My Experience in Turkey...

Ok, very long while didn't write anything on the blog liao. I dun want it to die like that, so i'll post something super long here. It might be boring but it's about my trip to Turkey in December last year. I wrote this post every night after the tour in Turkey. But i only post it now because i need to compile the photos and upload it, which is really a very troublesome thing to do.. But i manage to complete it now, so here's the post....

Anyway i hope u all can read it, cos i think it's really a very fun experience... although y writing might not be impressive, nor the photo-skill, but hope it can inspire the 4E guys to save up and go for oversea holiday together, it's really a veyr nice experience....

Lastly, turkey is really a very nice country... It's being hit by the bird-flu, now, but i really hope it's ok... so now is my account of my tour in Turkey...

Day 1 (Singapore-Bangkok-Istanbul-Bolu)

Ok, at Changi Airport, Seow and weiting come and send me off. Haha, we ate some tow-huay at jollibean, talk some cock and then me and my sis went thru the custom at around 2150. We are quite glad to know that the Singaporean guide from Sino-American Travel agency will be following us to Turkey and over there the trip will be led by a local guide there. So there will be someone guiding us through all the transitting and so on.

So the flight we are taking is Turkish Airline, TK61. Departing at 2255 Singapore Time. It will make a transit at Bangkok and then to Istanbul. The type of plane we are taking is Airbus A340-300. This is my first time taking Airbus plane. I’ve only taken Boeing planes before. 747, 777, 737 and 767. I’ve read from aviation forum saying that Airbus plane is quiter and so on, but then seriously I cannot feel any difference.

And again this is my 1st ever time taking non first-tier airline. The previous few I took are SIA, Cathay Pacific, Qantas/British Air and United Airline. Those are good airlines while Turkish airline is not much heard of. Nvm…

Anyway, there isn’t any entertainment on board of the plane, no movie to watch no games to play. I was pondering whether they would serve any meal on the leg form Singapore to Bangkok or not cos it was a really short flight, something like 2 hours only. Anyway they served, so happy. It was mutton pasta, the dessert is some chocolate coated puff with a lot of cream inside. DAMN SHIOK MAN!!!!!

We reached Bangkok at around 0010 bangkok time. We have options to stay in the plane or take a walk at Bangkok Airport. Of course we chose to take a walk at the airport. I’ve never been to Thailand before, so it’s good to leave my foot-print on the thai soil. Anyway it’s damn funny to hear people speak thai, their girls are quite cute also. Think 4E guys shld go visit Thailand together one day.

Then the same plane departed Bangkok International Airport at ard 0100 then it’s really a vry long way to Istanbul…. Took more than 10 hours lor. But when you look at the screen showing the location of the plane, it’s really quite fun. As in I cant believe I spent about 1+hours in Iraqi sky and so on…. But 90% of the flight I was conserving energy sleeping, ate another 2 more meals on the plane. I think it’s damn fattening. Keep eating on plane and not moving around… oh just to mention, the air-stewardess some are quite old and not chio also. Somemore they quite fierce, will scold you if u didn’t put sit-belt on and so on….

Finally we touched down at Istanbul at 0630, 08/12/2005, local time. Istanbul in winter is 6 hours slower than Singapore, so we actually have a flight of a total of almost 15 hours. At the airport we did the usual stuff, check out, take luggage and I changed US$80 to YTL 100+… The exchange rate is 1 : 1.3… Last time Turkey used to use an old currency which is pretty much like the Rupiah, which is in millions and so on one…. But then 2 years ago they adopted the new Turkish lira which cancelled the 6zeroes behind.

Ok, then we met the local tour guide, and proceed to the sight-seeing immediately. The 1st stop is to the Hippodrome. Hippodrome is the place where all the Ancient Rome sports activities took place. Gladiator fighting and chariot race took place here. As you all know Istanbul was once Constantinople which was the capital city of the Byzantine Roman Empire. Therefore this Hippodrome is quite a big one. However actually what we were actually seeing is the ruins of it cos the barbaric turks or arabs or whoever from the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople that time they sort of tore down everything and then only 3 relics was left….

