Jodhpur - another big fort!

To come...

Jaipur

We saw most of the Jaipur sites on our first day whilst we still had our driver. Was a huge day so will let the pictures do the talking.

Amber Fort - Huge fort, yes another one. Houses the world's biggiest cannon on wheels. Apparently it takes a 100kg of gunpowder to shoot a distance of 35km. It was tested and apparently, because they were nice to their neighbours iot wasn't used in practice. Dean and I were both suspicious of how effective it could be....

Nahargarh (or Tiger Fort) - views of Jaipur and pretty interior paintings, but beware, monkeys have taken over some rooms. Made Dean and I a little wary. Last thing we wanted was to be attacked by a monkey!

The Hawa Mahal is several stories high and was apparently built so that women - who had to be covered or stay inside thier homes - could watch an event in hte street. OR, it was a building dedicated to Hari Krishna, depends what you read.

The Pink Palace and the surrounding Pink city is pink because they apply a rose-water wash to the buildings.

Jantar Mantar observatory - many sun-dials to let us know the time to the second, the alignment of the star signs (this also helps to tell us which are the lucky days to get married), and also to tell us if particular spirits are in the northern or southern hemisphere.

Afterall this touring, Dean and I decided to take a day off. We spent our second day in Jaipur sleeping in, watching a bollywood movie and shopping. The shopping was great fun. We headed to the bazaars and bargained and soaked in Jaipur.

At last, the Taj Mahal

Dean and I booked a driver for three days to travel the 'golden triangle' of tourist sites reasonably close to Delhi. Basically to get us to see the Taj.

Ringku, our driver, firstly took us to the home town of Hari Krishna. But thanks to my lateness in starting that morning (a little climatic sickness) we missed the opening time for the temple. But the outside was very impressive. Just no Govinda's unfortunately.

Next stop was Agra, home of Agra Fort and the Taj. Agra Fort was massive. Again in Red Sandstone, this Fort had assembly halls for the Maharaja to meet his guests along with usual palace and temples that you find in a fort. One feature that Dean particularly liked though was the courtyard where the Maharaja would play a backgammon-like game - using dancing women as his pieces. That and the views of the Taj of course.

Agra Fort

By now we were weary and it was time to check into our hotel - but just before we could rest for the evening, the hotel man told us where we could sneak a view of the Taj for sunset, and that was where we got our first glimpse.

Taj at sunset

Next morning we dragged ourselves away from hte fan of our room at 5:30am to go and see the sunrise at the Taj. Very impressive. The entry gates and surrounding walls are nice enough, but the Taj itself was very nice. White marble tattoed with floral designs, very majestic.

The Taj at sunrise

After a few hours we dragged ourselves away and headed for Keoladeo National Park, known for it's birds. In a months time the monsoon will be in full swing and many brids migrating from other parts fo the world will fill the park. For now, we still saw a few. For the bird enthusiasts, we saw storks (no babies), herrons, egrets, parrots, and the rest of the names i can't remember. We also saw jackals, more monkeys, cows (they really are everywhere), huge turtles, a strange ferret like thing, and lots of antelopes and spotted dear. The best bit was the interactions between species. We watched as the Egrets walked beside the cows to eat the bugs from them and were lucky enough to see a viper in a tree being sqawked at by many species of birds/potential dinners. This was really cool because even though they could be eaten any second, the birds would try to scare the snake away by swooping in to peck it head. And when that snake moved, we saw how long it was... Our guide - being the wanker that he is - decided to walk under the tree to get a closer look. Dean and I stayed a little further behind. Unfortunately the guide wasn't bitten and thankfully we didn't see a bird or eggs go down either.

