We got the scooters again on Wednesday! They were too much fun (and too cheap) to resist. We went back to Osman to hire them… despite meeting another nice young scooter hirer the night before. This other guy invited us to have free elma çay (apple tea) and a chat. He had great English and had actually been to Australia – plus his brother lives in Melbourne. We asked his name as we said our farewells and were astonished to hear that his name was Jesus. Actually, his name is İsa (which is the Turkish word for Jesus), but we told us the Anglicised version. We thought it would be a rare name for a Muslim country, but Dave later informed us that that isn’t the case.

So as cool as it would have sounded to say that we hired scooters from Jesus, we went back to Osman. That’s a hugely hilarious dichotomy of names for anyone who’s familiar with the history of the Ottoman Empire – which was founded by Osman I!

This time we decided to drive a couple of towns away to visit one of many underground cities scattered around Cappadocia. We chose Kaymaklı Underground City because it was the biggest, even though there were smaller ones that would have been free. We were talked into paying for a guide to take us around, thankfully we only had 20 lira on us which was accepted instead of the usual (exorbitant) fee of 70. It was worth having Mustafa (a retired ministry of tourism official) take us around as there were no signs explaining anything once we got inside – Peter Grant, you would be out of a job here! It was quite surreal to be walking around tunnels and caves where the Hittites hid from Assyrians and the early Christians hid from the Romans.

After visiting the underground city we headed back to Göreme to do some off-road exploring – the real reason for hiring scooters again. We drove through some very narrow valleys and I had to hop off the back of Stu’s and walk along behind for some sections. By this time I had had a few solo runs and some with Stu on the back, they were ok but I didn’t have the hugest confidence in my driving! Nevertheless when we got closer to the highway to take us back to the hire place I felt I could get there on my own! I think I just wanted to say I drove on a public road in Turkey without a licence. I didn’t last very long before I scared myself and the boys (who were trying to catch up!) by nearly side-swiping a concrete barrier.

Our last full day in Göreme was another walking day. We decided to walk to the nearby town of Üçhisar for lunch then walk back through the Güvercinlik (Pigeon) Valley. The valley was an interesting walk. We’re very used to Tasmanian walking tracks that are extremely well marked out, even to the point of laying out duckboards just so we don’t get lost. With the valley walk, there were moments where the track branched out into 2, 3 or more paths and I we had to choose which way to walk. Sometimes we were lucky and found that our selection took us in vaguely the right direction, but sometimes the path we chose ended at a cliff edge or a river or under a tree. It was like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel! We eventually made it through the valley just as the sun set which was lucky.

As a reward for our long week and to celebrate our last night in Cappadocia, we visited Göreme’s Turkish Baths. Ahh. It was lovely. In brief, it went like this:

• Mud mask slapped on
• 50° sauna for 15 minutes
• Shower then lie on a marble slab for 10 minutes
• An attendant comes who then sloughs off your dead skin with a scratchy mitt (eww) and rinses you off.
• The attendant then used an air-pillow with soap suds in it to massage/cleanse your skin. This part was very relaxing for me as my attendant was gentle, but I could hear groans of pain coming from the boys as various joints (inc back, neck, elbows, knees) were cracked rather forcefully.
• We then showered off and headed to a small pool to paddle round in for a bit before heading back for a second stay in the sauna and a few more laps of the pool.
• After our final shower we headed to the towels where we were accosted by a towel-wielding man who insisted on drying us down for us. That was weird, reminded me of being 3 and fresh out of the bath again!

The next day, Thursday we were supposed to fly out at 9pm at night, but discovered that getting from the airport in Istanbul to Sultanahmet before the last bus/ferry/tram would be extremely difficult and it would be cheaper to cancel the flights and catch an overnight bus instead. Apart from being uncomfortable to get a decent night sleep in the bus was fine and we arrived in Istanbul bright and early at 7am. Stu and I had originally planned to catch another overnight bus to Haskovo but due to tiredness and some not-so-subtle hinting from Humf we decided to spend the night so we could see him off at the airport the next day.

Humphrey! He has gone

We hope he had a good month with us, we think he got a good taste of some rather obscure European countries and what it’s like to live in close quarters with the same people for a few weeks – now he knows how I survived only having brothers

We had a rather entertaining bus ride back to Haskovo. For those not friends with me on facebook I will re-post here soon what I wrote about that trip.

Now we’re home. Kathryn and Aydin have been having a ball in Australia and we came home to the news that they are planning on returning to Haskovo for the next 6 months at least. We received high praise from his teachers and educational psychologist for all the hard work we have put in over the past 5 months which was really good to hear. Well done Aydin!

We still have two weeks break until we have a student again and we’re looking forward to some quiet pottering about and intensive Turkish (maybe).

Til we post again!

Elly

Hi guys!

Greetings from awesome Cappadocia!

After a hectic day in Istanbul culminating in us nearly missing our flights (!), we arrived late on Saturday night to the tiny town of Göreme. Although Göreme has only a few thousand permanent residents, it is the centre of Cappadocian tourism because of its setting amidst some spectacular rock formations referred to as “fairy chimneys”.

These ones are outside the town, but you can see how they’ve carved houses into the rock. In Göreme itself, houses (which are now mostly hotels) have been carved into the rocks throughout the valley.

