walled town, our tour guide was off to visit her family until the following day. C and I continued bumming around the place on our own, stopping at a crepe restaurant that won’t easily be forgotten. The hamburger crepe I had was the stuff of legends, especially when paired with some fine cider. That evening, our group had Italian cuisine, sans our tour guide.
On our last full day in town, we explored the outdoor market in Aix, an excellent place to find gifts, as it turned out. We had evidently misunderstood our tour guide about where to meet the group, as they weren’t at our hotel at the expected time. Eventually, we decided to make the most our day on our own by buying tickets to the nearby Cezanne and Picasso exhibition. Moments after our tickets were non-refundable, our group found us in line. It was too late to join them, but we weren’t disappointed with the alternative we had chosen. That evening we had one final dinner with everyone.
It was hugs and goodbyes the next morning, as we left for the train station to go to Paris. Our high-speed train was a half hour late arriving, a rare phenomenon we’re told. We ended up in a conversation with an American excited to be able to talk in English, one of a number of such conversations that weren’t altogether welcome for us. Turns out he is an avid bicyclist from Austin, Texas who was there to see the Tour de France and do some cycling himself. A nice enough guy, for sure. Still, after the magical cuisine we’d enjoyed that week, we found it difficult to identify with a fellow who said he actively avoided most French food, sometimes choosing McDonald’s instead, and said he couldn’t wait to get back to America to eat a “real pizza.” Whatever. Anyhow, a few hours later, we were back in Paris. We had an easier go ‘round with the Metro system this time—albeit, we didn’t get off at the best stop for our hotel and had to walk a good distance with our heavy packs.
After we checked-in, we headed back on the Metro toward the center of town. We got off near the Notre Dame and hiked along the River Seine all the way to the Eiffel Tower. It was a hot day, and the crowds were thick, but even had this not been the case, the walk would’ve been a long one. Regardless, we really enjoyed the scenery and the street artists and musicians along the way.
We set out on what we figured would be another long walking tour of Paris the following day. We explored a cemetery that we were convinced was the one in which Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde are buried. This is not in fact the case, and there are a good 5 or 6 other cemeteries containing famous names. Still, this one had Charles Baudelaire, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Susan Sontag, among many others, so not too shabby.
The Musee d’ Orsee, the only museum we’d decided we had time to see, very disappointingly turned out to be closed, and we started getting rained on. After stopping at a couple cafes to dry off, we decided to head back to the hotel and wait it out. Surely enough, the rain stopped after a couple hours, and we set out on foot again near the Seine to walk around the outside of the Louvre, the Champs Elysees, the opera house, and finally on to the Moulin Rouge before we elected to nosh on crepes and cider again and settle in for the night.
We had had an excellent conclusion to a French tour that began rather disturbingly. We arrived at Charles De Gaulle Airport at what seemed to be a good hour. We were prepared for a long flight to Chicago to stay with friends of mine. Instead, we were tersely informed by airport attendants that our flight had been cancelled due to a “mechanical issue.” They led us to the longest, slowest moving line we’d yet encountered on our long journey. Needless to say, we were frustrated and deeply concerned, heartened only by making conversation with fellow passengers and the knowledge that we might get something out of the bargain. We also decided that if we couldn’t get out of Paris that afternoon (a prospect that seemed almost nil) we’d have to forego Chicago, as our time there was already very short, and find a way to get to SF as soon as possible. Two and a half hours later, we were given vouchers for a hotel and three meals and an understanding that we would be booked on a flight to Cincinnati the following day, with a connecting flight to SFO.
The hotel turned out to be by far the nicest one on our trip, with a mattress we just sank into, a pool, TV stations in English, and a “connectivity lounge” with free internet access. The meals were also good, if not as spectacular as what we'd previously eaten. We made the most of it and figured we got taken care of pretty well, all things considered.
The next day’s travels went as smoothly as possible, as well as fifteen hours on two airplanes can conceivably go. We stiffly alighted in SFO and were picked up by C’s sister, restless and full of stories of our travels.
