Turkey

Executive summary
1. We're spending three weeks exploring Turkey
2. The majority of it is with a group tour.
3. We arrived in Istanbul and saw the historical sites of Aya Sofia,Blue mosque and Topkapi palace. As well as taking a river cruise on the Bosphorus.
4. Bursa: We took a walking tour in Bursa and learnt about wedding traditions, the importance of gold and saw the local mosque.
5. We enjoyed traditional live Turkish music in a market cafe.
6. We were amazed by the whirling dervishes.
7. We took a super high tech bus for 7 hours to Selcuk.

Off on a new adventure
"Why are you leaving England on the first day of summer?" I hear you cry. It is 11 degrees, raining and blowing a gale I reply. Having got that out of the way we are leaving for Turkey where it 25 degrees and sunny. Finally, some proper decent weather. Poor shell has been frozen solid for the last two months.
Last time we used the rail system we were in the drunk carriage, this time we were in the plague carriage. Two fat women spent the whole journey coughing and spluttering. One woman remarking that she had had the cough for six months. I am not a fan of a persistent cough and couldn't help thinking that she should get it sorted out. In between freaking out that I am going to get sick that is.

Istanbul
Flight was good and we arrived in Istanbul with no problems. We took a taxi ride from the airport to our hotel and were introduced to the narrow streets of Istanbul with all its colour and diversity. We sampled local cuisine consisting of pide ( bit like an enclosed pizza), kebabs and chicken sis. It is probably the first time I have had a sober kebab.

Exploring Istanbul
The morning was spent on a river cruise up the Bosphorus river. I always think this is a good way of seeing a city. We had a good perspective of the city and major landmarks. The weather was warm and sunny and we spent a very enjoyable morning getting to know Istanbul. So, having taken shell up the Bosphorus we proceeded on foot to some of the major landmarks.

Palace
There are two tickets for exploring the palace, one for the main site, the other for the main site. We got both.
Shell asked me if I would like to visit a harem, to which I replied in the affirmative. My first lesson was that harem means forbidden and actually refers to an area of the palace that was only for the sultan, his family and approved staff. Entering the harem the first chamber we were introduced to was the chamber for the eunuchs. I had noticed that there was another room for circumcision on the map so I just quickly asked if everything was ok. Enquiring if she was upset with my behaviour in any way. I always think it is better to talk things out rather than wake up in the middle of the night to find her standing over me with a pair of scissors. She assured me everything was ok and we proceeded.
The palace was spectacular, with many rooms, chambers, meeting halls, fountains and impressive decorations. The main decorations that caught our eye were mosaics and inlays in the doors. We were told by the security guard that the inlays were made up of mother of pearl and tortoise shell. He indicated that the tortoise had to die in order to get the shell. I reassured shell that all the tortoises had died of old age.
It took hours to cover the palace grounds and see all the rooms and gardens. One interesting future was the sultan had constructed a special building to house his turbans. Now, my opinion is that if you have to build a special building to, essentially be a hat stand, you either have too many hats or you have way to much money.

starting our group tour
We have chosen to explore Turkey with a tour company called intrepid travel. We were introduced to our group which consisted of 12 people. Eleven Australians and one American, five couples and two single female travellers. We started our time together with a walking tour of Istanbul.
We spent the majority of our time getting to know the group.

Aya Sofia and Blue Mosque
We have gone tommy tourist. First stop Aya Sofia. Aya Sofia is a mosque which was once a church. In many ways it represents the changing fortunes of Istanbul and Turkey. Conquering powers have converted the building into their place of worship. Changing it from a church to a mosque. As a result it has Christian and Islamic decorations adorning the walls. Some of the mosaics in the building are 13 th century.
I immediately recognise it as one of the locations used on the amazing race. After I did some research it turns out that the amazing race has visited Turkey three times. Twice in the American version and once in the Australian version. The episode that used Aya Sofia was the Australian one and they had to memorise the location of the Islamic plaques on the pillars in the main hall.
Second on the list was the blue mosque opposite Aya Sofia. A huge mosque both inside and out, true to its description it was decorated blue inside. We didn't get to see much because we were asked to leave to allow for prayers. Entrance was dependant on dress code with head scarves, skirts and full robe handed out to those who didn't fit the specified criteria.

