Ramadan vs. Atkins...

Just a quick one for yez to let you know that I'm still alive and that I haven't been gunned down by the mujadeen... (I don't even know what the mujadeen are, but they sound ominous!).


So yesterday, I was an exemplary little tourist and did lots of cultural stuff. I got up at cockcrow and went to the Grand Bazaar which was interesting (pretty similar to the one in Istanbul... grand bazaar is grand bazaar). After that you won't believe what I did... you won't feckin' believe it... wait for it... wait for it... yes, I went to a museum! Actually it was more a palace than a museum (the Golestan Palace in fact, click here for Wikipedia link), but it had lots of old shit behind glass cases and lots of drawings so it qualifies as a museum... there was even an etymological museum part of it, with freaky life size mannequins wearing traditional Iranian clothes... freaky shit!

Not wanting to overload myself with culture, I took the afternoon off and lay in a park reading my book... I also found this deadly little Iranian tea house and I tried 'dizi' for lunch, which is a famous Iranian dish. It's like a stew of mutton, spuds, tomatoes etc. and they serve it to you in a tall and narrow oven fired clay receptacle with a bowl and a pestle... Luckily enough I had read up in my lonely planet about it, so I wasn't baffled by this array of accoutrement.

First of all, you rip up bread and put it into the bowl and then you decant all the broth out of the stew into the bread and you eat that like a soup. That's essentially your starter. The idea is then to get your pestle and to grind the remaining stuff into a paste which you then eat with bread or a spoon and yogurt. So, pestle in hand, Conor starts trying to grind this stuff up... but I fear that I was a little too timid with it and was only really slopping it around the place (like a little girl). An Iranian dude beside me stood up and came over, ripped the pestle out of my hand and proceeded to beat the living bejayzus out of my lunch. He layed into it like a bat out of hell for about five minutes and then presented me with the resulting (very fine) paste for my entree... Mad altogether, but his bird spoke English so we chatted for a bit and I impressed on her my utmost gratification for her bloke having pureed my lunch for me... and we all laughed... hihihihihi!!! Ahhhh, it was very nice altogether...

And then when I went to pay, I think I gave the money to a beggar instead of a waiter and created a big hullabulloo whereby everyone was shouting at the beggar and trying to get the money back off him while I stood by with a slightly bewildered look on my face... Well done Conor you big eejit!

Tomorrow is a big day... it's the first day of Ramadan (Ramazan), the Muslim month of fasting... that's right, you heard me... Conor decided to go to the most frickin' Islamic place on the face of the planet at the most frickin' Islamic time of the year. And so, from tomorrow, no-one eats, drinks (even water) or smokes during daylight hours.. for a month ... and apparently I'm not allowed to either! Well isn't that just brilliant... just frickin' brilliant!!! I don't know what I'm going to do... apparently all the shops, restaurants and anything that might be source of nosh remains closed. Foreigners are supposed to survive by staying in their hotels and eating there, but that is going on the assumption that your hotel is not a hellhole of a cockroach infested piece of cowdung! Anyway... I'm sure I'll survive it somehow... worst case scenario I lose a pound or two (and we all know that wouldn't exactly be Armageddon!).

I bet ya nobodies even reading this... everyone's off in Electric Picnic having a ball while Conor's stuck in tehran awaiting starvation... Anyway, I don't care anymore, I'm off to search for a loo... l8r compadres...

The Tehran Summer

Jayzus, had a mad day today... walked about a trillion miles all over the city... I'm in the more affluent north of the city (my hostel being in the south) and earlier on this afternoon, I went for a stroll in the Park and bumped into something called the Tehran Summer Festival... Twas mad altogether... I lazed in the sun reading my book and talking to randomers. The Park was jammers with people all with picnics and playing badminton like mad bastards. There was all kinds of cultural shite on display and then when it got dark there was this crazy coloured water dance show where the fountains in the lake got down and jiggy to some choons... Brilliant altogether!

The money is still seriously wrecking my head though. They have rials here which are denominated in quadrillions, but when they talk about money, they talk in Toman, which means ten rials. So when you buy something, they tell you for instance: "1000 please sir"... and you dig through your ridiculous amount of notes and find one that says 1000 on it (in crazy symbols... see below) and hand it over... and they look at you like you're some kind of fruitcake and say "One THOUSAND please sir" and then you cop that they actually mean ten thousand so you have go rooting through your telephone book of notes again and dig out another couple of wads to keep the punter happy. I WILL UNDERSTAND THIS MONEY!!!