Our week in England was the easiest, most relaxing portion of the trip in several ways. For starters, our first language is spoken there, even if is done so with many differences in inflection, vocabulary, and cultural reference. Surely enough, we Americans have it pretty easy in that our language is so widely spoken that there is no great incentive for many of us to know extra languages. I know, intellectually, that it serves us well to be outside of our comfort zone and required to learn a few key phrases to get by abroad. Nevertheless, after nine days in Turkey of feeling that we might be getting the “American rate” for some services and not really having the ability to test or challenge this notion, being able to make transactions in a familiar tongue was a welcome prospect. Also, although the exchange rate between the dollar and the pound is still rather poor for us—C says it has improved since she was last there—we found it easier to shop, get dinner, and so on, for reasonable rates; whereas, in Turkey, aside from the flight into the country and the hotels, everyday costs were pretty high. For example, a hearty meal can be had at a pub for 3 or 4 pounds, and a lot of it isn’t the foul “pub grub” of yore. We were in agreement that cuisine in the UK has moved up in the world. Most significantly, we stayed with friends during the week—all of which were very generous—so there was no need to pay for lodging, a fair number of our meals were covered, and at least some of the time, we were driven around by automobile.
The first three nights in England were spent at the flat of a friend C had met while traveling abroad in college, and his fiancé. Although they live well north of London in the countryside near the town of Letchworth, they insisted on meeting us at Heathrow, and they didn’t appear at all bothered by our late arrival. After the hour or so ride to their apartment complex, formerly a mental institution that has been converted beautifully—they live in the former records unit—they offered us drinks and brought out a bountiful spread of food. We ate, drank, and merrily recounted stories of our time in Turkey, while catching up with them.
He had taken the next day off work, so we rode with him up to Nottingham, as he and C had been at Nottingham-Trent University together for a semester. We began something of a minor pub-crawl at Pitcher & Piano, formerly a large church turned boozer, with a goodly amount of cheap food for sale, of which we availed ourselves. We went to a couple other establishments throughout the afternoon, including one called the Pit and Pendulum, with a gothic theme, which we actually found a bit cheesy, and crappy beer. We later met his fiancé and went to a pub in the town of Hitchin for dinner and another beer (Much as it sounds like we were thoroughly boozing it up, we were pretty restrained each time).
The next day, C and I took the train to Cambridge. I had been there for a two-week summer school program back in ’96, while in grad school. Even though C had spent a lot of time in England and even lived and taught there for a while, she had never been to Cambridge, so it was a nice treat for her. It’s amazing what one can forget in 13 years, so it took me awhile to get my bearings and figure out which college I’d been in that summer—St. Catherine’s. Once again, we treated ourselves to pub fare, this time a breakfast, right near the stroke of noon, with a pint of ale—I think it was the first time either one of us had had beer with breakfast.
We walked the narrow streets and browsed the outdoor market stalls, before a heavy shower drove us under an awning, forcing us to make small talk with some locals. When the rain abated, we eventually made our way over to the River Cam, to walk along the paths under the weeping willows and watch people on small boats punting down the river. Blissful.
After a short train ride, our friends picked us up in Letchworth. We had dinner with them at an Indian restaurant. Curry in England has a reputation far and wide. This was some of the creamiest, richest food we’d ever tasted, so much so that we felt it might have been too much of a good thing. Since we were practically the only diners in attendance, the proprietors and servers got into a conversation with us about American politics, during which we tried to explain the concept of the Electoral College, stopping when we realized just how baffling it is for us as well.
We hugged them goodbye the next morning and later took a cab into Letchworth, from which we caught a bus to Great Dunmow, the town in which C had taught about five years ago. We walked to the school at the edge of town and ended up having tea with a group of young women who make up the school’s English and drama department. According to C, most of the kids come from rich, snobby families and so often are guaranteed positions in family businesses that there is little incentive for them to try hard. Her year teaching there was not a positive one, but she did make a few good friends. One of these friends later gave us a ride to her flat, at which we watched her wedding video, filmed on a Greek Isle, as well as a theater production, featuring the music of Queen, that she had directed. Another old teacher friend came over, bottles of wine were opened, and a delicious dinner was served. We talked late into the evening.
