from phuket, with love.

In case the title of this post isn't immediately obvious, I'm making a stupid joke about the number of 'special' massage parlours littering the streets of Patong Beach, the main hub for hedonism in Phuket. Seriously though, one place was called 'Willy Massage'. What do they expect?
We stayed at Patong Beach because my lovely fam was there at the same time as us, so we had some hangs with them. We did a lot of swimming in Phuket. Because unless you want to shop, drink or engage in dubious activities, there wasn't much else to do.

My lovely cousins and the sunset on Patong Beach.

This was in Patong area though. There were lots of places to explore around the islands.

After we had spent some time with my family, swimming at the beach (which was lovely) and sneaking into their enormous resort we went on a bit of a day trip on a speedboat.

The beach from The Beach.

We visited the beach from the movie The Beach and Will pretended he was Leonardo Dicaprio. We swam in 'Blue Lagoon', an actual lagoon, and I pretended I was in Peter Pan. We fed some monkeys and also saw some baby monkeys. We went snorkelling and saw a lot of beautiful, colourful fish and I brushed past some coral and my foot is still itchy. And our last stop was the 'island of buying things', except we didn't...we sat on the rock and amused ourselves by wondering about all of the clinically obese (mostly) Australian tourists that were everywhere.

My new best friends.

Then we nearly missed our flight off the island, and only made it in time to check in because our taxi driver very admirably sped and weaved through obstacles the entire way.

And I bought love heart sunglasses. So that's a win for me.

cairo.

So we had a bit of wait in Cairo airport and decided we should spend our time seeing some pyramids. Because when in Rome...

We got our visas, cheap and easy, the man was helpful, all was looking good. Til we left the airport and the aim of the game changed from being helpful to the newbies to wanting to relieve us of alllll the money. Just all of it.

But apart from a good solid 4 hours of us being continually ripped off, we did get to see the pyramids. We even rode horses. And I even saw scavengy looking desert dogs feasting on the carcass of a dead horse lying in the sand.....Who says you need to go on safari?

mosques and tourists.

We had organised several places to sleep for our stay in Istanbul, but in the end it worked out better for us to find cheap accommodation in the heart of the old town. Which is why we arrived in the busiest and most touristy city I`ve yet been to in Turkey, carrying our massive backpacks, with no place to stay. But amazingly, we were hardly hassled at all and we found a relatively cheap hostel with a cafe within about 10 minutes. Because we are awesome.

Really the only reason to stay in the old town is its proximity to all of the sights one might like to visit, and that is what we were there for, since we only had 3 days.

We saw the Aya Sofya, a church that turned into a mosque that is now, in the interests of secularism, a museum. We saw the underground cistern that used to supply water to the magnificent palace, among other places. And, we saw that magnificent palace, Topkapi Palace, home to many Sultans over the years.

the Basilica Cistern.

one section of the enormous Aya Sofya.

Topkapi Palace...now just imagine the hordes of tourists are peacocks and well dressed royalty.

As well as being very touristy, I wanted to go shopping, so we spent about a day on that mission, which worked out quite well. We also met Sibel`s sister and stayed at her house, which is so far out from the centre of Istanbul that it is an hour from Bulgaria.

Apart from that we ate some seafood, played with some kittens and, on our last morning, had a quick look around both the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market. But we quickly escaped before the little alleyways became packed with tourists.

Then, goodbye Istanbul for another year, we were on our way to Bangkok, via Cairo.

my pretend birthday

In Amasra. We've followed the Black Sea coast almost to Istanbul and we are stopping to have a look around the little town famous for it's seafood and salads (apparently). They do put a lot of effort into ensuring their salads are way more intricate than anywhere else in the country. See?

What else did we do in Amasra?....Not a lot. It was more of a restive town than anything else. We played chess on a giant chess board. And we swam a little, and slept a lot.

We did make a new friend though. A Turkish man who was very friendly and wanted to practice his English asked us to have tea with him, then another night he bought dinner for us and took us to his aunt`s house who gave us some fresh hazelnuts. But then on the last night it became a little odd. He wanted to have a celebration because we were leaving so we bought raki and cake and went to his friend`s house (who just happened to be one of the women whose pension we looked at when we arrived and decided against), which was awkward in itself, but then he made me pretend it was my birthday- seemingly for the benefit of his friend, and everybody sung Happy Birthday.....odd. Then the man and his friend started Turkish dancing around the living room and then we had to watch the woman`s home videos from a holiday she went on. It was definitely a surreal farewell from quiet Amasra.

why did the turtle cross the road?

I'm back, and my headache is gone. Since my last post we have traversed almost the entire Black Sea coastline and caught about a bazillion buses (maybe 15). But I'll start from where I left off.

Our second overnighter on the bus took us from Ankara to the massive port town of Trabzon, which wasn't especially great but we were only there to visit a monastery set in mountains. Which was beautiful and very impressive in that it jutted out the side of a cliff face.

