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‹ Previous (04/04/2008) MONTH Next (2008-06-03)› ‹ Previous (2008-05-12 - Turkey) COUNTRY Next (2008-06-10 - Turkey)› Greece Tessaloniki (see on map) 07/05/2008:
Following the same route as 2 years ago, after Meteora we moved up to Tessaloniki where i had to receive a letter from Spain with the insurance of the car that would allow us to enter Turkey and Iran. But on Friday the letter had not arrived yet to the post office, and instead of arranging to meet with people of Tessaloniki that previously we had already gotten in touch, we prefered passing the weekend on the beach. Alexandra did not want to meet with Kiriaki, the girl of Tessaloniki with who I had had a small adventure the previous time, and I did not feel either like running into anybody in general. I still felt without illusion to continue travelling, or as to minimum without the same illusion that i had at first, although i did not want either to give up the journey or to return home. This disorientation I mean that it was the cause of the slight attacks of anxiety that I suffered during the weekend and the two following days. Joined the disorientation or disappointment, also there is the tiredness or anguish for the possible problems that perhaps we will have in the future during the journey: the difficulties for entering Iran if they discover that I have been in Israel, the impossibility about entering in China by car, if we have to sell the car in India or to embark it to other destinations, does not have the same energy as before to confront the slips, but I feel like having it again. In any case, I trust that the illusion will return me when i will be in Turkey, past Istanbul, when everything is new for me, and when in a certain way the odyssey of not being able to cross Syria to arrive to Turkey has finished. On Tuesday the letter arrived at last and i cheered up a little to be able to follow the journey to east, I started to define some goals that have kept being stated as we approached Istanbul: I will be thrilled again with the project to take the pulse to the world and will try to interview many more people, more than one person for each country. I will get excited for the new people, cultures, histories, landscapes... that I will discover, becoming every time more rich as t present. I will convince myself again that the difficulties of the journey are positive to grow as a person and at least, are positive to explain. I will propose to be more conscious making use of the influence of the new cultures and Asian religions. Europe was an intellectual continent, Africa was instinctive and full of adventure, I think (or I wait) that Asia will be a continent of spiritual growth. Turkey Istambul (see on map) 12/05/2008:
The days in Istanbul have gone by very intensely, although now I am writing these words listening to the underlying waves of the Black Sea and the importance of these last days seem more appealing to the diary. In any case, I will start to retell the most irrelevant events, which in fact are not. From Thessaloniki we reached Istanbul in two days. Last night we spend it next to a beach on the Sea of Marmara, in some coastal town close to Istanbul. In the morning, when we were about to follow the journey, a man called Mustafà approached us and proved us the meaning of the Turkish hospitality. Without speaking almost anything of English he invited us to a coffee and tried once in his home to maintain a conversation with us using a dictionary and a book of English of his son. Finally, without insinuating in any moment, he offered to load water for the autocaravan, which in fact we needed. Before dismissing us, I looked for the translation of thanks to his dictionary and I exclaimed with feeling "Tesekkür". When entering again Istambul, although it had already surprised me the first time almost two years ago, I was surprised again by the modernity and the enormity of the city and its suburbs, in which about 12 million people live. Meanwhile, Alexandra described me the feelings of going to a country where its people tried so much time to occupy her own country. On the other hand, the stay in Istanbul and the visit to its monuments, markets, commercial areas, returned me part of the lost and necessary energy to continue the journey, but especially when observing the illusion with which Alexandra discovered this new city. It also returned me another part of the energy to meet with two new people in Istanbul, which I interviewed for the project of taking the pulse to the world and with them I maintained very interesting conversations about religion, esoterism, morality, God... Besides, with Alp, the first boy that we meet, we also talk on the freedom of speech in Turkey. When asking for the interview he presented us the Turkish law 301, according to which any Turk that appears a little against Turkey, against its rulers or its history will face a sentence of prison. This law was also one of the causes that from Turkey no one could access the web Youtube on internet, because there it had been exposed a video where Ataturk was attacked, the national hero and father of modern Turkey. In any case, the stay in Istanbul was much