No real other news... I'm talking to people trying to come up with a plan of attack for Iran (I mean that in a friendly-traveller's-route kinda way, and not a You-can't-have-nuclear-energy-or-we'll-blow-you-up kinda way). There's a couple of places which are musts (Esfehan, Yadz etc.) but I want to come up with a decent itinerary so I'm talking to people about it and letting them deface my Lonely Planet (adding to the never-ending collection of email addresses I'm amassing).

Finally, I did the best thing that I ever did today... I got my card reader (which I use to transfer photos from my camera to computer) and I unceremoniously FUCKED it into the bin. It's been pissing me off since South America insofar as it only works every fourteenth time and generally breaks my balls. So I popped into one of the shops here and I bought a new one... It was super cheap and super plasticy but it works a dream... and so, my feathered friends, putting up photos has just become a lot easier and I leave you now with some of my first impressions of Iran.

Keep it real, homedogs! (And anyone going to Electric Picnic, I hope you have a ball of a time... I would love to be there!!!)

Crazy Money

hullo there readers and welcome to this, the first posting from Iran. I arrived in Tehran yesterday morning having survived a pretty shitty train journey from Van in Turkey. I arrived at the station in Van on Tuesday at four o'clock thinking to myself "Jesus, I'm great... I'm here well in time for my 18.47 train to Tehran... isn't it amazing how precise these train times are!!!"... When I got to the station, everyone was telling me to go away, that there was no train to Tehran until the following Friday. Fuck sake, I thought to myself, but I ain't goin' anywhere. I had heard that the trains were kind of haphazard and tended to pop in and out whenever they liked, so, being the stubborn bastard that I am, I stuck my heels in and decided to camp at the train station until a train came. My train finally arrived at 01.00 on Wednesday and didn't budge until 08.00 that morning. At least they let us on and we could sleep on the train though. Then we went on our merry way towards the city of Tabriz in Iran. After spending half of the first day at Turkish customs and the other half at Iranian customs we finally arrived in Tabriz at 10.00pm on Wednesday evening, and then in Tehran at 9.00am on Thursday morning. Bit of a nightmare, but I actually slept quite well on the train and also I got adopted by an Iranian guy and his son who were in my couchette and they helped me do all the stuff that I needed to do (eat, survive the passport grilling etc.). They insisted on paying for everything and wouldn't let me put my hand in my pocket.

Once I arrived in Tehran, I stood there on the steps of the train station and I imagine I must have looked like your atypical lost westerner. This oul fella came up to me and started chatting away in English. He offered to show me the cheap way to my hotel (i.e. bus as opposed to Taxi) and on the way, we popped into his gaf for some lunch... what a nice old man he was! He wouldn't let me pay for the buses or anything and insisted on paying for everything.

So basically, I've been here a day and I haven't been able to spend any money yet. Which is a pity, cos I have buckets of the stuff. Because of the sanctions and various other anomolies, you can't actually get money into or out of Iran (I.e. our cards don't work in their atms etc.) so you have to bring enough raw currency to do you for the whole stay. When I was in Turkey, I armed myself with 600 Euros, hoping that this would be enough for a month in Iran. I went to the money exchange place and asked could I change it into Iran Rials. Your man at the counter exploded in laughter at the idea of me changing that much into Rials, he pointed at my backpack and indicated that I'd need to empty it to carry the Rials if I wanted to exchange that much. So I decided to exchange 150 Euro to begin with (as you can also exchange Euro within Iran) and your man took my three clean 50 Euro bills and overloaded me with literally hundreds of hundreds of Iranian notes... He also gave me a plastic bag with which to carry them. (I thought that was nice). Basically, my backpack has doubled in size due to the fact that I have Iranian notes stuck in every concievable pocket and the fuckers won't even let me spend them.

