From Ottoman houses to beautiful mountains

I took a bus to Safronbolu and found a place to stay that was an old Ottoman house. The village is famous for being the only one left that is still intact from Ottoman times. It is very unique for the architecture and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It felt like an old town because there were no modern-looking buildings. The old mosques and caravanserai looked in place among the houses. Someone also told me I needed to buy Turkish delight there, so I did and it was delicious. I bought some to take with me to Europe.

I got to Istanbul in time to visit a Turkish Hamam (bath house), which was on my to-do list before I left. It was an interesting experience even though the scrub and massage were a bit painful and I inhaled soap suds. I bought some bakalava to take with me and had one last look at Aya Sofya and the Blue Mosque before I got on the plane the next morning.

I felt comfortable finding me way to the airport. My flight was delayed an hour due to heavy traffic, but the airport at Ljubljana (Lew-blee-ahna) was nice and small and I found Neda and Sasha without a problem. I met them in Fiji and they invited me to stay with them in Slovenia when I got to Europe, so I took them up on the offer. They are retired and have a nice house 15 outside the capital, Ljubljana.

The buildings look similar to those in Austria and Switzerland (said Sasha) and each village has a church. I had a big lunch and a big beer to celebrate being in Central Europe, then visited the city. The buildings were built in the Baroque style, so very different from the Ottomans! The castle on the hill was disappointing because it had been completely renovated and built upon with glass, steel, wood, a restaurant, etc. It wasn't like the ruins I've been seeing recently. I managed to find a brewpub that had Flying Dog, from Maryland, on the list for a taste of home.

Yesterday Neda and Sashs took me to see a medeivel village with a museum for an idea of how people lived back then, and to Postojna cave, which was amazing. It has the largest amount of space inside open to the public, about 3 miles. A small train took the hundreds of tourists deeper inside where we could walk around. There were stalactites and stalagmites everywhere, and they have their own local animal called a human fish. It looks like an albino salamander, and it can live for years without eating anything, and lievs to be 90-years-old. In the evening I walked around the city again.

Today, we went for a drive through the mountains in the northeast of the country. The borders of Slovenia are one to one-and-a-half hours away in all directions, so it's easy to get around. We stopped at Lake Bled, a small alpine lake that looked like a miniature version of Lake Tahoe, then I saw a big ski jump that was the tallest in the world until recently. I asked how far away Italy was and Sasha said, "Very far, maybe 2 or 2.5 kilometers. We will go to Italy." So he drove across the border and made a U-turn back into Slovenia so I could say I've been to Italy. We saw the source of an emerald-colored river that was inside a cave and had a lunch of sausages, saurkraut and beer. It hit the spot. The drive was really beautiful and we stopped for photos several times. I went into a fortress used during WWI and WWII in a strategic valley near the border with Italy and Austria. Rommel even passed through during WWI. The last stop was at a turqoise lake while we watched a downpour of rain from a cafe. All in all, not a bad day.

The Black Sea Coast

I walked through another valley and stopped for a rest in a cave house. One guy took a nap in one. Some Australians knew how to play "Oh heck!" so we played a cutthroat round before dinner. I went out with three other people for a shared dinner with pide, musaka, pottery kebab, stuffed eggplant, and red wine followed by a beer and nargile while the power went out (I'm too lazy to explain what all of these things are, so you may have to do some research).

I spent a day reading The Girl Who Played with Fire before I caught an overnight bus to Trabzon. I got food with a guy from Oakland and he ordered the Goreme (town we were in) kebab. It had mushrooms held upright to make it look like the strange rock formations we saw in the valley around us. We gave the restaurant extra points for that dish.

The 5am sunrise from the bus was beautiful but I would have appreciated more sleep. Overnight buses aren't my favorite way to travel. I made it to Sumela Monastery up in the mountains, originally built by Greeks in the 4th century. It is carved into a cliff overlooking a steep valley with a rushing stream at the bottom. I tried to imagine how peaceful it must have been a thousand years ago before it was swamped by tourists. The frescoes inside were colorful (restored several times). The tourists were mostly Turkish and a nice family invited me to sit and eat with them.

For my stay in Trabzon I decided to try Couch Surfing. I looked for someone in Trabzon on the couch surfing website who could host me for two nights and we met for dinner before he took me to his apartment. He and his two roommates lived like students (22 to 25-years-old), but I appreciated that they had an extra bed instead of just a couch. My host is an electrical engineer and he studied and couch surfed in Spain a few years ago. I visited the Aya Sofya Museum (old church). It had more colorful frescoes with different depictions from the Bible, and a view of the Black Sea. The bazaar felt much more authentic because it wasn't designed for tourists like the one in Istanbul. I didn't see very many foreign tourists and they stood out when I did see them. That must be how I looked because most people gave me a second look as I passed and one guy walked up to me in the downtown park and started a conversation because he liked to be nice to tourists. He studied in Sweden and everyone was nice to him there, so he wanted to return the favor and even offered that I could stay at his place that night. That attitude was a nice change of pace from the first half of my trip when people hassled me and weren't always friendly. My guidebook mentioned that most of the cheap hostels operated as brothels and as we walked around, my host pointed out where I could pay for time with a Russian girl (And no, I did not). The city also had a Russian bazaar and I didn't know that the Russians controlled the Trabzon between 1916 and 1918. There was definitely a different feel to the place compared to Western Turkey. The people also seemed to be more religious, but still not so strict with their behavior and their dress. It was a very good experience that I would not have had if I stayed at a hostel.