more transcendent than these visits and meetings, because in fact in Istanbul I defined the continuation of the journey. When looking on Internet if in India i could sell the autocaravan I discovered that, not, because (among many other motifs) the authorities do not import vehicles with the steering wheel on the left. This discovery, and the knowledge that in Australia i could not sell the autocaravan with easiness, for little it made me give up the idea about continuing the journey to Asia, to follow it directly to America with a new vehicle. But after meditating on multiple options, I finally preferred the following plan: We will keep travelling with the autocaravan through Turkey, Iran (if they do not let me enter I will have to reconsider all the plan), Pakistan and India, where I will try to sell the autocaravan to an European that returns to Europe or leave it parked as long as we visit the following countries: Nepal, China, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. Next we would come back towards Europe with the autocaravan if i had not sold it beforehand. But still there was another decision of great importance that took place in Istanbul. For days i realised that with my actions i was trying to dynamite my relation with Alexandra. It is a mistake that it does more than 10 years that does not give up on me or i dont give it up. With my previous couples, after about two years of communal life, I ended up being overwhelmed and not accepting anymore the mistakes of my partners and i started to dynamite the relations because i did not have the value of breaking it unilaterally (or of accepting it such as it was). That was happening to me and Alexandra,i lost very easily the patience with her frequent phases of bad humour and started to wish that she returned to Romania to follow the journey alone, although i thought that she loved me too much as to abandon me trouble free. In fact - Alexandra often reminded me of it - nobody would get to love me as much as she, and i believed that too: she had changed a lot for me, although I believed insufficient. In any case, i did not think that Alexandra would end up leaving me with so much easiness but she had the option of breaking the relation, for I mean she was also tired that i told her that i did not love her any longer. In fact, Alexandra did not want to break the relation, but to return to Romania to take care of her ill grandmother while I crossed Iran and Pakistan, for afterwards to meet again in India. But I knew that if i continued alone i would not wait for her. I had in my hands the opportunity of breaking the relation in a very little traumatic way. But then, as always, I started to value the many good moments lived with Alexandra and to value all the changes carried out by her, for example the absence of crisis of nerves from Ethiopia. We pass a whole afternoon embraced, Alexandra crying by our imminent separation while I was taking one of the most important decisions of my life. Finally I exclaimed with feeling: - I do not want you to leave, if you leave i would not wait for you. I want to continue the journey with you - later I expressed. - I love you, forgive me for all the damage that I have done to you. .... When taking the pulse to the world with Alp, he answered that the main problem of the world is the ignorance and the lack of sharing of information. The problem would be solved with education, teaching philosophy and ethics. He can collaborate as writer introducing subtly moralities in his writings. The main problem of Turkey is the education, that its based in cliches that the people do not question if they are true or not. The solution would be it as in the world case. Alp is considered happy thanks to his esoteric beliefs that allow him to be optimistic. Alp would be happier if the people were more tolerant and more altruistic. The secret of happiness is to follow the virtues that one has. Ferhan opined that the main problem of the world is the knowledge, which hardly can be accessed. Only some extraterrestrial visitors could solve the problem. In Turkey, the education is also the main problem, which does not let one think beyond the teachings. he was not optimistic with the solution of the problem, although he tries to influence his friends. Ferhan is considered happy, with the books, friends, music, humour... Ferhan would be happier with the good company of a girl. The secret of happiness is the knowledge, for example knowledge of what you want or what you like. Ankara (see on map) 14/05/2008:
We were few days in Istanbul because we had to solve different things in Ankara, the capital. Even so, we gave a little turn of the city and after we spent a day enjoying the calm and little exploited Black Sea, the same sea that cools down Romania, the country of Alexandra, a sea that I had not seen yet. Although the sea is blue, as the rest of seas, i think that its name is provoked by the rich concentration of micro-algae due to the very few salinity of the sea due to the little visibility of the Black Sea, which is only of 5 meters (25 meters in the Mediterranean Sea). Today mid-morning we have arrived to Ankara, a modern surprising city (Alexandra often comments that Turkey is much more modern and developed than Romania), and we have went directly to the embassy of Spain where they were keeping the passport that i had carried out in Ethiopia (the embassy of Ethiopia had sent it to Kenya instead of Egypt and as i could not collect it in Egypt i asked them to send it to Turkey). The embassy has delivered the new passport and informed me that i should go to the police to print the visa of Turkey to the new passport. But that meant a problem, because having the experience of the renewal of the passport in Egypt, i knew that in the new visa they would refer to the old passport, in which i had evidence of having entered Israel, the option of entering Iran becoming impossible. I was discussing the problem with the embassy and we finally found the solution. The Spanish can travel to Turkey using only the card of identity, so, i could declare the old passport lost, i would go out from Turkey using the DNI and i would enter using the new passport, which would only have visa of entry without any reference to old passports. On the other hand, this option did not mean that we would do many more kilometres of road, since we planned on visiting the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Sea. Not having option of starting to carry out the visas of Iran and Pakistan until we had not gone out of Turkey, we decided to start to go the same day, towards the south coast of Turkey, before however, we met an hour with Özgür, the boy of Couchsurfing that had received some maps of Asia uninterestedly; my international driving licence that he had sent it to Jordan; and another two books of Lonelyplanet. It was a short meeting, but we remained of meeting again in Ankara when returning, since Özgür plans on doing a similar journey to ours on motorcycle and was anxious to get information. Antalya (see on map) 18/05/2008:
Going towards the south coast from Ankara, we diverted one or two hundred kilometres to visit a real marvel: Pamukale, which translated from Turkish means castle of cotton. Pamukale occupies a great extension of mountain on which has precipitated original calcium of the thermal springs of the area, giving the sensation of snow and creating formidable terraces on which the water falls. The thermal springs spring up with 250 (or 500 according to a triptych) litres of hot water per second, which contains a great concentration of minerals (1,4 g/litre) and curiously a great radioactivity. In spite of the latter, it is said that the waters have curative and medicinal powers and like this they should also have consider it the Romans, which built some thermal baths and a temple around which was expanded the city of Hierapolis. The city, famous for its curative baths, grew up to 100.000 inhabitants, but decayed with the crossing of the centuries due to successive conquests and earthquakes. The visit to Pamukale includes the ruins of Hierapolis, the empaved main street, different columns and arcs are preserved standing, a magnificent theatre and the necropolis with multiple tombs among which I and Alexandra played being zombies. The following destination was Antalya, a touristic city in the coast of the Mediterranean Sea with almost 800.000 inhabitants. In spite of the overcrowding, the wild mountains that surround the city and the precipices on which it extends and the old city confers a certain charm to it, although i would not coincide with Atatürk that said "undoubtedly, Antalya is the prettiest place of the world". In any case, if we enjoyed the city, it was thanks to the good company that we found. Tijen is a nice writer of recipe books that showed us the city delighted and a market of organic products that was organised every Sunday. Besides exchanging some recipes with Alexandra, we had some interesting conversations with Tijen. For example, after commenting on the problems suffered with Syria after entering Israel, Tijen explained to me that the same happens to the Turks that also enter North Cyprus, because Greece does not accept North Cyprus as a country and veto the entry to Europe of any citizen who has some seal of entry in the passport. Of the same way that the previous Turks that we met, Tijen also complained about the current government of Islamic background, because instead of doing the crossings towards the Union European it seems to do them towards the Arab world. That starts to provoke that the women cover the hair for political reasons, not religious, because if it were for religious reasons they would not dress themselves so seductive. It is true that before Ataturk, the national hero, the country was Muslim, but he converted it into a secular country giving the men and the women the same opportunities, but a century almost passed, it seems that a part of the society would prefer returning at the old times. In Antalya we have also met today in the afternoon with Murat, which has deepened a little more in the subject. During the eighties, there were so many conflicts between rights and left that the soldiers took the control of the country with the support of the United States. From then, the teaching of Islamic religion at schools was obligatory in order to forget the conflict of ideologies, although very