The Final Countdown. Day 11: Troy, Gallipoli, Istanbul

Today was a long. A really long day. We set off at 8.30am from Çanakkale and stumbled into our hostel in Istanbul after midnight. But it was a good day!

We had booked on a Canakkale - Troy - Gallipoli - Istanbul tour with Hassle Free Tours (although we got it slightly cheaper through Viator). It turned out to be a private tour with only Dan and myself booking for this day. First stop: Troy.

Troy

We were picked up at 8.30am and driven to the Troy/Troia site, leaving our luggage at the hostel to collect later. On the way, we picked up our Troy guide and soon we were at the site. Our guide, whose name now escapes me, turned out to be an energetic little man who was very knowledge about we were about to see - he had even written a book about it (which we did not purchase later, sadly).

Troy was fascinating for a whole gamut of reasons. What struck me most was how badly the site had been excavated, considering Ephesus a few days prior was in such pristine condition, and Troy is Troy, ya know? Our guide explained this is because the first man to begin excavations of Troy, a wealthy business man named Schliemann, was essentially a treasure hunter and that's all he cared about finding - Homeric Trojan treasure. He and his team blazed their way through the ruins, making a pretty big mess of it. He did actually succeed, of sorts, finding some "treasure" - he had agreed to split anything he found with the Ottoman Empire at the time, but of course he smuggled it out of the country to Greece instead. Years later, he realised he had made a mistake - it was treasure, of sorts, but not Homeric Trojan treasure. I digress - I should start at the beginning.

The site of Troy is described in Homer's The Odyssey and The Illiad, and so after many attempts to find it, one enterprising archeologist worked out exactly where it was meant to be - but didn't have the funds for excavation. Fast forward to Schliemann, and together they started digging - finding ruins, and ruins, and ruins.

It has been discovered that on the site of Troy, there are 9 distinct layers of civilisation; each time the town and then city was destroyed, another city was built on top of it, rarely using the materials and simply burying it underneath. Without our guide, it would have looked just like a pile of rocks, but our guide was expertly pointing out the differences in the stone walls so we could clearly see Troy 1, 2, 3 and all the way up to 6, 7, 8 and 9 - each one with unique stone work.

Some of the layers.

Of course, the most interesting Troy to most is that written by Homer in The Odyssey and The Illiad - the Troy that spawn the legends of Helen of Troy, the 10 year battle to win her back (honestly, if she really wanted to go back to Menelaus, I'm sure she could have in that 10 years...), Achilles and of course - the Trojan Horse. Beware the Greeks bearing gifts! I studied all this in high school but upon reflection - I realised that this was...about...14 years ago, and therefore have forgotten practically everything.

Homer's Troy is either level 6 or 7, historians are at odds to which one. Our guide was of the belief it was Troy 7 due to some of the stone structures (eg, hurriedly built supports using the stone work of the 7 era). Most fascinating for me was the entrance gate, which had been amended over time to force enemies into a narrow pathway without being able to use a battering ram because it was curved, and also the West Entrance. The West Entrance overlooked the land in which the Greeks would have camped, and we stood roughly were Priam and Paris and Helen would have stood watching Hector battle Achilles, and lose. You could clearly see that the gate area had been quickly blocked up with shoddy stone workmanship - this entrance needed to be fortified, and needed to be fortified quickly. Infront of it was a street, and around us the remains of makeshift stone houses that the townspeople had built within the city walls. Of course, a lot of this required imagination to make out, thanks to Schliemann and his poor efforts.

The West Gate

One section is under a canopy, and this shows some of the ancient mud-bricks that have somehow stood the test of time. The mudbricks were placed above the stone walls to make the city even higher, and often for the house buildings. Today, it is swarming with bees, and so I ran quickly out of there...

Excavation work continues to this day, and our guide showed us the latest area that is being worked on. This is being done properly, so hopefully more interesting finds come our way and maybe in 20 years time, the rest can be repaired.

