Thankfully, it was much warmer today!!! The quick stop in Konya was very pleasant and we started with a balmy temperature this morning. The long drive through beautiful mountain scenery up to about 3000 meters was spectacular (including more snow!!!). The bus then descended towards the Mediterranean Sea – and it was about 18 degrees and 1.5 hours from snow. Amazing.

Aspendos Amphitheatre

After a stop for lunch we headed to Aspendos – which is one of the best preserved amphitheatres in the world. It was used as a caravan stop in the 13^th century – hence the preserved nature of the place. The theatre seats about 15,000 people was is impressive mostly in the fact that it is intact and hasn’t been restored (apparently). We crawled all over the place, got some great shots – we’re sure you will agree that this place is spectacular!

A bit further up the road is Perge – an ancient Roman city from the 2^nd century. Apparently Alexander the Great visited here. We wandered through the baths for the rich fellas (from the hot to the warm and then on to the cold baths). They are remarkably well preserved. The Agora was the main square in the city – and if you are so inclined, you can get a column re-erected in your honour. There are several columns now erected, so they need a few more wealthy benefactors to finish it off.

The whole of Perge shows the influences of the Greeks and Romans from 3BC to 2AD, but none more so that the walk up to the main water source for the city.

Perge

There are walkways both sides of an old waterway, with bridges crossing over between each side. At the top end, there is a magnificent monument where the water flowed from. All along the way, there are columns, and a heap of artefacts to look at. The area is still being excavated – so we’re sure it will look different in 20 years time!

A short trip to our hotel ensued – it will be nice to have somewhere to stay for 2 nights, rather than packing our things up again tomorrow. The Sheraton is on the beach in Antalya – and has great views across to snow capped mountains – but the weather is certainly more pleasant here than we’ve had in the last couple of days.
Tomorrow we have a free day (free of the tour group anyway), so we’ll enjoy what we can of Antalya by ourselves, taking time to stop where we feel like it!

BsKnee

Thankfully the snow had cleared completely – and the skies were clear today! Makes a nice change from yesterday!

Guy making pottery

Our guide took us to another commission gathering place (for him that is) this morning. It was a pottery place called Venessa Seramik. We saw a pottery demonstration, where it took the guy about 5 minutes to make a teapot out of a lump of clay. Very impressive. We toured the artist parts of the workshop, and eventually ended up in the purchase rooms. Some of our travellers spent up large again, but our purchase (Karla only) was VERY modest in comparison.

The long drive to our lunch stop in Aksaray was punctuated with magnificent views of two volcanoes – one that looked quite like Mt Egmont. The lunch stop was a decent one – finally we had some nice food for lunch. The place is also famous for its ice cream which is made from goats milk – and is nothing like the commercial stuff we get back home.

Another reasonably long drive took us to Sultanhari caravanserai – which was basically a camel station on the original silk road built in the 13^th century. The place was much larger than we all expected – but there was not a lot to see, apart from a lot of empty rooms. More handbags were purchased in the gift shop across the road before setting off again.

Last stop for the day was at a museum that is a tomb for the founder of the whirling dervishes (and his cohorts). There were no photos allowed at all.

BsKnee minus the KB

We transferred to our hotel in Konya – what a magnificent place compared to the dump we were in for the last two days. We’re just enjoying a quiet drink with Denise (a fellow tour traveller) before heading down to a set meal in the restaurant. It can’t possibly be any worse than what we’ve had for the last two days.

Tomorrow we’re off to Antalya for 2 nights – will be nice to put down some roots without having to do everything with our tour group!!!

Neil by the bus in the snow

The name of the game today was COLD!!! We awoke to a fresh snowfall – totally unexpected after the glorious windless night the night before. The snow did disappear towards the end of the day, but it remained absolutely bitter for the entire duration of our traipsing around today.

First stop was the underground city of Kaymakli – which was built in the 6^th to the 10^th centuries. What an amazing place. If the official guide is to be believed, the city was about 8 stories underground (not all of them excavated) and could house several thousand people. Our guide Rashid, indicated that it was more likely that people moved from section to section, and there were only a few hundred people living here at any one time.

Karla in a winery in the underground city

The tunnels were extremely small to get from section to section – certainly not everybody’s cup of tea. But, the half-squat, half-shuffle was worth it to see the rooms that lay beyond the small tunnels. One of them was a winery – so Karla had to stop for a visit…

The snow covered hills, and amazing landscape, made for an interesting bus ride – nobody fell asleep on this trip!!! We stopped at a carpet place, where we were given demonstrations of how the various carpets are made, saw how silk was spun (fascinating) and then moved onto the main hall where we were given a feed and a drink and then explanations of the various carpets in anticipation of purchase. You’ll all be pleased to know that BsKnee didn’t make any investments in this place – but our fellow tour group people certainly made up for us.