Next one is besides this Hippodrome was the Blue Mosque. This Blue Mosque is built by this whatever Sultan Mehmet or dunno how to spell his name la. The special thing about this thing is that it seems that it is the only mosque in the world with 6 pointed pillars. Cant even remember what these pillars are called. But then 2 pillars means built by rich pple, 4 pillars means built by sultan, 6 means very powerful sultan and only this blue mosque got 6. and then going into this blue mosque gotta take off shoe, This is the erxin part man. KNN, after so many walking and 10+ hours of flight, when everyone is taking off the shoe, wah lao eh, the spell is like f***, still better than yaohui that horrible day. And one more thing is that this building is like the 1st to have a dome roof.

St Sophia Museum or AyaSofya in turk is the next one. This is originally a church, I think built by Justinian, then converted to Mosque when the turks conquered it. However the contradicting part is that this building inside got paintings and mosaics of Jesus, Virgin Mary, some saints and then also got arabics words writing the name of their prophet mohammed and ALLAH!!!! How can Jesus living wif allah???

Then at this point we saw some turkey children. I think they are on school excursion. There are classes of them. All of them very 热情奔放 man. Everyone of them will say hello to you when walking past you. Some thought that we are Japanese and say Kon-ni-chi-wa. They are very cute, all of them have very sharp features, CUTE….

Tokapi Palace is next. It is something like 大内紫禁. The palace of their sultans during the Ottoman Empire era. Nothing to shout about, jst that when they showed the costumes being wore by the Sultans, it’s really quite amazing. They’re damn big size, showing how fat these asses were. They displayed some of the pottery and silverwares here as well. At a certain place you can see the separation of the Asia and Europe continents. And the bridge linking them. Both sides are still Istanbul city.

Then we went to some restaurant to eat lunch. Nothing special. Only their rice is butter rice, quite nice…. After lunch we took a coach out of Istanbul and to the nxt city Bolu. Throughout the ride in Istanbul, you can see the city wall of the old Constantinople. These walls are more than 1000 years man. Nice right?

So it’s coach ride all the way till Bolu. This Bolu is a mountain resort. Have dinner there and then elsewhere is quite a quiet city, no place to walk about so return to hotel room to rest. In the hotel, I managed to complete Civilisation 4. I won by Space Quest. By the way I founded Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, ISLAMITY and Christianity. It’s so easy finding religion, so yaohui, I conclude that you SUCKS!!!!!!



















Day 2 (Bolu-Ankara-Cappadocia)

Early morning we had breakfast and then coach ride again. We are leaving Bolu to Ankara. Ankara is the capital city of Turkey. So in Ankara we saw a lot of govt buildings. Their armed force buildings and also embassies.

In Ankara, we visited 2 sites. 1st is the Anatolia Museum. This museum displayed a lot of the artifacts from pre-historic times. The rock paintings, all the ancient languages and writings, their weapons made from stone n rock. Then the bronze age, where things made of bronze, pottery again and so on. In this place, we met some children again and then we saw some high school students also. Their high school is equivalent to our JC la. These high school students not as spontaneous as the children. They jst walked past without shouting hello non-stop. But then a very chiobu walked past and say HELLO TO ME. DAMN HIGH LIAO!!!! But I humki didn’t take photo with her, then after that damn regret. Sainz……

The 2nd place we go in Ankara is Antaturk Masoleum. Antaturk is their 国父, just like LKY to s’pore, and 孙中山 to Taiwan and so on. So this place is his tomb, monument to memorate him. It is at the same time the museum of Turkey’s independence. Showing how they achieve independence after the old Ottoman Empire was being split into pieces by the allies after WWI. There is also a very big parade square like Tian-an-men there. It will hold all the parades and ceremonies and so on…

We have lunch at a Kebab restaurant which serves only Kebab and nothing else. Specialized sia…Then again is the coach ride to another place, Cappadocia or Kapadokya. When we reached there it’s already dinner time. Had buffet dinner and then supposed to be resting time in hotel. But then I went out to walk around in the town. Though most of the shops are closed but it’s okay. It’s really very stress-free walking around slowly after dinner in a winter night at some unknown places. I was thinking actually it’s quite good to open some shop here. I wont be rich but also wont starve to death, and it is not competitive at all. Dunno why need to study and so stress and so on… haiz….

After about an hour walk, it’s getting colder so returned to the hotel to rest….



