Bursa: ferries and buses
We're on the move! Our first travel day was an early morning start, estimated departure was 7:20am. Their were a lot of tired bleary eyes as we arrived for breakfast at 6:45am but in good spirits for the day. Main topic of conversation was the previous night's sleep. A large school group of teenagers arrived in the hotel and spent a large proportion of the night talking in the corridors or knocking on the doors. One girl on our floor spent a long time talking / crying on the phone letting us experience crankiness and compassion at the same time.
We were a little bit late setting off giving our poor tour guide a nightmare beginning because, as she informed us the ferry would not wait. It is a reminder that a convoy goes at the speed of the slowest ship. We picked up the pace and headed towards the tram stop. It's strange being part of a group, everyone following the guide like chicks after a mother hen. Knowing that we were behind time added an extra dimension of urgency which worked against shell and I when the tram arrived. This time shell and I have only brought one big bag between us so both my clothes and her clothes are in this bag. It is a wheelie bag so it is easy to transport but it does take two of us to lift it onto things like trams and trains. The train arrives so we pick up the bag by the handles at either end and head towards the door. As there is a queue at the closest door I beckon to shell to go towards the next door down which she does. Now, a problem arises. We are exactly equidistant between both doors and they begin to shut. Instinctively, we both make a dash for the door that is closest to us but it's not the same door. In fact, because we are still holding on to the handles at either end of the bag we take two steps before pulling each other in the opposite direction. We look like classic idiots. Charlie Chaplin couldn't have created better slapstick.
We sorted ourselves out and managed to get on the tram. Having a good laugh with our fellow passengers we commented on what we would be like as amazing race contestants. Shell and I both agreed that we would be the arguing couple who wouldn't get past the first stage. A quick tram ride saw us to the ferry station.

Ferry cultural faux pa
The ferry ride would take us to a town called bursa where we would be staying for the night. We took a fast ferry that completed the crossing in about 3 hours. It was very modern, very spacious and very full. We were allocated seats by the window, three together. Shell and I sat together and another of our group, a young woman named Steph. Steph has a personal training business and we engaged in a very interesting conversation about fitness, coaching, motivation and training. We were chatting away and were so engaged in our conversation that we totally forgot our surroundings. It wasn't until we were well into our trip that we were shushed by a man sitting in front of us. We paused long enough to take stock of our environment; not only were we the only people that were talking but it was deadly silent. It was at this point that we remembered that it was culturally inappropriate to talk on public transport. I felt really bad, I had no intention of upsetting anybody but we must have spent over an hour yabbering away. The rest of the journey was spent in silence with me beating myself up inside as penance.

Bursa: mosques, wedding dresses and your weight in gold
We dropped our bags off at the hotel and went on a walking tour of the city with our guide. Before we left the hotel our guide made sure that we were all dressed appropriately. Bursa is a religiously conservative city so we were asked to dress respectfully. Trousers for the boys, no shorts, shoulders and legs covered for the girls. Apparently, on the public bus, two old women made tuting noises at one of the girls who had her knees on display.
We set off on our walking tour and we are noticing that there is a different vibe here than in Istanbul. We are getting a lot more looks and we are being evaluated a lot more. It isn't unpleasant but it is uncomfortable. It is definitely a lot more conservative here.
Our walking tour takes us through the main bazaar area of bursa which seems to be dominated by wedding dress shops and goldsmiths. The wedding dresses are stunning and come with headscarf options. There are three different colours of wedding dress, white for wedding, red for hens party and green for henai. The gold shops are dominated with gold bangles and these are often for the dowry. Apparently, the dowry is supposed to be the value of the brides weight in gold. A couple of things spring to mind here, the first is that many brides in Australia are the size of houses. There are some counties in the world that don't have that much gold in their reserves. The second thing is many brides pile on the weight to maximise the dowry and then slim down after the wedding. This is exactly the opposite in Australia. With the three wedding dresses and the weight in gold thing I am thinking I got off lightly in the wife stakes.
The other item of clothing that is being sold is a circumcision outfit for 7 year old boys who go through this religious ceremony. My personal opinion is that no matter how magnificent the outfit is it isn't going to make it a good experience.
I was a bit surprised to see that their was a lot of lingerie shops positioned through the town. Given the conservative dress it was unusual to see undies on display to the world.
We arrived at the mosque, the big destination of the walking tour and the reason for the conservative dress. Exploring the mosque we discovered that it is different from the mosques in Istanbul. There is a fountain in the middle here and the writing is calligraphy.

Exploring bursa
After the walking tour we explored the city. We climbed the hill towards the castle ruins and gate. At the gate was a man dressed in traditional guard costume. He was standing so still it wasn't until we were about 10 metres away that we realised that he was real. We climbed up to the top of the castle ruins where we had a good view of the city.
Returning to the hotel we saw a political gathering. It is election time here in Turkey and there is a variety of electioneering posters and flags around. I spent a reasonable amount of time looking up information on the political history of the country and the major events influencing the election.

