Travel Journals 2010

We carried on South through Kusadasi and Söke and then drove to the ancient city of Priene settled by the Greek columnists before 1000 BC, very interesting ruins. Little bit further on down the road there was the ancient city of Miletus which are almost an equal to Ephesus, and well worthy of a visit.

We searched for the seventh century BC city of Didyma but the road signs were not clear so we went off in an unusual direction and this was one occasion when one was grateful for the GPS as after driving around in circles about 45 minutes I just asked the GPS to get us out of here and were on our way again. Unfortunately they do not program into the GPS the old city names so you have to rely on road signs which aren't always in the right place.

There were a lot of roadworks on our route today, massive roadworks with them almost moving mountains, passed through lots of forestry with them harvesting the logs, lots of people working in the fields, it's very obvious that in Turkey there are two definite groups of people, the very rich withh their yachts tied up in Bodrum today, and the peasants, are busy working the fields by hand, looking after a few sheep in this seems to be the case right throughout what one could broadly call Eastern Europe and until a man's production is not measured by how much is sheep can eat in a day whilst it is being watched this group of the Turkish population it will never change.

We drove on through Yenihisar and Milas on the way to Bodrum passing by Lake Bafa on the way with its interesting little island that shows signs of occupation probably over 2000 years. Arriving in Bodrum we observed a cruise ship leaving the port, got some rather nice photos of the castle from a high viewpoint, passed by the ancient theatre on the way out of the city and drove back the way we came through Milas and it pulled into a petrol station near Madenler for the night. We are within easy hearing of the call to prayer so that will be interesting at 5 AM in the morning.

Monday 7th June

We left the petrol station and carried on South through Mugla and Fethiye and a side trip out to the Sakhkent Gorge which is quite a tourist attraction with lots of restaurants and shops there and of course a ticket office to collect the four Turkish lira which is equal to about four New Zealand dollars, and it enables you to walk about 300 yards to see a small waterfall pouring down on great volume in a narrow gorge. If you are fearless you can rent some gumboots and walk on up the stream a little but the ones we saw doing this look like they will then be swept away at any moment.

Back on the motorway and I was cruising along at 92 km/h and was pulled over by the police. Evidently a motorhome is classified as a minibus, and the top speed allowed for that is 88 km/h so I was given a ticket that I have to pay either in a bank somewhere or a post office, I presume I have to do this while I'm in Turkey, but that is the trap for young players the classification of the motorhome.

We carried on South over the route we travelled last year and headed towards a campground just before the city of Kas, we arrive just before two large motorhomes from Italy so we had a little bit of a better choice and we arrived five minutes later.

Tuesday, 8 June

We left the camping ground near Kas and headed for a first stop at Demre (the ancient city of Myra) there were some very well preserved Lycian Tombs carved into the hillside and evidently it was a very prosperous city back in the fifth century BC.

We drove round the incredible road carved into the hillside with incredible sea views at every corner, we drove through the city of Finike and on to a turn off to the left and we drove 7 km up a 10° slope until we got to about 600 m to a Gondola called Tahtali which evidently goes up to 2365 m, there are a tremendous amount of tour buses there and Luda heard Russian being spoken by a lot of people, however as it was cloudy at the top we decided not to go to the top to see clouds that Luda took a few photos from the 600 m high vantage point that was on down to the main road.

The area around Antalya, which was our next destination, is extremely popular by tour groups from Russia. We're currently early in the season and at the peak of the season you possibly hear more Russian spoken here than in Moscow.

Now driving through Antalya is a different story, a city with a population of over 1 million people is never easy and somehow rather we missed a turn left or right, I'm not sure which, but we just kept on driving with the GPS telling us to turn around, which we ignored, and then Luda spotted a road sign towards our next destination, and we took that and the GPS was quite happy.

