January 2010 Archives

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“It’s like being on the moon.”

“It’s out of this world.”

Cappadocia is one of Turkey’s most beautiful places, dotted with fairy chimneys, cave churches and underground cave cities. There are myriads of accommodation and tour options in Göreme, including the highly rated sunrise hot air balloon tour over the region.

While hitch-hiking back from Göreme Open Air Museum, my sister and I encounter more of the amazing hospitality found in Turkey. The guys that give us a lift back invite us to join them for some drinks, a dervish show and give us gifts. How often does that happen back home?

Fairy Chimneys of Cappadocia.

What better way to explore, than by quad bike?

The amazing thing about the area is how for centuries people have lived in the fairy chimneys.

There are plenty of amazing spots from which to take photos.

After Bursa, we get to Ankara. Although the intention was to pass through, my sister has a close friend currently there, so instead, we visit and spend the night.

The main attraction of Ankara, the tomb of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, commander during WWI, the founder of the Republic of Turkey and its first president. The guy is a national hero and on major holidays, the tomb is filled with Turks coming to pay their respects.

Much pomp and ceremony goes into the changing of the guard, you can see and hear them quite some distance away.

The Ataturk museum is located underneath the main square and gives a detailed outline of the history of the man, of the founding of Turkey and of WWI.

Though Ankara was intended as a planned city, a lot of people built their homes illegally and now face losing them to construction.

In other places, people have done their own home extensions.

Leaving Istanbul, we take a boat to Yalova and a bus to Bursa, the first capital of the Ottoman Empire after its capture from the Byzantines in the 14th century. 

Interior of Ulu Camii (The Great Mosque), built in the late 14th century, it consists of twenty domes in a 4x5 matrix.

The mosque is adorned with close to two hundred calligraphic inscriptions on its walls.

Bursa Tower (the Clock Tower of Bursa).

The Bursa museum shows how people ate kebab two hundred years ago…

Yeşil Camii (The Green Mosque), the first Turkish style mosque. Prior to its construction, all Turkish mosques were built in the Seljuk style. The great mosque is a great example of the Seljuk style of building.

Tomb of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed I, located in Yeşil Türbe (The Green Tomb).

Seen as a sign at the Archaeology Museum:

Psyche, the youngest of the three daughters of the king of Miletus, is renowned for her beauty. Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty and love does not like this. She cannot accept the fact that a mortal is more beautiful than herself. Therefore, she tells her son Eros, the god of love, to take Psyche to a mountain and give her to a very ugly dragon.

When Eros stealthily approaches to take Psyche away, he falls in love with the girl, sleeping in her bed, and with the help of Zephyros (the west wind) flies the girl to his own palace and takes her as his beloved wife.

Psyche is happy, but she has to abide by one wish of Eros. She must never see his face. Otherwise the magic of their love will be undone and their love will end. Psyche agrees to this, but her sisters lead her astray from her promise. They say that her husband is very ugly, therefore he wants to meet her in the dark, so she should one night look at him secretly. Actually, Psyche is also very curious about Eros.

One night when Eros falls asleep, Psyche wants to look at her beloved under the light of the oil lamp. When she sees how handsome this god of love is, she is much surprised, and in her confusion a drop of oil falls on the naked shoulder of Eros. He suddenly awakes and the magic is undone. So he flies away never to be seen again.

In great pain because of this separation, Psyche looks for her beloved everywhere. She succeeds in all the calamitous and difficult tasks Aphrodite gives her, but always she is given another difficult job. At the end, Zeus makes them come together again. Finally, love and spirit find each other...

Sunset cruise over the Bosphorus, overlooking the Ortaköy Mosque.

First order of business after arriving in Turkey, sightseeing Sultanahmet, the main tourist area of Istanbul.

1. Sultanahmet Camii (Sultan Ahmed Mosque aka The Blue Mosque)

One of two mosques in Turkey with six minarets. After building the mosque with six minarets, the Sultan ordered a seventh minaret to be built at the Ka’aba in Mecca.

2.  Aya Sofia

A byzantine cathedral, built in 532, converted to a mosque when the Ottomans conquered Istanbul in 1453, and finally converted to a museum in 1935 by Atatürk.