Strange Turtles

Cheeky viper

PS. we did this tour on bike, and living up to expectations, in the last kilometre Dean's bike got a puncture - is that 3 or 4 times now D? :)

The final mention for Keoladeo was the excellent guesthouse we stayed at. Jungle Lodge was excellent. The room was super cheap, it was run by a lovely family who cooked us a delicious Indian meal from scratch, and it had the cutest dog i had seen in ages. Dean groaned as I went completely nuts for the first hour we were there playing with the little fluffball, then went to play with him later himself. We were both sad to leave this guesthouse, we would have stayed for longer had we not locked ourself to our driver.

Welcome to Delhi

Walking the inspirational corridor from our flight, we could already feel the heat of Delhi. There were airconditioners every 20 metres or so, all working, but it was still hot. It was 3am.

Being warned about Indian's tendency to be on the eager side of touting, Dean and I had organised our pick-up from the airport to take us to our hotel. As we walking through the entry gates we realised how m,uch this had paid off. Dozens of touts were there 'taxi taxi' being shouted from every direction. Actually, one week into the India-leg of our trip, it is still being shouted at us from every direction.

After some sleep, Dean and I headed for the Red Fort in Old Delhi - we found the cheapet way there despite having failed to convince our hotel man/travel agent that we are not rich. He still does not believe us. Sure, Australia is better off, but when you are at the end of a very long trip and seriously running out of cash, the assumption of everyone around that you are loaded with cash and should give it all to them can be quite frustrating. Sorry, back to the Red Fort.

The Red Fort is a massive complex of Red Sandstone (or some other like-stone). After walking through the entry gates you are met with manicured lawns with striped squirrels ruinning around and smaller white palaces and temples, used mainly for the Maharaja to meet his subjects. Most of these were made of white marble covered with floral decorations. They were now empty of the trimmings, but were still impressive. Monkeys ran around the walls, as they seem to do in most places we've seen so far, and by now, Dean and I were taking numerous sitting breaks as we adjusted to the humidity, thankful that at least on our first day, the clouds were protecting us from the suns rays.

Getting back to our area of Delhi (Connaught Place - i kid you not) was a little more difficult. The cheap 'fatfat savers' (phonetic of course), or jeeps, were no where to be seen. We walked every direction on the same intersection for about an hour. When we asked for help, someone would try to sell us something. Nothing is for free in Delhi. Eventually we resigned to the fact that we would have to get a rick-saw (a tuk tuk, re thailand), and with the help of a tourist police man secured one for a good price. The Cop took down the reg of the rick-saw so he could collect his cut of our fare later. As I said, nothing is free in Delhi.

By Day 2 in Delhi we realised we were a little thrown out by the time jump between Turkey and India and that a driver for the day was the best option for checking out New Delhi. So we treated ourselves to an a/c car and we were so smart to do so. According to our driver it was 47 today and the sun bright was shining for all of it.

Our driver, Ringku, took us to the Presidents Palace, a magnificent building, before stopping at India Gate, where, much to Dean's fright, a guy suddenly sat on the ground a metre away from us and whipped out his flute and cobra. This guy really appeared to come from nowhere. We also saw our first monkey dance - so wrong.

Next stop was Humayan's Tomb. Built before the Taj, you can definately see the similarities, although this tomb is built of Red Sandstone with black and white marble inlays. This place was really charming. Within its complex were other tombs also including that of the Maharaja's Barber - the only man trusted enough to have a blade to the Maharaja's throat.

In India there are many religious groups that day-to-day seem to get along as we all should. A newer religion (the name that i have forgotten, oops) that cites to respect all religions and acknowleges the similarities of them, has built a Lotus temple in Delhi. Pretty basic inside but most of us will find the architecture somewhat familiar....

Back in Istanbul - for a bath!

I'm not sure if you've heard of a Hamam - a Turkish bath.

Well, obviously being here for a month, we'd heard quite a lot about them, and I figured it had to be done before we left.

What's a Turkish Bath you ask? Well, it's slightly different to a bath you might take at home. I'll walk you through it.


You pay your money (mine was about 18euro - good ol' credit card) and get your cabin key. Then, in your cabin you strip off completely, and put on your "pestemal", or towel to hide your bits.