There's nothing else to report really... I've been walking around tehran looking for internet cafes (which are thin on the ground). This one is the first one I've been able to find. Other than that, I'm a happy little camper. Gonna start my touristy shit tomorrow (I.e. the grand baazar, various mosques, a museum or two... etc. ) but I'm taking it easy today, just walking around trying to orientate myself... I've had about five people walk up to me starting a conversation in English and they've all given me their email addresses... it's mad as a hatter! Oh and my Farsi is coming along slowly. I used the train journey to learn some of the basics and can now count to ten as well as your usual hello goodbye thank you and all that malarky. It's a good deal more difficult than Turkey because the written alphabet is different... But I've learned all the numerical digits in Farsi script so I'm battling my way through it. I'm not even going to bother with the alpha digits, it's fucking madness: شیلشسلیسیباسیبلغتعهنمهخههعهخمعهخمغعمهغعه ... See what I mean!

L8r dudes, and anyone's who heading to EP, I hope you have a ball! I wish I was going.
Yur man in Iran,
Conor

Da Vizualz

It took me a whole day, but I sussed the train situation. Must be at train station tomorrow at 4pm for train to Tehran... Looking forward to this.

In other news, things ain`t lookin good for a sèjour ın Kashmır... Must keep my eye on developments. See here.

Here`re more photos for yız... sorry but I`m not ın a mad photo-takıng mood these days and they`re maınly borıng landscapes.. wıll try to spıce ıt up a bıt (but not too much... don`t be so vulgar!)

Peace... C

Preparing to cross

So, I dıd a legger out of Trabzon and am now wrıtıng from Van, the most sıgnıfıcant cıty ın Eastern Turkey and stagıng poınt for the crossıng ınto Iran. Im really sorry but thıs post wıll be wrıtten wıthout apostrophes and wıth a funny ı, as the normal i ıs too dıffıcult to fınd and I would otherwıse type too slowly. (You dont understand the ımmense effort that Im already puttıng ın ın order to grace you wıth full stops ınstead of the character ç).

Heres my newest to do lıst for your perusal:

• Recharge all electrıcal thıngs (whıle I have the luxury of a plug ın my room)
• Buy batterıes for my speakers
• Upload photos to blog and facebook (pendıng chargıng of camera)
• Update blog (et voıla)
• Suss out transport to Iran (I mıssed the TransAsıa to Tehran, but ıt turns out theres another one from Damascus on Tuesday so I mıght take that... ıt would cut out all of northwestern Iran but then I could focus on Tehran and other areas)
• Do my laundry (I handed thıs ın thıs mornıng to a turkısh gırl and ıt was pretty bad... I was ashamed of the stench oozıng out of my laundry bag, feıc sake)
• Sort out cash for Iran (they dont accept vısa or anythıng else so you have enter the country wıth as much raw currency as youre plannıng to spend)
• Buy a paır of long trousers (I couldnt possıbly force the persıan bırds to look at my nobbly knees, the ımams would have my guts for garters)
• Do a shop and take advantage of the frıdge ın my room for savıng some cents
• Drag all possıble Iranıan contacts out of anyone I know

On that last poınt, ıf you know anyone ın Iran, or ıf you know anyone who knows anyone ın Iran, then hook me up. (I need to fınd someone who can sort me out for a few brewskıs.... haha, only jokıng.... so not jokıng!).

Ahhh, and theres the call to prayer... gımme a second whıle I prostrate myself.... nah, only messın ya, I dont do all that nonsense... I just observe! Actually when I arrıved ın Istanbul and heard the call to prayer for the fırst tıme, ıt was pretty weırd: Fıve tımes a day, some punter hooks hımself up to a mıcro and startıngs jabberıng about allah... But after some tıme you get used to ıt and actually ıts pretty soothıng and melodıc (dependıng on the mu`athın who does ıt). Now I fınd ıt almost comfortıng, even the mornıng one at around 5.00am mıldy arouses you from your slumber, remınds you that all ıs good ın the world and that you have another couple of hours kıp and lets you fall back ınto a deep sleep afterwards. More ınfo on the call to prayer here wıth a sample here. The call to prayer ıs dependant on the sun so the tımes change ever so slıghtly every day. It also means that any gıven tıme, somewhere ın the world ıs havıng ıts call to prayer and there are always people prayıng... I thınk thats a nıce thought.

When I was ın Izmır, my Turkısh frıend ınvıted me to come to Frıday prayer ın the mosque wıth hım. So I went a long and he told me to do what he dıd, so I kneeled, stood and prostrated shoulder to shoulder wıth all the other dudes (no dudesses allowed). The ımam read out sectıons of the Qur`an ın Arabıc and then ınterpreted them ın Turkısh. In Turkey, all the ımams are employed by the state (as are the rabbıs and prıests) and ın a weırd twıst are requıred to follow all rules for cıvıl servants, ıncludıng always beıng shaved. So ın Turkey, ıts ıllegal for the Imam to have a beard... ısnt that just bonkers!