Other fun things to note while we were there:

• Saw some cute wildlife, mostly a few squirrels and even an owl out in the midday sun.
• We started by being overrun with school groups (we forgot that it was a school day!) but thankfully they were whisked through the site and soon left us behind
• One cheeky Asian tourist came up to Dan and demanded to know what kind of camera he has. "What is your camera? Oh, it's not a Canon. I was going to try to buy a camera battery from you!" I quickly hid my camera, being a Canon... Although I would have liked to see her try to buy a spare battery from me. Perhaps if she offered enough...?
• Our tour guide kept referring to himself as Troy 12, which I liked! A few generations after Troy 9, that's for sure. I loved how proud he was of his heritage.

After the tour, we returned to the guide's shop (of course), but only bought ourselves a coffee. I went to the toilet and on my return, I sat down as the guide's wife delivered our tea to us. I looked up and said thank you, to which she started, sort of moved back, and said "How beautiful your eyes!".

I didn't quite know what to do so I laughed and said thank you, as she continued to stare at me for another couple of seconds before smiling and moving away. I thought that was rather nice - maybe green eyes are a bit rare around here? 

We bid our guide farewell, and our driver, Apo, and the guide's wife and Dan and I piled into the car, and drove to Canakkale (she was going to visit her son there). Now, our driver Apo was to become our tour guide for the Gallipoli portion of the tour.

Getting to Gallipoli

First, we had to cross the Dardanelles, which is the narrowest part between Europe and Asia along the strait. Apo had us jump on the next ferry with all of our luggage in tow, and in 10 minutes we were across the other side - took no time at all! We piled into a waiting van, our first stop being lunch.

Lunch was at a restaurant on the waterfront, and it was ok - not stand out, but ok. We each had a full fish served, which always weirds me out, and it had lots of bones which I'm too lazy to generally deal with (apparently I don't like to chew my meals properly!). However it was tasty, and the Turkish wine we got with it was very good. 

At the end of the meal, Dan was struggling to open his little packet of hand wipes (literally every single restaurant has their own branded hand refresher wipes). After watching him struggle, turning the packet upside and trying again, our big burly waiter plucked it out of his finger tips, and ripped it open like it was a tissue. I was laughing and laughing, which made the waiter start laughing too. He came around and opened mine for me as well - just in case I was as weak as Dan!

Time to move on.

Gallipoli

I didn't really know what to expect - when it came to "Gallipoli" all I knew was Anzac Cove, and even then I'll admit I didn't know much except the Aussies and Kiwis landed there, and it was a slaughter. Cannon fodder. However all over the Gallipoli peninsula there are monuments and cemeteries dedicated to the Anzacs and the Ottomans who lost their lives in this ongoing battle. The Ottomans were defending their country and culture that was being invaded by the British and the British allies. The Australians and the New Zealanders were doing what they were told to do. The result was a senseless waste of life on both sides.

Our guide first stopped us at the Kabatepe Museum, only allowing us 25 minutes to explore it. I had been warned by Nat that this isn't enough time (as she had also done the tour in the past), and so Dan and I whipped around, took photos, and then spent the last few minutes looking at it properly. As our tour was so fast paced, we knew to expect not a lot of time at each stop. The museum wasn't huge anyway, and housed some interesting artefacts from all involved parties including uniforms of the Ottomans, Anzacs, British, Germans and French.

Our next stop was Brighton Beach, where next to a map of the area he explained the lead up to the war, how the Ottomans became involved and why this was an important place. A lot of this was over my head I'm afraid, but essentially the Ottomans were wanting to remain neutral, but needed war ships as they were currently in a tiff with Greece, and when the Germans came along with war ships the Ottomans agreed to help them, and ended up dragging themselves into the fray. That's very, very basic and probably mostly wrong but hopefully the general gist is there.

At this point our guide was annoying me, as he seemed to be talking too much and his phone kept ringing, but to be fair as the tour went on I gained a lot of respect for him and how much he knew. He clearly respected the soldiers on both sides of the fighting, telling us many stories of heroism. My favourite was an Ottoman soldier who walked into the fighting to collect a wounded Australian officer - he walked with a white flag of peace. All the bullets ceased momentarily while he picked up the wounded Australian, carried him to the Australian trenches, and then returned to his own, all unharmed. It's these little stories within the fighting that always make me wonder - how can the fighting continue when you see the humanity in both sides? Again, Turks fighting for their home, Anzacs doing what they've been told to do.