Then you walk through to a sort of steam room. It's a large marble circular slab under a mosque-like dome, that you then lay down on to build up a sweat. You can stay as long as you like, wash some water over yourself and basically just relax.
Of course, not so easy to relax when the guy next to you has started his wash and massage, and is screaming like a baby...

So, now it's my turn. A bit fat sweaty Turk comes over to me, points and yells "lie here". Of course, I do as I'm told. He then puts his hand in a glove, sort of like a loofah but in a glove, and proceeds to take as many layers of your skin off as possible... Having just recovered from my small bout of sunburn, I think he got more than his usual amount of skin. I was smooth as a baby's afterwards.

Next, he lathers up a towel and covers you with soapy suds. Then he jumps aboard and starts doing what he might call massage, but others might call torture. I must've got mine on a good day though, because although it was quite tough, it didn't hurt, and actually felt really good afterwards. I heard bones crack that I didn't know I had. Feet, legs, back, shoulders, arms, neck, stomach - it all got a going-over. And contrary to what I've heard from others, he didn't go too far under the towel, so it was all quite comfortable.

Next, he grabbed a few buckets of water and threw them over me, washing off the soap and I guess any leftover sheets of skin.

With a few grunts that he might call words, I figure it's time to go to the next room and get a washdown. He follows me in, lathers up again, and starts going all over again, included a quick head massage, followed again by a few buckets of water to clean it all down.

He then pointed to the showers, and afterwards I came back to him, he whipped off the pestemal and gave me a fresh one, and then dressed me up in 3 huge towels to dry me off. I've never worn a towel on my head before, but it certainly did the trick.

The guy then pointed to the cabins where I was to change, and with a few more grunts explained to me that I was expected to come back down after changing and give him a tip.

That happens a lot... After I changed back into my clothes, a guy gave me a handful of cologne to finish off with, and followed this by pointing to his tip jar and saying "service". I gave him one lira and hurried downstairs, only to find my massage giant standing in front of me with his arms crossed, looking like he was ready to go another round unless I gave him a few bob. I showed him what was left in my already tattered wallet, 1.50 lira, and he was satisfied with that.

So, in all a great experience. I could probably get used to a weekly hamam. Maybe I can find one at home somewhere... maybe.

Ally would have had a go as well, but she's heard storied from others who've said that their masseuse (although normally a chick) often gets a bit carried away in the touchy-feely-stakes, so she left this experience to me instead.

Sorry - no photos! but you can check out the hamam i went to here:
http://www.cemberlitashamami.com.tr/

Antalya and Cappadocia

Welcome to Cappadocia

Not knowing where you are heading when you arrive in a town usually makes for a little adventure, especially when you have been warned over and over not to trust the taxi drivers.... Antalya was no exception.

The taxi man at Antalya Otogar (bus station) tried to convince us he was the best deal, but the bus was much cheaper so we took that option to get to town (Otogars are never in a convenient place in Turkey). So we rode the bus... we saw lots of the main town, some old walls that looked really cool and a stunning coast.... then we started to wonder how long we should be on this bus. Things were starting to look familiar and neither Dean or myslef have been here before... hmmm. When se started to see signs for the Otogar, where we had caught the bus about an hour earlier, Dean and I both decided to hop off before we embarrassingly had to face that taxi man again. So we hopped off, appreciating that we had just had a cheap city tour, and went to a taxi rank that didn't recognise us. In the end, the price was the same. At least we tried the cheap way first:)

Antalya was really just a stopover enroute to Cappadocia in central Turkey via an overnight bus. Braving the overnight buses in Turkey is no longer much of a concern. Sure i had to sit through Mousehunt in another language once again, but really, it is such a simple movie and i'm sure the lines are lame.

Slightly phallic...