Goreme

Göreme is a World Heritage Site – and rightly so. The area is a large monastic settlement occupied from about the 2^nd century – and there are some pretty impressive things to see. Most startling was the apple church (about 10^th century) – with some intact fresoces painted on plaster. The shame about the whole place is that it is subject to erosion – so will unlikely be here forever. Glad we’ve seen it!!!

Travelling between all the places we visited today, exposed us to the incredible geographical features, such as camel rock, fairy chimneys (one is called the three sisters) and rock formations of various colours. The landscape is truly amazing – and having the extra romanticism of snow around the place certainly added to the experience.

The morning started in a frosty way – but was still and clear today. First stop was the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations which is based on top of the old Ankara citidel. The museum has some of the oldest known artefacts in living history, including wall paintings, jewellery, pottery and textiles from the Anatolian civilisation dating from 7000 BC through to the Hittite era around 900 BC and up to Roman times in 131 BC. There was certainly not enough time to gawk at everything we wanted to see. Our guide Rashid, was fantastic – always giving an interesting anecdote or story about almost every artefact in the museum (without bias) – it made the experience even more pleasurable than usual.

Attaturk Mausoleum

From the museum, we moved to the Attaturk Mausoleum. Gee, the Turks just worship this guy (the founder of the modern Turkey republic). The mausoleum is simply massive – we’ve never seen anything quite on this scale. Some dignitary turned up for something important, so we only had enough time for a quick squizz at the mausoleum. The museum attached is also impressive – simply not enough time to read through everything in detail and ponder the impact Attaturk had on Turkey.

Finally, we got dropped off somewhere half decent for lunch (somewhere in Ankara) – everyone seemed to enjoy the lunch today – made a nice change from the previous two days. We had a couple of meaningless coffee stops, before a long drive to Cappadoccia, where we visited the tomb of the Muslim Sufi philosopher at Haci Bektas. This guy founded a sect of the Muslim religion that about 20% of Turks follow today. It appears more moderate than other Muslim factions. We wandered around the Muslim Tomb (now a museum – hence us white folks were allowed in) and the meeting place and kitchen buildings. The buildings are prepared and shown in a similar manner to how they were used in the 13^th century – which is a pleasant change to ruins and using visualisation to connect the dots.

Last stop for the day was the whirling dervishes… we just couldn’t pass this one up.

Whirling Dervishes

We certainly have more appreciation for the religious nature of the dancing guys – and they certainly are skilled to stand up straight after whirling around for so long.

The hotel is not a patch on the previous hotels in Turkey – but it’s clean and comfortable. Dinner filled a gap. Since we haven’t had any photos of us for a couple of days – thought we should put one in for you all.

BsKnee at Hotel

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 8^th century BC through to the 2^nd 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.

Our last night in Dubai on this leg was spent having a lovely dinner at Wafi. The weather is just so pleasant here at the moment – we’re not particularly looking forward to the cold in Turkey!

The flight to Turkey was as uneventful as all of our other flights. They are all completely full – so we hope the airline industry is actually making money. The stories we hear about empty planes are a complete myth…

Gee Istanbul is a busy place. According to various reports we’ve received there are either 10 million, 12 million or 20 million living in Istanbul. Thankfully, our taxi from the airport only took an hour (some other people from our tour party tell a story of a 2.5 hour trip! Blast that!). Our hotel on the first night, the Conrad, is 5 star, so is extremely nice and extremely expensive. After the welcome briefing we headed straight over the road to cheaps-ville to get some decent tucker without paying an arm and a leg. Great local food – just what we were after!

ABM on the Bosphorus

The start of the bus tour was of course an early one – wouldn’t want to mess up the schedule now! We went for a boat ride up the Bosphorus – past several great sites, including palaces, mansions, and some amazing bridges. It was freezing, so you had to stand in just the right place to make the trip bearable – but it was worth it.

Fort on the Bosphorus

Real Estate on the Bosphorus

From the boat, it was back on the bus to transfer across from the Europe side to the Asian side – then on to another ferry to a supermarket place for lunch (this was not our first choice – but the food was cheap and edible). Next stop was Iznik where we saw the ruins of an impressive roman wall, and a church from the 8^th century.

The city of Bursa was the next surprise, stopping at the tomb of the sultans (very impressive)

Tomb of Sultan - 1421

and a mosque where the girls donned scarves to comply with local tradition. The silk market beckoned, and Sandra made an investment… Our hotel is very pleasant and overlooks a lovely city, built up against very high mountains. The population is about 1.5million – so it’s a small city by Turkish standards, but very picturesque. Wish we had some more time to just potter around, but we’re on a schedule!!!