Music dancing and tea.
Late afternoon saw our group set off for a local cafe in the streets of bursa. The cafe was playing live music. Squeezing into a small room in the back of the cafe there were about a dozen older Turkish men singing songs. Three were playing a type of guitar and keeping the beat was a man on a hand held drum. They immediately moved to let us in and enjoy the music. It was incredibly lively and up beat. We must have spent 30 to 40 minutes enjoying the music before our tour guide dragged Michelle up to dance. Shell and our tour guide was guided in the dancing by one of the local men and many more of our group joined in. It was an incredibly fun atmosphere which was accompanied by a lot of tea drinking and hand clapping.


You spin me right round
After dinner we went to a dervish lodge to witness the whirling dervishes. The actual event was preceded by a talk by the local imhan who was commenting on the local political situation. Being westerners and not knowing the language, we were given a room in the lodge to sit and wait. We were very kindly given some tea while we waited. We met some local American students who told us that they were visiting Bulgaria and Turkey as part of a cultural awareness program. They were all from Pennsylvania and curious to know about Australia. It was really interesting to hear that their college took trips overseas to raise cultural awareness. They would then return to the USA and write about their experiences as part of their course. We had a good chat about travelling and countries for a good twenty minutes before we were ushered into the main lodge.
The girls and the boys were separated; girls upstairs in the balcony seats and the boys downstairs in the main area. The whirling area was square in shape and about three metres by metres. At the front was about three musicians and a singer. The whirlers came in, dressed in their long flowing whirling jackets, four in white, one in the red and two other men in black straight tunics. They were all men ranging in ages from about 7 to forty. The two guys dressed in black stood on the periphery nodding their heads and praying. The guy in red stood in the middle and was static for the whole performance. The guys in white circled around him whilst the musicians played music and the singer sung. All the twirlers wore elongated hats and the black tunic guys had turbans. When they whirled round the bottom of their jackets came up to about waist height.
It is difficult to describe how impressive sight this was. The whirlers was constantly in motion, one arm up in the air, one to the side about shoulder height with their heads slightly tilted. Round and round they went in time to the music for about 20 minutes. One foot seemed to be on the floor at all times while the other stepped around it in a circular pattern. They were perfectly in unison and in time with the music which built up to a crescendo. What was amazing, I mean truly amazing was that after 20 minutes of constant rotation when they came to a dead stop and didn't move an inch. By the time they finished they were drenched in sweat.
Now, I've seen you tube clips where a student puts his/her head on a cone, runs round in a circle for twenty seconds then tries to run in a straight line only to fall flat on their face. Admittedly, they alcoholically compromised but it shows in dramatic fashion how difficult it is. Also, as an aside, the whirling really cooled the place down; constantly creating a breeze.

Just staying a bit longer
After the whirling had finished the audience started to pray. Our tour guide got up and led the girls down from the balcony. They came downstairs and collected us on the way out. It wasn't until we got outside and put our shoes back on that we noticed that we were missing one person. Shell was absent. I know shell well enough to know that something hasn't gone quite right. We waited five minutes, no sign, 10 minutes no sign, she definitely didn't make it out with us. I am starting to get concerned and so is the tour guide. I am wondering whether she has stayed in to have a go at the whirling or introduced them to hula hooping. Eventually she emerged to explain that the reason was a lot more respectful. She got separated from the group, took a wrong turn and got lost in the lodge. Rather than make a fuss during pray time she waited until they had finished praying. Two nice ladies took her under their wing and looked after her.

Super high tech bus
Next day is a travel day, 7.5 hours on a bus. No one in the group is looking forward to this. As it turned out it was better than ok. This is a super high tech bus with TV screens in the back of the seats, loads of leg room, ticket system for stored luggage in the hold, trolley service and wifi. It's more kitted out than some planes I've been on.
The coach company's name is kamil Kok, which gives us lots of comedy value. How was your ride on the kamil Kok? Hee hee

Selcuk

Arriving in selcuk we quickly settled into our hotel and dumped our bags. Our guide introduced us to the surrounding area with an orientation walk.
Selcuk is a very touristy spot. It contains the ruins of ephaseus, once the roman capital of Asia minor. It also was the spot where John the Baptist wrote his contribution to the bible.

Are you feeling scared?
Part of the orientation tour involved an introduction to the local souvenir shop. I knew this had been coming. Since the tour began all the female passengers had been asking when and where they were going to be able to get their hands on jewellery, dresses and the like. I had a feeling that this was going to be messy. Shell had set a mission of silver bangle acquisition and was locked on target. I had my usual dilemma of do I accompany her or not. If I go with her it means I can influence purchases but I have to endure the tedium of shopping.
I read an article about men and shopping. It took swabs and analysed the levels of stress experienced by riot police and men shopping. Stress levels were equal for both.
The shop proprietor was a real character. She was a charismatic lady called Julia who was very engaging and an incredibly good salesman. I was in trouble. She gave shell and kate (another passenger) a tour of the shop highlighting bargains. Shell said she was into jewellery and sensing a sale Julia made a beeline for the bangle section.
Noticing shell's bangles she brought out the silverware. She used the salesmen techniques of comparison, similarity and uniqueness. Noticing my apprehension Julia turned to me and asked me how I felt seeing these two ladies shopping. My reply was " I was scared". Julia then told me of a special parking space for husbands she had out of the way if I preferred to be there. I declined. Julia then showed shell a bracelet that represented the five pillars of Islam. One of the pillars was to help the poor. This was good, I told her that I was poor and it would be a great help if I was given a discount. Shell made a purchase and as we were leaving Julia gave us some free gifts. A little purse for shell and some worry beads for me. She said that I would need the worry beads because my wife would be back for more purchases.