Overnight there was a loud, long thunderstorm that brought rain, so I caught some sleep on another long bus ride. The scenery was amazing with green hills and mountains along the blue sea. Unfortunately I didn't book ahead for my two nights in Sinop, so I was stuck paying too much last night ($45). The room was nice and clean but the breakfast was the worst I've been offered so far and the staff wasn't very helpful. I paid 2 Turkish Lira for a Chicken kebab sandwich and 7 TL for dessert of baklava; a delicious way to spend my money. I walked down to the pier for sunset to eat my baklava and saw hundreds of jellyfish swimming around it.

I was happy to leave the hotel and talked to a guy from a pension (cheap motel) who hepled me out even though I ended up staying somewhere else. After I went to the beach for a swim, I wandered around looking for a place to stay and stumbled upon a great place for $15 for my own room. I have noticed that fewer people speak English here, but my guide book has been useful to ask about an available room.

Crazy Cappadocia

I ate a deliciously free dinner of lamb/beef meatballs and fries, and finally won at backgammon before I left Olympos on the overnighht bus to Goreme, Cappadocia. It wasn't great because the bus stopped at a few places along the way. For some reason, people were waiting for the bus at 2am at a station somewhere. Then we had 20-30 minute stops, but who's going to want to eat at 4am?! On the plus side, I saw a gorgeous sunrise out of the front of the bus.

There was a little confusion about my accomodation, but I got a room to myself for the first night. I met up with an Australian guy I was hanging out with in Olympos and we walked around a bit. The open-air museum was a bit disappointing. There were some old churches with colorful frescoes carved into the rocks, but there are cool rocks to look at everywhere.

The landscape is absolutely wild and stunning. It is unlike anything I've ever seen or imagined. I've been told that volcanic ash eroded in such a way to make strange shapes in the valleys. There are cones, pillars, wavy hillsides, and pinks, yellows, reds, and whites. I walked through a few valleys with my camera handy, and went into houses in a cliffside, a hill top, and an underground city. All of them were very fun.

I had the local food which is a kebab cooked in a clay pot and sealed with bread. It tasted better than the usual kebab, and they broke it open on the table to serve it! I also visited a local winery for tasting of their white, rose, and red. It was a hot afternoon, so the American guy I was with suggested we split a bottle on the hill top fortress. It hit the spot.

Time to relax

The village of Kayakoy was fun to walk around for a couple of hours. The buildings are 200 to 300 years old but the village was abandoned during the population exhange in the early 1920s, so it is advertized as a ghost town. There were a two old churches and great views of the valley and the sea.

The bus ride to Kash was very scenic. The coast is mostly rocky with a few good sandy beaches and the water is turquoise-blue. I got my own room for a luxurious change and saw some live music at one of the many bars in town. The whole town is geared for tourists. There were thousands of people walking around the bars at night but when I went in to see the band, I was the only patron in the bar. Strange, but everything was also overpriced. I paid $4 for a beer! I could go to California for that. Sea kayaking was a good day. We went to a beach, around an island, and saw the "sunken city" which is less impressive than it sounds. There are a few remaining walls and foundations underwater, but nothing spectacular.

I caught a minibus to Olympos which has a reputation for being a place for travellers to relax and do nothing. It was everything I'd hoped for. One guy said he planned to stay here two days and he's been here for over a week. The owner said she came for three months and has been here for 15 years! I spent time with a few Australian roommates, went to the beach under a full moon, ate delicious food cooked by the owner, played backgammon, and had a great time accomplishing nothing. I went on a boat trip with a roommate where we chased 2-foot-long sea turtles, and the Turks covered us in mud because they say it's good for the skin. The last stop had a cool cave to explore and 10-foot tall rocks to jump off of.

Tonight is an overnight bus to Cappadocia, which is inland and has cone-shaped rock formations and an underground city to see.

Too many tourists!

The diving in Bodrum was less than spectacular. We went down to a shipwreck and saw a few colorful fish, but for the second dive, we went back to the same place. It was not nearly as colorful and exciting as Fiji. Afterward I visited the 15th century castle built by the crusaders with the Underwater Archaeology Museum inside. That was fun. They had a lot of items that had been recovered from the sea floor including hundreds of amphoras, tools, and they had reconstructed a ship. At night, I wandered through the happening part of town and it was full of British people at dancing bars. It certainly did not feel Turkish and I walked back home.

