Turkey, Dogubayazit/Diyadin

Tuvalie and Luka inspecting stones outside the Ishak Pasa palace, Dogubayazit. /Pentax

After staying a few days in Erzerum to pick up our visas for Iran, we continued to Dogubayazit - a town about 35 km from the Iranian border. This is said to be a popular place for overlanders to meet, passing to or from Iran but we did not manage to meet anyone...

The nearby Ishak Pasa Palace is one of the most famous landmarks of eastern Turkey. The day we decided to go and visit it it was closed. Instead, as we arrive we are welcomed by a film team busy making a couple of kurdish music videos. They immediately wanted to film the children and, later on, Pia and Lina were dressed up in kurdish folk dresses and filmed. Who knows, in a couple of months we might all appear on TV in a kurdish music video..? We ended this perfect daytrip with some kurdish folk dance in the sunset.

Admiring the view. /Pentax

The film crew made use of our Land Rovers! /Pentax

The recording of a music video with the Ishak Pasa as a backdrop. /Pentax

Pia and Lina in Kurdish folkdress, and sandals... /Pentax

Milan and friends dancing in the sunset. /Pentax

After a couple of nights camping in Dogubayazit we went in search for somewhere nice to spend a couple of days waiting for a package from Sweden. We ended up in Diyadin, the highest situated town in Turkey about 70 km west of Dogubayazit. Diyadin, which is mainly a kurdish town, is known for its thermal springs (rich in sulphate which gives an interesting smell to the whole town). It also used to have quite strong connections with the PKK, but this is apparently changing.

We never managed to solve the problem with the package but after one week in a former hotel (now a pension for teachers and nurses) we have made some real good friends and been given a unique opportunity to really get to know Turkey. We´ve experienced late evening barbeque with newly made friends, dancing to live turkish music at the Diaydin/Agri annual police party, a personal sightseeing tour of Agri, endless hot baths and an unforgettable amount of hospitality and friendliness.

Sad to leave Turkey, but convinced we will return, tomorrow we pack ourselves back into the Land Rovers and head for Iran...

Tanja contemplating the 65 degrees hot water in our hotel pool. /Pentax

Turkey, Cappadocia

Cave houses in Cappadocia. /Pentax

Cappadocia is an area in central Turkey famous for it´s unusual rock formations and underground cities. Being surrounded by four volcanoes, previous eruptions have left a landscape full of high cone shaped cliffs (called fairy chimneys) that have been left unaffected by erosion. This area became a refuge by Christian people from the 4th to the 11th century and being persecuted they used these caves and underground cities to hide away in. Most of the time they lived above ground, but if necessary they could retreat back under ground for up to six months… Cappadocia is full traces from these Christian peoples cave like life style with valley upon valley with underground cities, fairy chimneys, rock houses and decorated rock churches. It makes an incredible fascinating, beautiful and popular place for hiking. Parts of Star Wars were filmed in this out of this world landscape.

We decided to head for Göreme in Cappadocia, and were quite blown away by the view that met us turning that last corner. It´s unlike any other place we´ve seen. Strange rock formations full of windows and doorways everywhere. Some people still live like this in parts of Turkey. We had to stay one night in one of these hostels built into the rocks!

Arriving in Göreme. /Pentax

The next day we moved to a campsite nearby and we all felt the need to just stay for a couple of nights in one place. This gave us a chance to finally catch up on some well needed car maintenance. We went to a recommended mechanic to change oils and some worn out parts. For a tenth of the price in Sweden these guys were a lot more willing to help us than the guys in Montenegro. Everything was fixed in a couple of hours but due to a power cut Lina´s and Richard´s Defender was stuck high up on the lift…

Facing the option of either remaining in the waiting room for no one knows how long with hungry, tired and fed up children (and parents) or to squeeze all eight of us into one car to go to one of the underground cities, our choice was pretty easy. Carefully we drove one very packed land rover to nearby Derinkuyu, one of the biggest underground cities.

Not for the claustrophobic maybe (Milan turned around with Tanja on the third level) but incredible interesting. Almost crawling on our knees through the narrow aisles and steep steps the rest of us finally reached the bottom. (The ventilation shaft gives you an idea of as how deep down you are). Here somewhere deep underground we decided to leave a geocach, for those interested!