Selcuk: The Election
During our orientation tour we walked through the town centre. At various points in the town there were people gathered at the local cafe watching the results of the country's election. Each party had it's own local party centre. One group of supporters was eating sunflower seeds as they waited for the results. They were dropping the shells of the sunflower seeds on the ground and they had already made a small pile round their ankles. The final results were due in at midnight at it was only 7 o clock at night. I couldn't help thinking that they would be up to their armpits in sunflower seeds by the end.

Selcuk: St John's Basilica
In the morning we had some free time so after breakfast we decided to visit St. John's basilica which was located within the ruins of a fortress. Selcuk is the site where St. John wrote his contribution to the bible. Apparently he was 90 years old when he wrote it. This is impressive, I can't remember what happened yesterday in any great detail so for a ninety year old man to remember his youth is outstanding.
We commenced our walk by following a sign close to our hotel. We didn't take the most direct route because we quickly came to the a old building. Guided by the tourist signs we poked our head in and saw a magnificent court yard with beautiful stone work marking the walls. It's difficult to ignore the history and architecture of the area.
It's here that I think we must have taken a wrong turn. Instead of going up the steps we continued along the road and ended up going through a local village. We could see the fortress at the top of the hill but it took us a while to find a way up to it. It was nice to get out and about. Being shut up in coaches all the time is bit confining. The walk was invigorating and it was a good opportunity to get to know our other group members.
We spent a very pleasant hour or two exploring the ruins and the basilica. The weather was sunny and hot. Like most fortresses this one was located on the top of a hill and therefore commanded an impressive 360 degree view of the surrounding area. The fortress was in a reasonable condition having retained its walls around the whole circumference.

The stork delivers
Selcuk is populated by a lot of nesting storks. They are using the old aqueduct ruins to construct their nests. It is hard to miss they because both the stork and the nest are really big. It was a bit funny because one of our group had just discovered that they were pregnant. The joke being that the stork delivered.

Pancakes for lunch
One of the local food specialities is gozleme, which is a pancake with various fillings. One of the great things about this particular restaurant was that we got to witness the gozleme being made. The kitchen was populated by three old Turkish women stretching and kneading the bread using long thin paddles. The dough was stretched into a very thin round shape before being placed into an open oven to cook. After a few minutes the cooked pancake was extracted from the oven and filled with either potato, spinach, meat, eggplant or a mixture. This made for a very nice meal.
The restaurant was located at a archaeological ruin of the sleeping seven; a local myth of a group of religious people sleeping for over 200 years.

Ephesus
Ephesus is the best preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean and turkey's premiere tourist site. Once the capital city of roman Asia Minor, the city has a fascinating history spanning over 1500 years. The famous spots are the amphitheater and the library.
This site is very impressive, it covers a very large area with some very well preserved and restored ruins. Our tour took us through the whole site and we were given a guided commentary on all the main features.
While we were walking through we encountered some pouters. Three girls were taking sexy shots of themselves with these famous ruins as a back drop. They were doing the full fashion parade of hitched up skirts, jaunty hats and blue steel stares. They were being accompanied and watched by a fat hairy man who had taken his shirt off. The only thing that was missing was background music, something like "sexy and I know it" would have just about covered it.
The ruins were spectacular, someone pointed out that parts of it looked like an angry birds level. The library and the amphitheater were indeed impressive. One of the sites we visited was the latrines. These were stone seats with holes cut out, arranged in a square positioned over an extraction channel. In the centre would have been a fountain and a pond area. This area was used for informal discussion area for many political discussions. To ensure privacy for these conversations the pond was populated with frogs. The croaking of the frogs and the noise of the fountain would drown out the conversations and obscure eavesdroppers. So, the statement, "was that a bullfrog" was very applicable here.

Cultural observations and other
Shell has had lots of admiring comments towards her skirts. They are beautifully patterned, colourful and conservatively long. The real winning comment is when they are highlighted as reversible I.e. Patterned differently both sides making two skirts in one. Saving packing space and extending her wardrobe in one swift move. People are less impressed when I say that I can turn my undies inside out and extend the time between washes.