Early the next morning, we caught another bus to the nearby town of Saffron Walden, a delightful old village. We had lunch with a few of C’s former students—among the few that she admired for their hard work—who are now ready to head off to university. They are bright, friendly kids, and I enjoyed getting to know them. We later took a short walking tour of the town, during which we met some older gentlemen who were intrigued by our American accents. One of them went on a long, didactic monologue about the history of the Normans (North men). This got a bit tiresome, but he obviously knows his stuff, and we did enjoy their guileless willingness to chat with us.
Another of C’s former teacher friends picked us up, with her car full of three kids, and drove us back to her place, a charming, country house. Her kids were two, four, and ten years old. Between sessions of playing Wii and bouncing on the trampoline out back, they were all sweet, precocious, and eager to talk to us. We were especially impressed that the younger two had a grasp of our being from another country. Once again, we were served a delicious feast and talked until late at night. The married couple let us use their comfy bed for the night. Again we were in good hands.
The next morning, we caught a train down to South Bromley in Kent, at which we met our final hosts in the UK. By this point, we were a little short on sleep and were hoping we might find a tactful way to settle in and ask to take a nap. They are an older couple, the man of which was not yet home. She was so chatty and eager to catch up with us that a nap ended up being out of the question, though we enjoyed the conversation and taking her up on the cocktails, the name of which eludes me but which included grappa, lime, egg whites, and bitters. Once again, after her husband arrived, we were served a bountiful feast and then bunked down for the night.
We were served coffee in bed the next morning, a treat we had the following morning as well. The couple had talked to us about some options for places to visit in the area, and we agreed to have them take us to the Royal Observatory and to see Darwin’s House in the village of Downe. The Royal Observatory overlooks the Thames and downtown London. The museum features a camera obscura, and a number of time-keeping devices that are still functioning well after several centuries. We watched an Imax-style movie on Ice Worlds in the planetarium. Very cool.
As with the observatory, they also generously paid our admission into Darwin’s House; however, because they had been to the attraction several times before, our male host stayed in the car to listen for cricket scores. The tour included an audio guide of various rooms in the house and a very extensive garden and laboratory outside. Darwin was evidently quite a walker, and we strolled down a number of pathways on the property. There was quite an array of plant life, sometimes with strange experimental oddities.
They fed us well again that night, and we played a board game with them called Rummikub. The game involves numbers and requires a great deal of concentration, so much so that it sometimes precluded conversation. I wouldn’t have expected to enjoy such a game so much, but I found it rather addictive as the evening wore on, and I was determined, if unsuccessful, to gain victory over the more seasoned players.
The next morning, they drove us to the station at St. Pancras in London, not without some frustration and bickering between them. I’m very grateful that we allowed for extra time and that we had only Sunday morning traffic to contend with, or our date with the Eurostar might’ve not come to fruition that day. We boarded the train, which can attain speeds of nearly 200 miles per hour and were rocketing southward in England, toward the English Channel and into France…
On July 1st, C and I took a cab to the airport in the morning. Since we had left our keys behind, closing the front door to the house wasn’t done without a small amount of worry that we might have left an important item for the trip behind. Such was not the case. We checked in, made it through security, and arrived at our gate in plenty of time for a flight that was due to arrive on time. Last minute calls were made, and we boarded the plane. All looked good. Or perhaps not.
The captain informed us that due to storms around New York City, our first stopover, we would have to get back off the plane and wait for approximately 3 hours to re-board after they received clearance to depart. This not only annoyed us, since we were impatient to make the first leg of our journey happen, it rather alarmed us, since that amount of time would have almost surely caused us to miss our connecting flight to London. He gave us a glimmer of hope when he came back on and said that someone was on the phone with the control tower hoping to work something out (a bribe perhaps?), though he knew from past experience that this didn’t look good. We crossed our fingers, toes, and every digit we could find. Surely enough, the pilot took the mic once again and told us it was our “lucky day” and that we’d be departing shortly.