The bus ride to Fethiye was very nice with forested mountains and a big lake, but at the bus station the free shuttle wouldn't help me so I walked the 1.5 miles to my hostel with my bags. I was lost halfway there and a restaurant employee called my hostel for me and gave me some cold water because I was sweating so much. I walked passed some tombs cut into the hillside and saw a ruined castle. Fethiye is still touristy but it felt quieter and more Turkish.

I went diving at two different sites and got better at not using my air so quickly. I felt more comfortable and confident underwater, but there wasn't much to see except for some broken pieces of amphoras and the odd fish. The visibility was at least 60 feet and I saw more fish just snorkelling in the cove, but it was still a good day out on a boat. I jumped off the second deck with another guy and the staff said if we did it again it would be 5 Turkish Lira. I met a few other Americans for a relaxed night at the hostel. One was the first Iowan I had met overseas and he said the same. We were sitting outside and saw the brightest, clearest shooting star I can remember. It lasted for a long time and I could see fragments in the tail.

I went to a famous beach nearby and was disappointed by how crowded it was. It would have been beautiful without all the people, but paragliding over it looked like fun. I think all the Mediterranean is going to be crowded.

I took a guided tour of ruins at Priene, Miletus, and Didyma. Priene had a hilltop location that used to be on the sea (like most of the sites). The river deposited silt where it emptied into the sea, moving the coast closer to Greece at about nine feet per year. Because of this, Priene lost its importance when it could no longer function as a port. The Greek theatre had enough seats for all 6,500 residents and I could see the ruins of the houses, unlike at Ephesus. I sat in the same chair as Alexander the Great when he passed through the town on his conquest!

Miletus had a huge well-preserved Roman amphitheatre with 30,000 seats where they had gladiator fights, plays and debates. The Romans built enough seats for 1/10 of the population. the Byzantines built a fort at the top of the amphitheatre, which looked a little strange. The rest of the city was in a swamp. There were a few columns and a large Roman bath that people were required to use after they came in from the sea to try to keep the city clean.

Didyma had a huge Temple of Apollo that was never completed, but all of the columns were 75 feet tall, three of them were reconstructed. To build them, they placed a chunk of column about three feet tall on the base, then put enough dirt around it to place the next segment on top and so on until it was 75 feet tall, then move on to the next column. It was a temple where oracles predicted the future. The guide had great information and loved history. He was upset that the local people took stones from the ancient sites to use to build new homes, but there wasn't enough education about it in Turkey. His father lived 29 miles from Ephesus and had never visited the site because he said "They are just stones, there are stones everywhere!"

I went to a sandy beach in Pamucak with refreshingly cool water and a school of small fish near the shore. I had some more good mezes/appetizers for dinner, and a Canadian roommate got stuck on a Greek Island for the weekend with 15 Euros in cash because an ATM ate his card.

I went to Aydin Saturday morning to visit my friend Evren who I lived and worked with in New Zealand and have seen a couple of times since then. She manages a winery which has just bottled its first batch of wine. She was working until 10:30pm to finish bottling Friday night. We went to Dilek National Park for a beautiful beach, views of the Greek Island of Samos, and a walk through the pine forest.

We visited an olive oil history museum that was started by a collector of artifacts going back over 2,000 years. I don't envy the people who crush and pressed olives by human power back then. At least they used donkeys for some of the work. I had pide (Turkish pizza) for dinner and tried Efes Dark beer and ouzo. Both were good. We walked around the new open-air shopping mall for a while which was nice because I could see Turkish people going about their lives instead of trying to sell me things. It was great to catch up with Evren. Her former boss Alain, who offered me a job in Hungary, visited her the previous weekend and it sounded like it would be pretty easy to obtain a work permit for me.

On Sunday we went to a shady park at the top of a hill and I did more people watching. I enjoyed being away from the touristy sites for a couple of days to observe that people act similarly to how they would in Santa Rosa, except for the call to prayer. The park in Aydin reminded me of a day at Howarth park with picnics, BBQs, and loud children running around. Evren made a delicious dinner, served a dark, full-bodied, spicy red Turkish wine. I have no idea what varietal...something Turkish. The baklava for dessert was excellent and I watched a strange movie called "Strings" which used puppets but still managed to be a good film.

I caught a bus to Bodrum which was a pretty ride, but the town was disappointing. I had read and heard that it was full of pre-package holiday seekers and it was worse than I had imagined. The beach was rocky so it was covered with reclining chairs and umbrellas so I couldn't even tell that it was a beach. It was lined with overpriced restaurants with too much English food on the menus. Not only that, the castle/underwater archaeology museum which was the only thing I wanted to see here, was closed on Mondays. So now I have to visit it after diving tomorrow. I passed by the Mausoleum of Halicarnas (also closed) and there was not much left other than a few large stones on the ground. But at least I can cross of another ancient wonder of the world. That makes two in the past week. The hotel was full, so they upgraded my room to a two-bed ensuite but it is next to the pool so I can hear the crappy music and loud people nearby. I'm glad I only booked two nights here.