Pre-Departure: day 0

Saturday morning i mentioned to my neighbor, Kai, that i wanted to go to turkey over winterbreak. Sat. night we booked a flight that left a couple days later on Tuesday. I was interviewing on Monday for an internship and left sudnday during the day for Düsseldorf. Returning Monday evening, I began to pack and do some quick research on Turkey and how we might spend our 8 day trip. We also booked our first night hostel.

Day 1: Departure

Our flight was from München, about 3-4 hrs by train from Reutlingen. Once at the maintrainstation in munich we transferred to the strassebahn turned out the strassebahn we were on didn’t go to the airport, it was on an everyother schedule. We weren’t the only ones who had not realized. So we met another man who was also trying to get to the airport. Turned out that he was going to turkey on the same flight as well. After a little bit of rushing we got back on track and made it to the plane. The plane was packed, and grossly uncomfortable and in the row next to use was a baby that would not stop crying, but between my excitement of this impromptu trip and the great back I was reading (Siddhartha) the flight overall went quite well. Upon landing we witnessed the customary applause, a nice local tradition. Our flight landed us in Antalya, a city in the southern Turkey. A major summer travel destination for Germans and Israelis. At passport control, Kai went through no problem with his Malaysian passport and when I was about to walk through the controller told me I need a visa. For a second my heart dropped. I was worried that I would not be able to enter. Moments later he informed me I could buy my visa at one of the other desks. With this 20 EUR purchase I was given a sticker, and the trip continued. After grabbing our bags we went outside of the airport and saw a sign for Sabah Pension (the hosel that we booked for our first night) we opted to have them pick us up from the airport since we were coming in late in the evening and it seemed like a reasonable price. The driver didn’t speak any english or german and he seemed to be a huge rush. Before we knew it we were driving through narrow and dark streets. No sign of any life at all. We began to see sings for many Pensions (hostels). Every couple store fronts had a sign for a pension. Me made it to Sabah Pension. A hostel completely run by a Turkish family. The brothers (about 30 and 40) switched between check-in and running tours, the mother cooked traditional Turkish meals, the father was always around but im not sure what his job was. We were satisfied with the 10EUR a person cost that got us a double room with a bathroom and breakfast.

Day 2: Antalya

After taking a freezing cold shower (I think Kai used all the warm water!), actually wasn’t really much of a shower, more like a shower head between the sink and the toilet and a drain in the ground of the bathroom. I enjoyed a simple and satisfying breakfast prepared by mrs. Sabah. Bread, feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumber, some orange and a boiled egg. And of course some Turkish tea. We walked down a road in Kalechi (the name of the old city in Antalya, and the area around our hostel) towards the new city. On our way we were stopped by a shop keeper. We stopped and spoke with him for some time as we had come to learn Turkish people often stopped potential customers. Even if u make clear that u do not want to purchase anything, they seem happy enough with a nice conversation, and the chance for them to practice their english. We spoke with a shop worker named ‘hagi’ he seemed to be very excited with us and we assured him we would stop by that evening upor our return to our hostel. We continued walking towards the new part of the city and through the mini-bazars. We spent the day walking around the city and getting acquainted with our new surroundings. We found ourselves at the harbor where we decided to talk a boat trip around the harbor. We shared the boat with an Israeli couple. We then decided to walk to the beach. After a long day of walking we indulged ourselves in a full course dinner. I had a mixed grill dish, for appetizers we got a bread dish with some dipping sauces, calamari and shrimp scampi. Toped with a glas of wine, the meal was a great end to our first day. On the way home we stopped by Hagis store. The store was closed but he was sitting outside with his buddies smoking nargile. We were pretty tired but they insisted that we stay. We stayed listed to some music and shared stories.