We stayed on our road until we saw the sign post for Aspendos where we turned off, first look at an ancient bridge, then on to the highlight of the area, a beautifully preserved Roman amphitheatre built in the second century A.D. and it is still an active use hosting opera and ballet mid-June to July. It's certainly a magnificent sight and we are extremely fortunate that it has survived the last 18 centuries.

Wednesday, 9 June

There was evidently a concert of some sort last night in the amphitheatre as the car park filled up all around us and did not empty out until after 12 o'clock.

This morning we went on how to look at the remains of the aqueduct and probably to other large buildings built in the same area and then we started driving I guess it was East, along the coastline of Turkey towards Syria.

We were driving along what is probably the Turkish Riviera with the area from Antalya to about 200 km east packed with five-star hotels either on the seafront or facing it. Some parts the beach was getting crowded but I guess nothing like what it will be like next month when the crowds really descend on this area.

From time to time Luda noticed signs written in Russian so it would look like this whole coastline was the subject of tours from various parts of Russia and I guess the Russians are just the latest group to start coming to this area, I guess the Greeks & the Romans started it a few thousand years ago and from what I understand the Germans have been doing this for a large number of years and looking at the number of hotels I would guess the main airport would see all the major airlines arriving from all over Europe.

And of course why not with all the beautiful beaches that are located in this 200 km area.

It was a fairly long drive today, first we drove through all of these beautiful beaches, and then we got into the hills winding in and out as a road wind round the hillsides following the coast and then we started running to roadworks where they had started straightening out this switch back type of roading and eventually it's going be a very easy drive, but today, it was a pain in the butt with all of the roadworks.

We must be quite South latitude wise as we've been driving through plantations of bananas and whilst we were stopped for lunch in old guy with his donkey stopped to say hello and presented us with a bunch of green bananas, which we thank them for in English and he replied in Turkish, I then did a photograph of him with his donkey and Luda and then tried to get his address so I could post him a copy of the photograph but that was unsuccessful as I believe he could not write his address, it's times like this one wishes one had a small printer to print out a photo on the spot.

Checking it out, we are only at 37° Lat, about the same as Hamilton New Zealand and Brisbane the Banana Cpaptial of Aust is 21° latitude so I guess it must be the Mediterranean breeze that makes a difference.

We saw a couple Crusader Castles on our drive east very impressive buildings and one of them evidently has been restored and is used as a film set for period movies.

All the way along the Mediterranean coast have NOT been very aware of Turkish women wearing the veil or any sort of conventional Muslim dress beyond the headscarf, but I guess as we move inland this will change.

This whole area is jampacked full of what we used to call glasshouses, but I guess now called plastic houses as the plastic film has replaced all of the glass, it may be more correct to call them hothouses and we've been very much aware of them the whole distance today. It appears they are mainly used for tomatoes and bananas, however the main crop of bananas was outside of the hothouses.

We are programmed in a campsite in the city of Erdemli but when we arrived there is no longer in existence so we went back down the road 900 m to where we saw another sign and we camped by what are described as a bar restaurant on the water's edge with a few flat areas for campers but no Internet.

Thursday, 10 June

Before we left the camp ground this morning we walked to the front of the building and admired the magnificent view along the rough balcony with an old castle in one corner of the campground and out in the middle the Bay was another magnificent castle. Unfortunately the whole campground was rather primitive totally through, I would guess a lack of money on behalf of the owners, and its location in Turkey being so far from the rest of Europe. However I left the campground with dreams of what the possibilities were for it in its location, however whilst the location looked absolutely wonderful, the location in geographically was totally hopeless.

Carrying on our travels east we were almost immediately directed towards and motorway, a three lane motorway going each direction, that is six lanes in all, almost totally deserted so with a top speed of 120, reduced to 110 for the motorhome, it took us past the large city of Adana with 3 million population and is extremely interesting as we came into the city by the motorway, we immediately came upon rows and rows of 16 to 24 story apartments, often when you enter a city you go through a outer suburbs which has got low rises in this case this did not happen. The only other time I've seen so many apartments together would be possibly in Moscow or in Kiev.