Cappadocia is cool. Three volcanoes in the region led to volcanic matter eroding and leaving formations in the shapes of fairy chimneys and phallis' behind and wavey valleys to boot. We spent hours and hours on the first day checking out many of these valleys by foot and visiting the Goreme open air museum. Many of the caves and chimneys had been carved out as homes because of their stable inside temperature of 16 degrees, pretty handy when outside can range from minus temps to over 40 degrees. But they've stopped this now, except for hotels of course. The pictures give you the best idea. Apparently this is where the Pod races from the new Star Wars trilogy was set/based on. Such a funky landscape. And yes, there were Flinstone houses everywhere, even Deano felt at home hehehe

On day 2 we took a tour, because there is just so much to see here. We visited the underground city - began by Hittites thousands of years ago, the city is a series of tunnels and enclaves that could house thousands for short periods whilst a war was happening. I would much prefer to be in this place than an underground bunker like the one we saw in Berlin. It had a temple, morgue, kitchen (but just one for the whole city), ladders, booby traps in case any of the enemy came in, communication tunnels and even a 10km tunnel to another city! This place was huge.







We also took a nice easy walk through the Ilhara valley, a pretty green valley with curches built into the walls. Also saw some pottery being made... yawn. And a camel hotel. Yep a place to rest the Camels for a few days whilst travelling along teh old silk road back in the 1300s. And lots of other stuff - this tour was packed.

This place is definately worth a visit. Even with overnight buses on either side.

The Blue Cruise on the Turkish Mediterranean

Sunset, from St Nicholas Island.

Looking down at one of the Gulets from the ruins on St Nicholas Island.

From Fethiye, most travellers head for a cruise on med. We eventually decided to do the same. Arriving by our yacht (Gulet), the crew told us there had been some 'technical difficulties' and that we would have to buy our own drinks for on board. Although seeming unorganised, this worked well in our favour and saved us a small fortune.

Our boat. 14 cabins, 6 people - lovely!

Looking towards the bay of Oludeniz. Bummer I didn't get a picture of the lagoon, it's very nice.

Looking down at one of the Gulets from the ruins on St Nicholas Island, just outside of Oludeniz.

The Turkish tourist season has been very slow this year (they blame the cup, i blame the cost of getting here), so we were super lucky and had just 6 of us on our cruise. An English couple who had been on our Turtle Beach tour and a NZ brother and sister and us plus our 3 crew and guide.

Our Guide, another Aydin, was a little crazy as guides are, and had many stories that just are not suitable for print, but he was good fun and enjoyed telling us about the area. The crew were great. Our captain was such a seabum and good fun and the two seaman not only cooked us brilliant food but also really seemed to be enjoying themselves too which was cool.

It's a hard life...

The crew think so too! He's a good cook though.

We spent our 4 days sailing between gorgeous bays where we would enjoy the gorgeous sea and enjoy simply floating in this super salty water - even after a big meal. An incredibly hard 4 days of truly unwinding...

Me coming in to land (Dean that is!)

Oh yeah, almost forgot. Dean went paragliding and the second he landed, some local tried to sell him a sausage.... these guys are persistent!

Try this video (but you'll have to watch it side-on...)

Phew, made it!

Olympos - Tree Houses and the Chimera Flames

Olympos Beach. Very nice until the day-trippers start rolling in and fill it up...

Olympos, to our surprise, was incredibly small. It's basically an old hippy village with pensions lining the one road to the beach. The novelty of Olympos is that many of these pensions have 'treehouses' as the accomodation. We freaked out a little when we arrived at ours because there were people everywhere. In this quiet season we were not used to seeing so many people at the pensions - i'm talking around 200. But it was good to see that many were Turkish.

View of some of the treehouses at Kadir's

Tomb Raiders at it again. The ruins of Olympos are still covered in jungle, good fun looking for them, but hot work...