Day 3 (Cappadocia)

Yeah, a full day of activities at Cappadocia /Kapadokya. I think it must be the highlight of the tour man. The first place we went is the underground cities. This place is very marvelous, it’s being dug underground up to 8th floor deep. It’s dug by the Christian inhabitants around 1000 years ago to hide from the Muslim conquerors. It’s something like the Underground connection being dug by the VietCong in the viet-war, but then it lasted more than 1000 years and still had not collapsed. Inside got everything like kitchen, chapel, winery, toilets storage and so on. There’s a chimney linking every floor to the top for air ventilation… room space is big enough for liren to stand upright. While tunnels linking different chambers are pretty narrow and and low ceiling, gotta bend really low… but it’s a great place Simply amazing.

Then we went to the Pottery Factory. Inside there we see this traditional handicraft of the Turkey pple. We often see the spinning machine where the workers will mould the wet clay on top of it, but then in this factory, we get to see how pottery is being made b4 such machine was being invented. They basically used their legs to kick the wheel to get the machine spinning, it’s dam cool watching the worker doing the demonstration. He managed to create a little tea-pot within 5 minutes, speedy turks sia… Then we get to see them drawing, painting and heating the pottery. During the tour, they treat us to apple tea, some turk special tea. Very nice!!! After the tour we were led to the place where they display all the potteries. I actually wanted to buy some, but then it’s really expensive. A small one which used to contain 酱油 after discount cost 14USD, WTF??? But then it’s really damn nice, they even have some special designs which comes with certs, cost at least 200USD.... haiz…. Cant afford.

Then it’s buffet lunch and after lunch we went to Goreme open-air Museum. This is another fantastic place. It’s some lava from volcano eruption dried up and then after years of weathering, it formed some very beautiful landscape and then the Christians at around 5th century again dug into these dried up lava to build monastries. Inside the chapels and so on, u can see the paintings from thousands years ago, you can still see them, too bad cannot take photo…. It’s really damn nice. Hard to climb around the place also…

After that we went to Carpet Factory. Another educational tour. In the factory, gotta see the girls weaving the carpet. They showed us how Turkey carpet is diff form other carpets. Cos their weaving method is different, using dbl knots… anyway their speed is damn fast however they still need a year to finish 1 carpet. In the factory we also get to see how they extract silk from cocoon, how they dye their wool and so on…. The dye they use are natural dye, brown color from hazelnut, red from rose-mary, yellow from tobacco and then green from indigo. How to get blue then? They let the green oxidized and it’ll become different shade of blue, good chemistry by the turks. Same, they led us to the shop area, we again wanted to buy a small carpet. But guessed the price man. A small silk-on-silk carpet with the size of a small table cost USD3750…. So not buying anything again. But then they treat us to drink apple tea again. Haha

In the day-time, when we’re traveling from places to places, we gotta stop in btw to take picture of the very beautiful landscape of Cappadocia. There are hunter’s, pigeons’ and mushrooms valleys.

Dinner at hotel and after dinner we went to one of caves to see performance. Turkish folk dance and the famous belly-dance. Got dragged by the dancers to go down and dance with them, quite fun, like mini-chiong. HAHA… Then the belly dance also vry nice. The dancer had a fat belly but can also see the muscle beneath it. Do some very stunning moves also. Free flow of apple tea being served throughout the 1.5 hour performace. The dancers make it a vry fun and enjoyable performance. Very nice.




















































Day 4 (Cappadocia-Konya-Pamukkale)

Early in the morning 5am we were given the morning call cos we’ve signed up for the optional tour in Cappadocia. That is the hot-air balloon tour. It was supposed to be a one hour ride around the fabulous city of Cappadocia, costing an additional Euro140. However when we reached the balloon place, the fog was forming up quickly. Visiblity was very low, therefore we waited there while breakfast being served to us. Just too bad, after half an hour wait, the fog still didn’t clear and we gotta follow the schedule and the balloon ride was cancelled. A bit disappointed but then come and think about it, it’s abt $280 saved leh, haha. One thing gotta mention, the balloon company people was quite professional la, at least they cancelled the ride adnd did not bring us up and see nothing and waste our $$.

Then we went back to hotel had our 2nd breakfast after that we left the beautiful town of Cappadocia. It’s really a very nice place. And by the time we leaving, the fog is still there, we were actually so lucky that the fog is today and not yesterday, if not we will not be able to see all the things and take all the pictures we taken and seen yesterday.