Much like the previous flight, this was generally a smooth, albeit long, ride and mostly uneventful. Each seat had its own television, which looked pretty great but still meant we were stuck with the same paltry choices as everybody else: mediocre in-flight movies and sitcoms and a few radio options, a great deal of the music being colorless sound, as heard through staticky headphones that seemed to be on the verge of shorting out. I watched I Love You Man, which is not something I would’ve bothered with in any other context, but it turned out to be a mindlessly pleasant way to spend about 100 minutes of a six to seven hour ride. There was also an option to view the plane’s flight path, with number of miles, time remaining, etc. I had to fight the urge to compulsively watch this channel, since doing so surely wasn’t helping our progress along in any practical way. Also, because we were nearly as far north as lower Greenland for a portion of the flight, the sun was a bright orb in the sky as early as 3AM. We were in the “land of the midnight sun,” which impeded sleep somewhat.
We arrived at Heathrow close to noon and took the Tube to Earl’s Court, in search of our hotel, the Windsor House. It seemed that no one, including a travel agent and a police officer on a walking beat, had heard of the place. When we finally got there, we had an inkling of why the lodging is not widely regarded. The building looks OK from the outside, and I suppose the place is at least clean. It was without a doubt, however, the most uncomfortable hotel I’ve ever stayed in. The desk clerk’s office was basically a small desk in the middle of the front hallway. We were shown our room, which was at the top of a long series of steep, rickety stairs. Throughout the trip, we became aware of how different physical space is in a lot of other countries. We became used to more diminutive rooms than what we’re used to in the U.S. Still, even based on these standards, this room was tiny! The water closet was literally just that. The room just barely managed to house a toilet and a shower together. Bring a human into the situation, however, and things become much too cozy. All of this was compounded by a lack of AC, on what proved to be the hottest day of the year in London, and a bed that can best be described as brittle. I slept very little that night, in spite of our best efforts. We set out on a walking tour of London, partly to see as much of the city as we could and partly to tire ourselves out to get a good night sleep before our flight to Istanbul the next day. 
We got off the tube around Scotland Yard and walked along the Thames, past Parliament and Big Ben, and then left the Thames to walk through a park and then by Buckingham Palace. For the record, we also passed a pub in which scores of folks, mostly dressed like business people and bankers, were drinking like absolute fish! They were spilling out of the pub, 6 or 7 deep into the street, with pint glasses stacking up on the pavement. I’d never seen anything quite like it.
The night passed slowly and uncomfortably, with off and on rain and occasional pounding noises from the nearby factory, none of which were helping in my quest for slumber. We later packed, had the hotel’s breakfast in the basement, which was surprisingly good for such a dive, and headed back to Heathrow.
Another bad movie and some staticky music later, we touched down at Ataturk Airport in Istanbul. After we’d gone through customs, while waiting for the city’s light rail system to take us to our airport, we realized we were the only ones speaking English around us. We were clearly in a very different place!
We got a lot of tourist attractions crossed off that first weekend: the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern, the Grand Bazaar, and a whirling dervish show at a monastery. These were all things we’d wanted to do, but we also didn’t want to spend our entire time there doing the tourist circuit. We also wanted to get out and see what made the city tick. I think we accomplished both pretty well. 
Although we were heartened by how friendly and open people in Turkey seemed to be, this could also get exasperating at times. This excessive openness included the various merchants who went far out of their way, sometimes following us halfway down the street, trying to get us to come in and look at their wares, especially anyone selling carpets. If we even looked at a menu along the street for a second, the restaurateur was sure to give us a story about the quality and authenticity of the food and how we couldn’t possibly conceive of saying no to it. However, it extended beyond just merchants. Many times, perfect strangers approached us, generally starting a conversation with a line such as, “Where are you from?” Again, our attitude was initially one of “Oh how nice!” but we quickly learned to be on our guard. Although it never happened to us, sometimes people who are approached in such a way later find their pockets relieved of certain items. More often than not, though, such folks' gift of gab was a way to bring the conversation around to a family business of some kind they were trying to inform us about. It could be really strange at times, and after a few cases, we found ourselves ignoring people, something I find very difficult. Also, meals could turn out to be more expensive affairs than planned. A few times, we were given items we never asked for, which seemed to be complimentary but were later included on the bill. As the people serving us were often not fluent in English, trying to argue our point sometimes seemed futile.