Anyway, Im apprecıatıng thıs ınsıght ınto Islam. Contrary to general perceptıon, I fınd ıt to be a very peaceful and pleasant relıgıon. Those of you that know me, know that I ... ahem... well... ehhh... aın`t the most spırıtual to say the least... especıally when ıt comes to the Abrahamıc relıgıons (Judaısm, Chrıstıanıty and Islam) but I do belıeve ın the power of prayer as a force to be reckoned wıth and somethıng about the Islamıc way of doıng thıngs resounds wıth me. If youre goıng to have a god and youre goıng to pray to hım, then ıt should be about absolute devotıon and prayer... Islam seems to be about egalıty among people, ıts ımams are equal to everyone else and just lead prayer, but they don`t preach or ınterpret ıt themselves, as our prıests would do back home. Also, there ısn`t thıs mad concoctıon of the trınıty, theres just the one flıppın god whos the head honcho and thats ıt. Yes they have a bıt of an ıssue wıth women but you have to remember at the tıme that Islam was created, women were treated lıke shıt and Islam actually protected them and bettered theır lot. The western ınterpretatıon of Jıhad as a holy war agaınst 'ınfıdels' ıs also slıghtly mısalıgned wıth realıty, the actual meanıng beıng a constant struggle or betterment of oneself and socıety...

Rıght, nuff o that... I have to get some chow... L8r compadres!

Sıgnıng off for yur correspondant ın Eastern Turkey... Bey Conor!

The Brown Sea Coast

Well Toto, you mangy wreck of a cat (This particular Toto's a cat, the canine equivalent not being widely available for Wizard of Oz quotations in Turkey), I think we're not in Kansas anymore!

As previously mentioned, I've horsed myself off the tourist trail to Trabzon, on the northeast coast of Turkey, on the Black Sea... and... well... ehhh... things ain't as easy as they were. I've gotta say that the southwestern tourist ring is very accessible indeed. Buses bring you more or less from hostel door to hostel door, you don't really have to choose a hostel as you're ushered from one affilliation to the next, there's always plenty of gringos around to combat isolation etc. etc. etc.

Up here things are a bit different: I was dumped in the industrial swampland that passes for the bus station and hiked for 20 minutes into the town centre. Since I've been in Turkey, I've realised that the guide I bought was published during the middle ages so any information it has is a tad out of date... When I got to the town centre, I hiked around a bit for a cheap hotel and ended up with a cosy little windowless oven on the sixth floor of a run-down shithole of a place. Cheap as chips though... All the other hotel guests were very attractive Russian girls, who swanned around in skimpy nightclothes and lay seductively on their beds with the doors of their rooms open... ehhhhhhh yeah... well, at least it wasn't a brothel!

Since I've come away, I've enjoyed getting back into some old travelling habits. One particular such habit is named the Poshite. The Oxford English dictionary defines the poshite as: 'the art of leveraging the lavatory facilities of upmarket western hotels for defecational purposes without actually being a patron'. It's not really nuclear physics and I'm sure everyone does it, but I think it's great... You have to stroll up the door with a swagger and oozing confidence. As you approach the doorman, it is this confidence that will sink or swim you. Part of the doorman's basic training has been identification of poshiters and their subsequent deterral, so you have to be strong. As you approach the following is going through the doorman's head: "This fucker is gonna come in here and shit and leave without paying for anything.... but he is western... what if he's a guest that I haven't seen yet.... wait a second, he's dressed like a tramp... but he is western... what if he's one of those new aged hippies that stays in upmarket hotels but dons tramps clothing to mingle with the locals during the day.... what'll I do... what'll I do......". If, at this point, you show even the slightest waver of doubt or lack of conviction, you're done for... You have to persevere and stroll in there as if you own the place, passing him with a smile and 'good afternoon', which no doubt he'll feebly reciprocate. Occassionally, you'll get a lacky who'll feel hard done by and will shadow you on your stroll across the reception, in which case you go to the bar, look around for 'that person that you have to meet', look at your watch, shake your head and say tut-tut and then turn around and ask HIM directly where the toilets are. On your way out then, you just stroll and everyone's looking at you, and everyone knows what you just did... but it doesn't matter, cos it's done now, and you can't take it back... (haha, imagine the thought of them getting you to take it back...)...

