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Asia, Travelogue, Turkey

Travelogue Turkey 4: Kusadasi

KUSADASI

18 April 2012

Kusadasi – pronounced “KOO-SHA-duh-suh” (the first half pronounced and the second half swallowed) and translated as “Bird Island” – is the biggest port in Turkey. The district gets its name from the Guvercin (Dove) Island facing it, home of a Byzantine castle carved into the rock and the 19th century Kucuk Ada Castle which were important defence points against pirate raids during the Ottoman Period.

We found ourselves deposited unceremoniously roadside by the bus as it arrived in Kusadasi on Monday night at 21h00. 2 South Africans, 2 Australians, 4 suitcases, 3 togbags, 1 map (of Istanbul) and a bus steward who spoke Turkish and Japanese, but no English. Challenge.

We showed the hotel name written on our itinerary to the locals milling nearby and were relieved at their lack of hesitation and pointing gestures which seemed to indicate that they knew where we were going and it was (literally) just around the corner.

Around the corner we trooped. And down the hill. And down the hill some more.

We stopped and asked a shopkeeper, again using the itinerary to show hotel name, and again he immediately responded, pointing in the same direction as we’d been headed, adding “50 metre! 50 metre!”. Sounded promising.

Some half a kilometre later (fortunately all downhill and all the while silently applauding the inventor of trolley cases), we saw the big red neon sign than announced our hotel. And very lovely 4* at that. Hallelujah.

Eager for more leg-stretch (sans luggage) after the afternoon in the bus, we headed out to see what Kusadasi had on offer.

The hotel was well situated for entertainment, being just a few blocks up from the waterfront and near the bazaars (closing 11pm). The nightlife was quite active, starting with the hotel’s patio which was teeming with travellers (an Italian tour group).

We soon tired though and headed back to the hotel to retire (with the chocolate mousses we’d salvaged from the hotel’s dinner buffet that was closing as we arrived).

WEDNESDAY

Another boring continental breakfast buffet. This had the same selection of 5 cereals (cornflakes, coco pops, muesli, chocolate flakes and puffed wheat, which also seemed to be the only cereals stocked in supermarkets we’ve been to!), jams, cheese, polony, eggs and bright pink viennas. This buffet did however add 5 different types of olives (excessive much?) and had bowls around the yoghurt (there’s only ever original unflavoured yoghurt that we’ve seen) with halva, syrup, strawberry jam etc which leads one to believe that one can flavour one’s own yoghurt should one choose. One didn’t (and neither did the other one).

The tour bus arrived more or less on time (remarkable) and had a mix of new people. The tour groups here seem to fluidly combine and separate, ostensibly so anyone from anywhere can choose their own custom package while still enjoying group rates. Sometimes this arrangement shows false economies though, for example there was one lady who’d travelled through that morning from Izmir, which we’d passed through at about 19h00 the night before. It might have made more sense for us to stop for the night in Izmir, giving us a more reasonable check-in time and better evening options (as well as a chance to see the sights of Izmir since it only gets dark well after 8). We could then all have been collected together the next morning.

Similarly, she was moving straight on to Pamukkale after the previous day’s tour, where we stayed in Kusadasi the previous night and were going to Pamukkale that morning.

We (all) started the day’s sight-seeing at the House of Virgin Mary. This is the actual house that St John (the Baptist) built for Mary when he took her there to flee the persecution in Jerusalem because Christianity was illegal and the Christians were being crucified. As far as I understand he was the only apostle that wasn’t crucified, because he moved to Ephesus, which he chose because there was already a Christian sect underway, hiding in the hillside at the top of a mountain where they could enjoy relative safety.

He did a good job too. A delightful little L-shaped house with entrance hall, spacious living room and another smaller room off to the side at the back, with a back door. Wedged into the trees on the hillside made for very peaceful surroundings with a lovely view. The foundations (up to about waist height) were still the originals, but the rest of the house had been restored (good thing too because it would have been a poor excursion in the pouring rain without a roof!) and pews added outside so that the house could now be used as a church.

Super popular on 15 August, Ascension Day of Virgin Mary. Muslems also pray here because the Qur’an respects prophets, of which they believe Jesus was one. In fact, it (apparently) gives more airtime to Mary than the bible does.

There are taps on-site where you can drink holy water from the Fountain of Wisdom for prosperity and good health. We drank long and deep.

Lastly was placing a note on the Wishing Wall (scribbled on a serviette and scrolled to fit into the little ribbon loops alongside thousands of others) and then it was off to Ephesus (“Eh-feh-sous” sous like couscous).

4 million people a year come to see Ephesus, which is the second most popular ancient site after Pompei. It is a city of great historical and religious relevance with most of ruins belonging to Roman era or Hellenistic style and the role of the Ephesians in the Bible, being warned to give up idol-worship in light of End Of Days and whatnot.

The ruins were incredible, showing an astounding sophistication for a civilisation that operated and thrived as much as 5,000 years ago (compared especially with South African history which is in infancy by comparison).

These people built a great big city, with amenities, conveniences and utilities worthy of ticking all the boxes of a modern city, using what little technology they had combined with solid logic and good old fashioned elbow-grease (although am sure that having hoards of slaves helps somewhat). Everything was built with opulent enormity and decadent detail. It was astounding how sturdy this stuff must have been for so much to have survived so long and in such good nick!

The site is the product of what archeologists have been working on uncovering since 1860 (when they excavated statues of Artemis dating back to 3000BC, the Hittite Period)) and they’ve only yet uncovered a fraction of what remains mystic under layers of earth. As always, money and manpower are the challenges and it appears that it will take far longer to unearth the wonder than it did to build it – and likely not in our lifetime.

The entrance ticket allows almost full access to the site, with very few areas (on the most fragile) restricted using loose-linked stantions. You think you’ve seen it all with the sky-high pillars and looming arches, statues and amphitheatre and pieces of relics and building blocks neatly laid out as constituent parts to bygone construction (that presumably are being restored and rebuilt).

Moving further down the (original) roads, you get a sense of the Roman and Greek influences from the building materials, styles and adornments. Just when it became samey-samey, you rounded the bend and got to what was the main shopping street. Ten metres wide with marble roadways, pavements and reliefs. The road began with an entrance of 2 pillars (a third of the way into the road) that originally held a relief of Nike, Goddess of Victory (removed from its position for sake of preservation, but still on display on site). This ‘doorway’ was an intentional narrowing of the road to prevent carts travelling down it for the sake of pedestrian shopper enjoyment.

The road was lined on the left with shops, each with a wide length of outdoor display area infront of the store and on top of a detailed colourful mosaic that is still largely intact. The inner stores were double storey, although most only have stairs to show this with the upper levels long-since eroding. The shops had no addresses or shop signs, just marble reliefs above their doorway to depict the category of goods sold in the store.

On the right hand side of the street were statues, fountains and monuments, with lots still in place to see (and touch) and the rest on display in the Ephesus Museum for safe-keeping. Some of these areas showed that the ancient civilisation could combine form and function, like the fountain which had a dual plug outflow system that allowed not only the fountain to be drained to be replaced with fresh water, but also flowed the old water out onto the streets to be used for cleaning them.

These chaps also had baths, with an intricate heating system that allowed patrons options for cold, lukewarm or hot water. There were public toilets that, while probably cleaner than most of ours, came with their own drawbacks. Since they were long-drop style, the toilets were open-roofed. The seats were holes carved in an upside down pear shape from slabs of marble which lined the sides of the room and there was no such thing as booths. Apparently, visitors would sit side-by-side talking business while doing their business simultaneously. Rich visitors would send their slaves to sit on the seat before them to warm the marble. Sewage was removed from the city via pipes that ran under the marble streets.

At the end of the street was the public library – the 3rd biggest in ancient world (behind Alexandria and Perganon). The entrance has steps from a courtyard that come up to meet enormous pillars, easily 3 storeys high. The original building was designed to protect the parchment contents (a big deal since the other libraries of the time still used papyrus) and had double walls filled with spices to saturate the humidity and goat skin windows, paper-thin so they were more transparent than the glass of the time.

Across the road was a ‘House Of Love’, which had a tunnel from the library so that adulterous bastards could tell their wives that they were going to the library when they were actually going to the brothel. There were markings on the street from the port side that show a footprint in the direction of the brothel with a heart shape – subtle directional advertising.

Last but not least on the site was the Grand Theatre, which could hold up to 25,000 people at one time (10% of the population). The theatre stage was Roman style with a back wall (for accoustics), while the Greeks preferred open air stages (for the view). Must’ve been quite something in its day. It was used again for concerts (among them Elton John) until quite recently when performances were permanently halted after a rock fell on a spectator, causing injury and ruining it (so to speak) for the rest of us.

On the way out we stopped at the Church of the Virgin Mary, which was presumably the Christian annex to the grandiose city their idolatrous predecessors had established.

The site was well worth seeing – even in intermittent rain and gale winds (that nearly literally blew me off my feet a few times) – whether or not you’re into (relevant) religions. I was lucky enough that one of our tour companions (Linda) was very knowledgeable on the Bible so gave lots more insight into the significance of the area.

Hollywood’s done a good job of glamorising the Book of Revelations, but I never really added the 2 and 2 until now that this was where John wrote it and that it was addressed to the Ephesians about their lives of excess and questionable morality. Linda was on a tour of the 7 significant churches and her pilgrimage made so much sense since it adds such tangibility to some of the contents of the Bible, especially to Christians who might have been to Israel and are looking for the AD instalment of the story (as she put it).

Lunch was an exciting adventure with a buffet of new things. I ended up a colourful mound of a plate, with some notable inclusions:

  •  watery chicken and mushroom stew (with enormous whole mushrooms with fat stems and miniature caps) with a bechamel cap, oven-baked. Included veg like carrots, onions and marrows
  • a tray of spinach demarcated loosely into individual portions with neat rows of eggs on top. The eggs had clearly been cracked onto the spinach raw and oven-baked to cook as the white had seeped through a bit, but the yellows had hardened on top
  • macaroni cheese bake made with thin macaroni in long pieces (like spaghetti, but hollow), bechamel and feta cheese. Very good!
  • kofte, which are short sections of cylindrical meatballs
  • fritter sort of things that looked like veg hashbrowns
  • bite-sized golden syrup-drenched cakes. That were good, but not as good as the koeksister type thing that we had at Canakkale.

A feast fit for a king!

Next up was Ephesus Museum, a local rich collection from the archeologic excavations at Ephesus, the Basilica of St John (the Evangelist, not the Baptist), the Belevi Mausoleum and the ruins in the surrounding area. Some of the artefacts date back to as far as 4,000BC! Not a very big museum (a good thing if you ask me), but very focused in its theme and contents, leading visitors through 4 halls and an atrium of collections displaying contents by era.

On the bus back to the hotel we went to last remaining pillar of the Temple of Artemis (the Goddess of Fertility). The original building held up by its 127 pillars 19m high, with an awe-striking effect that earned its place as one of the wonders of the ancient world. This sentiment didn’t stop the industrious recyclers of back then though and the composite stones were taken away and used to build elsewhere when idolatry lost favour and temples weren’t needed anymore. The entire temple was dismantled bit by bit as needed and all that remains in the original site is part of one of the pillars.

The rain had stopped just long enough to get a few snaps of the pillar and then started again with a vengeance that had us dashing to the minibus for cover!

Back in the bus, we past the Basilica of St John, but didn’t stop as we were told there was nothing much to see.

The route we took back to the hotel was along the coastline and I was delighted to see Samos across the water. This was the little Greek island we’d visited as part of the holiday in 2000 (AD) that celebrated Alex’s 25th and Jamie’s 21st birthdays. Not so ancient history, but seemed like a very long time ago now!

Asia, Travelogue, Turkey

Travelogue Turkey 3: Troy

TROY

17 April 2012

Breakfast is always the most fascinating meal to peruse on holiday in foreign countries. It’s the start of the day when the slate is clean and as a meal in general doesn’t tend to vary that much between the ‘usual’ versions of either continental or hot food. A few additions here and there, but mostly classified by the breadth of options rather than imaginative additions (that aren’t rehashed leftovers from last night’s dinner).