The other interesting thing was the motorway, six lanes of it, thread is way right through the city with apartments either side of the motorway, normally town planners will have the motorway going round the outside of the city, but in this case obviously decided against that thought.

Turkish motorways are very interesting to travel, first of all you have the massively overladen vehicles often with people sitting on the top, and then the ones that break most Western height limits in so much as they just that under a 4.8 m bridge, and then there is the truck that we drove up behind to pass that had about 20 small boys sitting on its tray, of course it did have a canopy on it so that we are protected from the wind, but is still nothing like you would legally see in the West

It was good easy fast travel until we got to the city of Osmaniye where we left the motorway and drove out to see a Hittite fortress dating from the ninth century BC looking at an old Roman city on the way called Hierapolis with the old castle up on top of the hill above the city.

After that it was back on to the motorway heading towards Gaziantep and about 20 km after passing the last exit of the city we pulled off into a new petrol station with a very large parking area for the night.

Friday, 11 June

This morning about 6 AM a large truck parked 1 m from us and left the motor running for three quarters of an hour, so we were up with an early and on the road by 8:30 AM. Was back on the three lane motorway and with hardly any traffic we really zipped along until the motorway ended at Diyarbakir, from their goods on to a two lane motorway so the speed was still good but not quite as fast. About Silvan we started to get into motorway reconstruction and so the temporary roads were as bad as you will see anywhere.

The Turkish army was in prominent display the further we move east with lots of armoured personnel carriers on display.

Within driving through what we call the Turkish steppes, large flat areas of land with very little activity, and then it moved in to the wheatfields and I are absolutely tremendous in size, with the latest mechanisation on show doing the harvesting, so this is apparently one area that big money has moved into so I guess some time it will also happen with the sheep the cows and goats.

Today we've seen about 20 buses from Iran on the road into Turkey and some returning home, so obviously there is quite a large interchange between these two countries.

Yesterday we saw one motorhome and today we have seen none so with obviously crossed over the border in Turkey where most people feel comfortable.

The next city we will go through before we reach Lake Van is Bitlis and was stopped about 20 km before the city at a petrol station on part of a road that is undergoing massive reconstruction.

Saturday, 12 June

We carried on our way through the massive roadworks climbing from last nights elevation of 1500 m to a maximum of 2224 m a day on the way to Lake Van. We stopped at Gevas for a boat trip out to an island in the centre of Lake Van where there is a ancient Armenian Christian Church which was the subject of many tourists, from what I understand some tours have that as their main destination.

We went out to have a look at a number ancient site 30 km away but was about 2 km off the road on a goat track that even I would not drive the motorhome down.

Over here in the east of Turkey you see a lot of adobe houses and of course is no such thing as concrete around the houses, has a common sight to see women out sweeping the ground, presumably, this makes everything a little bit cleaner, if that sort of situation that is possible.

We found a restaurant that advertised camping, so that's where we are on the edge of Lake Van that is at 1736 m elevation, with Mount Nemrut Dagi, snow-covered, in the distant background.

Sunday 13 June

We left our campground on Lake Van and drove through the city of Van, and as we passed through the city we saw a monument to the champion breed of cat that is found in this area with one blue eye and one amber eye.

We carried on round the lake and called in one spot to clean the windscreen and a small Renualt that I would possibly classify as a five seater, five small people, pulled in and we saw it was packed with people, and we counted them as they got out and Luda did a photo of the car and the 12 people that were inside.

Then we set our GPS for the city of Dogubayazit. About 40 km out of the city we passed an enormous lava flow that had to be about 20 km² in size and we had to really look to find the culprit volcano. There was a signpost on the road which said Tendurek Gecidi with an elevation of 2644 m, now whether that is the road name, the name of the volcano or the name of the person that put the sign up I've no idea.

Before we reached Dogubayazit we had a wonderful view of Mount Ararat and we viewed this mountain from many angles whilst we were in the Dogubayazit area.