While we're on the topic of defectation, the Turks have this great little invention. It's a little nozzle at the back of the toilet which is aimed upwards. You sit down... you do your business... and then you turn a little knob to the side of the loo. And low-and-behold a stream of high pressure water comes out of the nozzle, aimed directly at the... ahem... particular....ehh.... orifice in question, washes it of all... ahem... debris... and bob's your uncle! Afterwards, you take some loo paper and 'pat down' to dry things off... Seo e agus sin a bhfuil as we say!!!

So, I've been talking shit for long enough... Today, I decided to check out of my brothel and went to visit the Sumela monastery perched up in the mountains... It was pretty groovy and gave me enough opportunity to walk around in forests, which is why I came to the Black Sea, so I've decided that I have enough of it and I'm going to hop straight on a bus out of here and try to make my way into (cheap) Iran asap... I don't have the cash to stay in Turkey any longer... it's too pricey! So I'm going to Van tonite, the most eastern city in Turkey and crossing point to Persia of old... I'll probably stay there for a few days getting my shit together for Iran (buying long trousers, converting to Islam, arranging circumcision etc.)

If you're reading this blog, you should leave messages, cos it inspires me to write... If I think no-one's reading, I won't write anything... If you have a question, ask away and I'll answer it in the next posting...

May allah (peace be upon him) be with you all...

C-man

Bram Stoker's Laïcité

OK, I admit it, I've been neglecting my blog a little bit... but it's all good now, cos I feel myself slipping into blog mode and have decided to pleasure you all with a decent post.

First of all a bit of a round-up of what I've been up to in the last few weeks. To begin with I had a ball of a time in Istanbul. It's a great city and the Istanbulonians are a swell bunch of folks. I didn't do too many of the 'touristy' things but I generally relaxed and soaked up the vibes of this ancient city... Istanbul (and indeed Turkey) has a mad history, having been consistantly shagged around between the Greeks, Romans and Ottomans... It has been named Byzantine and Constantinople before its current nomenclature and has seen sieges and world wars bloody the Bosphorous.

I met a Turkish guy on his holidays and he accompanied me from Istanbul to Izmir, Turkey's second biggest city where we spent a few days walking around and soaking in the rays, before heading on to Ephesus, mentioned in a previous post.

From Ephesus I got a bus to Fethiye on the Mediterranean and hopped into a Gulet (or large sailing boat) which made it's way along the coast for four days to the town of Olympus. The cruise was great craic altogether. There were about fourteen of us (Yanks, Aussies and Wops) and we generally lazed around in the sun all day waiting for the bell to ring so that we could gorge ourselves on the very tasty chow that our chef prepared. In the evenings we played cards and had a few beers and then slept up on deck under the manically shooting stars of the northern Med. One night we went to a bar on the shore and danced our little hearts out (or 'got low' as the yanks say). I sweat so much that I had to go for a dip every half hour to cool down. Apart from all that madness the days were spent cruising along and stopping in inlets and at beaches every now and then for a pre- or post-chow swim.

After that I spent a few days in Olympos trekking around the variety of greco-roman ruins that the town is known for. Yesterday I left the coast and headed inland to Cappadocia, an area of central anatolia known for it's caves. Basically what happened was that a volcano shagged out a load of ash a quadrillion years ago, which then compacted to become a soft stone. This stone was part eroded by water and created these mad constructions which the locals saw fit to hollow out and live in. So my abode here is a little cave which remains cool all day and all night... it's sooper dooper altogether.

Anyway, so I'm gonna jump on another bus tomorrow evening and make my way to the northern coast of Turkey at the Black Sea. This will take me out of the gringo loop that most tourists follow (Istanbul, Aegean, Mediterranean, Ankara and back to Istanbul) and should be interesting. The area is close to Georgia and I was thinking of popping in and getting blown up by the Rooski's but I decided against it...

The buses here in Turkey are pretty good. They are generally used as the main mode of transport between cities. They are spacious, well air conditioned, cheap, fast and the roads are good. The trip to Trabzon is about 15 hours so I'll hop on tomorrow evening around sevenish and sleep on the bus arriving refreshed and ready to rock and roll in Trabzon the next day. I also save myself a hostel this way (Ain't I just the bestest!).