Kervansaray Hotel in Gallipoli breakfast buffet had some interesting inclusions worth mentioning:

  • eggs labelled ‘omelettes’ that were wafer-thin squares (maybe 5cm x 5cm) of egg loaded with herbs
  • boiled potatoes. Not sauteed, boiled.
  • very nice slices of sourdough bread with white cheese melted on top, garnished with cherry tomatoes
  • custard cake and cocoa cake, which people were dishing alongside their toast and eggs
  • pink rose jam
  • apricot jam that was clear gelatine with apricot pieces (but surprisingly tasty)
  • cherry juice (again) sour cherries with the fruits

Before long we were hurtling down the street in the city centre to meet our 08h30 tour bus for the short (20 or so minutes) bus trip to Troy.

Troy has been around for thousands of years and is the entry point from the Dardenelles to Marmara. The city was originally a coastal town, but the rerouting of the 2 main river tributaries has led to a changing coastline, making Troy a town that can see the sea, rather than actually being situated on its shores.

The docking taxes at this port (which could be hefty as we’re talking in the days when sailors didn’t know how to sail against the wind) were likely the real and far less romantic reason for all the strife, with Helen merely the catalytic fatal-face fall guy (or girl in this case).

These sorts of skirmishes have been going on since the Bronze Age (with the Greeks wanting to keep trade routes clear to Russia), but obviously the straits are still very important for trade and, while they legally belong to Turkey, there are international agreements in place restricting their closure in times of peace (and the straits have in fact only been closed once, in WW2 when Hitler wanted to use them to invade Russia).

The Historic National Park of Troy (a national heritage site) was undoubtedly the most important ancient site in the Canakkale region – and one of the most important in the whole country. It is situated 5km inland and some 30km south of the Canakkale city centre.

Still, arguably, if Homer had not written the Iliad and Odyssey, Troy today wouldn’t occur to tourists and would largely be a place of interest for archeologists, digging the 9 layers of settlement of this city that was active from 3,000BC until the birth of Jesus.

The infamous horse’s tale begins with the Trojan War, which broke out in 1200BC when the Achaeans invaded because they believed that Spartan King Menelaus’s wife (Helen) had been abducted by Trojan King’s son, Paris (when in fact they had eloped). The Achaeans had in any case been waiting for the opportunity to conquer this trade route for many years, so they set off to Troy with a huge army.

Troy’s walls were too strong, however, so the battle went on fruitlessly for 9 years. The Achaeans realised they needed a new strategy, so they feigned retreat, leaving behind a gigantic wooden horse as a gift. Believing the gift to be an offering to the gods, the Trojans accepted it and took it into the city.

The warriors hidden inside snuck out that night and opened the city gates to let their army in and then captured and put the ‘Troy’ into ‘destroyed’.

Amazing that in those times they could build something so sturdy. Amazing that this location is so sought after that it’s been built on 9 times, over itself, over millennia. Amazing to walk among the relics and the remains; to see the marble (brought from Marmar Island) to build the temple adornments and the ramps that were used to elevate heavy items because the wheel hadn’t been invented yet. Amazing to see walls so strong that they defended against armies and are now – 2 thousand years later – as good as the day they were laid (when I have settling cracks on my house built last year!)

It was incredible how little some things have changed. There are water pipes that look similar to (and are as solid as) modern concrete ones. They had a fishbone style of building (town)houses side-by-side and back-to-back with strength and economy that Summercon only dreams of. Their city walls would render our most athletic of house-breakers ambitionless.

And we’d been there. Bucket list? Tick!

(And did the touristy things like had photos in the demo wooden horse in the entrance courtyard, but that seems a bit trivial by comparison to the rest of the site).

We got back to Canakkale with instructions for an urgent evac, to get our stuff and bullet down to the harbour with at best 10 minutes to spare to catch our ferry back. We made haste, added a touch of speed and were back at the docks in record time… Only to find out we needn’t have rushed because ferrying to the other side would only have meant getting on the bus to get on the ferry and come back again!

With an hour to kill, we took a walk in an unexplored direction, found little to our liking and headed back to town to grab lunch in a little eatery on the town square that we’d eyed previously and thought we wouldn’t have time to get to.

What a great idea! We had the best thing I have tasted in time memorial. Beef stew rolled in pasta sheets with bechamel sauce (like a rolled lasagne with stew instead of mince) with melted cheese on top. Genius! Totally stole the thunder of the second course which was a freshly prepared pizza base (mixed and kneaded right in front of us) with a thin layer of mince spread over it, baked in the pizza oven, then removed and sprinkled with lettuce, onions and tomato and rolled up and served like a wrap.

Pity we couldn’t get the names, because everything is selected from the counter display, canteen-style and even our cle-ar-ly e-nun-ci-a-ted questions and spontaneous Charades just confused the server into thinking we wanted take-aways rather than the names of what we’d just eaten.

Now that we’d left for Kusadasi, I fear we’ll never know. *sigh*

Asia, Travelogue, Turkey

Travelogue Turkey 2: Gallipoli

GALLIPOLI

16 April 2012

We started the day very early, anticipating a 06h30 pick up from our Istanbul hotel. The upside was getting the bread fresh as it arrived from the bakery (gorgeous!). The downside was, well, it was 06h30. Buffet breakfast was the same except for the soup, which was a sort of creamy-murky with little bits in it and I thought looked like chicken. On closer inspection (in my bowl) I thought it might be broccoli bits, but hoped for mushroom. On tasting I realised it was none of the above, but inoffensive so I scoffed the lot anyway. Mother joked that perhaps it was just the cleaning water to soak last night’s soup out of the terrine. Best that we never know the truth methinks!

The minibus fetched us last – and an hour late – so we had no choice but to take the single seats against the sliding door. Turned out to be marvellous since I had the legroom of the full length of the sliding door in front of me and the people on the double seats were being blasted with alternating heater and aircon from the radiator on their side.

The trip from Istanbul to Gallipoli is a long one by road, taking around 5 hours. Some of the people on our bus were doing a daytrip from Istanbul, which is madness requiring 10 hours in a bus to explore for only a few hours in between. Moreover, one of the couples was returning to Istanbul only to fly back to Ephesus the next day… Completely missing Troy which is just across the water from Gallipoli town. The best way (in time and money terms) certainly seems to do it as we’re doing it, as a big loop from Istanbul to Gallipoli to Troy to Ephesus.

We arrived in Gallipoli in time for a set-menu lunch at Liman Balik restaurant in Eceabat. A delicious chicken noodle soup to start (for sure this time; looked and tasted like it) and for main course was chicken kebabs with crispy chips, what looked like a springroll but with cheese and herbs inside and a bit of a fritter looking thing that was awful so I abandoned it. Salad on the side consisting of grated carrot, pickled purple cabbage, lettuce and tomato (that all went untouched). An apple (light green, soft and floury) for pudding was a poor show after all the bakeries and exotic sweet things we’ve seen along the way.

Fed and watered, we were on our way to the Gabatepe Museum for a talk on the wartime activity at Gallipoli Peninsula. This area is famous mainly for the skirmishes and great battles that took place in the area between March and December in 1915 between the defending Turks and the attacking Allies. The Gallipoli Peninsula today is filled with cemeteries, war museums and memories of this sanguinary war.

Churchill (then a First Lord of the Admiralty) had devised a grand scheme to strike the Central Powers on a new front in south-eastern Europe, knock Turkey out of the war and open up a much needed relief route to Russia through the Dardenelles.

The campaign began with an attempt to force the Dardenelles by naval power alone, but this failed when 3 Allied battleships were lost to Turkish mines. They then sent in a 70,000 strong expeditionary force made up of soldiers from Britain, Newfoundland, India, a French Colonial division and untried Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).

Although there were casualties for all forces, the majority were Aussies and Kiwis sent in to fight and “die for King and Country” (as the plaques and headstones remind us). Anzac Cove is named for this failed campaign. The story goes that this was the point where they landed to come and attack, having navigated poorly and missed their intended landing point (Gaba Tepe), not realising that they’d picked a cove with hilly terrain and impossible cliff faces when there were far easier beaches on low foothills on the bays on either side.

Having been trained in Egypt, they saw a rugged crag that looked (vaguely at best) like the Sphinx and thought this a good sign. Those poor chaps must’ve had a helluva time lugging themselves and their gear up those steep inclines… to their death. Those that survived the hostile terrain, suffered the extreme heat and unsanitary conditions which would prove almost as deadly as the Turkish fire.

It’s debated that the most successful part of the campaign was its evacuation, where the officers had gone to elaborate lengths to hide the intention to retreat – and had executed the operation near silently under the cover of darkness. Few lives were lost, bringing to an end a campaign which has cost the lives of almost 36,000 Commonwealth, 10,000 French and 86,000 Turks.

Commonwealth forces were only able to revisit the Peninsula after the Armistice, by which time many grave markings were lost or destroyed and the unburied beyond identification. They established 31 cemeteries containing 19,000 graves of which only 6,000 were identified. The names of the remaining 27,000 buried in unknown graves or never found are commemorated on 6 memorials to the missing on Gallipoli. The Canakkale Martyrs Memorial is dedicated to the memory of the Turkish soldiers who died, with smaller memorials and cemeteries on the Peninsula, mostly symbolic and containing few actual graves.

We visited a few of these places of interest winding back on the route from Anzac Bay to Gallipoli town, but were told that there are literally hundreds of cemeteries in the bush with final resting places where the soldiers died.

Lone Pine was a strategically important plateau (so named for the single tree that stood on it) in the south of Anzac was stormed by the Australians on 6 August 1915 and held until evacuation. The cemetery and memorial commemorates the 5,000 soldiers that died here with a graveyard that still has a single pine tree in the middle. Apparently, a young Aussie took a kernel from the tree and planted it in Australia and it flourished as a mirror memorial (or it could have been the other way around, the guide seemed more sold on the sentiment than the syntax).

Johnston’s Jolly stands on the northern part of the plateau and is named for the Aussie Colonel Johnston who said that if they could bring the enemy to bear on that point he would have a ‘jolly good time’. They didn’t, but it’s worth a visit to see how close the enemy trenches were to one another. There’s one point where the trench entrances are literally across the road from one another!

It was scary to see how young all the soldiers were when they died – most teenagers or early twenties, a handful in their thirties and only one that I saw who was 41. Thousands and thousands of graves. Lunacy.

Sounds like hundreds of thousands of men (from both sides) died there in WW1 and there are still banners and commemorations all around the region that acts as reminders of their ‘recent history’ – almost a century ago. Interestingly, Mustafa Kemal, a commander in the war who became the first president of Turkey (known as Ataturk or ‘father of the Turks’, the name of Istanbul’s international airport) put up a memorial at Anzac Cove in 1934, which includes the words “You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well”. Nice sentiment, but small consolation I’m sure.

The tour was quite maudlin and it was horrifying that such carnage had made sense in the context of those war games. Although at the outset we hadn’t known too much about the goings-on in Gallipoli, the Aussies on our tour seemed to be quite knowledgeable on the details so at least the significance of the slaughter wasn’t entirely lost (or bound to tourist attraction).

Done with the history and education for the day, we transferred back to Egeabat (European side of Turkey) to catch the ferry to Canakkale (Asian side).

Although Turkish uses the same alphabet as ours, the language is completely foreign with no similarities on word association with any of the languages I’m familiar with. There are lots of cedilla and accents, common in the Eastern European languages, so the phonetics and the syllabic emphasis are unpredictable. For example, we’re in Canakkale, which is pronounced ‘chuh-na-calay’, with a down accent on chuh, up on na and down again on calay.

Canakkale is a crucial geographic bottleneck controlling the crossing between Europe and Asia, as well as access to the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea beyond.

The history of the Canakkale Region (Troas) goes back to about 5,000BC, steeped in legend. Mythology would have us believe that King Athamas’s children, Phryxus and Helle, were sent away on a flying ram by their (presumably wicked) stepmother. Whilst flying over the Dardenelle Straits, Princess Helle fell off the ram and into the water… Giving the foundation for the name Hellespont.

The Persians were also in Canakkale in the 5th Century BC, when King Xerxes built his bridge of boats across the narrowest point of the Dardenelles to land 100,000 troops on Thrace, as part of his planned conquest of Europe. A cunning plan… Thwarted by the twin disasters at Thermopylae and Salamis.

Of course this sort of thing didn’t happen much anymore since people traded in flying rams and ferry tickets.

Landing in Canakkale we were delighted to find a quaint little seaside town with narrow single lane cobbled streets, a delightful little town square with traditional clock tower and marina lined with restaurants and cafes (that serve freshly caught seafood from the surrounding waters).