Bible-reading train-spotters (or history buffs) amongst our readership might know that Cappadocia was an important site for the early Christian church. Many of the sites you can see around Göreme are churches and houses that followers of Jesus carved out (literally) – primarily because Cappadocia was as far from their oppressors as they could get!

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Anyway, enough trivia!

We woke up on Sunday morning and (after oohing and aahing at Göreme which we hadn’t been able to appreciate in the dark of the night before) decided to hire scooters. Awesome idea! We blame Humphrey for suggesting it.

The affable Osman showed an uncharacteristic awareness of the phrase “duty of care” in asking us whether we had any riding experience (Humf: a little; Me: none!), but we both did blockies and apparently proved ourselves! Elly agreed to ride on the back with one or the other of us.

For two scooters for six hours, we paid 85 Turkish Lira (AU$62) including petrol. (Petrol in Turkey is abominably expensive! Like AU$2.48 per litre! Eek.)

We stuck to the roads at first, and found the scooters to provide easy access to some very cool sites, including this 6th Century AD church:

After a while we had a bit more confidence in the scooters and we went “off-road”. Actually, they were still roads, but the kind that only 4WDs would really be able to handle. The scooters performed admirably!

Here’s the mandatory panorama – click on it for a larger version:

So that was our Spectacular Sunday.

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Monday we decided to do much the same thing (that is, travel in a random direction safe in the knowledge that we’d come across something incredible – Cappadocia is like that), except that we did so on foot. Much more tiring and much slower, but still quite rewarding.

As for tomorrow – we’re fairly keen to hire the scooters again! And start earlier in the day this time! We’ll keep you posted.

Cheers,

Stu.

Final instalment in our “Quick! Catch up with the blogging before we move on to Turkey” series… sees us doing a few touristy things around Romania.

After the onslaught of shopping that Humf and I endured – the same onslaught that Elly and Margot revelled in – we were very much ready to leave the city and take in some different sights. On the bus trip up to Transylvania we were surprised and excited to notice the huge differences between Bulgaria and neighbouring Romania – in landscape, in architecture, in the villages, in the people…! I guess noticing all those differences is what travelling is all about.

When Jon and Margot suggested we get a maxi-taxi out to Sighişoara (sig-ee-shwa-rah), a 12th-Century village where Vlad Dracul (yes, Dracula) lived for some time, we jumped at the opportunity.

It was about a hour from Târgu Mureş (ter-goo moor-esh) and we got there in the early arvo. It’s a great time of year to travel (depending on the weather) because it’s well and truly outside of the high season – there were plenty of others wandering around seeing the sights, but much less crowded than in summer (me thinks). The village was typically colourful for Romania:

Up on the hill was the Old Town – the part of the village that dates back to the 12th-Century. I guess we’ve almost become accustomed to the concept of an Old Town now, but really, it just wouldn’t be possible in Australia. Depending on your definition of “old”, of course.

This strange wooden tunnel leads from the centre of the Old Town to the top of the hill where there are some churches and a graveyard.

As if the village itself didn’t have enough charm, we were surrounded at all times by stunning autumn foliage!

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The other sightseeing excursion we made from Târgu Mureş was the Salt Mine at Praid (pron: pride). Apparently it’s been mined since Roman times and, more recently – as the mining has moved further under ground – the locals have opened up some of the disused mining sites to the public. Around the 1950s the salt mine became the site of an alternative therapy called speleotherapy – which espouses the health benefits of breathing in salty air.

Thousands of people every year travel down salt mines, including this one, to breath in the air. There appears to be some science behind it but I didn’t really read the plaques… It’s supposed to be particularly good for sufferers of asthma, and based on that, they’ve built a series of huge playgrounds for kids to stay entertained while they breathe the air! Apparently some of them spend four hours down the mine as often as three times a week.

There’s also a church down there where Catholic and Orthodox (ie. Hungarian and Romanian) services are held.

And when we returned to the surface (allegedly feeling much refreshed, or something), we went and got kürtös kalács which is some seriously tasty Hungarian sweet bread! They put dough on a wooden cylinder and then mount it on a spit. It is cooked over a charcoal fire and then coated in sugar, spices and nuts. You eat it while it’s hot and say “yum”. Not a Hungarian word.

Hungarian, by the way, is considered one of the hardest languages to learn (as a second language – for English-speakers). It’s loosely related to Finnish, but is essentially independent from all other languages (rare for Europe!). It looks like this: “Angolul beszélő magyar megtalálni nagyon nehéz megtanulni”.

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We left Transylvania on Friday morning, and I’m glad to say that we’re nearly caught up with our blogging!

We got another maxi-taxi back to Bucharest and stayed a night at the East Hostel, which is easily the best hostel I’ve stayed in! It was fitted out amazingly well. Incredibly classy bathrooms; it felt like a boutique hotel but instead of a king-sized four-poster bed per room, they have several bunks! A very nice surprise, we thought.

We got the train back to Haskovo the next day and that’s where we are now. Humf will be heading to Turkey tomorrow. Elly and I will probably hang back in Haskovo to nurse our wounded wallets for a few days before joining Humf to see Cappadocia! Looking forward to it!

You can expect some more philosophical reflections on our travels in the next few days!

Cheers,

Stu.