After a hearty breakfast and listening to everyone complain about the hotel, we set off for Cumalihizik.
Old village at Cumalihizik
This is a traditional old village – apparently one in seven in the area. We all had a wander around, and bought some bread from an old guy who wandered around with the tray on his head.
Today was a long stint on the bus. We stopped at a small place for morning tea and another dodgy place for lunch (near Sivrihisar). We had Gözleme, which is a cheese pancake of sorts (but hold the cheese). While we were at lunch, there were snowflakes floating through the air. It was darn freezing.
The other main stop for the day was at Gordion – where there is a massive tomb that has been discovered under a large mound.
Mound of Midas Tomb
Originally, the mound was 80 meters high, but is now only 53 meters. You walk through a long tunnel to see the sectioned off burial chamber, where the wood has been well preserved as it hasn’t been exposed to the elements. Across the road is a museum that has artefacts from the various excavations that have been completed. Apparently the burial mounds range from mid 8th century BC through to the 2nd century BC, so there is quite a collection of artefacts to look at. The tomb we visited reputedly housed King Midas at his death (although this is disputed by some). In any event, the tour guide Rashid provided us with some interesting tales of King Midas and the Gordion knot (which was a complicated knot that the locals proclaimed whoever unravelled it would become the master of Asia). Alexander the Great came along in 334 BC and in frustration slashed the knot with his sword – his early death at 33 was supposedly related to his rash alternative of slashing the knot rather than untying it.
History lesson over. We are now in Ankara, Turkey’s capital. It is a lovely ‘new’ city of 4 million people. The tour group has a Serbian dinner tonight – should be interesting. It is still freezing outside, so a little walk to experience the sights was quite sufficient – we’ll stay warm in the hotel thanks very much.
Correction to LINZ info (I couldn’t find the article I’d read very briefly and wrote details from memory): LINZ is considering axing 78 IT Dept jobs. They want a single outsourcing supplier who would provide a wide range of services incl Data Centre Mgmt, Dev & Maint for Landonline and Help Desk support.
IT Services to remain in house are Strategy, Advice Solution Identification, User Acceptance testing, vendor and contract mgmt and process mgmt. They plan to take advantage of Govt shared services when purchasing IT services & products such as desktop hardware and the one.govt network services.
RFPs were released last week with plans to have contracts in place by the end of June.
Hamilton V8 super car race ticket sales are well down. They are also looking for a new sponsor.
WCC have put fwd a proposal to have electric cars available for hire at strategic locations by the time of the World Cup (airport, railway stn, ferry terminal, etc. They would run for approx 160 mins before requiring to be charged.
Martin Crowe has been bought in to teach batters the basics of batting for long periods and what to do in tests.
Our southerly blast finally came through around 4:00am and now the sun in out so should be fully gone by the end of the day. Much cooler today though.
Hope you all have plenty of warm layers to put on and that it’s not going to remain quite so cold while you’re touring Turkey.
Jan
I wish I was in Turkey again! Dont forget to try a real Turkish bath, and of course the Turkish Delight.
Will you be doing the hot-air balloon at Cappadoccia?
Happy travelling.
Ian
Your Turkey trip is bringing back memories, apart from the cold. I remember our guide talking about frozen water pipes in Cappadocia in winter, so hope its warmer than that, and that there’s not too much snow hiding the magnifient scenery. Its definitely cooler here now.
Looking forward to ringing the LINZ helpdesk sometime in the future and talking to someone in the Phillipines or India. Sigh.
Your bet last week Neil and you bet on Meeting 2, Race 3, nags 4, 5, 6. You won a grand total of $1.80. So doesn’t look like coffee in Paris just yet!
Enjoy the rest of the trip
Bev and John