An interesting thing about Turkey is the absolute veneration of this guy, Ataturk. Every single shop you go into has a picture of him hanging up on the wall. If you see a statue, you don't even have to look to see who it might be of, it's always Ataturk. His mug adorns the Turkish flag everywhere. He is absolutely adored by the Turks, who essentially consider him their father (Ataturk means father of the Turks).

He was a general in World War I and was Turkey's first president upon the fall of the Ottoman Empire after the war. He was pretty visionary; He set up the Turkish state as it is today, made it secular, changed the script from arabic to latin and led the country through the reform necessary for a new republic after the loss of the war and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The turks are supremely proud of what they achieved after their fall from greatness and this pride manifests itself in profound veneration, bordering on a personality cult.

I think he looks a little bit like Count Dracula, but I don't tell the Turks that cos they wouldn't be happy at all. (They're super nationalist, last week I wanted to buy a towel with the Turkish flag on it and the prospect of me drying my infidel nether-regions with their beloved drapeau nearly caused the shopkeeper to beat seven shades of shi'ite out of me). Waddayathink? The prince of darkness or what?

I read that Ahmadinejad, that wily Iranian president, visited Turkey to have a chinwag with Ergodan, the Turkish PM. (The Turks are eager to act as interlocuteurs between the Iranians and the US over ye ol' nuclear issue...). It's standard practice for dignitaries visiting Ankara to visit the mauseleum of Dracula... sorry Ataturk... and 'they' say that Ahmadinejad did not visit Ankara, but instead went to Istanbul, in order to not have to visit the 'shrine to secularism' that is Ataturk's mauseleum, an ideology that the Iranian mullahs might not be too favourable of. See article here.

That's all for today... I hope you're all behaving yourselves...

Ur man in Turkey... C.

PS. For all those French who think that they invented secularism, you're wrong!

PPS. Saw a camel today... or maybe a dromedary... well, it was camel like anyway

Turkey Photos

Right folks, finally managed to get some photos up... will give them some narratives later. On my way from the coast today moving towards the interior of the country towards Goreme in the Cappadocia region.

C.

001 Turkey

Oh yeah, and yesterday we got up early to see baby turtles hatch out of their eggs and make their way to the see... We stood guard so that the birds wouldn't get them... frickin' ueber cute;

quickie

Just a quickie before I do a proper photo update tomorrow: I left Istanbul on Friday last and have made my way down the Aegean and then the Mediterrean coast of Turkey since then. I started off with two days in Izmir, Turkey's second largest city, then a night in Selcuk to see the ruins of Epheseus and the Temple of Artemis, then a night in Fetiyeh preparing for a four day Med cruise which has just delivered me to the little town of Olympus.

Before I left Istanbul, I visited a 'hamam' or turkish bath and got a massage. The guy who massaged me can only be described as a big fat sado masochist. He started with an exfoliation which was paramount to skinning me alive.... then slapped me down on a marble surface and proceeded to generally beat me up in a very violent manner. After punching me in the gut for about five minutes he started bending my extremities in directions that they're not supposed to be bent in... It was very sore and every now and then I let out a little shriek (like a little girl) which only served to have him increase the ferociousness of the violation and grumble Turkish insults at me.

Will post photos tomorrow.

Hey Shithead, how about a kebab

Jesus fuck... where do I begin... I've been kept off my feet in this whirlwind of a city for the past few days, generally trying my best to 'be turkish'.

I met this really cool local guy who I've been hanging around with. He lives in France and is only visiting so he's taking the opportunity to do 'the tourist thing' as well and generally be my tourguide.

First of all, the lingo: My turkish is actually coming along quite well. I've got to the point where I can sit down at a cafe and pretty much order what I want and have all the rudimentary dealings with the waiter with him thinking that I can talk turkish... It's only if he queries anything or seeks to deepen the friendly banter, that I am unmasked as a fraud with a limited number of multipurpose word conjectures and generic grunts. Tonite I learned all the bad words so that I can pepper my language with these, making me by default 'more natural'.