Day 3: Pummukale

We packed our bags, grabbed a quick breakfast and began our trip to ‘Pummakale’. We got to Denizli by 2pm then we took a dolmush (minibus) to Pummakale. In our excitement we left or bags in the luggage compartment of the dolmush. After about five minutes of walking towards pummukale we realized we had only our small bags with us. I was pissed for about 30 seconds then I came to grips with the fact that with or without the bags I was going to have a great time in Turkey. Plus I had all of my important (passport, wallet) on me. We went back to the corner where the bus droped us off and met a shop keeper that spoke english. And he found a man who worked with the bus company. He radioded the operater and we described what our bus driver looked like. After some time our bags were located and we were informed that they could bring our bags to us in about 1 hour. The ironic part was, the entire day people had offered to hold our bags for us (at the denizli bus station, resteraunt owners, etc…) they said it would be diffucult to climb up pummukale with bags on and we could easily leave them and pick them up later. We thought it was best to keep our bags with us so we could ensure their safety and no soon after we leave them on the bus….while waiting for our bags to return I went to get a quick bite and remove myself from the high pressure zone waiting for the bags, Kai was a little stressed about the bags at this point. I ordered a lamachum (Turkish pizza). After ordering I pointed to something on the counter and asked what it was, the store owner said nothing, smiled and cut me a piece of what seemed to be long rice noodles drenched in honey. While waiting for the pizza I saw a backgammon set and asked another store employee (Jakob) if he would teach me how to play (I had bought a backgammon set in Antalya but I did not know how to play). Jakob didn’t speak any english but began to teach me how to play. It was an intense lesson with lots of hand gestures and figure counting. After the game I thanked Jakob and gave him money in excess of the price of the pizza to cover any cost of the rice noodle dessert as well as a small tip for introducing me to the rules of backgammon. He smiled and shock my hand but would not accept any more than the price of the pizza, the equivalent of about 1 EUR. By the time we got our bag it was 3pm. The hot spring pool at the top of pummukale closed at 5pm. We husseled on up the hill a hike which required us to remove our shoes and walk up the calcium covered hill and through the warm springs of water. It was truly a magnificent site. At the top we entered the hot springs we swam for about one hr. but had to cut our swim short because I had a telephone interview at 5pm. At about 5 min past 5pm my phone rang and I interviewed with 3 men over the phone while watching the sunset at the top of pummukale. By the end of the call it was quiet dark and cold. We hiked back down the same way that we came up, except this time in the dark and it was much colder. Back in the town center of pummukale we stopped for dinner. At dinner we met 3 french travelers and a traveler from Switzerland. The man from Switzerland was just “stopping through” turkey about 2 months. After doing some ‘light’ travel in Africa for the last 4 yrs! He has had malaria 3 times and normally slept “in the bush”. The guys from france were planning on taking a night train to Istanbul that night, same plan we had. We got on the same 12 hr overnight from denizli.

Day 4: Istanbul

Arriving in the morning we took the ironic recommendation from our new French friends to stay in the ‘paris hostel’. After dropping our bags we decided to explore the city. We visited the blue mosque, aya Sophia, and topkapi palace. At the aya Sophia and topkapi palace we kept seeing the same group of kids around 7-10 yrs old on some sort of field trip. They were very excited when they found out we spoke english and they took the chance to yell any of the few english words they knew to us. “hello hello!, is nice to meet u!” these kids were really funny and entertaining. We continued our exploration and made it to the grand bazaar. I bought a thin carpet that could be used to top sheet on my bed, a pair of slippers made from leather and carpet, and lastly a straight edge barber style razor for shaving. The bazaar was a very interesting experience. Lots of bargaining and lots of meeting interesting characters. Rule of thumb in the bazaar: no matter what price they quote u, don’t offer to pay more than 25%. Another thing to note is anything price in turkey is negotiable, from dinner in a restaurant to bus tickets. After a long day of bargaining, shopping and walking we stopped a kebap house near our hostel for some tradition Turkish food. Halfway though our meal two girls came in speaking english and sat next to us. They were very friendly and after brief conversation it turned out they were on study abroad as well in france and italy, and originally from boston. After a quick shower kai and I met up with our new American friends, kamille and Katherine. We went to a hookah bar and got seated in a cozy back room that already had a couple regulars sitting and talking. We drank some tea with our nargile and spoke to the other men in the room for a while. The Turkish men in the room were extremely entertaining, turned out they all spoke many languages, one gentleman in particular, Mahmat, spoke 11 languages but he had never left the country before! The girls were tired and set on returning to their hotel, I proposed to everyone in the room that we should go to ‘Taksim’ (an area in Instanbul Kai and I had not yet been, and well know for its night life). Out of the group only Mahmat agreed to come. I insisted we walk in order to get a better understanding of the area despite my lack of warm clothing and the distance to taksim. After about an hour of walking (many times unsure of our safety, with our new found tour guide leading us through small alley streets while calling many friends and talking to them in Russian. however our suspicions turned out to be unfounded.) we made it to the road that lead up to Taksim sq. and were shocked by the amount of people. We stopped by a group of pan-handeling student musicians playing drums, a santoor and a guitar. It was here that kai met and spoke to the new found love of his life, Chacheck. We passed another group of students playing guitar and mahmat asked if himself and kai could use there guitars and get in on a little jam session. After a quick song we continued around taksim, we grabbed a quick bite but we were all quite tired and decided to grab a taxi back to the hostel.