Tanja deep underground in Derinkuyu. /Pentax

With the power back on we finally retrieved our car and headed back to the camping. Only to be met by a familiar Toyota Land Cruiser! Our norweigan friends had found the same village and camp site as us. We also met Nina and Gertz, a friendly german couple who had traveled from Germany to Jordan in their Defender and now were on their way back. We spent the evening talking over a couple of beers. (Nina and Gertz promised to be the first ones to visit our underground Geocach…)

Camping next to a fairy chimney! /Pentax

Time to wash some of the road dust off... /Pentax

In the end we stayed four days in wonderful Göreme and fully rested and anxious to move on, on the 24th we decided it was time to pack up and head further east…

Turkey, Pamukkale

In Pamukkale we camped on the drive way of one of the many hotels in town. At this friendly family run place we met our first co-overlanders. A couple from Norway pulled in just ten minutes after us on this tiny drive way and we all managed to squeeze in to put our roof tents up. We had a nice evening with some home cooked Turkish food and exchanged travel experiences. It turned out that the norweigan couple left around the same time and gone pretty much the same route as us. We had followed each others footsteps with just a couple of days in between! Their final goal is south Africa however, so our paths will soon split…

The next day we went to the hot springs of Pamukkale and the ancient Roman spa town, Hierapolis. The hot springs are very rich in calcium and have been believed to have healing properties already in the Roman times. Unfortunately this attractive tourist spot has been exploited a bit too much in the 80´s and 90´s and today the natural springs are closed off for bathing in order to restore them. (They have even demolished a row of hotels on the edge of the cliffs of Pamukkale for the same reason.)

The fascinating landscape of Pamukkale´s hot springs. /Pentax

Richard and Oliver and a great view. /Pentax

You can however dip your feet and, in the children´s case, your head in man made pools containing the same healthy water. And explore the remains of Hierapolis. Which is exactly what we did for half the day but we could easily have spent another couple of hours there. We were very lucky with the weather and these pools were probably one of the highlights of the trip so far, especially for Tuvalie, Luka, Oliver and Tanja! But it was time to move on…

Trying to catch frogspawn. /Pentax

Luka and Tanja happy in 26 degree warm water. /Pentax

Turkey, Ayvalik - Selcuk

From Iznik we continued on towards the west coast and Ayvalik, famous for it´s diving and unusual red coral. We got to a beautiful campsite on an island just outside Ayvalik and had time to go off on our first little off road drive to look for an ancient monastery up on the hills. Unsuccessful in our search we returned to the beach and spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing in the warmest sun we´ve had so far…

In search for an ancient monastery... /Pentax

Tuvalie on a sunny beach. /Pentax

The next day we woke to a chilly wind and so decided to move on. Our next destination was Selcuk. On the way there we stopped off for a picnic at the Acropolis at Bergama, a very windy but pretty ancient Roman city. In Selcuk we had planned to visit the famous and most extensive remains of a Roman city, Ephesus. But being short of both money and time we left without going in the end. We were looking forward to Pamukkale instead, the natural hot springs…

Acropolis at Bergama. /Pentax

An empty pool makes a convenient playground... /Pentax

Turkey, Iznik

One and a half hour south with boat from Istanbul and then about 60 km car drive there is a town called Iznik. Iznik is a small picturesque town with a long history. In Iznik Christian’s, Roman’s and Muslim’s has ruled in turns.

The tourist information told us to get hold of the tourist police and gave us a description. On the way there we did a wrong turn and ended up at a bus parking. As we have experienced, people in Turkey are very friendly, and this town was no exception. They immediately made space for us to park and gathered around the cars. Milan told some of the locals about the trip and that we are filming (in something between English and Turkish (which he cannot speak)). A guy who spoke german arrived after some time. His name is Timur HATۤۤۤ۠іPOĞLU and he works with selling tractors (a very lucrative business it seems since every second vehicle in Iznik is a tractor). Timur knows the Governor and called him as well as the tourist police. They wanted to show us where we could camp and Milan was shown along the beach of the relatively large lake of a circumference of ninety kilometres. They wanted to show the nicest places, we could camp wherever. It ended with them giving us the opportunity to stay at a house that during summer is used for youngsters learning to sail – the only house on the beach. We got escorted there by a police car with the blue lights on. Talk about a nice welcome! From the veranda of more than thirty square meters we had a view of the lake that lies as quicksilver in the sunset.