Once we reached Dogubayazit we searched the GPS for Ishak Pasa Sarayi, the GPS said yes it is 7 km ahead, so inspite of a brown sign telling us to turn right we carried straight on following the GPS and ended up in a nothing location. All was not lost because we saw a brown sign pointing to the palace straight ahead, so we did a right turn and carried on along one of the bumpiest roads in creation to be greeted after about 2 km with a large pile of shingle blocking the road so we had to do a about turn and drive back past the large army grounds with pillboxes everywhere and soldiers on guard duty, and not the guard duty were used to in the West but full battle dress, helmet rifle the full serious works, have been told about a dozen soldiers had been killed in the last two or three weeks here in Turkey, so yes it is serious.

So we drove back the way we had come to the brown sign that we'd first past, turned their and drove through the main shopping area of this frontier town and when we had the option of turning left or going straight, we went straight, which was the wrong way, incidentally none of the streets were on the GPS, this is to be expected in out of the way places like Turkey. So we kept on driving and more by good luck than good management we ended up at the same point and a left-hand turn and eventually this led us up to the palace where we parked with all the other cars, minibuses and buses.

The Ishak Pasa Sarayi is a fortress like palace of an Ottoman governor from the late 18th century. In Ottoman times the Palace lay on an important caravan route explaining why such an opulent structure was erected in this lonely and remote parts of the country. The palace I believe has been quite well restored as last time I visited it 15+ years ago they had quite a few workmen on the job that simply was not up to the beautiful finish it had today.

Certainly the town of Dogubayazit is a real grubby, dusty frontier town, but even though today is Sunday all of the shops were open and the town was busy and clogged up with the normal traffic one expects in Turkey. As we left the city bound for our next destination we saw a lot more lava on the way, this was substantially older lava and would have been on the other side of the volcano.

All day to day we been up around the 2000 m so that there must be a very large plateau covering most of eastern Turkey, and we reached a height of 2200 m just before we went downhill to the city of Kars with a population of 77,000.

We have experienced some pretty massive road construction in various parts today and I'm sure air bags on the suspension of the motorhome would certainly make some of the bumpy roads less of a strain.

Today we have been driving alongside the border of Iran and then later within 100 m of the border of Armenia. We have noticed they had been a very strong military presence in the area we drove through today with quite a few military housing settlements along the way they have been totally abandoned. I do remember that the city of Kars was a hotspot for a lot of the Kurdish independence group, so it is pleasant to know things are quiet and down a little bit out here on the border.

Today we went through two army checkpoints, the first one didn't want to know us so sent us straight through where as everybody else was showing all this of papers, the second checkpoint I figured the guys were lonely so they stopped us looked at the passports, pretended they knew what they were looking at him and gave them back to us and sent us on.

We filled up with diesel at a petrol station and they gave us a corner in their forecourt to park for the night.

to top right....

Monday, 14 June

We left Kars this morning and drove 40 km east to a village called Ocakli which is the location for the ancient Roman city of Ani which is right on the border of Armenia, in fact you are unable to walk the complete ancient city because one edge is in that country and there are police signs up urging you to walk no further.

At it's height, Ani had a population of 100,000 - 200,000 people and was the rival of Constantinople, Baghdad and Cairo. Long ago renowned for its splendour and magnificence, Ani has been abandoned and largely forgotten for centuries.
The outer wall is still in reasonably good condition as our some of the buildings inside the wall, and the buildings are interesting historical markers of the Armenian type of architecture.

In the 11th century it was known as the city of 1001 churches and was sacked by the Turks in that century, and eventually recovered to be razed by an earthquake in the 14th century.

While we were there several small tour buses arrived, and considering its location is an indication of how important this site is that people travel the long distance to view its ruins.

It was a 40 km drive back to Kars where we reset the GPS for Istanbul and were told we had a 1500 km drive back to that city.