Ok, so today is basically a lot of coach riding. Almost a full day of traveling, 650km of road, taking us from the central Cappadocia to the western Pamukkale via Konya. We were told that the journey we were on today was part of the silk road. We have lunch in a place called the Camel Inn. It was a place where the traders and merchants of the olden time they rest while travelling on the silk road. It’s another place of rich history.

We continue after lunch there. The only site we gotta see today is the Mevlana Museum in Konya. This Museum is to commemorate the guy named Mevlana, he seems to be some Islam great teacher and bla bla bla bla…. This Konya city is the religious center of Turkey. A lot of Muslims went for pilgrimage as it was a Sunday and it’s a one-week festival period of the place. I saw an old lady when she saw a strand of hair of their prophet Mohammed, she was so touched that she cried and kissed the container containing the hair, YUCks….

After that we went continue the ride to Pamukkale. This Pamukkale is in Denizli. For those who watch soccer should have heard the club Denizlispor, occasionally playing in UEFA cup. We reached the hotel nearly 8pm, and have our dinner. This Pamukkale is famous for the hot-spring. A lot of European went there for the Hot-spring. Anyway tonight I watched the replay of Galatassaray vs Beksitas which Galatassaray won 3-2, quite nice match. There’s also a porn channel in this hotel. It’s totally uncensored. HAHA!!!



Day 5 (Pamukkale-Kusadasi)

Left the hotel with porn channel at around 0830. First place to go is the Hierapolis ruins. It’s an ancient Rome city. Not very big, saw something like the Domatians Gates and so on… Not very big scale.

After that it’s the Cotton castle. It’s not some historic castle. It’s named as cotton castle because the place got those dunno what spring water or wat la, flowing down the mountain and then the water condense or wateva, I think it contained a lot of Calcium Carbonate and then it condensed to form this very beautiful scenery after thousands of years. The water flowing through is warm also though the winter is rather cold in Turkey.

Went to a leather shop after that, saw some fashion show. Leather is one of the main export of Turkey. So we took a look at the shop after the fashion show. The price is actually not very expensive. USD600+ you can get a big leather jacket. But then still not affordable to us and then not very practical as well.

After that is lunch time. And after lunch we went to a town called Seljuk, over there is the House of Virgin Mary. As Christian, I don’t bother about where Mary stays. But according to the Catholics, it’s the place where Mary, the mother of Jesus, stayed in the years b4 she passed away. And it had became an attraction for the Catholic pilgrims. Though I have doubts about whether it’s true or not, but then nonetheless, the house being kept after 2000 years is an attraction by itself whether Mary stayed there or not.

Next is the City of Ephesus. For those Christian will know that there is a book in the Bible which is the letter by Paul the Apostle to the Ephesians. This is the Ephesus. This place an important city in Greece time and then to the Roman Empire, it became the center of ruling and administration of the Asia Minor part. We walked on the main avenue of the Ephesus City and saw temples, gates dedicated to the roman gods and goddess, ie Hercules, artemis, bla bla bla… Saw their houses also. There’s a certain part of the city where the road were all mosaics, it’s the high-class residential area. There’s this Library of Celsius. Just damn grand with 4 statues in front of it, representing, wisdom, courage, thoughts and knowledge. Took a photo of their public toilet also. It’s a place where men talked business. So the ancient Romans will all shit together and talk cock. So cool and hippie. Let’s organized some shitting outing nxt time. HAHA!!! Lastly, there’s this very big Amphitheatre with a capacity of 25000. The guide said that this amphitheatre is still active today. Stings, Elton John and some other singers had held concerts there. The amazing part about this amphitheatre is that its acoustic system is 1st-class. You dunnid any microphone or loud speaker, just a gentle whisper, anywhere in the amphitheatre u can hear it clearly. Supered engineering by the ancient Romans. The only regret in this place is that I accidentally press some button in the camera and some photo tt were taken are very blurred image. Haiz….

After that the guide brought us to an authentic apple tea shop to buy apple tea and Turkish delights. After that, we reached our hotel and have dinner so on…. The place we stayed is the western coast of Turkey. At the hotel can see a perfect view of the famous Aegean Sea (愛琴海)….

