safe, this norm starts to provoke another type of conflict of ideologies. Murat has also talked to us about the problems with the Kurds in Turkey, to which their language was forbidden after the eighties and the invasion of the state in its region in the east of the country also came down appreciably in general. From a Turkish nationalistic position, he has also explained his vision of the history with reference to the Armenians. During the first world war, terrorists among the Armenians, supported by Russia, attacked the Otoman empire while the army fought in the west, making the authorities decide to deport all the Armenians in the south, during the winter and without means of transport. Anyway, Murat did not think that it had been a genocide or that the million or more that some calculate would have died. Little after saying goodbye, I have seen for the streets of Antalya an advertising poster in which was denied very sharply the genocide of Armenia. --- I took the pulse to the world with Tijen, which opined that the main problem of the world is the people, who consider themselves superior to the nature but they are not, creating great environmental problems. The solution is to change oneself, being more responsible (does not have car, eats in an ecological way, does not contaminate...), in order to influence others in the same way. The main problem of Turkey is the dependence and import of preliminary products, which before the same country produced in the field. The solution would be found in subsidising the farmers so that they cultivate the traditional foods. She as a writer tries to create consciousness. Tijen is considered happy sometimes, especially when she is close to the nature, or when she publishes a book, or helps people... When she does yoga she is happier. The secret of happiness is not to be sad for the past and not to worry about the future. Fethiye (see on map) 22/05/2008:
We have been travelling around the touristic coast between the bays of Antalya and of Fethiye , formerly inhabited by the Lycians. The Lycians, knew since the time of the pharaohs, were organised as a federation of cities, which was admired by the former Greeks, always in conflict among the different cities. Later, the Lycian federation was incorporated in the Roman Empire, but preserving significant independence. In spite of everything, throughout its history, the Lycians had to fight many attempts at conquest, choosing on two occasions to commit suicide in mass before being conquered. In any case, during the assimilation of the Christianity, the earthquakes, plagues and the pirates attacks provoked the disappearance of the federation. The same night after going out of Antalya, we reached Chimera, a magical place close to the old-fashioned lycian city of Olympos. Chimera was a mythological beast with the front part in the form of a lion, the end as a snake and the body of goat (difficult to represent) that had as main characteristic the skill of throwing flames, and this characteristic is the one that gave the name to the place that we visited. After going through a steep path for an hour only with the light of the dusk to guide us, we arrived to a stony pending illuminated by ten fires that burned without firewood. Since the antiquity the mountain has not stopped spitting firedamp gas through different holes, which go on in a natural and spontaneous way. Formerly the flames were used for encouraging myths and guiding the boats during the darkness, but the flames at present act to warm up the tea or to burn the meat of the tourists who visit the mountain, during the day and especially the nights of full moon. The day after we visited the ruins of Olympos, of which are only preserved some stones piled up among the bushes and a big door of a former temple dedicated to the Roman Gods, passing the rest of the day sunbathing on the precious beach. The following day we stopped briefly in Demre, the people where Saint Nicolau lived, legendary for his gifts and donations, converting him into the mythological Saint Claus. We follow to Kas, a pretty coastal town, with small alleys full of touristic shops, some old Lycian tombs to visit, and a small Roman amphitheatre with some magnificent sights towards the sea. Anyway, the town was too touristic as to stay for the night and we returned to the road up to Patara. In Patara the ruins of another city Lyciana are found, situated close to a long and excellent beach of sand where in summer the turtles nest. For this reason, it is forbidden walking behind the twenty meters of the beach and also visiting the beach during night. In any case, we camped in the parking place close to the beach and enjoyed a calm day taking sun, and doing a cultural visit to the ruins, among which was a big amphitheatre and an avenue of columns flooded by the water of the rain. And today, we have gone towards the canion of Saklikent, not too convinced, for this did not appear in our guide book, and it is inexcusable, because the visit should be obligatory. When arriving, I have read in a local information paper that the canyon of Saklikent is the second longest in Europe (14 km), but the canyon is in the Asian part of Turkey. In any case, for sure it is one of the prettiest in the world, and more amusing to walk it, cause it can be done with relative easiness but with the water arriving at times up to the knees. Even then, after half an hour of walking for the narrow and deep canyon, we have returned back, because small cascades in which i could slide and submerge the camera have started to appear. And finally, we have arrived in the afternoon to the attractive but overcrowded beach of Oludeniz, close to Fethiye. There are cities that seem conquered by the Germans, but this seemed by the Englishmen, and by numerous youngsters who flew with paragliding jumping from the mountains. It is too late to leave, but tomorrow in the morning, we will go out to look for a calmer place. Bodrum (see on map) 27/05/2008:
Koycegiz, on the edge of a lake close to the sea, was the calm place that we looked for to relax.We remained an afternoon and all the following day, also it has contributed the fact that we had wi-fi Internet from the autocaravan. I was looking for a lot of information on philosophy, which is a subject that starts to fascinate me, and on which I would like to write a book, when finishing the journey, although for a moment i thought to leave everything for this new dream. In any case, I also kept studying the possibility to follow the journey towards Asia crossing the "stan" republics (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrkyzstan) for afterwards to cross very briefly China up to Pakistan. This new route would allow us to avoid Iran in the months of heat, which we would visit in winter, when we returned from the journey through Asia. I had a budget that could allow to cross China with 500 but I was realising that we would have problems to obtain a visa for Turkmenistan if we did not hire a touristic package (minimum 300 besides, the cost of the boat to cross Caspian Sea from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan (minimum 200) Because of that, when the Chinese agency changed the price from 500 to 800 we decided that we would continue with the initial plan of crossing Iran 2 times. From the calm and traditional town of Koycegiz we went towards the animated and touristic town of Bodrum, which extends in front of a bay dominated by a castle built by the crusaders. Bodrum was famous in the antiquity because it had one of the seven marvels of the old world, the Mausoleum of Halicarnasus, of which at present some remains are only preserved in the museum of history in London. In Bodrum we had the luck to meet first with Carine, a Belgian girl that did two years that worked in Turkey organising holidays for surgeries (for example: tourists that wanted the breasts operated while they visited another country). Carine explained to us that in Bodrum the Turks are usually very snobbish, rich and closed in, complicating the business for her sometimes, or even, obliging her to hyde her Kurdish boyfriend, called Nazli. I asked Nazli about the situation in Kurdistan, but he did not want to risk anything, and that after clarifying me that there was not such a country or region, he commented me that the situation was much better now than years behind. In Bodrum we also met with Zafer, a Turk that managed a very pretty and recommended in many guides hotel (Su Otel) and he did not match the definition of snob with which Carine was defining many of the Turks of Bodrum. Zafer invited us to spend two days (yesterday and today) relaxed in the facilities of his hotel, enjoying the pool, Internet and some delicious breakfasts. Zafel commented me that the island that there is in front of Bodrum, at few kilometres, belongs to Greece, in the same way that many other islands that we have kept discerning close to the Turkish coast. In any case, in spite of the apprehensive relation between Turks and Greeks, the Greeks of the islands and the Turks of the coast they are usually doing mutual visits, establishing a good relation and trade. On the other hand, when asking him to which continent the turks felt that they belong , Europe or Asia, he answered me that in the coast the Turks are nearer to Europe, however, in the interior they feel closer to Asia or to the middle east. Efes (see on map) 29/05/2008:
Efes (or Ephesus) is another place of obligatory visit, I do not know if obligatory for everybody in the world, because the place was already quite overcrowded of tourists, but at least it would have been inexcusable if we had not visited it. Ephesus was an old city of the coast of Anatolia, which was governed by the ionians (a tribe similar to the lycians), the Persians, the Greeks, briefly by the pharaohs of Egypt, the Romans and the Byzantines. During the Roman domination, the city arrived to such a splendour that it got to have between 400 and 500 a thousand inhabitants, being the biggest Roman city of Asia, and maybe the second of the Roman empire. During the Roman empire and the Byzantine one, coinciding with the beginnings of the Christianity, the city also turned into an important religious centre. According to the new will, the apostle Paul used the city as base of his missions, also the apostle Joan was buried to the outskirts of the city, on whose tomb a church was lifted. The city