It was a reasonably early start this morning so we could get to the bus to Çamakkale (I keep spelling it wrong). The morning was uneventful: breakfast at our hostel, delicious again, and then continued the packing. When we had first arrived in Selçuk I had decided to handwash some clothes, many of which had not completely dried by the time we were leaving again. Bummer.
After we pack-horsed ourselves, we made our way to the bus station and were immediately shown to the bus by the gentleman who helped us yesterday. His demeanour indicated that we were late, but in actuality we were about 15 minutes earlier than we needed to be. All good! We jumped on the public "dolmus" bus (which is essentially a little mini van public bus that rattles all over the country), changed seats a few times until we found one that wasn't broken, and settled in for the 1 hour journey to Izmir, where we would change buses.
As the whole journey was going to take about 7 hours, I decided to take another travel sickness tablet and was out like a light for the Selçuk-Izmir journey. When we arrived, a lovely little plump man came up to us, "Çanakkale?" and motioned for us to follow him. His little legs whisked him away at quite the pace, and us with all our luggage struggled to keep up as we went up and down stairs and through a series of doors. I had no idea where he was taking us, but turns out it was to the bus company's ticket desk.
We already had our ticket, and so the little man whisked us outside, showed us where the "Double-u C" was, and point to where our bus would be in a little while. We didn't know if he would expect a tip for this, but he waved us goodbye with both hands and then toddled off again. So friendly and helpful!
Very soon, our bus arrived and we hopped on board. This one was not as plush as the others (I think I'm getting used to a certain level of comfort?) but was still quite comfortable. It wasn't long before I was fast asleep, anyway.
About an hour before our first stop, I started desperately needing to pee. This is about usual with me, so get used to reading about it! We stopped at what looked to be a large bus station and so I got up and jumped out of the bus with a little note that Dan had artfully drawn saying "WC, Toilet" in case they didn't speak English. Naturally, as I stood up, I trod on the end of my long skirt and pulled it right down under my bum. Thankfully I was wearing safety shorts underneath otherwise the little Turkish men and ladies might have had quite a shock!
I got out of the bus, and there was a lot of shouting, and the bus starting moving away. Shit. I jumped back onto the bus, deciding that maybe the intent is a toilet stop just down the street somewhere. This turned out to be correct, and about 15 minutes later we had pulled up to a service station.
After I relieved myself, Dan and I grabbed a couple of snacks for the next portion of the trip. We had hoped that there would be a small food service on the bus as there had been the day before, but we weren't in luck. We had some cheese on us, so we bought some crackers and some crisps for the afternoon. We also had a small giggle as we realised that the bus attendant looked like a younger, slightly chubby Gene Wilder.
Seriously, this bus trip felt like it took forever. It was lovely to see the ocean again, and interesting to see how the colours around us had changed from desert yellows to greens and blues.
We *finally* got to Çanakkale. Looking on the map this morning, it seemed that the main bus station might be a long hike, about half an hour, from our accommodation. This wasn't great. Another search said about 15 minutes. Basically, we had no idea where the bus would drop us off in relation to our hostel, so we sat back and just expected the unexpected. Which it certainly was - the bus stopped at the ferry terminal which was all of about 2 minutes walk from our accommodation, and we felt like we had won the lottery.
We are staying in the Anzac House Youth Hostel - everything around here is Anzac themed, it seems, and it is nice enough, clean and basic. Excellent location - and our tour to Gallipoli and Troy tomorrow starts from here.
As we had only had crisps for lunch, we decided to have an early dinner. I did a quick Cheap Eats Canakkale google search, and found a place called Sardalye just around the corner that did quick and cheap fish with excellent ratings. We found our way there, and realised it really was fast food - there was no indoors section, but a few seats around the outside bench. We had wanted to see the water front, so we chose to get our food to go and sit somewhere else. Online had said the sardines were the thing to get (Sardalye literally translates to sardines), and we also grabbed some calamari. With it came some bread (Yaaaaaassss) and a small salad. You could opt to have it either already in the bread as a sandwich, or as a medium or large portion. We did medium portions for both.
We walked down to the waterfront, expecting to be able to get to a park just to the left of it. Nope, blocked off. So we walked back, tried to get into the park, to discover it was the Navy Museum. So back to the waterfront we went, perched ourselves on a rock and began eating. The portions were quite small, but oh so very tasty, and the total only cost about €5 so we were happy! What I thought was tartare sauce turned out to be akin to raita, which was delicious.
After we had eaten, we went in search of the Trojan Horse that had apparently been used in the film, Troy with Brad Pitt. It wasn't hard to find, as it is quite huge, and we stood waiting for an opportune moment to take a photo without millions of people in front of it. This wasn't to happen, so we walked around behind it so we would get in everyone else's photo, and turned out this was an awesome angle with the beautiful sun setting behind.
