Photos from Capadoccia

Mount DOOM!! menacing the city of Goreme.


Wandering up the hill. People still live in some of the holes. I call them hole people. Also we saw two guys hand carving those big bricks.

View from the top of the hill, facing away from the city. Get your mind out of the gutter.


Ruins at that place we can't remember the name of. You should go there.


Some rooms had two levels and if you wandered around enough you'd find yourself up there somehow.


What the outside of those ruins looks like. They're literally everywhere.

My new slogan. Also my new shirt. 4 lira!

terrorists are dicks

so looks like mumbai is off (to the relief of family members, of course). as much as i still really want to go to india, reading the term "mounting tensions between these nuclear powers" this morning really hit it home that it could be a bad idea.

the new plan: singapore, malaysia, indonesia, philippines?

on a lighter note, we took an all-nighter from pumakkale to istanbul, and got stuck in the last row of seats which don´t really recline. i was sandwiched between erin and a turkish man (whom my inner monologue refers to as chippy, because he offered me chips that i didn´t really want until i accepted). quite literally. one head on each shoulder. and chıppy´s hand touchıng my leg; the bus vibrations making it feel like he was rubbıng my leg. chippy awoke a little later and turned away a little embarassed. i pretended to sleep. 6 hours later, we have no idea how to get downtown from the bus terminal. chippy jumps in, leading us for 15 minutes to the metro station where he buys both erin and i subway tokens, refuses to accept payment and then disappears. shoutouts to chippy!

Pamukkale

We're about to head out to see the calcium falls (wiki article), and my camera is dead. Dead dead dead. I haven't been able to find a converter or a spare battery anywhere and it's driving me crazy. It was bad enough that it was dead in the ruins of Olympus, but this! Auuhg.

When we got off the bus last night and were heading out to catch our minibus into town, a man ran up and helped us out, he also saved us two seats on the very crowded minibus. Of course he had a relative who runs a hostel (everyone has a relative who runs a hostel) and so he gave us their pamphlet and we went on our way. When we got off in Pamukkale his cousin was waiting for us. I think we really lucked out, it's off season and it doesn't look like most of the hostels are open, and it was pitch black when we got here at 6pm. They cooked us one of the best meals I've had in Turkey and had a laptop charger someone had left behind so we could charge up Gulliver (the mini we brought with us) and free wi-fi!

Unfortunately the rooms weren't heated and Derek has stubbornly refused to buy warm pj's. I don't know if he slept at all. Thankfully our room did have hot water. It's funny backpacking, you stumble into a hostel that has a hairdryer attatched to the wall and it's like staying in a palace.

Currently the new plan is to fly into Chennai instead of Mumbai, we've been looking up tickets. It'll cost a bit, but it's worth it not to worry or cause fretting relatives to yank our their hair. There's an older man from New Delhi staying in the hostel here with us who is all pfft, don't worry about it. I'm sad we won't get to hang out with Shivani who's going to be in Mumbai in December, but if that's the most harm this has caused us I can't complain. We're going to have to keep an eye on how the governments handles the situation, I'm hoping they take the stand that they won't let a few assholes cause a greater rift and not "pull a Bush", but there are so many layers of history behind all this that I don't understand so who knows.

Mumbai

We haven't made any decisions about landing in Mumbai on Dec 2nd, but we will probably switch our tickets. I don't know if we will land somewhere else in India or skip over it entirely until things are more clear. The whole thing makes me feel sick.

Derek has come down with a bad cold and we appear to be stuck in a small village with no access to bus routes out. The sign that says "we sell bus tickets" is apparently a fabrication of my mind.

For those confused about who is posting (hi Joel), it says at the bottom of the entry who made the post, I am evernon and Derek is inyourface (clearly).

mount doom?

wow do i miss the internet.

we've been in a bit of a technological vortex since leaving istanbul. generous host pat was able to provide an adaptor for erin's laptop, so we were able to keep it charged there. in our stupour on the way to the bus station we forgot to pick up a turkey-north american plug converter. so we've been rationing its charge, since the town we're in doesn't sell such things. which makes a certain amount of sense, since smart travelers would have bought a converter before leaving home. i, however, am anything but smart.

anyway, we're in cappadocia, staying in a sleepy little town called goreme. judging by the number of hostels and bars, i think this is a pretty hopping place when it's warm. this is definitely the off-season, though. most places are closed. we were the only ones staying in our guesthouse (in a cave!). and there isn't much to do at night. except freeeeze (in a cave!).

also i think i found every evil mastermind's secret fortress. will post photos later.

heading south in a few hours to olympos, which should be warmer. also, we get to live in trees instead of caves (for rills!). fair trade, methinks. the goal is to hike up mount olympos (part way), where natural gas seeping from the mountain causes little blue angels to pop up everywhere. w00t!

off to drop some nyquil (i'm getting a stupid cold from the stupid cold) for our 10 hour bus ride.