Our hotel, the Kervansaray, was founded in 1719 and looked like a Western Saloon with bare wooden walls and floor boards, worn red carpet up the winding wooden staircase and very high ceilings. The big flashing ‘Hotel’ sign that hung vertically above the entrance (and between the windows in our room) was just a decor bonus.

With daylight time in short supply, we headed straight out to see the town, which was small enough to circumnavigate on instinct since it was so small – especially handy since the tourist map seemed to be neither to scale nor based in fact.

First up was the Troy wooden horse that was used in the making of the Brad Pitt film and that is displayed on the Northern end of the harbour’s marina. A few snaps later, we retraced our steps and went to the Southern end to see the (apparently) famous castle (Kilitbahir Fortress) and war museum. Had had about enough of warmongery for the day though, so after a quick in-and-out, we headed for more familiar territory – the local Bazaar.

The Mirror Bazaar wasn’t much to write home about. A small hall of trinkets and souvenirs, open for enjoyment with extended shopping hours until 10pm. We should have considered ourselves warned since the receptionist at the hotel had described it to us as “full of unnecessary things that you can buy”, but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure (so I’m told) and we’ve been tickled at several literal translations of turns of phrase, so it certainly warranted a first hand looksee either way.

Sight-seeing and shopping ticked off the day’s list, all that remained was to find more exotic fare to sample for dinner. We found a lovely little Turkish restaurant (although I suspect they just call them restaurants here), which was the first we’ve found with menus with pictures AND English translations of each dish’s name AND English descriptions of what each dish is.

We ended up with a chicken doner wrap and a kofte sandwich (which undersells the half baguette that arrived), with a Kunefe for pudding (deep fried angelhair pasta stuffed with white cheese and covered in a sort of syrup). A great way to end a long day!

Asia, General, Turkey

Travelogue Turkey 1: Istanbul

ISTANBUL

13-15 April 2012

After a mad panic of a day (and starting packing at 17h25), I arrived at Mother’s house at 18h00, exactly an hour late. Fortunately, our plan had lots of buffer time so there was little harm done and we were soon on our way to the airport to start the adventure.

We arrived at the airport with time to spare, especially seeing as international departures was tumbleweeds and there were no queues. After having our bags plastic-sealed (mandatory and free for all Egypt Air flights we were told) we breezed through check-in and passport control, leaving plenty of time to hit the Slow Lounge.

Or so we thought. Apparently this is only a benefit for FNB Private Bank customers at international departures, so we were unceremoniously turned away and ended up (after unfruitfully checking every single other lounge to see if there was some card, ticket or membership profile we fitted) setting up camp at the boarding gate.

This allowed perfect space and time to set up Mother’s Kindle (The Perfect Birthday Present, clever girl I am) and Amazon Account. We delighted in downloading her first 4 (free) books in mere seconds and were soon being urged to board.

Dinner on the plane took an interesting spin on the usual dichotomy, when the hostess started off with “Fish or beef?”, changed to “We’re out of beef; there’s only fish left” by the row before us and, after checking with another trolley after the impassioned resistance from the man in front of Mother, ended up serving us chicken. Not bad: salad for starters (Mother and I simultaneously picked the feta off and abandoned the rest – this not-apple definitely didn’t fall far from that not-apple tree), chicken fillet with tomato and peppercorn sauce, mash and soggy carrots and broccoli for main and coconut cake thing for pudding (left untouched, no danger).

The Egypt Air entertainment programme – on communal screens – had a few false starts with the scheduled movies cutting out a little after the (always stirring) Fox intro sequence and then settled on screening a movie listed as being for ‘Flights out of Egypt’. Or so I’m told, I was out by then.

(What felt like) A few moments later (but was 4 hours) it was breakfast time already. A disappointing affair with rolls and very unremarkable confitures. A situation easily remedied at the Cairo Airport transit lounge with Burger King (for the body) and free wi-fi (for the soul).

The four hour stop-over passed quickly with eating, BBM’ing, reading and people-watching (largely comatose dreadlocked hippy to the left, German mother and *very* active toddler at 2 o’clock and Sleeping Tiger Drooling Asian to the right of me). All the while I was being ignored by Mother who was spending quality time with her Kindle 😀

Cairo to Istanbul is a mere hop in the international flight stakes, made even easier by having secured the best seats in the house (the emergency exit seats are the only 2-up set of seats on a plane of 3-up both sides of the aisle, with obscene amounts of legroom). The only downside is a steward’s seat facing, made infinitely more awkward by our steward’s combination of permanent-fixture dark glasses and teary demeanour (we amused ourselves with fantasy scenarios to explain the situation).

Our driver was waiting to meet us when we exited the airport from (our feather-light) baggage claim. We were a bit disappointed to see that it was raining, but pleased to have pre-planned transfers so as not to have to brave new ground with the handicaps of luggage and language. After a combination of chaotic highways and suburban twists and turns, we arrived at the very lovely Old Princess City Hotel.

We checked in, did a quick freshen-up and were about ready to hit the town when our tour Operations Manager called and asked for a quick meet-and-greet. We agreed and were face-to-face in the reception some 15 minutes later.

The meeting was opportune as one of the priority items on our agenda was to find something spectacular to do for Mother’s birthday on Friday. We set our sights on adding a daytrip to Capadoccia onto our itinerary over all of the cheesy and over-priced alternatives for dinner cruises and cultural evenings in Istanbul and our operator committed to leaving a message at reception with options for us.

With that, it was up and out and off to the Grand Bazaar, which was the perfect outing for a rainy day and an itinerary-timing necessity since it is closed on Sundays.

The Old City Princess Hotel was conveniently located alongside the city’s tramline system and we found to our delight that our station (Yusufpasa) was 2 stops away from the legendary Grand Bazaar – the biggest and oldest bazaar in the world.

The tram system was super-simple. Figure out which direction you’re wanting to go (easily done from the routing diagrams mounted at each station) and then it was 2 Turkish Lira (about R8.20) to get on and stay on for as long as you like. Cash was exchanged for a tramline token at one of a bank of terminals just ahead of the entrance turnstiles and were idiot-proof to any literate person with only 3 buttons to worry about: change language (good thinking, Turkey), quantity of tickets and confirm. The trams are not only cheap and easy, but also spotless. Not a sign of graffiti or litter anywhere, seats intact and clean with young people ceding for old people. Surreal.

The Grand Bazaar was located along side the tramline, so it was easy enough to hop off and run for cover under the awnings that lined the walkway into the bazaar. We almost made the rookie mistake of shopping in this walkway, lured in by the shopkeepers’ friendly greetings and the gorgeous leather goods, delicacies, confectioneries and other exotic items on display. Little did we know what lay ahead…

The bazaar was a monster extending 30,000 square metres,  including 18 gates, 65 streets, 21 caravanserais, 5 mosques, 6 fountains and 4,000 shops. Once inside, it was a maze of shops selling everything and anything, but with a distinct concentration of jewellery, leather jackets and bags, carpets, knock-off label clothing and handcrafted wooden items (mostly games and chests) interspersed regularly with tea/coffee booths.

The Turks are hard-sellers and haggling was an interesting exercise. Asking questions seemed to some degree obligate a purchase and the shopkeepers got quite verbally hostile when you tried to extract yourself from their store. Nothing was marked with prices and any enquiry stimulated a barrage of banter and a physical ushering into the store, which was inevitably big enough for both of you, but small enough that the seller blocked your escape and could reach almost anything from any shelf to ‘show and tell’ until you succumbed.

Getting out of the store unscathed (well, emotional spend rather than monetary) was best achieved by a 2-pronged approach. 1) fake left, move right and 2) a constant flow of thanks and promises to return to buy later. Don’t get eye-contact, don’t let them speak and definitely don’t stop! It may sound rude or heartless, but once you’ve had your first lecture on what a bad person you are for not buying the wallet/carpet/bag/shoes/souvenir, you’ll appreciate where I’m coming from.

Nonetheless, we had a ball in the Grand Bazaar and emerged several hours later (always the last to leave) with bags of shopping of all descriptions.

What a relief to have the tram right outside so we could get back to the hotel, relinquish the new treasures and head out for dinner.

Sadly, it was still raining (although very lightly) so we opted to keep local for dinner. We walked up the road looking for a place of interest. The roads were largely peppered with eateries (restaurants, local and western fast foods and lots and lots of bakeries and confectionery stores). There were also clothing stores with the odd supermarket or goods retailer and very rarely a commercial office – really my kind of place!

We window-shopped for food until we found the best of everything – a lovely little wooden chalet-looking cafe with a huge L-shaped glass counter packed with all sorts of savouries and sweets on display, a chef manning a chicken doner kebap (literally translated as “rotating roast”) in the doorway and a pizza oven and coffee station. None of these elements was unusual on our road, but this was the first place that had all of them.

We shared a chicken doner wrap and a mince and cheese pide, which is a pizza sort of thing that looks more like a flattened sub and has a very aerated, light and fluffy pastry. Both were winners. Mother had a very frothy and creamy-looking cappuccino, afraid to tempt fate with the more traditional Turkish brew, which looked fatal in the sleep stakes.

After a long first day, we headed back to our very comfortable hotel to enjoy a horizontal night’s sleep.

SUNDAY

Sunday seemed to come all too soon – mostly because we had a City Tour booked that was collecting us at 08h30. Breakfast was a continental buffet affair with fruits, cereals, Turkish bread (scone things, rolls, sesame-seeded baguettes, all fresh and divine), cheeses and a selection of meats (all very processed-looking and nowhere near as good as Seemann’s). The hot food section was thin with hard boiled eggs, very scary bright pink viennas and split pea soup (?!) The juices were also a selection of orange, (and the more unusual) peach and cherry.

Despite ourselves (and our family’s notoriously poor timing-keeping), we were ready and waiting at the prescribed hour – although, in a cruel karmic twist, our driver was not since he was having breakfast in our dining room!

We picked up the rest of what we thought was our tour group of 10 people and headed for the sights. When we got there we were split from the rest and assigned our own tour guide. A mixed blessing because while we would have the freedom to move freer and quicker, the other group got the more eloquent guide.

Istanbul (pronounced “e-stan-bul” by the locals), boasted the 3rd largest city wall in the world behind China’s great wall and another city in East Turkey. The city was very clean and well looked after, with cultivated and manicured gardens a frequent fixture on pavements, corners and centre islands. The gardens always have tulips as this is a Turkish cultural icon, often alongside carnations and always with sprays of colour giving a cheerful and well-tended feel throughout.

The Old City is on the European side of Istanbul, but the city continues over the Bospherus Strait into Asia. This strait runs for 32km and is the only route for the Black Sea in the north (with Bulgaria and Russia on its West and Northern shores respectively) to get to warmer seas, namely through the Marmara Sea (the only sea owned by a single country), the Dardanelle Strait (65km) and into the Aegian Sea and subsequently the Mediterranean.

But I digress. We were just arriving at the Hippodrome, which was a central quadrangle where all the entertainment went down in ancient times, namely chariot races and such. Makes sense since it was commissioned by the same chap who did the Circus Maximus in Rome. It must’ve been quite something in its day, 450m long and 130m wide, able to hold 100,000 spectators on 40 steps. The guide reckoned that events drew the majority of the population out to view since there were (clearly) less entertainment options than today. Or maybe chariot races were just that good.

The original track was some 5m below the present surface, with the only surviving monuments being the 2 obelisks and the Serpentine column (made of brass and long-since relieved of the entwined serpent heads after which it is named) that once adorned the Spina (middle barrier of the racecourse) and now sit in holes in a landscaped garden.

Conveniently, the other major sites were all in the same complex (which makes sense since olden times didn’t have the luxury of minibuses and trams). So, next up was a few steps to the left and some jumps to the right and we were time warping to the Blue Mosque – queue-jumping up a storm with our slimline tour group of 3.

The mosque was really quite something. The typical high-roofed, multi-domed, big mural windowed, gold-gilded old school place of worship, but with the added novelty of 21,000 ceramic tiles all hand painted with bright primary colour tulips and carnations. Cleverly, they always used to build markets alongside the mosques to fund the build and provide sustainable sources of income to keep adding to it.

Although glad to have seen it, am very glad not to have stood in a half hour queue to goose-neck at some tiles and stained-glass windows – and was very relieved to be able to put shoes back on after standing on bare marble in socked feet (I bet a fair number of worshippers have used their time there to pray for carpets and/or underfloor heating!)