Nearby was a diorama of the ancient city of Troy, with panels explaining the history of the city through out the ages, up until modern times when it is now called Çanakkale. Just a short walk from here, we found a small, free and interactive museum dedicated to the Turkish involvement in WWI. Obviously Gallipoli and Turkey have a large impact on Australians and New Zealanders, so it was quite interesting to see this exhibition from the point of view of the Turkish. The Turkish "martyrs" who lost their lives on the battle field, and their incredible victory. As we all know, from an Aussie and Kiwi perspective, it was pretty damn shit, with it being a blood bath. It all depends which side you're on, I guess! And at the end of the day, innocent people lost their lives or were forever affected as a result of mindless and senseless violence. When will we learn?
We continued along the promenade, and I was getting quite cold. We could see at the end were some canopies, and arriving there it was a cafe with gorgeous views of the setting sun - over Europe. The Turkish tea was ridiculously cheap here (1TL, about 20c) and so we grabbed a table out of the breeze and ordered ourselves a couple of teas.
It was so lovely sitting there drinking delicious tea (I realised I should have been putting more sugar in), with the sky turning golden - and literally across the way was Europe, while we were sitting in Asia. The Dardanelles straight divides Europe and Asia here, and it was trippy to think that another continent was just across the way (like in Istanbul, only closer!) The tea was so tasty and so cheap that we ordered another one, and a kitty, which we named Peggy (because she was pregnant), joined us. This kitty was lovely and wanted so much attention, and sat on Dan's lap until the sun had set and we had to go.
We were still a little hungry as dinner hadn't been huge, and I remembered passing a tasty looking Turkish dessert shop next to our accommodation. The prices seemed ridiculous, but when I went in and asked, it was because it was by kg! We ordered 2 chocolate baklavas and 2 pistachio baklavas, which came to under €2, and took them back to our hostel to consume.
Oh my lordy they were lovely. To be honest I've never been the biggest fan of baklava but I knew I wanted to try it here. We had it at some various other points on our journey - it was tasty, but this one was so delicious, I could have kept going. Except it is also ridiculously rich, and after our 1 pistachio and 1 chocolate each, there was no room for anything else.
And that brings me up to date! We have yet another early start in the morning - a long day tour from Çanakkale through the Ancient City of Troy, onto Gallipoli, and right back to Istanbul after midnight. Originally I had wanted to visit Gallipoli for Anzac Day, but upon further thought we decided to avoid Anzac Day because
a) it becomes completely overrun with people
b) it becomes trashed with litter and
c) with our small tour group, we can appreciate it much more.
And so my friends, I'm signing off! Day 10 completed.
Until next time,
xx
After we pack-horsed ourselves, we made our way to the bus station and were immediately shown to the bus by the gentleman who helped us yesterday. His demeanour indicated that we were late, but in actuality we were about 15 minutes earlier than we needed to be. All good! We jumped on the public "dolmus" bus (which is essentially a little mini van public bus that rattles all over the country), changed seats a few times until we found one that wasn't broken, and settled in for the 1 hour journey to Izmir, where we would change buses.
As the whole journey was going to take about 7 hours, I decided to take another travel sickness tablet and was out like a light for the Selçuk-Izmir journey. When we arrived, a lovely little plump man came up to us, "Çanakkale?" and motioned for us to follow him. His little legs whisked him away at quite the pace, and us with all our luggage struggled to keep up as we went up and down stairs and through a series of doors. I had no idea where he was taking us, but turns out it was to the bus company's ticket desk.
We already had our ticket, and so the little man whisked us outside, showed us where the "Double-u C" was, and point to where our bus would be in a little while. We didn't know if he would expect a tip for this, but he waved us goodbye with both hands and then toddled off again. So friendly and helpful!
Very soon, our bus arrived and we hopped on board. This one was not as plush as the others (I think I'm getting used to a certain level of comfort?) but was still quite comfortable. It wasn't long before I was fast asleep, anyway.
About an hour before our first stop, I started desperately needing to pee. This is about usual with me, so get used to reading about it! We stopped at what looked to be a large bus station and so I got up and jumped out of the bus with a little note that Dan had artfully drawn saying "WC, Toilet" in case they didn't speak English. Naturally, as I stood up, I trod on the end of my long skirt and pulled it right down under my bum. Thankfully I was wearing safety shorts underneath otherwise the little Turkish men and ladies might have had quite a shock!
I got out of the bus, and there was a lot of shouting, and the bus starting moving away. Shit. I jumped back onto the bus, deciding that maybe the intent is a toilet stop just down the street somewhere. This turned out to be correct, and about 15 minutes later we had pulled up to a service station.
After I relieved myself, Dan and I grabbed a couple of snacks for the next portion of the trip. We had hoped that there would be a small food service on the bus as there had been the day before, but we weren't in luck. We had some cheese on us, so we bought some crackers and some crisps for the afternoon. We also had a small giggle as we realised that the bus attendant looked like a younger, slightly chubby Gene Wilder.
