Amanda and Lachlan's Lame Travel Blog

European travels on a very narrow and slightly frayed shoe string

[amandaandlach]

Later on we decided to check out Istanbul’s night life by doing a Birthday pub crawl! We visited a few bars before landing on Bar Rasputin, which was a Turkish Heavy Metal bar, where we met “Anton” who was already a good 5 or 15 pints into his night. We had some light conversation with “Anton” and before too long he was buying us drinks (we didn’t even mention Lach’s birthday). Try as we could, we couldn’t stop “Anton’s” overly generous nature. He even bought us Bar Rasputin T-shirts! What a guy!

We then moved on to a slightly lighter atmosphere where a guitar and violin duo serenaded us.

A round of kebabs closed the evening.

[amandaandlach]

Later on Saturday we decided to have a casual stroll around the Basilica Cistern. After admiring the amazing architecture of the cistern and it's beautiful columns we spotted these two gents (read: dickheads) climbing on the ancient roman Medusa stone pillars. These pillars are priceless and their exact origin is unknown. Amanda "snappy" Dixon quickly captured the offenders and showed the Cistern security. Lachlan waited around to watch the perpetrators get a stern talk from the security. Some may call it being a dobber, others call it protecting Ancient Artefacts from small minded juvenile delinquents. CISTERN JUSTICE LEAGUE!!!!!!

[amandaandlach]

Lach's Birthday Morning! This dashing gent is now 25 and winking at 30. To celebrate Amanda did a truck load of sneaky shopping and wrapped it all up in Turkey's finest read. Lach went bananas for a scarf he had been eyeing off for ages in the carpet shop. The evil eye earrings also got the guy pretty excited. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LACH!!!!

[amandaandlach]

WE'RE BACK IN ISTANBUL!! After a mammoth 12 hours on the night bus from Nevsevhir to Istanbul we were pretty tired. We adjusted to our new apartment near the Galata Tower in Beyoglu then decided to climb the tower. The view was incredible. The Galata tower was originally built around 500AD as a lighthouse. Now it has a fancy restaurant and about 50 bazillion tourists climbing it.

[amandaandlach]

Tea, Sugar. A dream.

Mehmet's guide to saying "teşekkür ederim" or "thank you" in Turkish.

[amandaandlach]

This is the most delicious meal. On Friday Çati cooked us lunch at the carpet shop. This is a special fish that you can only get at this time of year and is from the Gallipoli area. How to prepare fish like Çati: 1 - Get little fish and coat in cornflower 2 - Cook in oil in little pan in your carpet shop 3 - Serve with lots of leafy greens (rocket, cut up radish, dill and other unidentified green things) and lemon 4 - Pour the raki

[amandaandlach]

Çati's Joke of The Day

Q: Who smokes more than a Turk? A: Two Turks!

[amandaandlach]

Friday morning we said goodbye to the amazing cave that we had been staying in whilst in Göreme as well as our new friend Çiçek the dog. (Çiçek means flower). She was very cute and incredibly playful. Bye Çiçek we won't miss you biting our shoes, but we will miss your company on our walks.

[amandaandlach]

Meet the Carpet Crew from "Village Dowry" Göreme. (Left to right: Mustafa aka."Çati", Mustfa, Fatih "the Carpet Doctor". These guys took us in off the streets with the intention of selling us carpet. We at first resisted but over many glasses of Apple Tea became friends. We may or may not have also purchased copious amounts of textile goods from them. But we also drank a lot of their Raki - so it all came out even.

[amandaandlach]

Thursday we decided to hire motorbikes!!! Lach was stoked, Amanda was nervous, but after an hour on the Honda scooter she was calm and confident. We took to the roads out of Göreme towards the nearby town of Ürgüp where Amanda got a little carried away with some shopping and was then faced with the dilemma of attaching said shopping to her scooter. After leaving Ürgüp we took in the amazing scenery from the heights above Göreme. Lach did wheelies.