Tomorrow we’re heading to Ankara (the capital city of Turkey) where the internet won’t be free like Bursa – so hopefully we’re able to blog tomorrow (the Conrad in Istanbul charged about $26NZD for one hour on the internet – so we passed!!!).

Hey Nikki! A house is a house – but we’ve put in a special picture of the houses along the river just for you! Hope you enjoy!!!

Macca – how are the animals??? [K] Neil says you would enjoy the beer – Efe Pilsner and dark!!!

The long awaited brunch day was finally here! Being careful not to eat anything, we headed over to the Wafi for a nice coffee before getting dressed up for brunch.

BsKnee having brunch at the Dusit

The chosen venue for brunch was the Dusit Thani (which is actually a 5 star Thai hotel). On the 24^th floor of the Dusit, there are great views towards the beach side of Dubai. We had a window seat, in a cubicle all to ourselves – and we were feeling pretty good about it! Then, the gluttony began…

We had seafood of all sorts, Thai dishes, meat dishes, sushi, sashimi, cheese, deserts, you name it!!!

Desert at the Dusit

– the food was absolutely glorious! One of the features has to be the chocolate fountain – where chocolate flows and you can dip marshmallows and strawberries into it. And, of course, there was as much wine and beer as you wanted. We kept our composure and kept it seemly, but had plate after plate of delicious food. Not sure if the Dusit made any money out of us – but we had a fantastic time. We rolled out 4 hours after we started, feeling pretty fat and happy.

THE Chocolate Fountain

After a wee rest (gee – eating that much food is so tiring), we went over to the Wafi again, but certainly couldn’t face eating anything! We had a couple of quiets in a bar/restaurant called Carters, and called it a night.

On our last full day in Dubai before heading to Turkey, we had plans to meet up with a friend of Karla’s called Delanie.

Lunch at the Lime Tree Cafe

Well, as it so happens the world continues to be such a small place. Delanie’s husband works for the same company as Neil and Sandra’s son Mark – and they knew each other! The venue for lunch was the Lime Tree café – a place we’d been before and enjoyed – but this time we got to walk in the front entrance (last time it was Ramadan and we had to sneak in the back). The place was pumping, and we enjoyed a relaxing time with Delanie, Andrew, Jack and Jamie. That’s all of us in the photo.

On the way back to the hotel, another investment was made at the gold souk… will it ever end???

Tomorrow we’re off to Turkey to begin our tour there. Not sure of the chances of being able to post anything tomorrow – but if we can – we will!

The name of the game today was relaxing. We had a leisurely start to the day – and boy did we need it!

We sloped off to the Wafi centre and poked around some of the shops in the souk there. Stopped for the best coffee on tour so far – it tasted as good as it looked…

The afternoon was spent relaxing by the pool, then we headed off to the Dubai Mall again – this time to see the fountains

Fountain at Dubai Mall

– which are spectacular. There is a different show every 20-30 minutes, and they’ve really done a good job. When some of the water jets go up high, they sound like thunder – and it’s all done to music too. There was some sea fog rolling in tonight – and it looked amazing as it swirled around the Burj Khalifah (the tallest building that we’ve mentioned before).

After that, we did a quick investment in the gold souk, via Abra at night.

NandS at Jumeriah

Day 14 involved a trip to Jumeriah beach. We lazed on the deck chairs on the beach, had a bite to eat and headed back to the hotel.

Neil and Karla went off on a desert safari in the afternoon, while Sandra headed back to the Dubai mall for some uninterrupted and unpressured shopping.

Whilst the safari driver seemed like he had the mute button pressed, Neil and Karla enjoyed the trip along with our Angolan and Portuguese companions. It involved a quick stop at a place where you can hire quad bikes (we didn’t) and there was a little monkey that liked to grab things from people’s pockets – very entertaining! After a mad ride across the desert, we hit the blacktop only to find camels ambling in the middle of the road!

Camels on the road

At least the driver let us stop for photos. When we got to the camp, Karla finally had a camel ride,

Karla on a camel

 and we wandered around the various stalls – trying on some traditional garb (Neil piked), smoking some hubbly-bubbly, and looking at the henna tattoos (no – we didn’t do that either). The camp was quite well organised – they catered for about 200 people + (BBQ feed was fantastic) and they had a pretty good quality show with some amazing dancing. Then it was time to head back to the hotel so we have a chance to catch up on the blog!

Once again, thanks for all the awesome comments everyone has been leaving – it is really neat to hear from each and every one of you (and special thanks for being well Jan – we love your commentary!).