Seriously, this bus trip felt like it took forever. It was lovely to see the ocean again, and interesting to see how the colours around us had changed from desert yellows to greens and blues.
We *finally* got to Çanakkale. Looking on the map this morning, it seemed that the main bus station might be a long hike, about half an hour, from our accommodation. This wasn't great. Another search said about 15 minutes. Basically, we had no idea where the bus would drop us off in relation to our hostel, so we sat back and just expected the unexpected. Which it certainly was - the bus stopped at the ferry terminal which was all of about 2 minutes walk from our accommodation, and we felt like we had won the lottery.
We are staying in the Anzac House Youth Hostel - everything around here is Anzac themed, it seems, and it is nice enough, clean and basic. Excellent location - and our tour to Gallipoli and Troy tomorrow starts from here.
As we had only had crisps for lunch, we decided to have an early dinner. I did a quick Cheap Eats Canakkale google search, and found a place called Sardalye just around the corner that did quick and cheap fish with excellent ratings. We found our way there, and realised it really was fast food - there was no indoors section, but a few seats around the outside bench. We had wanted to see the water front, so we chose to get our food to go and sit somewhere else. Online had said the sardines were the thing to get (Sardalye literally translates to sardines), and we also grabbed some calamari. With it came some bread (Yaaaaaassss) and a small salad. You could opt to have it either already in the bread as a sandwich, or as a medium or large portion. We did medium portions for both.
We walked down to the waterfront, expecting to be able to get to a park just to the left of it. Nope, blocked off. So we walked back, tried to get into the park, to discover it was the Navy Museum. So back to the waterfront we went, perched ourselves on a rock and began eating. The portions were quite small, but oh so very tasty, and the total only cost about €5 so we were happy! What I thought was tartare sauce turned out to be akin to raita, which was delicious.
After we had eaten, we went in search of the Trojan Horse that had apparently been used in the film, Troy with Brad Pitt. It wasn't hard to find, as it is quite huge, and we stood waiting for an opportune moment to take a photo without millions of people in front of it. This wasn't to happen, so we walked around behind it so we would get in everyone else's photo, and turned out this was an awesome angle with the beautiful sun setting behind.
Nearby was a diorama of the ancient city of Troy, with panels explaining the history of the city through out the ages, up until modern times when it is now called Çanakkale. Just a short walk from here, we found a small, free and interactive museum dedicated to the Turkish involvement in WWI. Obviously Gallipoli and Turkey have a large impact on Australians and New Zealanders, so it was quite interesting to see this exhibition from the point of view of the Turkish. The Turkish "martyrs" who lost their lives on the battle field, and their incredible victory. As we all know, from an Aussie and Kiwi perspective, it was pretty damn shit, with it being a blood bath. It all depends which side you're on, I guess! And at the end of the day, innocent people lost their lives or were forever affected as a result of mindless and senseless violence. When will we learn?
We continued along the promenade, and I was getting quite cold. We could see at the end were some canopies, and arriving there it was a cafe with gorgeous views of the setting sun - over Europe. The Turkish tea was ridiculously cheap here (1TL, about 20c) and so we grabbed a table out of the breeze and ordered ourselves a couple of teas.
It was so lovely sitting there drinking delicious tea (I realised I should have been putting more sugar in), with the sky turning golden - and literally across the way was Europe, while we were sitting in Asia. The Dardanelles straight divides Europe and Asia here, and it was trippy to think that another continent was just across the way (like in Istanbul, only closer!) The tea was so tasty and so cheap that we ordered another one, and a kitty, which we named Peggy (because she was pregnant), joined us. This kitty was lovely and wanted so much attention, and sat on Dan's lap until the sun had set and we had to go.
 |
| Bop! |
We were still a little hungry as dinner hadn't been huge, and I remembered passing a tasty looking Turkish dessert shop next to our accommodation. The prices seemed ridiculous, but when I went in and asked, it was because it was by kg! We ordered 2 chocolate baklavas and 2 pistachio baklavas, which came to under €2, and took them back to our hostel to consume.
Oh my lordy they were lovely. To be honest I've never been the biggest fan of baklava but I knew I wanted to try it here. We had it at some various other points on our journey - it was tasty, but this one was so delicious, I could have kept going. Except it is also ridiculously rich, and after our 1 pistachio and 1 chocolate each, there was no room for anything else.
And that brings me up to date! We have yet another early start in the morning - a long day tour from Çanakkale through the Ancient City of Troy, onto Gallipoli, and right back to Istanbul after midnight. Originally I had wanted to visit Gallipoli for Anzac Day, but upon further thought we decided to avoid Anzac Day because
a) it becomes completely overrun with people
b) it becomes trashed with litter and
c) with our small tour group, we can appreciate it much more.
And so my friends, I'm signing off! Day 10 completed.
Until next time,
xx
No comments:
Post a Comment