Day 5: Istanbul

After breakfast at the hostel kai and I walked through the spice market and continued walking through another street bazaar that seemed to be filled mostly with locals. We continued through this bazaar as well until eventually we found ourselves once again in the grand bazaar. We had heard about some underground village but were not certain if we had mis-heard. We asked one man and he just pointed in a direction and without a map (we had ‘lost’ our turkey book the second or so day of the trip) we just walked. We found ourselves in an unknown area and nobody else had heard about this underground village so we decided to a follow a sign that led us back to taksim. While walking I asked a man if we were in the right direction for taksim, and he answered my in Persian. Then I responded to him in Persian, and we walked together while he explained different parts if Istanbul to me. We got on a bus with him and we got off at taksim, the Persian man (mehram) was staying on the bus for a later stop. After a quick bit to eat kai proposed we go to Dom Abache. He nor I had any idea what it was, but kai said he thought it was important. We asked around for the direction to dom abache and walked there. Once we got there we found out what it was. It was the palace where sultans used to live and was now a museum, an incredible place. We joined an english tour in dom abache. We went back to Taksim and split a Kokorec’ sandwich. We walked back to our hostel. And on the way kai feed his desire for a fresh fish sandwich at a small place near the river. After a slight detour (I got us a bit lost on the walk back) we ended up at the aquaduct where we had bumped into mehram earlier that day. We got back on track and walked towards our hostel. We grabbed a banana each and kai and I both agreed, it was the best banana either of us had ever eaten. Also on the walk home I bought a pair of wool longjohn type pants from a homeless looking man sitting on the side walk to prepare for our next destination (Kappadokia) which I heard was quite cold. At the hostel we grabbed our bags and took the tram to the otogar. We got on an overnight bus to Kappadokia. The bus ride was quite weird as the bus stewards (there bus stewards on long rides in turkey, similar to airplane stewards they give drinks snacks and coffee) kept taking our personal snacks and eating them. While kai was sleeping one of the stewards grabbed kai;s box of Pringles and my bag of badum (almonds) and went to the back of the bus and at them while they watched a movie. Once I realized I got the almonds and what was left of the Pringles back. It was super random, really some weird stewards.

Day 6: Kappadokia

Arriving in kappadokia we were hoping to get a good recommendation of how to spend the day, as we had not prepared anything nor really spoken to anyone as far as what to do there. We were directed to a travel tours office. At the first bus station. We weren’t left with much of an option as it was the only group travel office there, and we were 20 mins by dolmush from the kappadokia town center (which we later found out was really just a group of resteraunts near each other). We signed up for the day trip. On the bus tour we stopped at ihlara canyon, the underground city, and selime. The underground city was made up of 8 different levels underground and was a maze of caves and rooms, truly incredible. Selime was a nunch of homes built into the rock structures from volcanic eruptions, this place was my favorite on the tour. I also found a jaw bone of some animal, maybe a goat or something near selime, currently my favorite souvenir. On the tour we met 2 japanese students as well as a man from Israel. The man from Israel (Erev) was at the end of yr and half of travel through Asia and Indonesia. After the tour we went for dinner. I was set on eating kebab-pottery per Hagis recommendation in Antalya (hagi’s family came from kappadokia). It was a dish were they put meat and vegatables in piece of pottery and seal it. The put it in the oven. Before serving it they break the top off and pour it onto ur plate. In the restaurant we bumped into a Singaporean couple that we had met earlier in turkey at the top of kappadokia, then again at denizli and noe for the third and shocking time in kappadokia. the 2 japanese kids from our tour that day happened to choose the same resteraunt we had, and minutes later the Erev, the Israeli man came in with a friend (Okurm) he had met (a student from Istanbul). The japenese students left early to grab a bus. Erev also left to grab a bus to his next destination. Kai Okrum and I went to a local gaming spot where we played backgammon and drank some Tea. After learning some backgammon strategy from Okrum (or ‘Ok’ as he told us to call him) we went to a nearby bar that looked like a little cave. We got a bottle of wine and just talked, it was very relaxing, and Ok was a very smart and interesting person. Time flew by and before we knew it kai and I realized we only had a few minutes to grab our bus. We ran and couldn’t find the bus stop but we knew it was close by. We saw a group of 3 people walking around and we asked where the bus station was they said it was close by and they would take us there, (they were 3 students and seemed intoxicated, after celebrating Christmas eve with some drinks) we told them we only had a minute or two, and they started sprinting to ensure we wouldn’t be late. As kai and I kept up with them running we made it to the bus just in time. We boarded another overnight 10hr bus ride to Antalya.