Nikki – Poppa enjoyed talking English with the Jordanian children.

Tomorrow we are heading off for a traditional Dubai Friday brunch – can’t wait!!!

Over and out from the sheikess…

We wanted to spend a little more time in downtown Amman this morning, so arranged for William (the taxi driver from our first day in Amman) to collect us and take us for a walking tour of the downtown area.

This time, we had the chance to stop and look at the shops and the buildings without being too pressured for time. We stopped by the Nymphaeum (old roman public fountain from the 2^nd century) which was actually closed for restoration. It was obviously very impressive in its day. We went past the roman amphitheatre again – but this time walked past to see the small theatre. If you’re on a budget in Amman, you can go to the small theatre for free.

NandS in small theatre

It was really cute – and very well restored. It is obviously still used for concerts – which would be an amazing experience!

A couple of touristy shops beckoned and a few small items were purchased with our dwindling Jordanian dinars. A last stop at the kanafah shop again for the sweet cheese treat was the order of the day. The plan was for that to keep us going until we got a feed on the plane.

Karla on Streets of Amman

The two hour downtown tour was over almost as quickly as it started and we returned to the hotel to pack and get ready for our flight back to Dubai.

The airport in Amman is interesting – the women get frisked twice in a special closed off area. Despite the fact that Karla and Sandra were wearing normal clothes, we still got subjected to the past down treatment! Neil however, got off scot free. Interesting!

The flight was reasonably uneventful, unless you count a guy sitting near us who managed to somehow scoff two meals before we even got ours, and perhaps around 6 bottles of wine. He certainly demanded a lot of attention from the cabin crew. Some not so nice names to describe him come to mind…

We arrived in Dubai safely, there was nobody at the airport, and we were at the hotel within 45 minutes of landing. Amazing! Anyone coming to Dubai must try and get flights that arrive at this time – it was a nice change from the hustle and bustle we’ve experienced in the past.

After a suitable de-briefing on Jordan we retired for the night – planning to have a relaxing day tomorrow – the first of the whole trip!

On our last full day in Jordan, the weather turned it on for us. It was like a great NZ summers day. Thankfully it was hot and we didn’t need a full breakfast (cos we couldn’t have one – the hotel had run out of hot food – and we had breakfast before 8am!!!).

First stop was the mosque for tourists. It is the only mosque that we could go to in Jordan. Sandra and Karla donned some long sleeved hooded garb so that we didn’t offend anyone when we entered the mosque. The mosque was one big open space, with busloads of tourists trooping through. The three of us got a bit lost with the large groups…

Next stop was the roman amphitheatre – which is as impressive as it looks in photos.

Roman Amphitheatre

Neil and Karla climbed all the way to the top – and boy those steps were steep. There were two museums in the complex, and they were both very good – one had an excellent collection of models in local costumes. In one museum, Neil was inundated by school kids – they tried their English on us, wanting to know what our favourite fish, bird, season etc was. It was classic!

Neil with school kids at museum

BsKnee near the Throne Room

We then made it up to the Citidel again – which was a completely different experience to our first day here when the heavens were full-throttle open. Our driver, Ibrahim, insisted on taking us to a local place to eat Kanafa – which is a sweet sort of cheese thing. The place apparently has a very good reputation and the Kanafa was delicious!!!

Apparently there is nowhere for tourists to stay in Salt – and we certainly felt like we were the only non-locals when we went to visit this town. The museum was opened up for us, room by room, and we got some strange looks as we wandered through the town. They had a souk of sorts – but looking closely, a lot of the stuff was made in China – shame!

Old guys playing a game in Salt

On our wander, we saw a bunch of older men playing a game with stones – looks like they were having a great time!

Lunch in Fuheis

For lunch, we thought we would try a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet: Zuwwadeh, in a place called Fuheis. It turned out to be a real gem. On our way out, the owner/manager insisting on showing us where the King ate when he came to visit the restaurant! We figured if it was good enough for the king – it was certainly good enough for us!!!

Last stop for the day was a bazaar with some really high quality items on sale. We didn’t feel like buying anything – but we still got a gift on our way out! That sort of thing epitomises the Jordanian people – they are just so generous, and all they want is for you to have a good time in their country. Everywhere you go, you get “Welcome Jordan” or if their English is very good “Where you from? Welcome Jordan”. This has been a fantastic trip – pretty busy in the 10 days we’ve been here – but we wouldn’t give up anything (except maybe 1 or 2 hours of the 4×4 trip in Wadi Rum).

We probably won’t blog tomorrow – as we arrive in Dubai late – so look for a double instalment the following day.