On Monday we went to the Princess Islands for a night. They're these islands off Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara where the local tourists go. They don't allow motorised propulsion on the island so everything is horse and carty (very quaint but slightly malodourous). Spent the day lying on the beach trying to get some kind of base before I hit the south and the med. As I said though, the tourism there was mainly turkish with the occassional arab, so I kinda stuck out like a sore thumb. (Ye know those haribo cola bottles... think about a white one of those lying amongst loads of brown ones).

Other than that, have been consuming vast amounts of tea and beer (in alternating binges) and have been trying some of the local chow (which ain't all that bad). I've done 'some' touristy stuff, and I do feel bad when I hear about all the museums that other people have seen, but I really couldn't be that arsed doing anymore museums.... I might go to a Hamam (Turkish bath) tomorrow. So I'm gonna do a runner tomorrow and leggit down to Izmir, Turkey's second biggest city and a bit beachy... Will post a photo or two soon.

L8r.... C

PS: For those of you who were wondering, Turkish Delight is disgusting here as well.... yes, it still tastes like soap!

The Plan

So, day three is going well. Spent yesterday sunbathing, visiting the grand bazaar, had a typical anatolian meal and generally walked a lot. I've also got a turkish mate here who's been showing me around and today we're gonna drive up the bosphorous and generally chill out. The food last night was good... lots of good meat and meatbally type things (really tasty lamb)... had a yoghurt drink with it called ayran (which I remember all the turks in Berlin drinking), a really nice dessert which was a mix between a creme brulee and a rice pudding, and turkish coffee (which is essentially caffeine heroin and should be taken intraveneously).

Also, I came up with a plan for the rest of turkey. It goes like this: Istanbul - Izmir - Bodrun - Antalya - Konya - Cappadoccia - Ankara (Southwestern Anatolia & Med) and then from Ankara - Trapzom - Van - Urfu - Vanin in the East before crossing into Iran

That's all for now... peace out. C.


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Afternoon Tea

Just spent the afternoon getting tea horsed into me by a very sound french-speaking turkish dude. He's from the Kurdish area of Turkey and explained the whole 'kurdish' thing to me... (I will post something on that when I understand it more).He wouldn't let me put my hand in my pocket... sound as fuck these turks!

C

Lift Off

Okeedokee so, here's blog post number one from the road... arrived into istanbul yesterday!Seems to be a pretty groovy place so far. Last night when I arrıved, I went for a walk around the old part of the city and generally arsed around knockin brewski's into me for a while. It's warm but not unbearable... Had a good sleep last nıght despıte the fact that some halfwit aussie robbed my bed and I had to sleep on a bare mattress. (I'd forgotten about the joys of budget travellıng and dormroom banter)...I decided to start this trip as I aim to continue so I'm going super mega budget for now. (Last time I went away, I spent most of my travel budget in the first two months and I'm not going to let that happen again.... although I wouldn't take back a single one of those buenos aires steaks....mhhhhhhhh.... drooooool!).

So when I got to the airport last night, rather than my usual taxi (I get a taxi to the bathroom in dublin) I took a combination of metro, tram, bus and walking to get to the hostel. It took about two hours and several little diversions. While I was walking along, they did the 'call to prayer' thingy (mcchhchchcalllllllahahahahahahmccccallallalahahaha.... allahhhhhhhhhhmchmchmch), which is a bit mad altogether ... no doubt there'll be more on that in later posts. And all that with my 22kg rucksack on my back and 9kg backpack on my front. By the time I got to the hostel, I was sweating like a blind lesbian in a fish market, but the water was off so I couldn't have a shower. Fear not though, cos I am ridiculously well prepared and have a complete kit for 'no water' cleaning which I was chuffed to be able to use on my first night.

Soooooo, aaaaannnyyway... what else is there. Got up early this morning and had a super-mega-cheapo brekkie of .... bread with honey... (Honey's actually very tasty, I always thought I didn't like it for some reason). Then I had a look at the blue mosque today and have been generally walking around the city... I've just crossed to the north of the city and walked up a big hill and am now shagged altogether, but I'm going to persevere until I get to Taksim Square where all the action is supposed to be.

May Allah be with you all...

Ur man in Istanbul... C

PS: Actually, I'm on the western side of istanbul and haven't gone to the 'Asian' side yet. And seen as the trip is going to be 'Asia', this really this isn't part of it, it's more like a 'precursor' or an 'amuse-bouche'... haha