Cyber cafe ın Goreme

We're wasting our time in a cyber cafe in Goreme waiting for our bus. 10 hour night buses are nice in theory, you do all your traveling when you wouldn't be doing anything anyways, and you don't have to pay for a place to sleep, but the reality is you barely sleep, the five year old behind you snores like an obese 80 year old, they don't have washrooms, and the old babushka ladies are mean old harpies. And AND the buses here stop every two hours and turn the lights on and yell at you to straighten your seat. It's like they secretly hate me and my wild unmasked hair. Also we kind of smell. Bringing only two shirts was a poorly thought out decision.

Today we checked out the underground city of Derinkuyu. (wiki article) It's a labyrinth of tunnels and room with eight levels going down 85 meters carved out of the ground tuff rock (it's called tuff rock, I'm not that lame with the spelling mistakes) in 7-8th century BC. It was amazing. I can't believe I didn't know it existed until now. It felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie with all these interconnecting tunnels and winding stairs. Definitly one of the coolest thing's I've ever seen.

We also spent some time climbing around old Byzantine church ruins carved into the mountainside, which was also all types of awesome. Unfortunely neither of us can remember what it was called. There were maybe 30 or so rooms we could climb through all joined by paths and tunnels and openings broken in by erosion. They'd carved pilars in some rooms and in a few you could see bits of the paintings on the walls and ceilings still. Canada is so lame.

There's a kid behind me leaning on my chair and he keeps bumbing me with his elbow. I am undecided whether he is doing it on purpose or not.

Goreme

We're in Goreme now, staying at the Shoe String Hostel. The rooms are dug out of the side of a "fairy chimney". (wiki article) Derek informs me that the room is just a cave, not a fairy chimney. Whatever.

It's the off season so it's pretty empty around, it's mainly a tourist town. There's a reason for it too, it's COLD. Pat's co-worker lent me her spare coat and without it I would be very whiny, so both Derek and I thank her.

I had an awesome dinner last night, meat kebab cooked inside a clay pot that you have to break open with a small hammer before eating it. There are broken pots lining some of the streets. I wouldn't be surprised if that was a tourist thing and no one here ever cooked like that.

Adventures in Istanbul

Derek smells.

In related news, we've been walking around the Golden Horn bickering and seeing the sights. They're all grouped together quite conveniently.

Aya Sofya (wiki article)

For days I thought we were going to the Eye of Sophia. It's a museum that was a mosque that used to be a church and it's currently full of scaffolding, but it's still rather majestic. The most impressive parts are the surviving mosaics from when it was a church, made with millions of tiny tiles.

I also enjoyed the kitties. I've been all trying not to molest the street cats to hopefully avoid the plague (also the "neck incident") but someone in the Aya Sofya walked over and picked up a cat, slung it over their shoulder and that was that.

One pillar has a hole in it, and if you stick your thumb in it and turn it a full circle you get your wish. There was a long line-up to do this and then the hole was all moist and gross from all the thumbs and I didn't get my wish. Stupid hole.

Topkapi Palace (and harem!) (wiki article)

This is where the Sultan used to live, it's now a museum with the buildings converted into holding various artifacts. There's a neat one that is dedicated to religious items, including Mohammad's beard, and has religious chanting piped in over speakers. I thought it was a tape, but as you are leaving you turn a corner and there's a white room with a man at the end chanting into a microphone. He was the best part of the palace, to be honest it was a little meh. The Harem cost extra, which made the whole thing kind of pricey, and it's been so heavily renovated over the years that it doesn't seem any more impressive then any other large building. Also it smells like mothballs.

The sultan's fire hydrant:

The article on the Kafes is really interesting, basically to prevent fighting over the throne the Sultans used to kill all their brothers, but it was changed later to confining them and other potential heirs to the harem, which was really more of a sequestered family thing, not a sex slave thing. I'm a little 'snort' over how the men get a "being confined made them CRAZY" note, but apparently women are like totally okay with that, but whatever.

Basilica Cistern (wiki article)

This was easily the best thing we've seen, partly because it was so cool, and also because it was the cheapest. It's a giant cavernous room that used to hold water for some palace or another. There's currently a foot or two of water on the ground and a raised walkway to wander around and get dripped upon. At the end they have two giant medusa heads for no known reason.

And fish! Giant ugly fish.

The Blue Mosque (wiki article)

A giant beautiful Mosque. Also, it's free! But you can't go in during prayer time, so we had to hang about outside drinking cheap street tea and watching old men knit hats. Everyone wanted their photo with the hat knitting man, but none of them were speaking english so I have no idea why. There's a sign outside the mosque saying you need to take off your shoes and no short sleeves or shorts allowed (it's cold out, so that's not an issue), and also women should wear a long skirt and cover their hair, but apparently that last bit isn't enforced. They blocked off a large section inside for the people who are there to pray to have their space so all us white people got to stand around and gawk at them.