The route from the mosque to Hagia Sophia walked past the Turkish Baths, still in full operation today. It was a delight to again skip the queue into the Hagia Sophia (a big reason to opt for organised tours with guides that pre-buy tickets) and head straight into the building. The Hagia Sophia (translated as ‘divine wisdom’) was originally built as a church and has been burnt down twice. Remains and relics from the first two buildings are on display in front of the current one, which has been acting as a museum since 1934.

Within the building, you can clearly see from the decor that it was built as a church, with Christian murals and mosaics adorning the walls, ceilings and domes. Peculiarly, the conversion of the building to a mosque was simply done by adding enormous (8m diameter) black disks with gold Islam symbols and writing on top of the existing artwork along the ceiling cornices. Sort of screws up the original vibe without definitively staking claim to the place.

Still, we enjoyed all the obligatories, walking up the 3 sets of ramp passages to see the church from the emperor’s viewing deck and sticking thumbs in the wishing hole where if you can do a full rotation of your hand without your thumb coming out of the hole then your wish is supposed to come true. If that turned out to be real then I would be in the Pound seats for sure!

While it was a better experience than the average church, it was still good to be outside because it was colder inside than outside from all the marble in such a cavernous space.

Right next door was the Sultan’s Palace Complex. We didn’t pay to get into the palace (20 Euros each seemed a bit steep for our level of sight-seeing involvement), but did wander around the gardens, where you could see Asia from this European vantage point. The area also contained the only church in Istanbul not converted to mosque and once had a hospital, mint and bakery that serviced just the people that live in the palace complex (over 4,000!) Concluded that part of the tour with a quick sneak through the Gates of Salutation (the pay part) for a photo.

The minibus collected us from the morning of city touring and was all ready to set off to drop us at our hotel when we hatched a wicked plot: “let’s go to Asia for lunch!” (seemed only right seeing as 97% of the country actually is in Asia and we’d been frittering away all this time in Europe). With the guide still hellbent on selling us an over-priced cruise meal rather than realising that we are more than capable of self-navigated explorations, we realised that first step was to ditch him. We got them to drop us off at the ferry and bought our tokens (also 2TL, bless the Turks and their elegant simplicity!) and boarded the ferry for the cross-continental traverse.

Couldn’t have taken more than 20 or 30 minutes for the whole journey and presto, we were disembarking at Kadikoy, the main port on the Asian Istanbul coast.

Different to, but just as cool as, the Old City. The port was busy, bustling and neon branding, with roads satelliting up the hill away from the coast with lots of buzz and activity. Just as much shopping, but bazaars were replaced with rows of little roads and pedestrian avenues with (bargain) shops melding into a sort of flea market with little shops and stalls.

First order of business was lunch and we found a gem of a place with self-service canteen-style set-up which replaced the language barrier and foreign menu with point-and-service idiot-proofing! We hit paydirt first time with a portion of besemel kebaplari (chicken and mushroom “pie” with a light dough cap baked with bechamel sauce on top) and a chicken portion stuffed with savoury rice served with sauteed potatoes. Just gets better and better!

After a lot of walking and a fair amount of shopping (again), we headed back across the Bosphorus Strait to get to the Spice Bazaar.

To be honest, the Spice Bazaar is – as a smallish L-shaped market – a bit disappointing after the magnitude of the Grand Bazaar and most of the shops sell (not surprisingly) spices, tea/coffee and knick-knacks and souvenir items so it can’t compete with the variety of Kadikoy. It did have the inevitable colourful history seeing as it had been around since 1660 etc etc, but its fate was sealed when the adjacent mosque wailing started, which was just too much to take at sunset after such a long day of pavement-pounding.

We grabbed the tram and headed back to the hotel to drop our shopping off and ended up meeting with our tour operator to confirm our Mother’s Birthday Excursion to Capadoccia. With that all sorted, we headed out for dinner and did a typical for us, trawling up and down the street for somewhere appealing… And ending up at the diner directly across the road from the hotel. Another feast of toasted doner, 1 chicken and one beef, jam-packed and delicious!

What a day! What a city! Istanbul is incredible.

Africa, South Africa, Travelogue

Travelogue: The Garden Route

THE GARDEN ROUTE

WESTERN CAPE 2012

If you’re ever at a loss for somewhere to go on a weekend away in beautiful South Africa, then take a stab at The Garden Route. It’s something I’d always known about; had heard about. Something that other people did. It just sounded so, well, gardeny.

Well, the good news is that it sort of is, but a lot it’s not.

Christian had been work-weeking in George and told me that it had ‘weekend getaway’ written all over it. That this part of the world was something that would have fitted perfectly into our 2011 plan, when we took every long weekend to adventure to a nearby places that everyone else seems to have been to but that have, until now, evaded us.

You may not have noticed, but the SA public holidays are perfectly suited to this sort of thinking as they’re more or less 6 weeks apart – Human Rights Day (March), Freedom Day / Workers Day  (27 Apr, 1 May), Youth Day (16 June), Women’s Day (9 August), Heritage Day (26 September).  2011 was perfect for it as the bulk were bumpered onto weekends, thus allowing us to sneak away to Dullstroom, Clarens, Maputo and Swaziland (in among our other adventures to Vic Falls and Leo Lapa at Kruger) without taking any leave.

Granted, those were all self-drive options, but with Kulula airlines flying into George, it didn’t have to cost the world to fly either. Lucky for me, I caught a Kulula sale and as a Discovery Vitality Silver member, the return flight cost me R700 and some change (as opposed to the R2000 and some change regular fares).

So, with that… it was off to George.

It all started with a nail-biting journey to the airport. As always, last minute client requests had left me tight for time and gunning it to the airport. Lady Luck is clearly a fan of the Garden Route though as, despite all odds, I made it to the airport in under half an hour… even with enough time to find the long-term parking… with a parking right at the entrance, with a bus ready and waiting to ferry me to the airport… to get there with 10 minutes before check-in closed… with no queue… and getting through the gates with still enough time even to hit the slow lounge (for the tiniest little roast beef roll I have ever seen and a tomato juice – for ‘5 a day’ value to keep me fighting fit for the weekend ahead).

Landing in George is surreal. It’s such a pretty surrounding that it doesn’t seem right to have big fat aeroplanes messing up the place. It’s gorgeous green fields disappearing into mountains on the left and blue seas disappearing into blue skies on the right. Golden sun smiling down on the whole picture. Awesome.

We did a bit of a drive through George, initially delighted to see that they have their own Schwabinger, but disappointed to see that it was no more than a deserted beer garden (although did have a dingy little restaurant annexed, which likely had some wholesome food to offer) so we carried on with Plan A and dropped my stuff off at the hotel, The Oakhurst. Lovely boutique hotel with a comfortable luxury room with it’s own little loft lounge (which we were tickled that we had wooden stairs up to where it seemed the other rooms only had ladders).

Christian had done lots of research about what to do and not to do, so it was hardly surprising that our sundowners and dinner were amazing. He’d planned dinner in Wilderness, with a short sundowner pub-crawl preamble.

Wilderness has a distinct main corner of activity, with 2 perpendicular roads lined with pubs and restaurants. We settled on Blue Olive as our first stop, drawn in by the allure of the decks being built around pre-existing trees, giving an almost treehouse effect. Really stunning in the warm sunshine, sipping on the local micro-brewery (Mitchell’s) beers.

Moving on, we tried a place called Bongo’s, which had the unfortunate positioning that all the tables either faced the highway or a large sports screen (neither particularly appealing to me), so this was a 1 Beer Wonder visit. (Although their pizzas did look good, albeit a bit on the pricey side).

With the sun rapidly setting we headed for our dinner spot, Salinas. Being quite newly opened, the restaurant is still in high demand (even with the locals) so it was Christian’s solid admin that had not only gotten us in, but managed to get us the best table in the house. Positioned on the corner of the deck that surrounded the 2 beach-facing sides of the building and without railings of any kind, it felt like we were actually on the beach. Idyllic spot to watch the sun creep behind the mountain on the other side of the bay… and eat super-fresh seafood… and sip back lush red wine.

After a long day and lovely evening, we retired back to the hotel for a nightcap. Christian had discovered that the bar staff were consistently very heavy-handed with the wine, so the nightcap was more of a talking point than about the drink itself. True’s nuts, the barista poured a veritable fishbowl of wine each – to the point that had we not been drinking a glass of white (Christian) and a glass of red (me), it might have taken more than a bottle for our 2 drinks!

SATURDAY

We started off Saturday the way every good Saturday should – with a hearty breakfast. The hotel has a continental buffet and hot food to order. We went with the omelettes (supplemented by yoghurts, cold meats, toast and juice) and were very pleased with our choice.

Heading off for our day of beach bouncing, we were hindered by a really big deal in George’s annual calendar The Wheelchair Race. Through and across town, it meant that roads were closed off and we got to see some of the more far flung suburban parts of George (who knew they had so many schools?!)

We stopped off at the Outeniqua Farmers’ Market, which would have been much better had we not eaten as it’s largely food stalls and fresh edible farm produce. Lots of delicious things I would have loved to gluttonise, but alas, there was no room in the inn (or in me).

Good time for a walk along the esplanade at Victoria Bay though. Beautiful cove with all the ingredients for the perfect beach… and so conveniently located as the signpost will tell you. Just 8315km from Perth, 9670 from Berlin, 6276km from South Pole and 9762km from Bali. It would seem that Victoria Bay is practically en route to anywhere!

Continuing the beach-hop, we moved on to Wilderness Beach, where we frolicked a bit in the sand and sea, getting toes wet and doing the seaside thing, but it was a bit windy so we didn’t stay very long.

Back on the main drag, we stopped in at Timberlake Market. Again all meats, cheese, wines and confectionery… and no room to enjoy it. This spot did seem to be a bit more family oriented though, with more activities for kids to do… while parents eat. I really should have brought a bigger appetite with me for this weekend!

The end result was arriving at Plett (our furthest point for the day) to park at Beacon Island and take a long walk along Beacon Beach. There were lots of jelly fish and blue bottles so I didn’t do more than the odd ankle-deep dunk in the water (not like I ever do much more than that, but still) but Christian was braver and said the water was ‘fresh’, which we all know means bloody freezing in my world!

Fiiiinally, I was ready for lunch and we hit the beach classic, Moby Dick’s on Central Beach, for some super-fresh fish and chips and the first beers of the day. Always such a treat to eat at a seaside spot, right on the beach, with excellent seafood (and company). If you’re in Plett, this place is definitely worth a visit.

First half of the day down, we were back in the car and headed for Knysna. We took a drive to Thesen Island and settled at the quay at a lovely place called Scirocco, where we worked our way through the as-yet undiscovered Mitchell’s offerings (with names like Forrester, 90 Shilling, Millwood Mild and Milk & Honey) whiling away the time until our sunset cruise. There were lots of other inviting-looking cafes, restaurants and pubs, but we were too engrossed in the hilarity of making up stories about the stick figures on the warning signs to bother to move.

… until we had to in order to make our 5 o’clock cruise from the Knysna quay.

The cruise was (surprisingly) a barless affair, so we organised some roadies from the restaurant at the quay… which might not have been the smartest move seeing as the boat also turned out to be a bathroomless affair!

The Knysna Bay makes for a lovely sunset, with calm waters and green hillside taking you to the mouth where the river meets the sea at the famous Knysna Heads. The cruise director was well versed in history and anecdotes from Knysna’s long and mottled past, which made for entertaining listening against the backdrop of all the lush scenery. Fortunately, the cruise only takes you to the official point where the river is marked as joining the sea (by buoys) so there’s no danger of spilling drinks (and it’s easier on the already-full bladder) than having to tussle the ocean and waves.

Returning to the quay leaves a large selection of entertainment options (of the similar eating/drinking variety as the rest of the region), but we bee-lined without hesitation to the Oyster Bar. A stalwart and a must. Jutting right into the bay, the quaint wooden building is the best place to grab an oyster (or several, they’re sold by size and individually by any portion number that suits) and watch the sun orange the sky.

With nothing left on the day’s busy agenda but dinner (yes, eating again), we were unanimous that we wanted to try Pomodoro’s in Wilderness. We’d walked past it the night before and both commented on how nice it looked and, more importantly, smelled.

