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Saturday
After a long, but easy, journey to Luton airport, and a pain free EasyJet experience...who knows what those people on the TV are complaining about....whinging POMs I arrived in Istanbul. In a flight shorter than that between Perth and Melbourne I have crossed an entire continent and landed in Asia (Sabiha Gokcen Airport-named after Turkey's first female pilot- is on the Asian side of the city.) A shuttle bus into the city centre allows my first impression of Istanbul. It seems a beautiful city but the architecture is an interesting combo of uninspired cement buildings, Perth civic architecture circa 1960s, 80s boom skyscrapers and tacky Vegas casinos, along with minarets poking up from the many mosques.
After a hair-raising taxi ride from Taksim Square to Sultanhamet, where our hostel was located, with a driver who didn't know where he was going and who got rear-ended during the trip, I arrived at the Sultan Hostel and met up with Carolyn and Karen, who had flown in on an earlier flight. After a late dinner we had an early-ish night in preparation for our early start tomorrow.
Sunday
Our tour started early (about 7am) as we had a bus ride of about 5 hours to reach the Gallipoli Peninsula. Our tour guide, Burack, and driver, Gurkhan (call him Gherkin says our guide) are both friendly and the way Gurkhan manoeuvres the bus is incredible. Our group is small...about 15...and expectedly, is made up mainly of Aussies and Kiwis although therewere also Americans on board.
We drove through Istanbul, heading west, and learnt that the name Istanbul, does not come from the former name Constantinople, but from a Turkish word meaning Old City. Also that only 3% of Turkey (Trace) is in Europe and the remaining 97% (Anatolia) Is in Asia.
We arrived at the Gallipoli Peninsula and had lunch at a small town called Eceabat, it was here we had our first experience of a Turkish meal-starter, salad and meat served separately and fruit to finish.We then embarked on our tour of Gallipoli proper. Our guide started by outlining the events that led up to the battle for which the area is most famous...the sea battle over the Dardenelles. On the peninsula we visited Anzac Cove, the Lone Pine Memorial, the Canuck Bair Memorial (important to both the NZ and Turkish nations), the remaining trenches and a Turkish cemetery, which was packed with Turks as Gallipoli is a place of great national importance for then as well (Ataturk-the father of the Republic- commanded the Turkish forces). I knew it was going to be an emotional experience but it was the small cemetery and memorial at the site of the first landing that brought tears to my eyes. Photographs do not do justice to the scale and sheerness of the cliffs that the first Anzacs were confronted by...the lines that were established the first day did not really change during the entire campaign. I was also moved by he obvious respect that the Anzacs and Turkish forces had for one another.
After the tour we caught a ferry from Eceabat to Cannekale (in Anatolia). We checked into our Hostel, the Yellow Rose which featured an Aussie flag on the sign. It was basic but clean and continued the Turkish practice of no shower recess, so the entire bathroom floods when showering and everything gets wet... For dinner we ventured to a local establishment recommended by Lonely Planet, where I had an excellent Lamb Shish and we proved something of a novelty with the staff photographing our group and placing it onto the restaurant's Facebook page. Afterwards we headed to a local bakery for dessert where we offered 'normal' cake and 'different' cake, I went for the normal cake. A local beer (Efes) at a noisy bar and off to bed...
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