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Day 3 in Turkey,
We are currently on our way to Pummakale and have 7 more hours on the road! So I thought I would use the time to update you all :)
We arrived in Istanbul after another overnight bus ride from Sofia. It was our best night bus yet though as we actually got a few hours sleep even with a 2 hour passport control and visa stop.
Once we arrived we had to get to our hotel and this meant using the metro. Not a lot of people spoke English and the ticket machines were in Turkish so we stood there for ages until a friendly man who didn't speak much English helped us out.
We arrived at the hotel finally but still had ages to check in as it was 9am. We planned on just sitting in the lobby as we were tired and it was raining but they were able to give us a room after about half an hour and also offered us brekky for no charge.
We had to meet our tour guide at 7:30 that night so we slept pretty much all day. When we got up at 4pm Josh went to have a shower while I searched for an English speaking tv channel which consisted of BBC news and CNN and then I came across a basketball channel showing the first round playoffs so Josh was happy except when he heard the Spurs had lost!
We were feeling very hungry by 6 and decided to grab dinner before the meeting. We found a small take away shop with locals inside (always a good sign) and got two kebabs. The staff didn't speak much English and there was one customer who was very excited that we were speaking English as he has been trying to learn. At first we were very cautious but soon realised that he just wanted to keep speaking to us to practice his English.
Our food was very yummy! After we finished they gave us 2 Turkish teas for free! It's was so yummy and I drank my first tea ever!!!!
All up it cost 2 euro each for dinner and drinks!
After this we went to a sweet shop and got chocolate mouse to share. It was so yummy! We were offered complimentary coconut biscuit things which were very yummy as well.
We went back to the hotel for our meeting which ran through our itinerary for the coming 9 days and we got to meet everyone. It's so nice to be around Aussies and Kiwis as we haven't really seen much of them through eastern europe.
The next day was an early start for our Istanbul tour of the old town. We went to the hippodrome area, blue mosque, hagia sophia and grand bazaar. Didn't buy anything this time round but I can see a package needing to be sent home in the coming weeks!
For dinner they offered us a Turkish dinner night for 30 pound each!!!!!! So we said no like half the tour group did and went out with 5 others to a different Turkish restaurant where we ordered a variety of dishes and just had a bit of everything. They are very generous with your dishes and they give you complimentary before and after bread along with a few other things just for ordering food! We only paid 6 pound each for all of it so it was much better value than the Turkish night.
This morning we had to rise early again to begin a 11 hour journey southwards to Pammukale. I can't wait to see the famous calcium terraces and ancient sites.
Will be in touch soon!
Travelbug 23
Picture: Inside the Blue Mosque
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