What a great choice! A lovely cosy Italian restaurant, where we somehow managed to get a very private nook table that was the perfect candlelit setting for our animated recounting of the day’s experiences. Nice friendly staff, quick service, correct orders (despite my inevitable chops and changes) and we had a delicious tomato/mussels pasta and a pizza brimming with all our favourite toppings and cheese and a bottle of red, all for R200. Highly recommended!

On that winning note, we headed back to the hotel to call a very long day a very long night’s slumber!

SUNDAY

Sunday’s adventure took us inland though the Outeniqua Pass to Oudtshoorn. After nearly nearly neeeearly running out of petrol, we free-wheeled into Oudtshoorn and looked, as one does, for the nearest ostrich farm. Safari Ostrich Farm it was. Having had a family holiday through Oudtshoorn, I didn’t feel it necessary to take a tour or ride a bird, so it was a case of some bird-watching (through a camera) and some shopping (the souvenir shop for the respective niece and nephews) and then we were on the road again.

Ordinarily, this would seem like an extravagance. To road-trip to all the way to a spot and stay only 20 minutes, but it’s super doable in these parts. All the towns are very close together, with most 20 or 30 km apart (George to Wilderness to Knysna to Plett along the coastline) and then slightly further 50km inland to Oudtshoorn and all the way with pretty scenery and things to look at along the Pass, so really no obligation to labour it to make the journey worthwhile. Of course, there’s always the failsafe option if you feel the need to linger – the town is heaving with lunch and tea places.

But, that wasn’t for us, and we headed off through the Robinson Pass, through Hartenbos to Mossel Bay.

What a truly undiscovered pleasure. Diaz Beach is really breath-taking, with the bluest sea and the beigest beach (beach sand really isn’t white), which we enjoyed from the lunch place du jour, Sea Gypsy.

Apparently a local legendary spot, it’s a simple set up with bench-style tables and plastic table clothes. But what it lacks in textbook elegance, it makes up for in charm and character… and the most melt-in-your mouth fresh seafood and gob-smacking portion sizes at bargain prices. I had a basket of crumbed calamari and crumbed mushrooms with chips, so much that I couldn’t finish and for only R40! If you’re choosing between here and Moby Dick’s, choose here.

Taking in the local sights – and working off some of lunch – we wandered around at Mossel Bay Point. The town is bizarrely peppered with caravan parks along the prime beach frontage. Never ever would you see such premier real estate go to the bottom of the holiday food chain like this! Mossel Bay Point follows this trend with people on deck chairs, under tents attached to mobile homes watching us (through the mesh fence of the caravan park) walk along the esplanade.

Right at the end there are stairs up to Blaize Cave and the lighthouse, if you’re into that sort of thing. We suspected that the path would continue further around the cove, but sometimes these mysteries are best kept as mysteries. And on a bellyful of lunch, it’s definitely one of those times.

I finally got my hands on some ostrich biltong, which had been a bucketlist for the trip. It’s much saltier than beef, but still worth the effort.

Last stop on the roadtrip was Herald’s Bay. A stunning secluded cove at the bottom of a hill with full mountain cliffs on 3 sides, sheltering a cul-de-sac of what can’t be more than 40 houses. And it’s just houses. No waterfront with restaurants and shops. Nothing. Not sure that I could live there or would even want to holiday there (it really feels quite remote, even though it’s only a few kilometres to the next town), but I’m very glad I can say that I’ve been there and seen how the other half live (although 40 can never really be considered half now, can it).

En route home, a stone’s throw from Herald’s Bay, we stopped in to see how their neighbours (contributors to the proverbial other half) were doing at Oubaai Hyatt Resort. Very fancy and lovely, but having had a weekend of seaviews, a 5* experience that overlooked a *gasp* golf course simply wasn’t anywhere near as good, so we decided to head back to George for sundowners at Kingfisher’s (a spot which Christian’s colleague had pointed out must be good since it always had a full parking lot… not realising that it shared the parking lot with a car dealership hehehe). We didn’t eat there, but it looked like it served a great pizza.

Finishing off the evening with a dip in the hotel pool and a ‘tankard’ of wine from the heavy-handed hotel server, we retired to the suite to rest our weary bones and have a giggle to ‘Sh!t My Dad Says’.

The sting was taken out of departure the next morning with a sumptuous breakfast at the hotel, a 5 (literally) 5 minute drive to the airport, with beautiful scenery and surroundings along the way and a super-quick check-in, as only secondary airports can do. Still, it was hard to be excited to return home after such an awesome weekend.

For more exciting adventures in the Garden Route.

Asia, Thailand, Travelogue

Travelogue SEA 8: Koh Samui – Home

KOH SAMUI

31 December 2011 – 04 January 2012

It was a pleasure to have an uneventful transfer from Phuket to Koh Samui.

We’d managed to make pre-arrangements over BBM with Mike and Michelle that we would meet them at their hotel, from where we would all transfer together to the port to leave for Koh Phangan for the Full Moon New Year Party. M&M had been touring the Thai islands and arrived at Koh Samui a few days before us, so they had a good idea of the lay of the land and the local options. Michelle – a talented and experienced haggler – had managed to strike a good deal and had our tickets (which included minibus taxi transfers between hotel and port as well as speedboat transfers from Samui to Phangan) for 700 baht apiece.

After stealing a strategic sneaky nap, we headed off to find Seascape Resort. It turns out we were at the very north of Chaweng Beach and they at the very south, so we had a longer sunset walk along the beach than planned! … But there was a Happy Hour 50 baht Singha at the end of it and we’d arrived with a half hour to spare before the taxi was due, so all’s well that ended well.

Was great to see M&M and catch up on all the travel tales (and stories from home seeing as we’ve not seen them in a while) while we went through the motions of waiting for taxi, taxiing, queuing at the pier and then the speedboat journey to the party island. Mike, who suffers badly from motion sickness, did really well on the boat, so all the boxes were ticked and we were headed for the Countdown.

The entrance fed all boat arrivals up one of the island’s narrow streets so, predictably, that section of town was teeming with people at the roadside food stalls, restaurants and most of all street bar stalls and convenience stores (cheap beer and mixers!)

We stopped at an early food stall and picked up some really divine deep-fried chicken drumsticks and wandered around exploring the winding streets criss-crossing the island on our way to inspect the mayhem at the beach.

Which, we found when we got there, really truly was mayhem! Lots and lots and lots of sweaty people dancing and belting along to hideous dance music, bodies painted with fluorescent paint and drinks sloshing all over the show!

We headed right along the beachfront, zig-zagging between the people toward a club on the end of that stretch that had “The Rock” emblazoned in bright neon letters, ever hopeful that it would be a rock venue, where we could have some beers and eats listening to something with actual guitar, drums and lyrics. No such luck.

We decided that next natural step would then be to hunt for dinner in ‘town’, so we trawled the market stalls for something of interest. Pizza seemed to be the common consensus, but all the stalls had the same very-bready-but-not-cheesy-enough style. We shifted strategy and headed for the Lazy House restaurant, which we’d stopped at for a toilet break en route and which had a varied and reasonably priced menu. We found it again with relative ease, seeming to have found our bearings on Phangan quite quickly despite the same same (but different) roads.

Good pizza (bacon, mushroom and garlic) and poor service (a common combination in South East Asia we’ve found; no qualms saying wait a minute and then leaving you hanging for ages) later and we headed to find Mellow Mountain, which someone had told Michelle was a must. It turned out to be a bar nestled in the rocks overlooking the bottom end of the main beachfront we’d been on earlier.

We settled in the loft area (the bar is spread over multi-levelled decks). It was too loud and hot, so we didn’t last long. Moving back down the shore we found a beachside hostel that was serving from its bar and had a little raised area with mats and cushions and low tables. It was open with fans, so far better suited to our chill vibe.

We stayed there until just before midnight, then went down to the beach again to join the official countdown, which was being displayed on a big digital watch under a countdown sign with a fiery countdown sign that had just been lit. We counted in the New Year (twice) and saw in 2012 with the waves lapping at our feet as a group of 4 friends among a sea of strangers!

We then made it our mission to hunt down the elusive rock club, since a friend had told us there was one and it made sense that there must be at least one place that bucked the senseless dance music everywhere else was blasting. We got mixed response from the several people we asked along the way, but settled for the only reggae bar in town when we stumbled upon it. Very chillaxed, mats and cushions with sarong drapery and obviously only reggae music.

The return speedboats were scheduled at every hour on the hour so we left the reggae bar at 1.30 figuring we’d just hop on the 2am one. No such luck! There were long queues and the 2am boats filled all too quickly. The wait for the next batch wouldn’t have been so bad except the natives were very restless and there was pushing and crunching as every person tried to ensure that they’d secure their spot on the next boat. We managed to get on the boat just before 3 and were very lucky to catch the last 2 spaces in the minivan going to North Chaweng as we landed, which would take us right to our door. M&M weren’t quite so lucky and had to wait and then catch a  series of inter-connections and it took them ages to get home!

SUNDAY

The 1st, as is common, was a bit of a write-off, worsened by the fact that it was raining – and as a result cooler and dark – so we didn’t even stir until midday. Heading out down the road toward town to find breakfast, we ended up getting caught in a torrential downpour, initially seeking shelter in the doorway of a market stall but eventually accepting that we’d make no notable progress toward town so we might as well dart across the road and eat at the very Anglo place we’d rejected on first sight.

A Full English behind us, we dashed back to the hotel for an afternoon of indulgent nothingness, reading and napping and half-watching telly.

At 5-ish we hailed a taxi and headed to M&M’s resort as we’d planned to go to the night market at Lamai, which was supposed to be the best on a Sunday. Since 1 Jan is also Mike’s bday, it would make a great place to celebrate and dinner overlooking the ocean from one of the most beautiful parts of the island. But… Rain stopped play and the market was closed, so we sourced a few tinnies from the local 7Eleven to enjoy on M&M’s stoep while we regrouped and revised plans.

We decided to stick close to home and start with a pub they’d tried (and liked) a few times, called The Wave Samui. It’s owned by 2 English chaps who were travelling the world and happened to be in Samui when their plans to go to Hong Kong were thwarted by the bird flu outbreak, so they stayed in Samui and opened a guesthouse and pub/restaurant. The place has loads of atmosphere and is known for its wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling book cases, complete with inset door to the bathroom with books wallpaper!

We liked the pub immensely and it got us jolly and ready for the chosen fare of the night – a set menu at the local Indian with 2 potato samoosas, a chicken tikka masala and a chicken makhani with saffron rice, an onion naan, a garlic naan and 2 beers for 600 baht (ZAR 150). Very yum!

Moving from there we found an awesome bar called The Loft. Built across 2 buildings with a little pedestrian bridge connecting them, the bar was a collection of rooms and decks of varying sizes at 2nd and 3rd floor levels, front and back of the building, with some smaller mezzanines. All covered by roof but open air, not a window frame or pane of glass in sight. Very cool. And we were very happy there with their 60 baht G&T and vodka & red bulls, while the rain belted down.

We took a gap in the rain to dash home. It’s always good to have a brisk walk home after time in the pub, something that’s sorely missing in SA lifestyle. It was still drizzling though so we were soaked by the time we got back to the hotel.

MONDAY

Had another long sleep-in after discovering that our last full day was also destined to be rainy. We’d heard reports that parts of the island were flooding and the whole of Southern Thailand is super-flooded (destructive, but not yet life-threatening).

We’d discovered that the rain belts down, but provides periodic eyes in the storm where it gets down to virtually nothing before it starts up again so used an eye to make a dash for brunch run. We hunted down a (pork) Masamang and (chicken) Penang curry, both which Michelle had recommended and both on good advisement.

We dotted window-shopping (eyes) with actual shopping (storms) and ended up with (another) 4 bags of gifts and goods, so thought it wise to busy ourselves rather with a Thai massage (since we were in the hood after all). We spent the next hour being prodded and pressed and were most pleased with our decision.

By this time we had walked as far as The Wave so we thought it rude not to pop in. And spent the next 5 hours there! The best potato skins ever! And finally we found flexible people – easily convincing them to make us nachos with their beef and mushroom bolognaise mince (which we’d had on the skins) when there was panic because they were out of the chilli con carne mince advertised on the menu!

Again, using the eye of a storm to make a dash for home, we poked our heads in at a few of the pubs and bars with live entertainment, but nothing held our attention so we called it a night.