Olympos is the home to Chimera flames. These occur when gases leaking from rocks ignite when they hit the air. These are cool... or hot if you like. I couldn't help thinking that every campsite at home needs some of these:) Think about it - no arguments about who makes the best fire. No burning of loads of newspapers to keep it alight. No bother about smoeone having to remember putting it out... pretty handy. But i think the gases are running out. Set on Mt Olympos, The chimeras used to act as a warnign of land to ships at sea (quite a distance from the flames), but you can no longer see the flames from the sea.

The flames. Very weird, coming out of nowhere.

I liked this shot.

I am beginning to appreciate that these wonders we've been seeing around Turkey are not going to be here forever.

Fethiye and Oludeniz - too English!

Saklikent Gorge

From Fetihiye we headed for a day trip to Saklikent Gorge. Here, a earthquake split the mountian and created a gorge. Today, it was a very muddy flow that was later joined by fresh freezing water. Walking up the gorge was cool. Trudging through more mud, waiting to see who would fall. Dean and I did fine and Dean ended up heading for a swim, i had had enough mud from our bath.

and again...

The town of Fethiye is pretty full of English holiday-makers and restaurants catering for their tastes. But it is no comparison to Oludeniz. In Fethiye it is possible to get some lovely Turkish food, in Oludeniz, it is not. Every food board has 'English Breakfasts' advertised, with 'Heinz Baked Beans' and 'HP sauce' and even 'Tesco Bacon', all advertised with their pound pricing. Nothing like experiencing some different culture huh? Needless to say we reluctantly had to eat some crap food with no taste.

Sorry, no pictures of POMs here...

Entering the National Park beach at Oludeniz explained the mass of English. This beach is gorgeous. The pebbles weren't much but the water was perfect. The pictures should explain it. Had an awesome day swimming here watching the paragliders and cursing ourselves for leaving the cash at the pension.

Kocegiz, Turtle Beach and the mud bath...

Some Lycian graves built into the mountain

The K place that i still cannot pronounce was where we did a day trip through the local lake to Turtle Beach. Here, Turtles nest so you cannot visit the beach at night. We didn't think to look for any during the day, but another guy on our trip went further down the beach and saw turtles surfing. And what were silly Dean and me doing at the time... falling asleep. BIG MISTAKE ON THE BEACH. We looked like English tourists by the time we woke up. Fried little lobsters. Ouch. Asha, a girl with us from Aus but with lovely Indian skin, didn't get burnt at all.

After the beach we headed for a mud bath. Stinky, slimey mud, followed by a thermal bath - too hot for these cooked little lobsters! The next day, after 3 washings i could still smell mud. Yuck. But yes, my face (which wasn't burnt) felt very nice. The rest of me was just plain hot.

Weird mud creatures, local to the region...

Pammukale & The Travertines

The cascading pools. Look great in the sunshine

In Pammukale is an '8th wonder of the world'. Somehow, some water containing lots of calcium has been running out of a mountian. As the water has evaporated, travertines have formed. These are pools of water, tiered on the mountain side. They are very impressive, despite the damage from tourists trampling over them.

Us in a man-made pool. Yeah we look daggy...

Above them are the remains of the Heiropolis - another city with a theatre, temples, and an agora. Seen a few ruins lately....

The theatre at the Hierapolis. You might have guessed by now that Dean likes the theatres... This one is cool though.

The town itself is pretty crappy, but it did have one good place!

Dean often feels very popular in Turkey

Selcuk & Ephesus - a lazy time...

The famous library. It's actually a tomb, but is known as the library. The restored front wall shown here is amazing.

Arriving in Selcuk, we had booked 2 nights - plenty of time to see the nearby ruins of Ephesis and the town itself. On arriving at 'Atilla's Getaway', Jules and Jeff - yes a pair of aussies - told us we would be there longer - we disagreed. We were wrong.

Our little paradise at Attila's Getaway

Attila, apparently the first Turkish baby born in Aus, has returned to Turkey to run a pension where Aussies could feel at home and relax whilst doing the west coast of Turkey trip that everyone seems to do. A few km out of town with a spring water pool, bar, wonderful food, pool table and volleyball court, was enough to tempt Dean and I to take a few days off and just to stay put for a few days.