After our night in Trabzon we had an unremarkable few days of catching buses- we did sleep at a bus station one night but that isn't so much remarkable as a show of our ability to put up with an uncomfortable night's sleep rather than pay for a hotel room.

When we finally reached the town of Sinop we decided to spend the night rather than catch anymore buses. Because we might have killed ourselves. It was a good idea (both the staying alive and the staying at Sinop) because we used our free day to go and visit a town that boasted a park with 28 waterfalls. Awesome Land, I like to call it.

It was a rainforest park, right near a giant reservoir, and going straight up the middle there was just waterfall after waterfall after waterfall. 28 times. And we were allowed to climb up them! There were even ropes there especially for that purpose.

I'm climbing up the side of a waterfall in thongs using a rope as an aide...hence "AwesomeLand"! And then once we had climbed the 28th waterfall, there was an old man who was selling cay (tea) and apples and bread rolls in a little tiny cafe with a hammock. I don't think it gets any cuter than that.

And on the way home from waterfall village, we saw a turtle crossing the road...so now the title of this post probably makes a little more sense.

After that winner of a day we went and had some dinner then went to the thousand year old fortifications of Old Sinop and had a beer and played backgammon. So here's a little message for everybody to take away with them. Sometimes it pays to slow down and break up your journey a little. You get to climb waterfalls and drink in ancient buildings and see turtles crossing the road!

Aaannnd now, after another full day of minibus travel, we are in the small coastal town of Amasra, our final stop before Istanbul.

along the black sea.

We left Kas after a wedding, one last swim in the Mediterranean and some tears from my new little step brother, who definitely did not want us to go. All excited we jumped on the bus and started our journey, first to Anakara and ultimately to the port town of Trabzon on the coast of the Black Sea.

Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and it is totally land-locked, which gave it a strange feel for me. I always find it weird to be in a city and when you look out at its edges you are surrounded by the same landscape. Dry dusty hills in this case.

We were tired in Ankara but we did pool all our energy and managed to walk for 20 minutes to visit the mausoleum of Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey. Admittedly it did not have the same amount of meaning for us as it did the hundreds of Turks who were visiting at the same time, but we could appreciate the size. When you remember it is essentially just a grave site, you realise it is massive.

Huge. And it is protected by lions that eat your arms.

So that was Turkey's capital city for us. That and a bit of resting and eating. Then we made our way back to the otogar for our second overnight bus trip.

But I have to stop writing for a while because my head feels like it's about to explode and I don't think sitting in front of the computer is helping. More to come.

dogs, cats and cigarette smoke.

I decided I needed to lift my game (actually no, two boys told me to stop being lazy) so I am writing again from Kas. So what have we done since we've been here?
We have...visited a LOT of beaches. One with sand (which is unusual in this part of the world) and waves that slanted sideways, a few with pebbles and rocks as sand and some where one must dive straight from the cliff to the water. Though they all look slightly different (and slightly the same) they are all very, very salty. Which isn`t great if you swallow a mouthful of water or it somehow makes its way into your eyes, but if your greatest wish is to be able to float in deep water while standing straight with your arms by your sides, then you are definitely in the right place! And you need never worry about drowning. I actually think it would be almost impossible.
...gone to a Greek island. We caught the ferry across from Kas to Meis (mace) and it was really hot. Like, hot as the hottest part of summer hot. We ate some food (giant chunk of octopus anyone? But really, it was delicious), sweated some and saw a naked, sunbathing and swimming man who invited us to swim from his area of the shore. But we didn't.
...swam from a boat amongst ruins of a city called Kekova, which has ended up on islands in the sea as a result of a volcanoe erupting some time ago.
...aaannnnd, had a lovely campfire picnic of roasted vegetable salad and kofte and chicken and sucuk (spicy, Turkish sausage) in bread while we fought with wasps for our food and I ate some strange Turkish fruit from a cactus thing and got tiny little prickles in my face and hands. On the way home we stopped and walked down a giant flight of stairs to a little beach on the side of the road while we sawm to the sun setting.
Other than all of those lovely things we mainly stay at home and swim in the pool, eat some breakfast and drink nescafe, sleep and try to entertain a 9 year old boy with far too much energy. Sometimes we visit the town if it isn't too hot.
On Tuesday evening we leave Kas by bus, so I will have new and exciting things to tell you about. Until then I imagine we will be doing much of the same.

on the road again.

Kas.




Breakfast.

Ruins of a city that fell into the sea.

Big pebble beach.

Dear everybody. As I am travelling again, I decided to start writing on here again, once again so that I could just tell my stories once, instead of over and over and over....

Soo...I am back in Kas (say cash) on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, really just eating, sleeping and swimming. It is difficult. Very full on.

Since I am so relaxed my brain no longer works properly and I can't think of anything note-worthy I have done, I am going to let my pictures speak for me. So....see above.