TUESDAY

Fortunately, our last morning was quite painless as we’d had the good sense to book a private taxi to get us to the pier for our speedboat-bus-plane to Bangkok. We had a fair enough breakfast of cheese omelette and fried bread (they couldn’t toast because of yet another power failure – they have more than we do when we’re load-shedding!) and were soon off to start the long journey home.

Got to the harbour without incident, but the stupid speedboat was an hour late, which worried us with the tight timing of all the connections. A short 45 min ferry and the bus was waiting for us for the 30 ride to the airport, where we arrived at 16h20 for our 16h50 flight. Fearing the worst, Christian took charge of getting our bags and I scurried into the airport to find the Nok Air desk.

Shouldn’t have worried – this is Nok Air! Nobody seemed concerned at all by my urgent tone and, although there was some discussion between the *four* people clustered behind the counter, no info was forthcoming and the faces were poker-worthy. People were starting to cluster around me, with connection concerns far more time-sensitive than ours (but of course my only mission was to get us airborne).

Eventually we were issued boarding passes for what we were told was the 19h45 flight, but which said were boarding 17h55… And were both in my name!!! They reissued Christian’s. By now he was seething and there was no way they’d mess with his “don’t dare ask me to pay for overweight luggage” comment as he hoisted our 20kg (mine) and 22kg (his) suitcases onto the scale for our 15kg (each) weigh-in.

We also made them give all the delayed passengers food vouchers, since we’d spent all our baht, planning on dinnering at Bangkok airport where credit cards are readily accepted and had no intention of going through the hassle and expense of drawing money to entertain ourselves in the canteen of a restaurant in this one-horse (still quicker means of transport than a Nok flight it seems) airport. They obliged (am sure they’re used to it by now) and we ordered bacon, cheese and tomato double-decker sandwiches. They were OK, but all the bacon in Thailand was bland.

We had a last scare when all the people around us seemed to have Thai Air boarding cards when we were sitting with Nok Air slips… That said boarding at 17h55 for a 19h45 flight, with nothing filled in next to boarding gate (although there are only 2).

Fearing that the team of nimrods at the desk had managed another mess, we checked with the departure gate security. And then, not taking our chances on non-airline staff, Chris went back out and double-triple checked with Information and the Nok Air desk… And, yes, we were on the 19h45 flight despite what our ticket said and what all appearances seemed to indicate.

We boarded as we were told we would, given a sausage roll (disappointing soggy pastry thing compared to home) and no sooner were we up than we were down. All that palaver for such a short flight!

Bangkok Airport (Suvarnabhumi or somesuch) was a pleasure. Big and clean with lots of shops, dry toilets with toilet paper and toilets that can flush toilet paper, and several foodcourts. We did a quick Subway Melt (chicken, ham, bacon, cheese, onion, jalapenos, tomato, toasted) and waited the hour or so to board to go to Addis Ababa, with a short(ish) stop and then onward home.

And just like that; the end of the South East Asia travelogue series.

See you soon!

Asia, Thailand, Travelogue

Travelogue SEA 7: Phuket

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PHUKET

28-31 December 2011

Phuket airport is very jacked for tourists so we not only easily managed to arrange transfers to Patong Beach, but also managed to get them chucked in as a freebie by booking an island tour (full day with speedboat to 3 islands, including lunch and snorkelling at Phi Phi etc) same time. As always, cast out the ratecard and haggled a 55% discount – and a money-back guarantee for if we can get it cheaper elsewhere (can’t hurt).

Felt good to be arriving in one place for 3 nights – it had been a real go!go!go tour so far! (But wouldn’t have changed a thing!)

After about an hour in a minivan transferring from the airport (north Phuket) to Patong Beach (south west Phuket), we finally arrived at our hotel – a bright yellow building called Moonlight House. Hearts sank (and octaves rose) when the reception told us that they hadn’t received our online booking.

Fortunately we had copies of all booking confirmations with us so we could easily prove that we’d booked and paid. The clerk obliged with a complicated plan of rooms we’d have to swap to day by day. We weren’t having any of that after all our (unnecessarily stressful airline experience and the general stressfulness of all the necessary) planestrainsandautomobiling from Siem Reap! Fearing the crazy eyes, the clerk quickly made a plan and we were ushered to Room 304. For 3 glorious nights in a row.

The room was lovely – clean and bright and modern, with instantly effective air con, TV with lots of English channels and a shower that had good pressure AND made hot water (a rare combo in our experience). Nirvana.

By this point it was around 8pm so we went straight out again to explore and forage.

Leaving the hotel, we (on the advice of the concierge) took a left and did a complicated circuit of main roads and alleyways to find our way to the main stretch of Patong Beach. The hotel hadn’t seemed so far from the beach on the maps on the online booking site 🙁

Nonetheless, we delighted in the busy neon bustle of infamous Bangla Road and the festival of stalls along the beachfront selling (mostly) foods of all descriptions. Perfect instant gratification for our restlessness post Day of Great Migration! We picked up some (awesome) pork ribs and tempura prawns with sweet chilli sauce – ready to eat so we could just pick, pay and eat straight away at one of the many sidewalk table areas. With only bottled water to drink. It had been *that* kind of day.

We quickly whipped around the beach area, surrounding roads and the markets nestled in between – getting a lay of the land and a feel for the local options – and soon admitted defeat from a tiring day and the very humid coastal heat. It was bliss to get back to our hotel, get showered and clean and have a lie down staring at the telly!

We had returned to our hotel via the same route we’d taken down to the beach, again disappointed by the winding route and unanticipated distance from the action (worsened enormously by every tourist city map only displaying a selection of roads and only labelling a limited portion of those depicted).

THURSDAY

So, the next day we decided to rent a scooter to do the trek to the beachfront for brunch and then perhaps do some exploring on the island.

Luckily there was a place across the road from Moonlight House offering scooters for 200 baht a day (50 baht cheaper than the beachfront rentals), so we got a nifty red and black number (concluding the deal in the office which had an adjoining bedroom where the manager appears to share his bed with an inflatable Spider-Man!) and headed seaward. Heading right this time, we found that if we followed the road straightstraightstraight it was less than 2km to the beach. An easy walk – and so much easier and quicker than the route from the night before on foot!

We got to the beachfront, parked the scooter and started trawling the food stalls for something that appealed for (late) brunch. We ended up sharing a very excellent chicken and egg Pad Thai with roast pork with sweet chilli sauce on the side. Discussing options over our meal, we both agreed that it would be good to just sit and chill all day instead of zooting around in the baking sun seeing samey-samey beaches and markets. Easily done, we secured loungers and umbrellas and set up camp.

It’s not easy being South African on a beach holiday. We had left most of our valuables in the hotel, locked in the suitcase, and made sure to only take one of everything (wallet, credit card etc) with us should ‘the inevitable’ happen and our stuff get stolen. Great debate about whether or not to take the camera as we’d want pics of the day, but was it worth risking losing the pics of the rest of the holiday? We decided to take it (and I resolved that on return home I will put a note into the case with an ‘if found, please return for reward’ message).

When we swam, we packed everything into the bag, carefully tucking it between the 2 loungers so as to hamper any potential hit and run thief sweeps and eyed our neighbours suspiciously to assess the risk they might hold.

None at all from the ones on my side – a Dutch couple that seemed determined not to touch the sand, with Her putting all her efforts into smoking up a Peter Stuyvesant ad sequined-dress-on-a-yacht lifestyle and Him buying stuff from every passing peddler and constantly clicking fingers for delivery of a seemingly endless stream of drinks and snacks.

Christian’s neighbours were a Russian couple with Him fiddling and faffing (digging in his bag, adjusting the umbrella, shifting the lounger into the sun, shifting his lounger out of the sun, looking for his cigarettes, looking for his wallet etc etc etc) in an shimmery silver Speedo that was constantly bobbing in Christian’s peripheral vision and adding a queasy side-story around the edges of the book he was reading. Russian Her was oblivious to her husband’s fidgeting as she was tanning her leather while happily chatting away to more (of the many) Russians on the other side of her.

It was a great day. Very relaxing. In and out of the water, not even attempting the sun, opting rather to nap and read under the trees and umbrellas (which the lounger owners did a great job of constantly turning and shifting so that we had uninterrupted shade – much to the chagrin of Silver Speedo Ivan Guy).

We managed to get hold of Clive and Vanessa who we knew were also holidaying in Patong and made arrangements to meet them for dinner. They’d already been in Patong a few weeks so were experienced in the ‘where to and not to’ and we had an excellent dinner at a local side street restaurant. Chris and I shared wok fried beef with garlic and black pepper, and calamari in oyster sauce, with a side of broccoli with oyster sauce for the table. Amazing for under 600 baht (ZAR 150), including drinks. Then we hit Pit Stop on Bangla Road, which Clive and Vanessa had made their local thanks to 50 baht Chang beers (another happy-hour-all-night wonder).

The vantage point was superlative for people watching (and spotting our NZ friends who’d just arrived after their foray with transport of all types! … That we would have had to do if Nok Air hadn’t caught the wake-up that they did!) and there’s quite a societal cross-section making their way up and down the road all night. Not so unexpected to see ladies (and lady boys) of the night, ping-pong show pushers, and bingefuls of lager louts. Weird to see so many families with babies and small children in such a smutty environment so late at night. Each unto their own I suppose (re all of the above!)

Clive’s an epic hawker shopper and by now had a bag of bits and pieces he’d bought along our trawl, including a Singha beer cooler for Christian, so it was hardly surprising that we all ended up with green and yellow ‘WWED’ (What Would Eric Do) wristbands made-to-order in minutes by a passing sales person to remind us of the reason we had all ended up in Patong. Eric been singing the praises for years of his awesome annual family vacations in Patong, with details on the where and whats of his jaunts and adventures. He had booked months ago for his family to come this December starting the impetus with the 4 of us, only to cancel at the last minute, leaving us obliged to retrace the footsteps and keep the holiday cheer alive!

The night went on longer than it should have bearing in mind our early morning start for the island tour, but a good time was had by all and after all we had been sleeping all day…

FRIDAY

The island hopping tour was really good value, taking us to 3 islands off the coastline on the Eastern side of the island (closer to Phuket Town), providing all transfers, speed boat travel, snorkel gear, drinks and buffet lunch for ZAR500 for both of us. We first visited Monkey Island with a beautiful white sand and azure ocean beach where we could laze and paddle and ease into the day. Then we cruised around over lunch and docked in Maya Bay (where The Beach was filmed) where we snorkelled and frolicked – and the Aussie yoots got fined for jumping off the top deck… So they did it again in rebellion.

Last stop was Phi Phi Don where we docked and were given time to explore the town and its beaches. It wasn’t what we expected. It’s a motorless town, with no cars or scooters (which is a blessing) but the cyclists and their confounded bells are just as bad. Possibly even worse since the pathways through the town are so narrow. It’s searingly hot and humid on the island and it teems with sweaty people and travellers that have gotten stuck. Am very glad to have been there and seen it, but pleased that we didn’t overnight there as we’d originally considered doing.

Another dinner and drinks out with Clive and Vanessa, Rob and Aaron, meeting at Bangla Road, dabbling with an Irish pub and settling rather at the sidewalk stalls for dinner (ribs, prawns, baked potato and chicken pad thai) and moving back to the Old Faithful, Pit Stop, for drinks.

We’d had fun in Patong, but it’s not for the faint-hearted with the hot hot heat and hectic humidity, the wall-to-wall people and the nightlife and seediness that comes along with it.

Grateful for a sleep-in, we had an easy transfer to the airport, plenty of time for a leisurely brunch (Burger King Chicken Club with bacon, BBQ sauce and mayo – 5 out of 5, but pricey at ZAR75 for the meal) and a plane that was… On Time!

Another day, another island and so we arrived at Koh Samui for our New Year’s Eve celebrations. But that’s another story for another time.

Asia, Cambodia, Travelogue

Travelogue SEA 6: Siem Reap

SIEM REAP

27-28 December 2011

The last few days in Phnom Penh had been marred a bit by some hitches in the travel plans.

When we first arrived at the beginning of our trip, we received an email from Nok Air saying that our flight from Bangkok to Phuket (28 Dec) had been cancelled due to maintenance and that we had the option to move to the 11h30 or 13h30 flight or get a refund. We knew that, even with the private taxi we had booked, we would never get to Bangkok in time for the 11h30 flight so accepted the 13h30 flight and contacted our Siem Reap driver to move our departure to a searing 05h00 in order to get to the airport on time. The Siem Reap driver was accommodating, but the airline didn’t reply, despite several follow-up emails from us.