Day 6 (Kusadasi-Pergamon-Canakkale)

Another buffet breakfast in the morning. I think I’ve gained a lot of fats and weight during this trip. Fatty Lo. After breakfast, we drove along the coastal line of Aegean Sea, it’s really scenic. Here is some of the picture of Aegean Sea taken from the balcony of the hotel.

Then we reached the Pergamon Acropolis. Another ancient city ruins of greek or roman origin. It is a smaller scale as compared to Ephesus which we visited the previous day. It is just about 1/5 the size of Ephesus, but the attractive part of this city is that the temple of the Roman emperor Trajan or dunno how to spell his name is nicely preserved, can see almost the whole structure there.

Then in the afternoon we went to this place called the Asclepion. This is a medical center in the ancient Roman time. This medical center is big scale one, got concert hall, bath, market and cemetery to bury the patients died in the hospital. This hospital is built by the famous doctor in the Roman Empire Galen. This guy performed autopsy on dead people which was a taboo in the olden time. He also treated the injured gladiators, so he’s very good dealing with injuries and studied the muscle and internal organ very well and so on so on.

After which we traveled to our hotel. The journey for the whole day was along the Aegean coast, damn nice. We also passed by their agricultural area. December is the harvesting season of Olive, which is one of the main plantations in Turkey. We got to see a lot of farmers working on the field. As we were at the western part of turkey, most of the people are of European origin who are more chio, unlike in the previous few days we saw turks with asian origins who are generally uglier la!!!

Day 7 (Canakkale-Istanbul)

Today it’s the 7th day. The 1st thing that we do is to go to the ancient city of Troy. Think everyone shld be familiar with the story of the big horse and so on, so wont elaborate here. Anyway, Troy was being dug earlier in the 1900s by some german with the name Schliemann or smth like tt. But when he successfully found the artifacts of Troy, he smuggled it back to Germany instead and then left turkey for good. So a lot of treasure is being lost in the process. Now the archaelogy digging stuff is still being carried for 3 months every year at the site in the summer period. Troy is really a big amazing place. Cos it had like 7 or 9 layers, one on top of another. So it’s something like 层出不穷. But the horse there is fake one la. Something like a playground like that.

After that we continue the coach ride and take a ferry back to the European part of Turkey. During the ferry ride, I managed to get into the control room and see the captain control the ferry and docking it. It’s really a nice experience. He told me some story also, telling me that he had been sailing around the world and have been to Singapore 22 years ago. But when he got married, he settled down and put hold his sailing career.

After reaching the European side, we went to the WWI battle site between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies. There is the place where mass burial took place after the war and I manage to find a tombstone of a soldier borning on the same day as me…

After the battle field visit, Another 2 hour ride took us back to Istanbul. The Largest city of Turkey. Istanbul is really different from other part of Turkey. It’s juts like any European city, not those poor poor type. Anyway we went to the famous Grand Bazaar for shopping in the evening and that’s it for the night. Of course, buffet dinner again…

Day 8 ( Istanbul )

Today, when the other member in the tour took up the optional tour to take a cruise along the bosphorus straits, which is the straits that separate Asia and Europe. I decided to walk alone in the city of Istanbul and explore the place. Partly because dun wanna waste money on the cruise also. USD70 leh… Then I got the chance to take the Tram in Istanbul, another great experience cos I think taking the country’s public transport means that you gotta try and experience a little part of their everyday life, instead of going everywhere on cruise. Then we managed to to navigation form one place to another and manage to find this place call the Taksim square which is equivalent to the Orchard Road of Singapore. It was a very long walk, and juts to tell you all that Singapore is a very nice place. Cos the land is generally flat everywhere. When I was in HK, the land is sloping in every single street. It’s very hard to walk around, damn tiring. Turkey is the same case. Me and my sis walked or take tram 2 hours from our hotel to the Square, but then really got the sense of achievement la. Manage to ask direction from pple who speak no English and so on…

We managed to meet our tour group in the afternoon and joined them for the rest of the day as we were very very tired already. Thn we toured the miniaTurk park which is a mini version of the whole country. So it juts serve well as a summary to the whole tour… At night we went to this very huge shopping center to see see. This place is at least 6 times the size of Paragon… Damn big.. Ok then it’s time to go back to Singapore. Went to the Ataturk International Airport at 1930 and yes, took the flight TK60 home. Will be home in another 13 hours. YEAH!!!! What a nice journey….