[amandaandlach]

Thursday we decided to hire motorbikes!!! Lach was stoked, Amanda was nervous, but after an hour on the Honda scooter she was calm and confident. We took to the roads out of Göreme towards the nearby town of Ürgüp where Amanda got a little carried away with some shopping and was then faced with the dilemma of attaching said shopping to her scooter. After leaving Ürgüp we took in the amazing scenery from the heights above Göreme. Lach did wheelies.

[amandaandlach]

The group tour - feared by some, embraced by others. On Wednesday we faced our fears and signed up for the “Cappadocia green tour”. The tour was actually pretty good. There were only two Americans who weren’t even annoying. Our guide Erbil is a human encyclopedia and cracked funnies all day.

We visited Pigeon Valley whee we learnt that pigeon poo is an amazing fertiliser second only to bat poo.

We then Selime Monastery which had lots of floor tandoori ovens.

We then visited Derinkuyu Underground City whee the early Christians use to scamper into when the Romans came to visit. The city is 50m deep and has stables, booby traps, wells, secret escape passages, air ventilation shafts and everything else you could ever need while spending a few days relaxing underground until the Romans move on.

We did a hike in the Ihlara Valley in the afternoon and saw some snow and drank some spring water.

Lach held a duck. The tree in the picture is not actually significant but Erbil joked it was for a bit and Amanda believed him.

[amandaandlach]

Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

Leonardo da Vinci

[amandaandlach]

After we had thawed out from the balloon landing we walked around to the Göreme Open-Air Museum. The museum features an intricate series of caves carved out of the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia. The fairy chimneys or, hoodoo’s as they are more widely referred to internationally, are rock formations that were created around 30 million years ago when the 3 volcanoes errupted; Erciyes, Hasan, Melendiz Daòlari they left a layer of soft volcanic ash known as tuff, on the surface. This tuff erodes easily and when capped with a harder type of igneous rock on top, it allows the cone-like formations to occur. For over 1000 years local tribesmen would carve homes in these fairy chimneys making brilliant hidden houses. When St Paul introduced Christianity to the area in the 1st Century AD, he turned some of these fairy chimneys into incredible hidden churches to avoid the eyes of Arab invaders. Today, we explored these churches. In the relatively small area, there are several churches carved into the hoodoos. Our standouts were the Yilani (St. Onuphorius) Church which had some great frescoes dating to the 4th century and the Karanlik (Dark) Church, which was much more modern (12th century) and subsequently more detailed in design and decoration. It was named the Dark Church as it only had one small opening to allow light in, this is the reason the frescoes inside are so well preserved.

Afterwards Lachlan found a pile of ice or snow (the verdict is still out on that) and smashed Amanda with some perfectly crafted snowballs. It was great!

[amandaandlach]

Ballooning - the must do experience in Göreme. Ballooning is like a wonderful combination of sailing and being under water (because everything happens so gracefully and slowly). Seeing the balloons billow to life on the ground of the launch site, and eventually fill out and rise into a gigantic dome of fabric was magical. The preparations and take off all happened pre-dawn, so it was while we were 400 metres in the air and gliding over the valley that we saw the sunrise and light up a neighbouring snow-capped mountain. After landing we had a champagne toast with the balloon crew and other guests. This is a ballooning landing tradition. The Montgolfiere brothers were the first first human balloon flight passengers in 1783. The brothers took off from the centre of Paris but had to land in the fields and vineyards of local peasants who were really annoyed that a fiery object had descended from the sky onto their land. To appease the peasants (and celebrate!) they cracked open a bottle of champagne and shared it around. The stuff we had was little more than bubbly fruit juice but it was delicious!

[amandaandlach]

Lesson learned from Pamukkale to Goreme Overnight Bus Trip

Turkish highway driving is like 4 year old colouring in - staying between the lines is optional.

[amandaandlach]

THE LACHLAN SLIPPING NEAR CLIFF EDGE SERIES - PULITZER PRIZE ENTRY BY AMANDA DIXON 2014 This series catches Mr Dolbel first being silly, then proceeding to walk close to the travertine cliff edge. A moment of frictionless poetry is captured as arms fling in the air in an attempt to regain his centre of gravity. Shoes in hand, balance is restored, a travel insurance claim is narrowly avoided, and a joyful laugh is released in the face of death.