One of several mosaics that was covered in plaster when the cathedral was converted to a mosque. After conversion to a museum, restorers painstakingly removed the plaster to reveal the hidden mosaics.

3. Topkapi Palace

The palace of the ruling Ottomans from 1465 to 1856. It currently contains many sacred treasures, including the cloak and sword of the prophet Muhammed.

4. Archeology Museum

Formerly a part of the Topkapi gardens, this was the first museum in the world to house Turkish art.

After close to nine months of travelling, I once more need to hop onto a plane. I’m due to meet my dad and older sister in Istanbul. I haven’t seen dad since the start of my trip, and I haven’t seen my sister since she left for her own trip a year earlier.

The plan is to travel Turkey and Egypt together for the next six weeks. First order of business, a feast fit for kings.

Since we have a couple of days together before the older sister arrives, we do a bit of sightseeing around Istanbul while we wait.

While on a boat to Buyukada Island.

The taxi rank on Buyukada Island.

A view of waterfront properties on the Bosphorous.

Castle located at the end of the Bosphorous boat trip.

A view from Galata tower. 

Miniaturk, a park with models of all of Turkey’s greatest sights.

I arrive at Riga to find that more people are speaking Russian than Latvian, a big surprise until I find out that the majority of residents are Russian.

I crash at a hostel, meet French brothers who are travelling around the world for almost a year and take them with me to a party, meeting some amazing locals in the process.

Shenanigans ensue, everyone is friends and we don’t end the night until the sun starts to rise, a good way to get a big hangover. The following day is spent sightseeing as I’ve very little time left in the country.

Looking cool at the war museum.

The view from the St. Peter’s Cathedral Tower.

St. Peter’s Cathedral

Russian Orthodox Cathedral.

Sunset over Riga.

House of Blackheads in Riga 

Cops drive cool cars in Riga.

I find a bus to take me the remaining few kilometres to Cesis and plan to just make a stop for a few hours to see the castle.

I meet local couchsurfers that show me the local castle, and a beautiful spot not too far away, eagle’s nest. Next thing you know, they’ve found me a couch for the night and we party into the wee hours of the morning at all of the town’s night spots.

Night’s highlight: Older woman, incredibly intoxicated gets into argument with young wigger.

Woman: I can handle you take all of you punks.

Wigger: I have a big penis.

Woman: *starts trying to undress the guy* Let’s do it then, right now, right fvcking now *grabs him by the collar to drag him away*.

Wigger: Oh sh*t

The following morning, I try my luck at hitching to Riga.

After leaving Tartu, I try and make my way over to Cesis. Problem, is the last bus of the day only goes to Valmiera (both in Latvia).

After a failed hitching attempt, I don’t make it out of Valmiera, but a lovely couple takes it upon themselves to get me to a cheap hotel. Speaking with a few locals, we end up going to a local sports facility that happens to also serve as a hostel.

In the morning, I walk around to find the running track, kids practicing hurdles and one of the best weights gyms I’ve seen in my life. Unfortunately I have to leave that same day.

Centre of Valmiera

The running track in my hostel/gym.

Some of the sights of the area:

Tartu is a student town, during summer break, it’s almost empty as everyone goes home (or travelling) for the holidays. Any other time, it’s full of students. Think of it as Estonia’s college town.

Students like to drink, irrespective of the day of the week. We went out on a Wednesday night and called it quits at six in the morning.

Chinese food in Tartu, is far from authentic, despite the Chinglish sign.

Tartu also has trees.

Tartu has a toy museum, showing a history of toys in the country over the past few hundred years. Do you see anything wrong with the following?

The white boy and girl dolls are dressed in fine clothes and sit leisurely. The black doll is dressed like a hotel bellboy and has to stand in the corner.

The second floor has a fifty years of Barbie exhibition, 80s Barbie TV ads are… interesting.

My favourite toy is drunk Guatemalan: A drunk skeleton wearing a pointy hat and holding a bottle of tequila. He was next to a voodoo doll, but I didn’t dare take a photo of him, for fear of a curse.