Statue dedicated to the Ottoman and Anzac soldiers

From Brighton Beach (how many Brighton Beaches are there?!) we drove to Beach Cemetery, where our guide picked out some of the Australian and New Zealanders who were buried there and told us their story. One such story was that of John Simpson Kirkpatrick, who was a stretcher bearer with his donkey. He walked out into the fray day after day and carried and collected wounded soldiers. He wore the symbol of the Red Cross on his arm, and so he was not shot upon by the "enemy". Until one night when it was dark he was accidentally shot, but not before he had saved the lives of about 300 men.

After the Beach Cemetery, our next stop was Anzac Cove. It was haunting standing at the edge of the cove, knowing that below so many of my kinsmen had lost their lives - mostly in part thanks to a monumental fuckup as they landed in the wrong back, and had been ordered that no communication was to be had between any of the boats. This meant that wave after wave of men landed ashore, and were immediately razed. What struck me was how small Anzac Cove is. It wouldn't take more than a few minutes to walk the length of it, coming in at only 600m long, and completely exposed - making it easy for the Ottomans to attack. 

Anzac Cove

The day before, my mum had sent me a poem written by a great-cousin of mine about the Anzacs. I asked if Dan would film me reciting it, which he kindly did (the poem is quite long!) and the tour guide also asked to film it - which made me nervous! I tried to read it as emotively as possible while I stood next to the sign for Anzac Cove.

The Ottoman commander and soon to be "Father of Turkey", Atatürk was so impressed with the valour and conviction of the Anzac troops at Gallipoli, that he agreed to have these memorials built all across the site to commemorate the memory of these brave men.

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ...You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

Further along from Anzac Cove, we could see stadium seating being erected for the upcoming Anzac Day - I couldn't imagine being here for that. It would actually be awful, surrounded by that many people. Part of what make this special for me was the silence and many times just being alone with the surroundings.

We stopped at the next cemetery along the way, and this one led down to the beachfront. While here, I accidentally interrupted Apo as I exclaimed, "Turtle!" He finished what he was explaining, before saying "I want to talk to you more about this cemetery but first I'd like to photography this baby turtle...!"

Which was fine by us as we wanted to too, so we all swooped on the poor baby, got a few snaps and left it alone as it headed back to the ocean.

It was very peaceful here. Our guide beach-combed for shrapnel or other interesting items - recently someone on his tour found a hand grenade, and he showed us some bits of shrapnel that were still embedded in the ground.

Next along was Lone Pine Memorial, dedicated mostly to the Australians who died at this ridge. Our guide explained the name, and we spent a short time walking amongst the grave stones and in the monument. 

Our next stop (I told you, it was go-go-go!) was astounding - a wide ridge of Australian trenches were still clearly visible in the landscape, slowly being taken over by trees. We took a few photos out the window before Apo stopped the car and beckoned for us to get out, and then walked us over the through the trenches. This was mind-blowing. They had obviously filled in a little bit and weren't so deep, but in some places were still as deep as I am tall. This was very unexpected. He learnt a little bit about this place, and the Anzacs ingenuity when it came to building trenches. 

They were built in a zig-zag formation, not a straight line. This meant that if one part of the trench was either attacked by machine fire, or bombed, it would only take out that portion of the trench and not affect the rest around the corner. Apo was extremely impressed by this - and I appreciated how he had such deep respect for the soldiers and the strategies of both sides - explaining the errors and victories of the Anzacs/British and the Ottomans.

From the trenches we visited the major Turkish memorial to the 57th Regiment (Atatürks regiment), and this was suddenly overrun with Turkish tourists. Giant busloads after busloads were here, paying homage to their fallen. I couldn't help but find this mildly...humorous?...as we had in no way seen any of these people at any of the other sites, and yet here we were paying our respects to the Ottomans as well. 

We had a quick stop at The Nek cemetery before our last stop at Chunuk Bair Cemetary and memorial. Before we quite made it there, I finally was allowed a toilet pit stop. I told you I'd tell you about each of these! I knew we didn't have much time so I raced into the ladies toilet, and saw squat and after squat. I tried the door at the end, and received such hurled abuse from the woman inside that I quickly made my escape. Dan realised that I hadn't been able to use the toilets, so he whisked me into the mens which had a seated toilet at the end (so the abusive lady must have been in the one in the womens), and which came as a great relief.