Genuine Fake Watches. Phew... i'd hate to get a fake genuine one instead...

We checked out Ephesis on Day 1 before we got too lazy and took a couple o new friends along with us. This is a cool set of ruins from a city where who can follow the ruins through the main street to check out the baths, temples, agoras, theatres, and the library - the most impressive part of Ephesis for me. But after a couple of hours baking in hte sun, we were all ready to pay town a quick visit and get back to the pool.

A gate. Hadrian's I think. This would have looked cool way back when...

A huge latrine. Wonder if they had newspapers back then...

The theatre. Pretty damn big. Groups of tourists coming through always decide to test it out with a bit of singing, which actually shows off the acoustics really well.


We saw some old chapel and some cool stork nests on old aquaducts in town then headed back for a swim... then stayed and stayed. On the 5th day we took a day trip to a local Greek Village of Sirence to try the local fruit wines and meander the streets. On the way we met some Irish - the man was from Cork and we have no idea what he was saying. The two women strongly reminded me of podge and rodge - their accents were identical as was the way they chatted. hehehe.

Storks tend to like these high roosts. This used to be part of an aqueduct.

Jeff, with his friendly free shots...

Despite feeling completely at home, and loving our hosts, we finally said a sad goodbye and continued our travels.

Pergamum

View of the ampitheatre

A little while back, Dean and I were in Berlin at the Pergamum museum. There we saw one of the most impressive structures of our trip - The Altar of Zeus. Earlier in the 1900s the Germans went to the old city of Pergamum and uncovered the altar and then took it back to Berlin. After seeing the altar, Dean and i knew we would have to visit Pergamum whilst in Turkey.

What's left of Zeus' Temple! not much...
"Ok guys, I like this one, take it back to Germany for me please"

Few tourists stay in Bergama because, well, there is not much there to hang around for. But because we wanted plenty of time to see Pergamum we stayed. Arriving at our pension "Athena Pension", a place that by their own admission "is not the best, but we're trying", we were met by an old turkish woman who showed us our room. We then wondered around town checking ut a nice old red sand-stone church on the way and a small, but impressive museum.

Arriving back at our pension, we met Aydin - the owner of the pension that was super friendly and had just had his appendix out that morning. He insisted on staying up and chatting with us though and just had to hold his freshly stitched belly when he started to laugh - this happened a lot. 'Breakfast not included' usually means just that, but not with Aydin. We joined huim and his mother for a lovely breakfast of bread with fresh honey and homemade cheeses, yumyum.

Aydin had told us that to get to the ruins we would just have to take a right and walk through the hole in the fence.... after turning right we were met with a maze of small turkish houses, so we just kept taking turns and heading up the hill. Locals helped and pointed us in the right direction. After pointing us in the right way, one little girl decided Dean could be useful and carry the gas bottle she was struggling with up the hill, good on her:)

What's left of the Acropolis

Ruins of the gymnasium (school)

After finding the hole in the fence, Dean and i spent hours looking around my favourite ruins in Turkey. Where the altar once was is now a few stones and a tree, but the acropolis and theatre were really cool, and there was lots of the old city left including baths, gymnasiums (schools) and even an indoor running track, plus some cool mosaics. We even bumped into a tortoise climbing around the ruins!

What the hell he was doing up there I have no idea...

We also checked out Asclepion whilst we were in town. This place was responsible for big steps in early medecine and is one of the largest hospitals in history. They even had dream analysis rooms and a theatre for laughter - becasue it is good for you:) All this from early A.D.

Returning from all this ruin-exploring and hiking up big hill in 35 degree heat, i was struggling to find an easy lunch before our next bus trip. Luckily for us, when we arrived back at the "Pension to collect our luggage, Aydin presented us with stuffed peppers for lunch - freshly made by his mum (the night before i had told him that this was my favourite turkish dish). Now that is hospitality!