Bucket 'o Fish!

(you can click on an image to see it larger)

Turkey!

We made it. Two weeks here before heading to Mumbai on the 2nd. We're staying with Derek's friend Pat and his roommate Ben, they've both very gracious. It's a relief to be able to ask someone dumb questions. Being in a country that doesn't speak english always has me feeling a bit claustrophobic.

Derek and I headed down to the Grand Bazaar, which is an indoor market with over 6,000 shops started in the 1400's. Considering we're heading out to India for a backpacking trip, we're not really looking to buy anything, but how can you not go check it out.


We wandered around lost and bought some Turkish delight. It is definitely better then the stuff you get in Canada.

London!

We took the train down to London on Monday. We almost didn't. For a few hectic minutes it seemed as though we had changed our minds and instead were going to run around Oxford getting mad at each other, but we did eventually find the train station. We had about 3 or 5 seconds to spare and now Derek is never allowed to make fun of me for getting lost again.

We started with the Natural History Museum, and then realized we had no idea where anything else is and wandered around for a bit before Derek had the brilliant idea to buy a map. We checked out the Buckingham Palace and grounds where the highlight was an old lady feeding about 2000 birds who were all fighting over it like a swirling feathery vortex and then made our way to the National Gallery, which I had always regretted missing when I spent a month in London studying history years ago. Turns out it is full of paintings I had to write papers on in first year.

At this point my feet hurt and I was whiny so we bought some snacks and meandered through Chinatown before heading back the the train. In conclusion, I recommend visiting London when it is not November, because it is cold and wet.

hardcore

meant to post these a while ago. here is our gear splayed out for potentially comedic value of the "why the f did we bring that?" variety.

erin's stuff...


and mine ...


so far it seems that warmer clothes would have been a wise addition to the pile.

The Rowing Team

Yesterday we trudged out into the rain to watch Matt in a rowing race. Go Wadham! He's third from the left in the striped hat.

first impressions

england is wet and old. in that order.

oxford is impressively pretty, and you can't help but be awed by its history. on our first night we had a guiness at the pub where c.s. lewis and j.r.r. tolkien met every week for 20 years to discuss who would be responsible for more 35 year old virgins and our gracious host, erin's brother matthew, lives around the corner from the site of some historic scientific discoveries (boyle's law, cells). so ya it's been a pretty nerdtastic trip so far.

a couple of days ago we did a day-trip (e.g., get out of matthew's hair for a while so he a) could study and thus not flunk out and b) doesn't kill us) to a small town called woodstock, about half an hour north of oxford. we couldn't find any brown acid, so instead we headed to blenheim palace, which claims to be the grandest of all the private homes in england and happens to be the birthplace of winston churchill (his mother was visiting and old winston came out early... in the cloakroom). grand it was. the grounds were expansive and dotted with sheep (erin: SHEEP!). apparently there was a train that would take you to a hedge maze (all on the property) but it was pretty chilly and the shining scared me enough for me to know not to play in hedge mazes in the cold. anyway, the much warmer tours of the palace were pretty good, given by some very stuffy british ladies. after the tour we walked to a supertall 300 year old monument in the middle of a field of sheep. erin chased the sheep. i stepped in poop. was the day a success? depends on whom you ask.

on our search for an "authentic" pub (whatever that means) we came across some pheasants hanging in the doorway of a butcher/bakery. the pies in the window all looked very good. all of them were meaty. now, normally i don't eat meat, but food is an important enough part of the traveling experience (says the fatty) that i'm willing to bend the rules for interesting local dishes. the pies were that:
- steak and kidney
- pork and apple
- wild game (pheasant, rabbit, venison, wild boar)

they were good, if a bit gelatinous. but i'm looking forward to the food in... um, everywhere else.
thanks again, matthew, who put us up and put up with us for so long.

Oxford

We made it to Oxford ok. There was perhaps some concern when the ticket booth system said every bus to Oxford from Gatwick was sold out, but it ended up being a glitch as there was exactly three of us on the 9:15 bus. They have seatbelts on the buses here and you have to wear them, which means you can't pass out over several empty seats because it's 4am your time. Not a fan.

We wandered around town and checked out the different campuses and a really impressive antique print shop, and I got chased down a path by a mob of hungry geese.

My brother Matt has been amassing a large selection of Scotch whisky and has formed an unofficial whisky club in the dorms. People knock on is door in the evening and come in for a drink and eventually the room fills up. Derek is of the opinion it tastes like rubbing alcohol. So am I actually, but I like it. The Bruichladdich is actually buttery. Painful burning butter.

A photo

Testing

We leave tomorrow. Derek has eaten all the cauliflower and I am growing concerned.