Turkey

What an amazing country!!!! We had such a good time on the final leg of our travel experience. Turkey is way up there on my list! So much to see and do and the culture is so different and cool....just like Marocco....I gotta tell ya, them muslims get a bad rap 'cause of the extremists, but they are such welcoming and friendly people. Some of, or the nicest people I have met. And you can't be the Turkish breakfast which is usually included with the hotels.

It's weird, Andre and I both (and most other people I imagine) had the preconception that Turkey was always warm and sunny, but we showed up on October 31st, and it was winter there. Rather cold, but awesome.

So we took the ferry from Samos, an island part of Greece, travelled 1 hour and a half and hit Turkey. At customs, we had to get a visa and it was 45 euro. Kinda pricey, and even the dude we paid tried to screw Andre over by not giving her the 5 euro change....a kinda shitty introduction to the country, but it didn't last. I forget the name of the town we disembarked in but we went straight to.......

Selcuk

You can see flags (left) and pictures of THE MAN, Attaturk. He is THE MAN in Turkey as Attaturk means "father turk" and he made it the republic and actually fromed the country. I loved the pictures of him everywhere, it really gives a cool vibe, in a non-communist or dictatorship way.

Selcuk was really nice, and most people come here because of the neighbouring village ruins of Ephesus. It was such a beautiful place (left). Well preserved. Of course when I found the latrines, I had to test them out and see what it felt like back then (right)....kinda cold on that cement. Good thinking place though, and by the look of things, it was probably a great place to catch up and gossip with the other villagers.

I found me a whirling dervishes hat outside the ruins. I really wanted one and it didn't take long to find it. I had to get a picture with the Stop sign which is of course different there (left). Works pretty good in french, and could be short for DURKA DURKA !! We also saw our 1st cotton fields on the way back to town (right). I love seeing all of these indiginous produce and goods of all kind growing everywhere.

We also met exactly what we needed, a friendly fellow couple. They were super cool and we ended up seeing them again all the way through our Turkey trip. Simon, a brit, and Fionna, an aussie, had met in Japan, where they were teaching english. We had a lot of fun with them. It was cool cause we didn't follow each other at all but we were doing the same trip kinda so we met up frequently and had some good times.

After Selcuk, we hit.....

Pamukale

Just for a short day visit but well worth it for the salt mountains......holy shit is it ever beautiful !!! Upon entry into the park, you have to take your shoes off, and a nice (but quite slow) man offered to take our photo, we agreed and he then went on to have us pose (with his broken english and positioning us physically) exactly, EXACTLY like this (left)....the thumbs, the distance between our arms.....everything.....it was quite hilarious and of course the picture has much more value for it.

This place is awesome. It looks like a big snow mountain but everyone's in shorts, and the water is 35 degrees celcius. So of course you can go bath and relax in the super warm water....we didn't bring our bathing suits cause we thought it would be colder. but still got into our knees...soooo cooool. This was also our 1st re-encounter with Simon and Fionna(right).

After that, we took off overnight for the most wonderful and majestic place I have ever seen.......


Cappadocia

This whole region is insane. You couldn't even imagine a place like this if you wanted. It is just a natural wonder!!! Go check out snapfish ! It is a series of various rock formations everywhere that were formed because the rougher volcanic top layers haven't eroded as fast as the bottom soft layers to form various funky rocks. Some are called ferry chimneys with the sort of mushroom tops, and the cool part is that most of them were inhabited. Kinda cool hey! Just decide hmmmm, I think I'll live there, let's dig. Major appartment building in this bottom pic on the right.


We set up shop in Goreme, the main town which is the best base to discover the rest of the area. We showed up at 5 am, and there was someone there from the tourist office waiting to receive us and show us the hotel options. You can stay in a cave or ferry chimney but we opted for the cheaper warmer normal room which was still in rock. Not expensive and our own bathroom.....it was so huge (pic right)....PIMPIN' ! We finally got to taste some narguile, or if you rather shisha, hooka, or water-pipe with the flavoured tobacco (left).

It was amazing just to walk around and check out the area.