They eventually replied on Christmas Eve saying that they were sorry, the earlier flights were full and we could expect a refund in about 45 days (and if not, to follow up with them in writing!) Great Christmas gift that was! We sent a strongly worded reply saying this was unacceptable seeing as we’d replied to their email (sent 15 Dec) as soon as we’d received it (16 Dec) and it was their delay that had led to the capacity issues. Again, no reply.

We started doing research into options… Which were few and unappealing. Being the busiest time of year, there were no flights available out of Bangkok at all. Next option was the sleeper train. Fully booked. Then the sleeper bus. Nobody could tell us. We even looked at cancelling the taxi and taking the bus from Siem Reap through Bangkok to Phuket. A gruelling 20 hours on a bus, with only a reclining seat 🙁

We resolved on retaining the early departure from Siem Reap (although at a more civilised 7am) and get dropped in Khaosan Road in Bangkok to assess overnight bus options from there. Not ideal, but at least we had a plan. At the very eleventh hour – mid-afternoon the day before we were due to leave for Bangkok – we got word from the airline that they could now accommodate us on the 14h10 flight. Hallelujah!

Lousy for our NZ friends as there were no seats on the flight available for them (we did ask Nok Air), but there was hope in sight for us.

To take the sublime to the ridiculous, we received a second email from Nok Air later that afternoon saying that the flight had been delayed to 15h00 – exactly the time of our original flight!! All that stress and a cloud over us while we were seeing and doing such amazing things… to end up in the exact place we started!

But, back to Siem Reap… It’s a charming little town that exists because of and thrives on the tourists that come to see the famous Angkor Archeological Park temple complex, with its 400 square kilometres of over 200 monuments and temples built between the 7th and 13th centuries by Khmer kings when the civilisation was at its height and dominating most of South East Asia.

The town itself has the same combination of markets, restaurants and pubs that everywhere else has, but is far more relaxed. With considerably less traffic and roads closed off, the Pub Streets are tables spilling over the pavements and people milling around creating a buzz, rather than the roar we’ve been seeing throughout our journey.

We’d arrived mid-afternoon, so dropped our stuff at the hotel (very lush Riverside Hotel, with lovely pool area, US$25 per room per night), grabbed a tuk-tuk into town and explored the markets.

There was lots more of the same stuff we’d seen in all the previous markets, but even cheaper! Lower starting prices and even more amenable to a haggle! We bought a few bits and pieces and then headed off to meet for dinner. The food was also much cheaper than anywhere else we’d been before and we chose a really nice Khmer restaurant at an upstairs table overlooking the market and Pub Streets. Everything on the menu was under $2! Main courses, curries, seafood, BBQ, everything!

We were tussling between options so decided to just get all 3 things we wanted – chicken lok lak, beef in spicy basil and beef & broccoli. Good thing too because they were all delicious and I’d hate to have missed out on any of them! We settled for Cambodia beer because 3 quarts earned a free t-shirt, which ironically ended up going to Aaron (who was the only one not drinking beer) because it was his size.

We had a sunrise start the next morning, so just walked around the night markets and around some of the town and then called it an early night.

WEDNESDAY

5am came all too soon and we were up and out with our driver, Kriss. We got to Angkor Wat by about 5.30 and watched the sunrise behind the main temple buildings and then explored the buildings until about 8. The buildings are in surprisingly good shape for their age and there is free access everywhere with no demarcated routes or cordoned off areas as is commonplace in most sites we’ve visited elsewhere. You really can create your own value for the US$20 per person (per day) that they charge and it’s refreshing that one tickets cover all the temples in the area.

We spent the morning exploring the main temples – Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom (‘Big City’, walled ancient city with Palace, Bayon temple and 12 towers), Preah Khan (another temple), Ta Prohm (the jungle temple with trees growing through the buildings) and ending off with Banteay Srei (a pink sandstone temple with very intricate carvings). By lunchtime we were all templed out and returned to our hotel to spend an afternoon by the pool relaxing.

Refreshed, we returned to town (by tuk-tuk) to grab a sunset appetiser – the enormous prawns we’d seen the night before. Individually selecting our prey, we delighted as they turned from grey to pink and the shell crisped from the searing BBQ fire. They were served up with a simple sweet chilli sauce… And were worth every penny of the $2! 🙂

Next up was a foot massage. I’d had a sore throat and burning sinus for a few days (undoubtedly from all the polution and scooter fumes; no wonder the locals all wear face masks) and wanted a reflexology treatment to see if it’d help at all. We ended up having a fish treatment (where you put your feet in the fishtank and they eat the dead skin off you – very weird, but very cool) and a foot massage. Not the reflexology I was after, but US$6 for both of us for half an hour including a free beer each, so couldn’t complain.

Popped into the pharmacy and got some Cold caps (conventional, US$1) and White Siang Pure Menthol Balm (traditional, 3000 Cambodian Rials or US$0.75) so seemed to have all the bases covered.

Met up with the others and had a selection of local fare from the market restaurant for dinner – again, all good curries, noodles, rice and stir fries – and hit the town for a bit of a pub crawl. We were spoilt for choice with lots of activity and drafts for US$0.50 a pop! What a pity I was feeling lousy so we had to cut our evening short(ish). Still, a good time had while we were having a good time.

SATURDAY

Great Trek to Phuket day started a bit better than expected with us managing to get the hotel to feed us. We were getting collected at 7 and the restaurant only opens at 7 and the Cambodges are reeeally inflexible. Both drivers bat-out-of-helling for us (comparatively speaking, nothing like home of course) and the border crossing and taxi-changing going quite smoothly.

We got deposited at the airport at 13h30, well in time for our 14h00 check in… And allowing a leisurely lunch at McD’s, where I had the Samurai Pork burger, which would definitely be a regular order for me at home if we had them. Pork patty (which tastes like pork sausage) grilled in BBQ relish, served simply with creamy mayo and crunchy lettuce. What’s not to love?! 🙂

Grateful for the refuelling, especially since there was another hour delay before take off which would have been hellish if we hadn’t eaten since breakfast! Even more inconvenient though since I’d bought anti-histamines at the airport pharmacy and taken some with lunch so was dozing off at the departure gate – but great because I slept like a baby from the moment I sat down in my seat on the plane until when we touched down.

Asia, Cambodia, Travelogue

Travelogue SEA 5: Phnom Penh

PHNOM PENH

24-26 December 2011

Up and out at way-too-early o’clock, our shuttle got us to the bus stop in Ho Chi Minh City in time to catch our 7am bus to Cambodia.

The bus hostess handed out Cambodia visa application forms and Viet Nam departure forms and collected all the forms with our passports and US$25 visa fees to take care of the rest of the process for us. What a pleasure.

She then handed out fresh white bread chicken, ham and pate sandwiches (am sensing this is a local speciality combination after the last few street vendor baguettes) and water, which was a far sight more appealing than the take-away breakfast the hotel had sent with us (toast, jam and milk sachets).

We were treated to a little surprise when some time into the journey the bus speakers switched from the warbling local music to Christmas carols and who should appear from the bus WC cubicle but Father Christmas himself! Bearing gifts nogal! He had a big red sack filled with gifts and gave everyone on the bus a little woven reed parcel, which turned out to have a cloth scarf inside.

We had marvelled at how into Christmas South East Asia seems to be. There are street decorations up, carols on loop in the hotel lobbies and blaring from street vendors, loads of bell-ringers in Santa suits around the town and loads of shops and stalls selling not only the usual Christmas decor paraphernalia, but also little kiddie dress-up suits (made of red felt with furry collars and cuffs. In this weather?!)

Anyway, we got through the border crossing quickly and painlessly and could see the difference between the 2 neighbouring countries right from the border post signage. Cambodia uses the Khmer alphabet so the writing is all curly whirly like the Thai writing, where Vietnamese writing is the same alphabet as ours but with loads of added accents, cedilla and kappies. The people do seem to speak more English though and we had no trouble asking questions and ordering food at the truckstop (the food looks very different to Vietnamese, with lots of fish and atchar looking gravies, so we played it safe and had a fried rice with chicken and veg and a pork and noodle stirfry. Both delicious.)

The countryside is beautiful, with wooden houses on stilts where the area is marshy or the water levels erratic alongside the riverbank. The inhabitants seem to use the area under the house for dining, socialising and parking (their scooters). Have seen some quite impressive brick temple complexes in drier places, with big golden gates and long statue-lined driveways leading to big pagoda buildings with golden decorations on the roof eaves and guttering.

Heading into Phnom Penh, the first impression is that it’s busy and bustling but not as chaotic as the Vietnamese cities we had visited (bearing in mind that it is Cambodia’s capital, but the country only has 14 million people, 2 million of whom live in the capital). The road system seems from our map to be more of a grid than the winding alleyways we’ve become used to – and the roads are numbered rather than named so, for example, our hotel was 26-28 Street 130, Phnom Penh. It did seem that the roads didn’t follow strictly in sequence, so the seemingly simple system had potential to be fraught with danger.

Our hotel was nice enough. Very well placed being just off the main riverfront, so again close to the action but not affected by it. The Central Market was also on our road, heading away from the riverfront, which is where we made our way to in search of a Khmer curry as an afternoon snack while we waited for the NZ’ers to arrive.

The market was big and under roof in a 5 pointed star shape and – as usual – divided into sections of like industry or wares. It was easy to find the food section just by following the nose because of the wide selections of fresh fish and roadfront cooked food vendors. Despite the BBQs tempting us with fresh crabs and enormous prawns and the woks ready to make-to-order, we stuck to our guns and held out for the (chicken) curry. The curry is thinner and soupier than we’re used to, but deliciously creamy with lots of coconut milk base laced with khmer spices, which only have flavour but no burn at all. You’re given whole, diced and dried chillies to add your own zing.

Leaving the market, we accidentally took the wrong feeder road and ended up taking an unintended walking tour of Phnom Penh, which wasn’t altogether unpleasant as there are wide pavements and manageable chaos as compared to where we’ve already seen on this trip. We also got to stop and peruse menus to see some of the weird and wonderful delicacies that they serve (fortunately none as icky as the horse on the spit that I saw in HCMC), giggle at the Engrish (am sure that “crapsticks” were meant to be crab) and gauge beer options and prices.

We were well-versed to spot a bargain by the time we met up for dinner – at the restaurant at the riverfront end of our road that served Angkor draught at happy hour (which never seems to be a single hour and often stretches to as much as 5 or 6!) for US$ 0.60. Perfectly paired with a Beef Lok Lak (wok fried seared beef cubes in Khmer spices, traditionally served on rice in a banana leaf cup).

The riverfront is perfect for pub trawling and crawling and our Street 130 was neatly between Pub Street 136 and Pub Street 104. Although we ended up spending most of the night at a second level bar overlooking the river, picking up 2 Kiwi girls and (unintentionally) an Aussie couple, who we took with us when we moved on to an Irish pub (Paddy Rice’s, cute name) we’d spotted that offered live music.

Turned out to be a good move with free Christmas vodka jelly shots, buckets of Angkor on special and the opportunity for a breather from the Aussie bloke, who Aaron convinced to do a rockeoke debut, resulting in a complete butchering a Chilli Peppers song. Irish pubs are always good for festivities and merry-making so it was the perfect place to herald in a very unconventional Christmas.

As always, a good time was had by all… And it became too late all too soon.

SUNDAY

We felt the late night and short sleep when we had to meet our driver at 09h00 for our sight-seeing tour! First up was the Killing Fields. The tour (US$5) includes an audio guide that talks you through a path around Choeung Ek, a real working human abattoir during the Cambodian genocide implemented by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Although a lot of the landmarks have been removed (the buildings were stripped by poor farmers for the raw materials) there are monuments and displays… And fresh clothing, bone and teeth artefacts that the eco system and weather continue to dredge up from the mass graves, which makes the experience very tangible.

It’s horrific what that regime did, killing not only perceived threats but their wives and children too so as to leave no survivors that might want to later seek revenge. It sounds like these camps were brutal, bussing in victims under the cover of darkness and killing most in very hands-on ways, like using knives, sharp jagged palm fronds and beating babies to death on tree trunks. It’s very difficult to reconcile how ordinary people can be brainwashed into performing these atrocities, or how they can live with themselves with the burden of retrospect.