Back to Chunuk Bair, here again the top was swarming with Turkish tourists. Here, we were looked at very oddly, and someone muttered "tourists" at us, like we shouldn't be there. This memorial is to both the New Zealanders and the Ottomans, with a major monument to both. At one point in the corner, a sign was erected which described that Atatürk had been non-critically wounded at that point, and many local tourists were having their selfies on that spot. 

And that concluded our tour of Gallipoli! On the drive back, our guide told us a few more stories, and we drove around a poor turtle that was stranded in the middle of the road (I wanted to help him, I hope someone else behind us did). We also saw a keklik, or partridge bird, which is apparently a good thing because it means the area is thriving. 

At this point, Apo drove us back to the town and flagged down our public bus that we were to catch all the way back to Istanbul.

Istanbul

The next 7 hours took forever. I had accidentally packed my travel sickness tablets under the bus and I couldn't for the life of me find my motion sickness wrist bands, so I was chewing gum like it was going out of fashion. The first part of the journey was very windy and stop-start, so I was worried I could feel the sickness rising. I managed a short nap and after I woke up I felt a lot better, and could face the rest of the journey.

Nothing much to note - we got a snack (the cheese bread roll) and some really tasty orange and chocolate shortbread cakes (which we got a few extra of so we could eat them the next day!). Our stops were uneventful. When we were almost in Istanbul, we were stopped for a police check (this has happened on all buses) however this time the policeman entered the bus, and wanted to see everyone's ID. This was new - Dan and I got out our passports, "New Zealanda, Australian!" and he continued. When he passed us on his way back through the bus, we saw he had collected everyone else's ID and was inspecting them off the bus. Strange. We were here for quite a while - I think there were a few un-ID'd people on our bus who were in a bit of a panic.

When we arrived back in Istanbul bus station, our instructions were to go to the bus company's front desk, and get them to ring out tour guide Apo, who would then ring our driver to take us to our hostel. Complicated? Yes. And just as complicated to carry out, too. We got to the front desk, and Dan tried asking the guy behind the counter to ring the number of the business card, explaining all of the above. After trying Google Translate and spoken translate, Dan finally managed to get him to just call the damn number, which he did, and Apo explained what needed to be done, and it all went quickly after that.

Our driver arrived, babbling away on his phone. He thrust his phone at Dan to confirm our names, and basically ran out with us trying to keep up. He did not stop talking on his phone for a second for the whole half-hourish journey. And he was clearly mad at whomever he was talking to, and his driving reflected this. And I had no seatbelt - basically,  I was pretty terrified. I also didn't expect the bus station to be so far away and was not sure where we were going at all. I breathed a small sigh of relief when I read "Sultanahmet" on a sign, and we veered off violently towards it. He didn't know how to get to our hostel, and despite us telling him to drop us off at Hagia Sophia he insisted on trying to find out hostel, stopped in the middle of the street to shout at shop owners and taxi drivers if they knew the address.

We eventually convinced him to just let us out, and thankfully we weren't far (although we walked in the wrong direction initially, stood behind a tree until he had driven off, and then went back the right way). Phew. I was so glad that was over! As we had stayed at this hostel before, we knew the key code and went straight in.

When we arrived inside, we saw a note on the front desk saying

"Take for free, still 2 days valid. All museums except Hagia Sophia. Enjoy!" and two Museum Passes. As we had intended to buy these on the morrow, we decided to use this as good travel karma, grab these two passes as they were left for anyone to take, and promised to pass the good karma forward.

Our hostel owner was supposed to come to the hostel to meet us, but he wasn't reading his messages. After a while Dan called him, and we said we were already inside because we had been there before, and we knew which room was ours, could we just go to bed? This was all fine, and we arranged to do cash exchange on the morrow. 

Oh my it was good to collapse into bed, even if it was a lumpy one. It had been a long and overwhelming day, too much to take in, and now it was time for some much needed sleep.

Until next time,

x