One of the strangest incidences in this regard involved a man who dropped his brush just as I was passing. I handed it to him, and he thanked me profusely. Minutes later, as we looked at a map, he came over and helped us find the place we were looking for. All seemed good and even Steven. However, he got out his shoe shining apparatus and strongly encouraged me to lend him my shoe-clad feet. I complied, and he lathered some watered-down muck on my leather sneakers. I thought what the hell. Even though I figured out his game right away, I decided I’d give him a couple lira, as he seemed nice and probably really needed the money. My warm feeling dried up quickly when he told us the amount of the transaction, 15 Turkish lira! We expressed our displeasure, but that seemed to anger him, so I figured it was best to give him the dough and cut our losses. The shoes looked slightly cleaner, if nothing else.
Our first stay in Istanbul lasted three nights. We were due to leave for Cappadocia, so we showed up at the Fez Travel Agency from which the bus was about to leave. The people at the agency, as it turned out, had been waiting for us. We had been led to believe by the travel agent here in California that we’d take our tour at Cappadocia, come back to Istanbul, and then take another trip to Pamukkale for our tour there. The words “day tour” had misled us. We found out that this would be an impossible schedule. We needed to book a night somewhere else, cancel a night in Istanbul, and arrange for another bus to Pamukkale. We left with a ton of uncertainty on what turned out to be the first of 3 all night bus rides in 4 days in Turkey.
We had disastrously had two beers shortly before boarding the bus, which is problematic on a vehicle which turned out not to have a toilet. A few hours later, we stopped at a Turkish equivalent of a truck stop, which included fruit stands and lots of Turkish Delight. My aching bladder was faced with the fact that I needed to get change to use the pay toilet—most public toilets in Turkey are pay toilets. These facilities are manned by people who take and make change at tables just downwind from the loo. This has got to be one of the worst jobs I can possibly think of. We also really needed an ATM, as we were hungry and had little cash for food. Such machines, however, are surprisingly absent from these facilities.
In the small desert village of Goreme, we got off the bus to find that we weren’t on the roster of any of the tour guides, though plenty of other drivers seemed more than anxious to obtain our business. I can assure you that being in the desert in the middle of a country in which you don’t know the language and aren’t accounted for on paper is a very frightening thing! One of the guides offered to give us a ride to our hotel, and shortly thereafter he stopped and another man got on and asked for us by name—always a good sign. We went to the hotel, which was lovely and had a pool, got showered, and then joined our two-day tour of Cappadocia.
All of these tours were given in English by guides from the region. There were roughly 8 to 10 people on the van, from various countries. Getting to know all of them was part of the fun. Although we rode from place to place on the van, we weren’t confined to it, as with some other tours. We did a lot of walking and interacting with people. Lunch was also included at restaurants with great food. The same tour guide was with us for both days in Cappadocia, and we had another in Pamukkale. In Cappadocia, the main physical attractions were the rather phallic rock formations called “fairy chimneys” and the cave dwellings and churches that are not recommended for claustrophobes. Also, we were told that we'd see a part of the region which was used in the filming of Star Wars (don't ask me which part), though disappointingly, it wasn't on our itinerary. We were also taken to a few production centers for a tour. These included a pottery-making studio, a carpet-weaving center, and a place that makes and sells jewelry. In each case, we listened to a spiel about the production and watched the artists at work, while being treated to the usual Turkish hospitality, which included a choice of a cup of Turkish coffee, apple tea, or if we were really lucky, wine. After the spiel had concluded, the high pressured sales pitches commenced, though they seemed a bit more refined in their approach than that of so many street hagglers. Nevertheless, we were put off by the jewelry place, which gave us a very short talk and cut straight to the chase: buy buy buy!
We only spent one day in Pamukkale, after our second overnight bus ride. This turned out to be the worst of the three rides. Buses seem to be striving--though they fall miserably short--to be like airplanes in Turkey. An attendant walked down the aisle offering beverages and snacks. The coaches also included a television. On this ride, the driver cranked up a station featuring Turkish singers belting out monotonous songs karaoke-style. It was hell! C even fashioned some earplugs out of tissue paper that just barely staved off the racket. To add insult to injury, we stopped at a gas station in which they were spraying pesticides to kill mosquitoes, though we didn’t realize this at first. We were coughing and having difficulty breathing before we noticed that workers had cloths pinched over their faces. I’m still worried about this actually. I would have gladly suffered many mosquito bites to not have to be exposed to these chemicals. Fortunately, when we re-boarded, the driver kept the music off, and I got some blessed sleep, vaguely wondering if I'd live through the night.