The fantastic view from our terrace. /Pentax

The afternoon we spent strolling around the bazaar which we where lucky to time, it is every Wednesday. Clothes, stuff, vegetables, cheese, olives, tobacco and loads of people. Cosy! Milan and Richard bought some tobacco. The kids got kisses, ….., cheese… Tuvalie and Luka sat next to each other in our Urban Jungle saying “dumma dig” to all nice strangers who gave them some extra attention.

Tuvalie and Luka inspecting the famous Iznik ceramics. /Pentax

Lina and Oliver in front of the green mosque

The day after we went to see Aia Sofya. Amazing feeling being in such a historical place. When being there a tourist bus arrived. They, however, were more interested in our kids. Lina, Pia, Luka and of course Tuvalie (who’s always the centre of attention with her super blond hair) ended up in the middle of a ring of about fifty Turkish tourists. We where, at the moment, giving our attention to a small bug. That bug has never seen so much attention =)

Turkish tourists fascinated by our kids :) /Pentax

Iznik was really nice and we definitely recommend it as a place to visit. We stayed three nights.

The day we left we passed by Timur’s office and got an unexpected round tour around the town during which he showed us an old aqueduct, an old gate to the town and a really nice view of Iznik.

Turkey, Istanbul

Entering Turkey is a step that we consider a milestone of the journey. This is because we enter a country with a different culture than what we are used to. Our first impression is formed by driving to a camping 60 km from Istanbul and placed at a very beautiful spot at the coast. We immediately notice that the people are extremely friendly and the owner of the camping spend quite a bit of time suggesting places worth seeing.During this entire time we could see the head of a humanoid doing something in the cold water. When he suddenly decided to come out of the water, I think even Richard must have been impressed by all the gadgets he was carrying. If anyone knows what he might have been doing, please let us know…

Left:Helpful camping owner showing Lina nice places in Turkey. Right: Mysterious man flushed out of the sea. /Pentax

Next morning we drove into Istanbul. We where all struck by the beauty of this enormous city (20 million). Following recommendations from the Lonely Planet we checked in at Bahaus Hostel at a place called SultanAhmet. This hostel turned out to be one of the best we ever stayed at, even before our trip. The entire place is very, very cosy and the view from the terrace overviews the Bosporus in one direction and the beautiful blue Mosque in the other.

Sultanahmet area with view from Bahaus hostel. /Pentax

Outside the hostel a local kebabman presented the first generous trade offer to Lina and Richard. He would happily swap his “wheels” with their Landy. I guess that there will be occasions when they will regret not accepting the deal :)

Man who wanted to swap wheels. /Pentax

The last day in Istanbul we decided to cross the water and visit the Asian side. Here Richard and Lina met a man who proudly stated that two kids is just a starter as compared to him self who have 16. In fact, having the kids around us attracts an enormous attention wherever we go and funny enough everybody think we have two pairs of twins. Having twins in Turkey is something very special and honourable, apparently. A bit less pleasant for the kids is that everybody pulls their cheeks, in particular Tuvalie and Luka find it annoying.

Father of many kids talking to Richard and Lina. /Pentax

The last nights at the hostel we became friends with “Nedzo”, the owner. He is a fantastic character who has travelled a lot. He kindly advised us on “must see” sites in the west part of Turkey. In fact it is not only seeing new places that is going to be an new experience according to him, but also meeting people even more friendly than what we have experienced this far. We don’t know if that is possible and with this in mind we set of to Iznik, the first town on Nedzo’s list.

Greece

Arriving by lake Arissa. /Pentax

Pia and Tanja practicing Capoeira. /Pentax

Lucas and Milan up early cooking breakfast. /Pentax

Our first night in Greece we camped right by the lake Arissa. It was quite warm when we arrived (time for some cold beer and capoeira on the beach) but much to our disappointment the wind turned and out came the dow jackets once again... (We are all looking forward to the day when we can stuff them away for good!) We spent two nights here and then continued along the coast towards turkey.

Agios, off-season. /Pentax

Our next stop (Agois in Chalkidiki) turned out to be a real ghost town this time of the year. Every house was boarded and hardly anyone in sight. We all felt that this part of Greece this time of the year (very much off-season!) was not that alive and we just wanted to move on to get to Turkey as soon as possible. We headed on in the morning for one last cold camp night by the sea (just outside Alexandroupolis) and then we crossed the border...