The S-21 prison (entrance fee US$3) was no better. Having once been a school, the classrooms were transformed into cells and torture chambers, some of which still have the metal beds and torture implements on display. In the quad was a large wooden frame that was used to hang prisoners, mostly by their ankles until they lost consciousness and then dunk them into buckets of rank water to revive them, only to repeat the process. Some classrooms were used as-is for groups or divided into individual cells a metre wide with either bricks or wood. You can freely access all the areas and there are still specks of blood on some of the floors.

The Khmer Rouge kept detailed and meticulous records so there are many rooms with display boards of prisoner registration photographs and induction transcripts. It’s very scary to see how many thousands of people were shunted through this prison and sent off to killing fields – and how young the victims were. Since most of the trafficking was done under subterfuge and the people often didn’t know they were being taken to prison, let alone where, families were split up and separated with no concept of where their relatives were. Stories told post-fact also describe how family members intentionally didn’t acknowledge each other in the prisons because the policy was to remove all possible future vengeance (“to kill the grass you must remove the roots”) so, by implication, if one family member was killed, all would have to be killed as well.

The UN have put together programmes that have helped more than 6,000 Cambodians to travel from around the country to come to these prisons and killing fields to trace what happened to their relatives. It’s hollow comfort, I’m sure.

It’s unsettling to know how recent this barbaric slice of history is, with the Khmer Rouge still recognised as the reigning government until 1989 (even though the Vietnamese had deposed them 10 years earlier) and only disbanded in 1999. So many people lost their lives (3 million people of a population of 8 million over 4 years!) that it’s uncomfortable to see a 50 year old Cambodian now and wonder exactly what they had to do to still be here today, since it was literally a ‘kill or be killed’ time.

It’s atrocious that Pol Pot died a free man in 1998, at the ripe old age of 82, and that his 3 top leaders were only detained in 2007 and are only now standing trial, with fancy lawyers from all over the world defending them (how do they sleep at night?!). The only charge so far is a chap called Duch who headed the S-21 prison and has received a measly charge of 35 years imprisonment for the more 15,000 deaths he was responsible for! Shameful.

After a morning of quite sombre sight-seeing (there are even official signs at the prison with a smiling face with a line through it), it was good to head back to town where we ditched the planned museum visit in favour of lunch. I finally got the duck I’d been hankering for, served in a delicious noodle stirfry. Things were looking up!

We were a bit culture and historied out so opted to just take a few snaps of the Palace and pagoda and a stroll along the waterfront… To prepare for a long and much-needed pre-dinner nap.

Very solid thinking on the nap and we were good to go for a refuel at 7. Found an excellent curry house that lured us in with a mega meat platter (steak, chicken, pork chop, sausage and sides for US$8.50), which kept us happy alongside my very tasty butter chicken and garlic naan. Aaron had the all day breakfast, which had us convinced that we’d be back in the morning!

We did a walk along the promenade to work off some dinner and popped in at our regular spots to have a beer here and there. My mission was too get a snap of (at least) 5 people on a scooter, which is quite commonplace and a sight to be believed. It’s normally Dad driving, with toddler standing in front of him on the foot platform, a kid wedged behind him, then mom with a baby on one thigh being held in place with an arm across the chest. I kept missing the opportunities with my camera being away or the flash taking too long. Oh well.

We opted for an early night, based on the long drive with the morning’s transfer to Siem Reap (which we’d already moved from 9am to 10, just in case). Was a good call and the extra hour’s sleep was well enjoyed this morning.

MONDAY

We did go back to the Indian restaurant for our breakfast and I bucked convention by having my second choice from the night before rather than any traditional form of breakfast. It was amazing – a chicken breast cooked in a tomato relish and served with mozzarella melted on top and then drowned in creamy mushroom sauce, accompanied by fried potatoes mixed with sliced onions and fleshy bacon. All my favourite things!

Then on the road to Siem Reap. A seemingly manageable 300km journey, hampered by the 30km speed limits in the towns, hay-smothered tractors and threshers in the countryside and hooting and wild lane-changing throughout! 3 hours in and we were only halfway…

Asia, Travelogue, Vietnam

Travelogue SEA 4: Ho Chi Minh City

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HO CHI MINH CITY

22-23 December 2011

Having walked the whole length of the promenade left of the hotel on Wednesday night in Da Nang, we walked the length right of the hotel when we got up on Thursday morning. Sadly, it was still drizzling on and off, but we still found a beautiful beachfront restaurant with carved wooden pagoda decks to enjoy breakfast overlooking China Beach.

The only thing notable about Da Nang airport is that it had (at that time) the only Burger King in Viet Nam, which we didn’t even try since we’d already eaten! I would have had the bacon and onion burger, I think…

A lovely nap on the 1hr20 flight and we were met with a wall of heat on disembarking in Ho Chi Minh City. It was 31 degrees and (at least) 80% humidity. Stinking stinking hot!

HCMC has even worse traffic than we’ve seen so far! Every road and side-street is a bustle of scooters, with cars and buses dotted intermittently. There even more cars here than in Hanoi – which incidentally is home to 5 million people and 3 million scooters! But it’s a far more modern city with wider roads, distinct islands and more traffic lights, so it’s better equipped to deal with the 4-wheelers. Riders and pedestrians alike wear cloth surgical masks, presumably to protect against the fumes, and these are readily available in all sorts of colours and patterns, seemingly adopted to be a standard apparel accessory. Some roads are simply impossible to cross in one lights change, with vehicles coming at you from all directions (and not always stopping at red lights) – and I’m sure that pedestrian injuries must be rife!

Despite the immensity of activity, HCMC isn’t a huge city centre and we spent the next few hours taking in all the local sights. Starting with KFC, where we mix-and-matched to make our own Fully Loaded Box combo. The staff were very confused that we wanted to swap coleslaw for mash and gravy when the combo already had chips and they checked several times and then exchanged words in Vietnamese that clearly had something to do with thinking us “crazy Westerners” (we’ve seen the look often).

They serve their eat-in meals on a moulded tray with sections for the various elements, dished straight onto the tray rather than in packaging. The mash is a little moulded mound with a gelatinous but tasty gravy, the chips are skinny like McD’s and the chicken pieces come standard with the spicy cornflaky batter. The burger meat is pink, which looked weird but tasted delicious, and the Zinger is spiced in the batter with ordinary mayo not peri-naise style like at home. Was odd to get a real glass with metal knives and forks, but all in all, a great meal.

And just the fuel we needed for another mega sight-seeing walk, at pace (we’ve been averaging about 20,000 steps a day on the pedometer, except Bangkok which was about 30,000 and HCMC on 28,420).

We whipped around the Pagoda and then headed for the War Remnants Museum. I didn’t like it – lots of pictures of soldiers threatening and torturing; women, children and old people crying and begging for mercy; dismemberment and disfigurement from Agent Orange fall-out. Not nice. Clearly, skewed to represent the Americans as the bad guys, not a single picture of the Viet Cong throughout the museum. It’s heart-breaking to see the pictures of the towns post-war and how complete the devastation was from the ‘clear and burn’ policy, but a little brighter seeing the aerial photos of those towns today, restored and growing.

The outside display of a host of tanks and choppers is cool though. Christian seemed to recognise them by their alpha-numerics and was stoked to see the real-live battlecraft up close and in person.

We were very lucky to catch both the Presidential Independence Palace and the Notre Dame Cathedral as they were closing, to catch a quick look-see and some snaps and move on. We took the Kong Dohi strip, which was the main fancy drag in the 20s and 30s under French rule, which shows by the tree-lined avenues, draped flowers overhead and very symmetrical and structured jardins.

We had made plans to meet the NZ’ers at 6 at the Crazy Buffalo – a shrewd landmark for its enormous neon Buffalo signage at the entrance – so only had time for a quick whip through the famous Ben Thanh market… But managed an armload of shopping bags nonetheless! 🙂

Met up with our mates and began a supermarket pub crawl. No 7Elevens here, but Circle K and Stop & Go seemed to work just as well… And the air-conditioned pitstops were welcome relief from the asphyxiating heat outside!

Our market crawl was interrupted by an Italian Mexican Vietnamese restaurant whose host offered us a free beer to eat there. Who could resist?

It turned out to be a great choice and we shared a chilli con carne and ‘Special’ pizza (shrimp, chicken, bacon, onion, garlic, mushrooms) – both really good! – and ended up just dumping the con carne on the pizza, which was amazing!

Enjoying being a bit more settled, we started a more conventional pub crawl. Lured and repelled by combinations of drinks specials, cooling fans and music, we eventually settled at Lily 2 (across the road from Lily, we’ve seen a few chains that use the same name and just add numbers), where they stream their music from You Tube and we managed to gain control to VJ music that suited us and sampling each other’s favourites and guilty pleasures over many Tigers.

Had to be up early for our Cu Chi Tunnels tour, so called it a night at a (relatively) respectable hour and wheedled our way through the streets and alleys like seasoned residents.

FRIDAY

Surprisingly good breakfast (included) consisting of a light and fluffy omelette, a piece of bacon, an exploding sausage (like you get at cocktail parties), slices of tomato and cucumber, and 2 slices of toast with butter and jam. I got freshly squeezed OJ (from actual oranges) and Christian got a cup of coffee with a rich cocoa aroma.

The tour fetched us from the hotel (Saigon Mini Hotel 2, US$29 per room per night including breakfast) and we headed into the traffic to make our way to the countryside.

The 2 hour bus trip included a half hour stop at a workshop where Agent Orange victims work at making furniture, art and curios with mother of pearl inlays and egg shell mosaics. Really pain-staking work – especially for the bargain prices of the end product (even converting from ZAR!)

The Cu Chi Tunnel tour was fascinating. Started off with a video and tutorial using a map and tunnel model, showing the multi-layered interlinking tunnel community that the VC had built over 20 years. A very impressive infrastructure with some simple but effective tricks to keep the inhabitants undetected, like a series of smoke chambers to filter out cooking smoke before releasing it above ground in barely perceptible whiffs.

We got to see the entry tunnels and try out the trapdoors, which the US soldiers might easily have missed seeing as they’re so small they don’t look like they’re big enough to fit a human. I managed to slide in (arms in the air above my head), but Christian’s shoulders were too broad for him to get in. We did both get to crawl through the demo section of tunnel though. It’s horrible. Dank and dark, with moisture on the walls and only high enough to walk through monkey-style. Every time you turn a corner it goes completely black.

The crafty VC built them with constant changes in direction and up and downs so that they could easily move through the familiar territory, but Tunnel Rats would get disoriented and/or give away their position when they used their torches to light their way. It’s a hell of a thing that those people lived down there (on and off) for such an extended period. We were in one of the enlarged tunnels (built for Western tourists; only Vietnamese tourists are allowed to go in the standard tunnels) and it was claustrophobic and difficult to breathe. Very glad we’ve done it, but happy to keep it a one-hit wonder!

On return to town we picked up a baguette from a street vendor (pork, chicken, pate, fried egg and accoutrements) and concluded our shopping (Christmas, souvenir and otherwise) at the Ben Tranh Market. It’s very choatic with narrow aisles, way too many people and way too little ventilation, but the prices are the best we’ve seen in Viet Nam so far and the vendors easier to haggle with seeing as there are so many stalls in such a close proximity that sell exactly the same wares so you can play them off against one another.

Our suitcases were by now almost full. Was once again very grateful that I was ruthless when I packed what felt like half a suitcase on the outset (and wishing I hadn’t brought half of that stuff!)

Met our NZ mates at the Old Faithful meeting spot, The Crazy Buffalo, and grabbed a quick beer while strat planning our last night in Viet Nam. Settled on hitting a curry house, followed by the usual haunts and a few new ones on the bar street near our hotel.

The curry was amazing – we had Lamb Karahi (with pepper) and Chicken Maglai (with egg) with pilau rice and garlic naan stuffed with cottage cheese. It was an enormous dinner and took away all the enthusiasm to drink!

We wandered around and ended up back at Lily’s since it has the biggest fan on the street. And were quite happy there until they took our VJ rights away from us to resume awful dance music… so we resolved to be done with the place.

We did a last loop of the bar streets, stopping in for one or two here and there and then headed back to the hotel to prepare for our early departure, the bus fetching us at 6.30 for the 6 hour journey to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Was looking really forward to seeing what the next country has in store for us. We had a private taxi for the duration, so was confident that the sight-seeing would be complete, epic and painless. And had been warned of even more bargain shopping!