The Young Jeremiah Chronicles - Istanbul to Cairo Part 2

Heres my account of the rest of our time in Turkey.. as usual I seem to working backwards in this email. 

After spending a few days in Ankara working out our Syrian Visas as related in Part 1, we returned to Istanbul for a proper look around, went out on the ferries, popped back and forth across the Bosporus a few times, generally chilled.  We also met an Australian pair we would race to Cairo, albeit they were travelling as part of tour.

Istanbul by sea

We also decided, in a misunderstanding of just how much time we had left, to forgo our trip down the Dardanelles to Troy and Gallipoli.  Instead it was straight down the coast to Ephesus. 

Sat, 7 Aug 2004 15:03:35 +0000

Well here I am again, not gonna write much this time as not alot has happened in the past few days, well not a lot in comparison with the bureaucracy of doom of the past week.  Eoin's writing his email, so here I am writing mine.

We're in Selçuk on the Mediterranean coast, beautiful place with beautiful people, every things so laid back.  I know Eoin is gonna fill most of ye in on the details so, well to be honest I'm not in my usual authorial mood today.  

So lets see, descriptive moments. Best moment today was after leaving the ancient city of Ephesus (place where the Virgin Mary had her house and died, but too far away to visit) I led the way up a rocky hillside, Eoin in his runners wasn't as happy about this spur of the moment  bout of mountaineering as I was, but nevertheless we both reached an overhang of light craggy rock jutting out from the scraggy yellow brush of the hillside.  The view was tremendous, and if I can describe it to you then I'm doing pretty well. Imagine a vast agricultural plain, where peach trees hold dominance, this stretched out before me, neat rows of miniature trees mixing in the distance with their neighbours in some trick of the eyes, imagine it stretching out, ending just as they hit a main motorway, itself hardly blemishing the vista,  beyond, the fields continue through countless permutations til they hit the distant mountains.  Off to our right the agriculture peters out as it hits the slopes of a low backed hill upon which,  undeterred by times ravages, a citadel of rock sits, protector of the town that sits below it and beyond it. That's the view we supped our warm water to, that's the view I"ll remember from today. 

The View I clumsily explained

It was on our way back from the ancient city we stopped, the ancient city itself was fantastic marble grandeur i places like toilets and brothels, insane levels of preservation make it a magnificent site, with libraries, theatres, and shops, very cool.

The Library of Celcius

Ephesus' theatre

Yesterday we travelled ten hours by bus to this place.  

Journey by bus. Smiley

Our hostel is beautiful, with the greatest décor I've ever seen in any hostel anywhere, browns reds, and the most relaxing old world caravan atmosphere mixed with balconies and fantastic amenities, really wide open, yet real intimate  a warm cosy place with such a genuine staff.

The Hostel I refer to

 The people here are great, only hassle we got was at the bus station. people picking peaches gave us three huge ones, but since Eoin don't like peaches I got to gorge myself once again (I definitely eat way more then Eoin) and the night we got here an entire family crowded out of our house to give us directions, really genuine, really great stuff.  

Remnants of the Temple of Artemis

From where I sit I can just about make out the remnants of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the temple of Artemis  all that's left is one ridiculously tall column, of what was once 127, It must have been huge.

Anyhow, in Istanbul the other day saw the covered bazaar, huge maze like cavernous place with everything one could ever want (no man in a bottle though Catherine,  maybe Egypt) Oh and we took a ferry across the Bosporus too, been back and forth between Europe and Asia 5 times this trip already, (Oh John, we saw maidens tower in Istanbul, you know, the one from The World Is Not Enough, and no nuclear sub will ever fit under there, its a tourist attraction anyway so not a very good place for a hideout), off to Cappadocia tomorrow night, lost my Hemingway book, and I was so near the end really really really good, everybody read for whom the bell tolls, its fan frickin tastic.
any how
See ye all before too long (5 weeks)
Jerry

Wed, 11 Aug 2004 18:29:50 +0000
 To the gates of the orient

Hello, well, everybody...
Reporting to you, not live, from the Turkish city of Antakya, formally called Antioch of biblical fame (yes I know that's a long title but bear with me a second) Gateway to Syria, that's right tomorrow Syria, uncertainty, craziness, and the vast open desert lie ahead. Man I can"t wait. By the by excuse any mistakes I may or may not make, again with the Turkish keyboards a oy!

 Anyhoo, Where or where did I leave you last, Ahh for it was fair selçuk with its fair hostel and environs. Well, since that time we've travelled by night bus all the twelve hours that it took us to get to Cappadocia,   land of icing like hills and weird rocks.  I fail to mention it but I actually came down with rather severe dehydration sickness on this bus ride, really worried Eoin, babbling away next to him From our very touristy hotel (it had a pool, I GOT BURNT! Yep for like the first time in Years!! Now my skin is pink, they"ll be confusing Leprechauns with oompa loompas next thanks to me) we saw the rocky surroundings surrounding the surroundings where we were based. 

Cappadocian landscape

Christians fleeing persecution made a home for themselves here in the rocks, and what a home, churches houses bakeries and palaces all carved out of a living rock surprisingly tender, and surprisingly grip able. I left Eoin behind, thanks to the boots I was advised not to bring, and explored a warren of finely hewn caves honeycombing their way up through the multi conicaled mountainside. 

Rock hewn Church

How can I describe the landscape? Its very very, well, weird, for lack of a better more high falutin term. The landscape of central Anatolia is of course a plateau (hence the name Anatolian plateau, see?) anyhow, the valleys of Nevsehýr and Göreme delve into this blank palette creating a sifting realm of browns and whites that seem like, as I said, dropped dollops of Icing, or maybe dropped cement formed over volcanic contusions.  Windows and doors cover the surface of these witty protrusions like darts thrown blindly, gaping widely, tourists are supposed to pay to use the part with ramps and barriers, we simply explored the dangerous bit, wide gorges, hewn by rivers, vanished in this season, sometimes loomed to one side, some so deep one couldn't lean over to glimpse the bottom.  

On our second day there we explored one of these winding rivers in the rock, a corridor with walls steeper then one could see, blocking out the sun, only as wide as when I spread out both arms, as we entered this seldom entered quarter between doorways 10 foot high in the rock-face  the Islamic call to prayer deigned the moment suitably melodramatic to start its eerie indescribable call (lucky for you and me that its indescribable eh? else I"d go on all week)

The Spooooky Valley

the melodrama was given an hilarious twist when halfway up the valley we spied unfamiliar bugs, non moving,  yet as small as smallish marbles and black as ash, so we promptly turned tail and scarpered like the pair of silly Irish tourists we are. 

After that was today, with the bus through hills like great slabs of brie cheese, to Adana, and onwards to Antakya, the city I learned so much about in 1st year history, with its citadel mountain casting an antique shadow over the town that tries to scale its heights almost as implausibly as the old crusader wall on a ridge near the top. Fun town, Fun people, and got to try out my Arabic, success was there too.

We're happy (well I am, Eoin can"t wait for me to finish this bloody long email) and ready to travel finally, bravely and anticlimactically into the unknown, about bloody time

Jerry

Antakya 'Antioch'

And so we were about to enter Syria. 
Of all the places I wish I could return to on this trip, Antakya near tops the list.  I was almost completely ignorant of its Crusader history.  Oh to climb the heights and trace the path of its siege   Bloody epic stuff.  Lost to us at the time.  Would love to do this trip again.  And possibly write about it in a somewhat more together way.

Anyway, next time its on into Syria.