Day 7: Olympos

Upon our arrival back in Antalya we were not exactly sure what we wanted to do. Before we had left Hagi and his friend had offered to to go with us to all od the top locations around Antalya for the cost of gas plus a little but because the destinations were so far it would have costed about 80 EURs a person, well out of our budget for a one day trip. On last minute decision we decided to go to Olympos. About 1.5 hrs form Antalya it seemed to make sense since we were already at the bus station. Olympos is known for its archeological and natural sites as well as beautiful beaches. We took a bus to the main bus stop in olympos which was really just a resteraunt in the middle of no where. While waiting for the next dolmush that would take us closer to the beach we at a quick breakfast, Turkish pancake and omlette. the dolmush took us down the main st. in olympos. A street littered with ‘tree-house’ and camping hostels. An are that I am sure is packed with backpackers in the summer, but in this winter season it was like a ghost town. We walked through the beautiful nature of olympos and through the archeological sites to the beach. At the beach we were more or less the only people on the coast as far as the eye could see. Once in a while some people would walk by. We dropped our bags and lost some weight and decided to go for a quick swim. The water was cold but refreshing. And because of the amount of overnight buses we hadn’t taken a shower since Istanbul, so it was nice to get into the water. After the swim we just relaxed on the beach for a bit. While kai was grabbing his towel he came across our “lost” book on turkey. we got back on the dolmush to the Olympus bus stop. The took another bus to Antalya bus station, then got back on the public transportation to Kalechi. We grabbed a filling sandwich and a drink for the normally low price of 2 lira (1 eur). We walked back to Sabah pension, and saw Hagi outside his store. We stopped and his friend brought us out some apple tea. We drank tea and showed him fotos of our travels. Especially the ones from his homeland Kappadokia. We continue don’t to Sabah but this time we were deteremined to get a better price, as we had spent more than expected in the past week, and because whe had learned a bit more about how things are priced in turkey. We went back and named a price of half of what we had been paying before and organized a ride to the airport for half of the original cost. We got our room for 5EUR a person with breakfast. After a quick shower we decided to go out for a quick dinner. I had wanted to try a couple food items in turkey that I had seen but not gotten a chance to eat so we did a running dinner, going from one place to the next sampling dishes. We first split a Kumpir. A huge potato (biggest I have seen) the pototae is baked and the insides is turned to mash potatoe with butter and cheese then u choose any toppings and veggies to add to the inside. We added mushroom, fish, broccoli, corn yougurt sauce and ketchup. After the kumpir we went to another restaurant and grabbed the mussel dish. They were litely seasoned with some curry type flavoring and filled with a bit of rice and a good bit of lemon, very fresh tasting. We then stoped at McYorbus, because it was a knock-off type mc donalds. Grabbed a burger, it was actually quiet good. On the way back we grabbed a slice of cake for dessert (tiramisu) it was ok. And we played a game of Tabli (backgammon).

Day 8: Back Home

After breakfast at Sabah we went for a walk. I bought a bottle of Raki. A traditional Turkish drink made form anas similar to greece’s ouzo. We got a ride to the people at sabah pension and got on our flight to münchen, the took the train back to Reutlingnen. Home sweet home.