decayed when it has lost the port, due to the accumulation of sediments ( at present its 5 km inland) and finally due to different attacks of Arab pirates. The main attraction of Efes is the magnificent façade (of three levels) of the former library of Celsus, built in 135 in honour of a Roman governor and with capacity for 12.000 rolls of papyrus. It also highlights the enormous theatre, which with a capacity of 25000 spectators, was the biggest open theatre of the ancient world. the theatre used to organise drama representations but further on battles among gladiators, of which recently a cemetery has been discovered . And it is still probably lacking much more to discover, for only 15% of the area that took up the city has been excavated. Moving away from the ancient city, we have visited in the afternoon the temple of Artèmis, another marvel of the old world but of which at present only a very high column is preserved standing. The temple of Artèmis, originally bigger that the Parthenon de Atenas, was burned around 356BC by a lunatic called Herostratus that wanted to be remembered over the centuries. Curiously he burned the temple the same night that Alexander the Greate, which reconstructed it later,and finally was destroyed by the Goths. Izmir (see on map) 30/05/2008:
Izmir, on the coast of the Aegean sea, is the third city most populated in Turkey with about 2,5 million inhabitants, and has the second most important port after that of Istanbul. In spite of everything, Izmir is not a city with touristic attractions, except for its liberal and modern cosmopolitan atmosphere, and probably we would had not visited it if we had not met briefly with Mustafà, had that has invited us to dine in his house and afterwards to attend a Jazz concert in his university campus. Mustafà made us notice the modernity of Izmir, showing that no girl through the street was wearing veil, and has ended up commenting: "If Turkey cannot enter the European Union, they should at least let the city of Izmir enter". And the main difference of the city was probably right, at first sight, as for Barcelona was the existence of mosques instead of churches, of which, on the contrary to other cities, we have not listened to the muezines singing through the loudspeakers. Assos (see on map) 02/06/2008:
Already with more haste, for the visa of Alexadra was being finished, we have followed north the coast of the sea going towards the Aegean sea. After Izmir we went towards Pergamon, where there are other ruins of a former Greek and Roman city. But we still had to be tired of the visit to the large ruins of Ephesus, because when we reached mid-afternoon Pergamon and they told us that they closed in half an hour, we decided to miss that visit and to follow the journey, towards Ayvalic. Ayvalic is some calm fishermen town situated right in front of the Greek island of Lesbos. The port seems very frequented by tourists, but the interior of the villa had kept the essence of the immutable life with time. And because of that, walking through the narrow streets of the centre, we surprised ourselves for the sensation of walking through some Greek town, most of the homes were of Hellenic style, and even the mosques seemed orthodox churches, which had a half-moon instead of a cross in the dome, and nearby was raised a minaret. The reason was evident, up to the beginning of the 20th century, the town had been populated with Greeks, as many other villages on the Turkish coast. But after the greco-Turk war, both countries compromised in 1923 on carrying out an exchange of population, so all the Turkish citizens of Greek-orthodox religion would be displaced to Greece and all the Muslims established in the Greek territory would be displaced to the new Turkey. This exchange of population implied the movement of about 2 million people and the ending of the 3000 years of the Greek presence in the coasts of Asia Minor. Today we have followed towards the north, bordering the coast from which we could always observe the big island of Lesbos. It is curious how near we found the island and how far seemed to find the days that we had spent there. We could not avoid looking at the island with a certain melancholy while we approached the new destination, Assos, the last greek ruins which we thought to visit in the Turkish coast (we do not think to visit Troia, since in spite of the mythological popularity, it seems that its ruins are not very interesting). Assos in the summit of a hill ,is surrounded by a small rural and traditional village of houses made of stone, called Behramkale. In fact, there are not too many ruins to visit, but the columns of a former temple dedicated to Atena being raised without presumptuousness in front of a very blue sea and the island of Lesbos, was a romantic scene that was worth. On the other hand, hidden behind the lap of the mountain, we have discovered the calm and small port of Behramkale, where the owners of the old houses of fishermen were converted in restaurants waiting for tourists that did not arrive. ‹ Previous (04/04/2008) MONTH Next (2008-06-03)› ‹ Previous (2008-05-12 - Turkey) COUNTRY Next (2008-06-10 - Turkey)› |
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