Greek priest doll is pretty cool though.

Tallinn old town is an amazing place to visit, the experience starts with a quick language lesson. Since I’m only one day into Estonia, I only manage to learn two phrases. Cheers (while toasting), pronounced tervisex, not turtle sex, terrible sex or nerdy sex, though after drinks, it becomes a game of creative mispronunciations.

The next and best phrase of all, how to say twelve months in Estonian. - “Cocks taste good”. If you don’t believe, check YouTube.

After the quick cultural lesson, it’s time for some sight seeing around Tallinn.

First stop, the oldest running clock in all of Europe. 

The town square.

Russian Orthodox cathedral.

My favourite building in the old town, reminds me of the Adam’s Family.

These colours of the houses remind me of Russian dachas.

Fat Margaret’s Tower.

Mini Peterhof (The Kadriorg Palace).

All in all, a very fun town, with a very active couchsurfing community.

There are two castles on opposite sides of the Narva river located in Russia and Estonia. Not too long ago (prior to the collapse of the USSR), Ivangorod (literally, Ivan City) and Narva were considered the one and same city and people crossed freely between the two. To this day, many people living on one side of the river have family living on the other, to visit, they need a visa and to cross the border.

There is a hydroelectric plant located in Ivangorod (the Russian side), one third of its employees live in Narva and have to cross the border every day to get to work. Given the differences in prices of goods between Russia and Estonia, many Narva residents drive from Estonia to Russia with an empty fuel tank, fill up with petrol, load up on vodka and drive back into Estonia, selling the petrol and vodka in the process.

On the way to Ivangorod.

Big Christmas trees are big business.

I arrive in the evening and decide not to cross that night as I want to check out the castle on the Russian side first. There are only two hotels in the town, both are incredibly expensive. One is booked out, I get the pleasure of an old Soviet dump of a hotel for $30 USD. I steal a towel.

The fortress in Narva, photographed from Ivangorod.

The churches inside the fortress in Ivangorod. I briefly attend Sunday mass.

After the fortress, I begin what is usually a hassle free process, a border crossing. This time, it’s not so hassle free, and here is why…

The laminate is coming off my photo page, all thanks to a new years water fight back in Laos, in March.

The woman at customs tells me I have to go back to Moscow to get a new passport. I start contemplating how much to bribe, then realise I’ve spent the last of my roubles. The woman escorts me to the “naughty room” where I meet a couple of Americans that overstayed their visa by two hours, they’re afraid they’ll never be let out of Russia. An Uzbek man sitting quietly in the corner is summoned by the woman shortly and told that he has no permission to cross the border and to never return to the town again. The computers in the room have labels saying that no classified information should be viewed on them.

After a three hour wait, I’m freed, along with the Americans and told that I am no longer welcome in Russia on this passport. I figure I’ll get a new one in Canada.

The Ivangorod fortress from the Estonian fortress.   

I find Lenin hiding out in the corner of the Estonian fortress, posing as a gangster.

The museum in the fortress has an exhibition showing how women used to do the washing in Narva. Lovely.

I take out some money from the ATM while on the phone and proceed to grab some lunch. A man approaches me and asks me for my identification, I ask him if this is Soviet Russia, since when is there a passport regime? He shows my credit card that I left in the ATM and asks me if it’s mine. I sheepishly accept it and apologise profusely. I buy him a chocolate for his good deed. The bus ride to Tallinn is uneventful.

Most people in the west have heard of the world renowned fountains and palace in Versailles. Far fewer have heard of Peterhof (Петергоф). The smart thing to do is to visit the park BEFORE the fountains are switched off (just before winter, sometime in November), although the park is surreal with a lack of crowds in winter, covered in snow and eerily quiet.

Peterhof in Winter.

The tour of the palace, talks about the history of the building throughout Tsarist times and goes to great length to outline the opulence and luxury throughout the palace.

The place was heavily bombed in WWII by the Germans and much restoration has been undertaken in order to restore it to its former glory.

Despite the onset of winter, the squirrels still run out to play and look for nuts.

The lack of crowds makes for a different impression compared to the crowded summer peak season.