Canakkale and Gallipoli
Most of Wednesday was taken up with an eight hour bus trip to Canakkale. This actually wasn’t as horrendous as it sounds. The bus was comfy and air-conditioned and we were brought drinks and snacks along the way. We’re not sure whether it reached the predicted 58 degrees- the thermometer on our bus only reached 46 degrees… At any rate, we were happy to be in an air-conditioned environment for most of the day.
Canakkale is a really different sort of town from our previous stop, Kusadasi. Kusadasi is a rapidly growing city and is primarily funded from cash from cruise ships and day trippers from the Greek Islands. As a consequence, wherever you go, people are trying to help you part with your cash, whether it is for restaurants, leather jackets or ‘genuine fake’ watches. I’d have to say that I was beginning to find Kusadasi a bit overwhelming… Canakkale, on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. Of course there are people trying to sell things everywhere. However, they seem to lack the grap-you-off-the-street-and-show-you-everything-in-the-shop/restaurant approach of Kusadasi. Today I went for a 10 minute walk and only had to say “no thanks” 3-4 times… rather than 20-30 times. Phew!
We are now travelling with Marty’s sister Ngaire and her hubbie Paul and have just had an outstanding day doing a tour of the Gallipoli Peninsula. We had a very knowledgeable tour guide and were, once again, in an air-conditioned bus. It was amazing to see the sites that you hear and read about and to imagine the landscape that the Gallipoli battles occurred in.
Just to prove that it’s a small world, we came across this at Chunk Blair:
Canakkale is a really different sort of town from our previous stop, Kusadasi. Kusadasi is a rapidly growing city and is primarily funded from cash from cruise ships and day trippers from the Greek Islands. As a consequence, wherever you go, people are trying to help you part with your cash, whether it is for restaurants, leather jackets or ‘genuine fake’ watches. I’d have to say that I was beginning to find Kusadasi a bit overwhelming… Canakkale, on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. Of course there are people trying to sell things everywhere. However, they seem to lack the grap-you-off-the-street-and-show-you-everything-in-the-shop/restaurant approach of Kusadasi. Today I went for a 10 minute walk and only had to say “no thanks” 3-4 times… rather than 20-30 times. Phew!We are now travelling with Marty’s sister Ngaire and her hubbie Paul and have just had an outstanding day doing a tour of the Gallipoli Peninsula. We had a very knowledgeable tour guide and were, once again, in an air-conditioned bus. It was amazing to see the sites that you hear and read about and to imagine the landscape that the Gallipoli battles occurred in.
Just to prove that it’s a small world, we came across this at Chunk Blair:
We intended to have a quick dinner and an early night but ended up being seduced by cheap Turkish beer and an offer to watch a man play guitar. While we were having dinner, the man next to us came over and said that he would be playing guitar in a nearby pub and that we could come and watch him if we liked. The first couple of songs he played were cheesy classics hits (‘Wonderful tonight’ and ‘Hotel California’) but shortly into the set, he was joined by another fellow on a traditional Turkish instrument whose name I can’t recall. It was roughly the same size and shape as an autoharp and was played using picks on the fingers. It ended up being a very cool outing and we had the sense of being part of ordinary Turkish life, rather the just ‘for the tourists’.
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