We had paid a small amount to the travel agent to be able to check into a hotel room for a couple hours in the morning to nap, bathe, change, and have breakfast. Believe me, it was worth every penny! As with several of our other hotels, there was a computer in the lobby, with a somewhat different keyboard with different characters and recognizable characters in different locations. As you can imagine, this made typing a lot more complicated. In this case, the proprietor had to kick his son off the computer who'd been playing video games, so we could use it to look up flight info. Pamukkale has many well-preserved Roman ruins, some of which we paid to swim around in very warm and bubbly spring water. It also has a hillside covered in calcium bicarbonate. It seemed as if we were walking among snow and ice, although the temperature outside was about 35 degrees Celsius.
We had hoped to be able to take a relatively short bus ride from Denizli to Izmir to catch a flight back to Istanbul, but the prices were far too high on such short notice, so we reluctantly boarded a motor coach for another long, grueling night, this time back to Istanbul. This bus came equipped with headphones, which linked us to a similar TV station with bad music and several other radio options, all of which had about 20 minutes worth of music—much of it unlistenable—repeated over and over.
We had a little bit of a meltdown the next morning when we got back to the neighborhood where our hotel was located but didn’t have directions. The place is called The Sultan Inn. Seems straightforward enough. However, about a third of the businesses in the district of Sultanahmet have the word “sultan” in the name. We couldn’t be refunded for the night we’d paid for but hadn’t ended up using the night before, so we were desperately hoping to arrive in time to still eat breakfast. With our heavy backpacks in tow, I made several futile attempts to get directions from people on the street, which led us down countless wrong streets, even winding us up in an establishment called the Sultan Hotel, which we knew wasn’t ours because it looked far too nice for what we paid. We did in fact check in at our hotel minutes before they took the breakfast bar down, got nourished and napped and felt much better to face our last couple days in Turkey.
Later that day, we took a self-guided tour of Topkapi Palace, the most interesting part of which was the harem, though the kitchen section was closed, which was disappointing. We also splurged on an expensive and delicious dinner, which had the rather unfortunate name of testi kebab, which has nothing whatsoever to do what you think it does. The other unfortunate food name throughout Turkey is English in origin. They serve doner kebab, featuring doner (pronounced “donner”) meat, commonly found in restaurants throughout Europe, blissfully unaware of the connotations of that name for Americans steeped in wagon train lore. Many stands throughout Istanbul sell kofti, otherwise known as a meatball sandwich, which includes doner meat. The meat was good, and the bread (Turkey does bread incredibly well) and spices and veggies were delicious. They are usually sold for 4 Turkish lira and are one of the most cost effective things we found to eat there.
Our last full day in Istanbul found us on a boat cruise of the Bosphorus. It was inexpensive and a great way to see a large amount of the city, including many beautiful, old mansions along the water. The trip went nearly to the mouth of the Black Sea and really gave us some perspective of the enormity of the city, which, depending on who you talk to, has a population between 12 and 16 million. We got off and had a barbecue fish sandwich, which had been recommended in Rick Steves’ book (an asset on this trip), in one of many restaurants under the Galata Bridge, which crosses the Golden Horn. We went back to our hotel feeling that we had really seen all we had come to see in Turkey and were ready to move on to the next segment of our journey.
The next afternoon, back at Ataturk Airport, we were delayed slightly, as we had to change gates. What we found really frustrating is that we had to go back through security to get to the new gate, which was mere steps away from the other gate. We also taxied around the runway for at least 45 minutes—by this point, we were absolutely itching to get to England and the hospitality of friends who speak our language. At last we took off, due to arrive at Heathrow about an hour and a half late.
To be continued with a post about our week in England...
To view pics from the trip, you can click the link below. It's C's Flickr account, with albums of Turkey, England, and France. It should work for people without Flickr accounts: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgninventor
