A Holiday Blog from Turkey

First day in Turkey.

This is one of the more adventurous holidays I have ever been on, so I thought i would share it with anyone who might be interested, and also use this blog as a bit of a journal. Forgive me if that makes it a bit self-indulgent in places.

I wish I was one of those people who could sleep on planes. We took three flights, about 20 hours of flying plus some ground time in between and I didn't get a wink of sleep the whole time. Consequently, I felt really wasted when we finally got to our accommodation in Selcuk.

We flew to Istanbul via Singapore, then got on a plane to Izmir, got a car there and drove to Selcuk. I got to try (for part of the time) International Business Class, which was alot different to economy. Very comfortable and well spacious, although rather solitary since the seats are individual. Anyway, the flights were all uneventful which, given the high profile of mystery plane mishaps at the moment, was a relief. Watched "12 years a slave" and did some reading.

But having had no sleep, I felt very brain dead. Nevertheless, we are in an amazing place and don't have much time so sightseeing needs to start right now. I did nearly get run over when I tried to cross a road in my demented state but apart from that, we are just amazed at the foreign-ness of this place, and the age of the ruins.

Its morning now and I have had quite alot of sleep, although not nearly enough coffee yet. I will write more tomorrow, or perhaps this afternoon. We have so far met some great people. The owner of the hotel where we are staying is great, showed us lots of places to see, and also owns a restaurant so we had a great Turkish dinner. Right next to the restaurant is a whole lot of cranes nests, yes, thats right, the bird. (n.b. later editing - they are storks, not cranes. Nobody has picked that up yet). They are magnificent, and being on the top floor (no lift either) we were right near the birds. Also, turtles wander around happily eating the vegetation, and there are friendly cats everywhere. There is even a bird flying around my bedroom at the moment.

Anyway, the food at the restaurant was amazing. Lamb kebab, eggplant and tomato, yoghurt, cucumber, all so wonderfully Turkish. Dessert was baklava. I could not believe I was eating baklava in Turkey.

Grave of John

As for sights, we have walked around the extensive ruins of the Church of St John, which was later partially turned into a mosque and is now a ruin. They say John is buried there.  (photo to right) We also looked in the local ancient mosque and went to the site of the Temple of Artemis. Its almost completely destroyed, but still amazing to think such a significant ancient temple was just over there. (I can see it from the where we are sitting outside our room). 

 Outside the church of St John, a man tried to sell us some “ancient” coins. We had been warned to steer cleer. Its illegal to bring Turkish relics out of the country, and the coins are most probably fake. He claimed to be an archaeologist. I had my doubts. We didn't buy any. Cats sat on us in the ruins. You would not want to come to Turkey if you hated cats. 



Anyway, its time to go. If you read my blog, let me know. Today, we will see some amazing places from the bible in Ephesus. Can't wait. 

I wonder if my TAC friends recognise this?