While in Goreme, we took a tour to Mt. Nemrut in the eastern part of Turkey. The tour was 180 euro each, but it was cheaper, better, faster, and more interesting than doing it by ourselves. All accomodation, and meals were included and damn do you eat well. It's weird cause they bring the food almost all at once....soup, salad, and main course so you feel too full cause there's no time in between the dishes. And then, of course, tea.....great turkish tea.....that was always nice! The cool part wasn't just Mt. Nemrut but all of the cities, villages, and everything else we saw and the info our amazing guide Seyno gave us. We were the only ones on the tour along with two Manitobans....imagine that.....It was a really worthwhile experience.

We went and had the world famous ice cream in Kahramanmaras. You eat it with a fork and knife, and it was the best ever ! So creamy ! Then we slept in a little pension at the base of Mt. Nemrut.....huge rain storm, no electricity, but there was lots of beer and Raki (the turkish ouzo, sort of Pastis, or liqueur d'anis).

Then we went up in the major fog and mild rain up to the summit of Nemrut by car at 5 am so that we could see the sunrise, but..... it was still shitty weather (left) so we saw nothin' except the major reason why we went up....the massive head sculptures that fell off their bodies and just stare off into the distance. An ancient king had organised these sculptures on the highest point to be closer to the gods and thus had sculptures of the gods along with himself since the king is considered as a god. We also got our first taste of.......try to guess......SNOW.....in frigging Turkey ! It snows quite a lot supposedly and it was quite cold too during our entire visit. And check out our famous guide with his rain gear.....he just pulled out a friggin plastic bag and poked some eye-holes (left)......he was quite the character; really intuitive, super sympathetic and super funny.

On the way back from Nemrut, we stayed a night in the holy town of Sanliurfa, the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed. It was really nice to see the architecture (pic of holy pool and small mosque ) and get that influential vibe of the heavens. We also stayed in a proper 3 star hotel....quite nice. In the hotel, we decided to take our muslim marriage photos.....Ahhhh, such a nice couple.

We also visited the town of Harran with the bee-hive mud houses. That was also cool (right). At this point, we were only 12 km from the Syrian border. We could actually see it from atop a little hill.

Then back to Goreme for 3 more days. This is when we met up with Simon and Fionna again, and went on tours of the Cappadocia area. A cool walking tour with lunch, and then to the underground city....That was amazing too....52 metres deep and 8 stories. There was a 9km tunnel that connected to another underground city, in order to escape if ever attacked. The scenery felt like Quebec sometimes and Andre and I enjoyed the romantic stroll at the bottom of a canyon (pic left). And the surrounding mountains on the tour really fill in the backdrop nicely (right).

The whole Cappadocia area was just amazing. Surpassed any of my expectations for Turkey. What a cool discovery, and I was so happy to do it with my little sweetheart pony/ninja Andre. It was super chillax and awesome to have our own room all the time and have friends to discover the area with.

And then........night bus to.......one of the most rockin places on earth.........


Istanbul

This place is just so huge and there's so much to discover that we would most certainly need to go back some day. The mosques everywhere, the other palaces and museums, the shops, the crazy market place that you could spend a full day in (pic from in the market), and the fact that it separates europe and asia. The Bosphorous strait is the defining border. That's what's really cool about Turkey is the asian influence in the goods.

Of course we checked out this guy (left)...the Blue Mosque, only mosque in the world with 6 towers....and just across from that the Aya Sofia. We just had lots of fun walking around and seeing the differnt areas and went across the Golden Horn river to see the "new town"...Oigloo I believe it's called. The only disappointment is that we didn't go to a hammam cause I kinda wasted some time and then we ran out of it.

Well folks, that was our last "travel"destination but we were headed to Paris to enjoy our last 2 days together before Andre flew back to montreal. It was rather weird cause it really set in now that we weren't going to see each other for the next 5 months or so. I really was getting attached to this girl (2 and a half months, 24/ 7 will do that to you).....not too hard to fall for her.....what an awesome chick.......beautiful in mind, and body!!! Not a bad spot to enjoy together though, the romantic setting of Paris. I was also going to meet up and stay with my crazy cool cousin Alex.

well my friends....You are only 1 month behind now.....we flew to Paris on November 14th.

love all y'all