Turkey has a population of about 70 million, is about three times larger than New Zealand, and we are inclined (and the rest of the world) to comment on how small New Zealand at its. Well to drive from Bluff at the bottom of the South Island to Cape Reniga is 2086 km so we're going to drive across Turkey covering less mileage than to drive the length of New Zealand.

Near the village of Koprukoy we passed by the ancient Cobandede Arc bridge that was built in the 13th century has a length of 128 m in width of 8.5 m with a height of 30 m.

It was good easy driving today with reasonably good roads and motorways, little bit rough at times on the suspension. We pass through lots of little villages and it's interesting to note that a lot of the houses now have galvanised iron roofs instead of the conventional flat roof and that makes quite a change to the vista of a village from a distance.

We have seen some very large herds of cows, probably 100 to 150 but again there is always somebody watching the cows as there are no fences and they appear to be grazed on what I would assume is public land, but it is certainly a change from one man watching three cows.

One large herd was crossing the road in front of us, and in New Zealand the farmer would be laid back letting the dogs do all the work, but here in Turkey this farmer was doing the work of the dog, running backwards and forwards with a large stick keeping the cows moving but the end result was the same, the cows got across the road, be it that the guy was probably exhausted.

Monday must have been washing day as we saw many groups of women down at the river washing clothes and then lying them out to dry on the grass, others we passed a clothes lines across the front of their houses and the clothes were resting against the whitewashed walls, but perhaps the whitewash gave them their system of starching the clothes.

We found a petrol station with plenty of parking, filled up with diesel, and were delighted to find a WiFi connection.

Tuesday 15th of June

Back on the road again heading west along very good roads and motorways, was very little traffic, passing through Erzincan, Sivas, stopping for the night in a petrol station in the village of Akdagmadeni which is on the road to Yozgat, but aren't you glad you got that little bit of information!

The scenery was much the same again today, grubby (by Western standards) little villages, most of them with a mosque, a lot with adobe brick style flat roof houses, dirt footpaths everywhere, but the people you see coming out of these houses are clean and tidy despite the grubby, by our standards, conditions. We again saw washing being done in the rivers, carpets being washed at the village watering trough, I assume these are being washed in preparation to being sold, somewhere down the line, to a tourist.

Most of the day we have been between 1400 m in 2100 m as we wind through the countryside of central Turkey, the temperature today is between 26 and 30°C and we are thankful that having an air conditioner as part of a package in the Fiat drivetrain. We're averaging about 400 km everyday and will probably cover somewhat over 4000 km here in Turkey, so no, we're not stopping to smell the flowers on the road side.

Wednesday 16th of June

We carried on the motorway towards Yozgat and then turned off towards the city of Bogazkale which was the location of the Hittite capital city of Hattusas built around 1600 BC on what was then already an ancient site of people known as Hatti. Naturally after the length of time it is not very much left of this large city, some of the major buildings still have walls of about 2 m the rest you can see the outlines on the ground with some of the stones that are left, not a terribly picturesque site but I guess for people studying archaeologists and history buffs would disagree.

From there we carried on by motorway, skirting around Ankara and heading towards Bolu towards the Black Sea. At about 4:30 PM we pulled into a petrol station we spent the night at last year and hopefully it will be a quiet night.

Thursday 17th of June

Today we carried on towards that they and the village of Akçakoca, were heading towards a campsite we found in a German Mobil Atlas listing about six sites in Turkey, the fed in the GPS coordinates for this site but there was nothing there when we arrived, so I checked the coordinates and instead of .25 I fed in .225 which resulted in a 7 km difference, but it was still no good and eventually we had to go to the information office and they told us to keep driving on the road and we would see as the campsite sign, which we did, but ended up at a different campsite because of the amenities.

On the way we found a "hyper market" well that is what they had labelled it, we managed with some effort to spend $NZ20, I wish we could get off this light at home, there was no diet Coke, there was no frozen vegetables, very little fresh vegetables, but a couple days we will be back in Greece and the European supermarkets.