Istanbul, day 2

Onno and Noelle at the garden of our hotel

Aya Sophia

We had to downgrade our ambitious for day 2 as Thijs woke up feeling and looking worse than yesterday. Time to act, as 5 days of stomach pain and frequent bathroom-visits was taking his toll.
I let him sleep through breakfast and Onno joined me for a cup of coffee downstairs. I asked for a clinic recommendation the hotel reception and thanks to Mr.GPS, we found our way straight in one try. It took us about 20 minutes, at least 10 of them for leaving the labyrinth in the Old Center (with one-way streets and narrow/blocked roads).
As it was Sunday, traffic was slow and it wasn't busy in the hospital.
The hospital looked very well equipped an staff spoke enough English to explain themselves.
As was to be expected, Thijs was dehydrated and an IV was suggested. Obviously, Thijs opted for the more simple suggestion and asked for the bottle of water (which was flavoured by the nasty ORS powder).
Blood- and sample test were done within 50 minutes and it seemed Thijs has been fighting a big bug. We left the hospital with 4 prescriptions, had some trouble to find a pharmacy which was open on Sunday but we were back in the hotel by 3 pm.


I took the kids for a stroll and a drink outside and did not manage to convince Onno and Noelle to visit the Blue Mosque.
"I will do it when I grow up and like boring stuff like that." Onno promissed, so today he officially made this commitment: He will, indeed, once in his lifetime return to Istanbul, visit the Blue Mosque and send me a postcard with the text: "Been there, done that!"

The walk in the streets, looking for some gifts for Niels and his girlfriend was just as boring as was expected (I can't beat the silly computer games they're doing in their spare time). I returned to the hotel around 5 to find Thijs still sleeping.
The Blue Mosque, which I can see from our bedroom window was still waiting for us, so when Thijs woke up, we did another attempt. (yesterday we were send off as prayer just started).
The line wasn't that bad and we patiently moved with the huge crowd. Although I really liked to have been in the Blue Mosque, looking around, watching people was more amusing and entertaining.
To my incredible surprise, many women, inappropriately dressed act surprised as their entry is denied (after passing big signs in 6 languages explaining them how they should dress respectfully). Women with hot pants, big boobs in sexy decolletes and uncovered hair are offered blue pieces of cloth to cover themselves. They are so excited about their new outfit, they spend most of the time taking pictures of themselves ignorant about the (local) praying women on the carpet.

We left the mosque within 10 minutes; I had seen enough.

We went shopping for gifts and one of those lovely Ottoman mosaic lamps. Since my eye fell on them, sold in a store in Bahrain, I was determined to buy one in Istanbul before leaving Turkey.
Although Thijs looked and felt horrible, both of us hoped to succeed in purchasing this piece as it would fit our other Arabic pieces of furniture in our new home. It took us at least 1 hour, Turkish coffee, tea, lot's of small talk and some negiotiating, but we did purchase a lovely gift for ourselves.

A big box is now waiting in our car and will join us during the last days of our journey.

We wonder were we will put the kids tomorrow when we continue our ride back home...

M.

Istanbul

Istanbul has been on my list for many, many years and I am extremely excited to finally be here.
We arrived late after a long 750 km ride from Cappadocia but we all agreed that we should continue and find ourselves a nice place to stay. The traffic wasn't bad at all, perhaps because it was Friday, perhaps it was after dark so everyone was home for Iftar or perhaps we were simply lucky. Thanks again to our loyal friend GPS, he took us straight into the city center which we identified to be 'the-place-to-be'.

It's always a hassle to find a hotel (and parking spot) in big city centers, but so far the benefit from being in the center of your interest is great: you go to the trouble once, the hotel usually assists in finding you a spot (they know the secrets of the city or they have their own private car-park) and once unloaded the needed luggage (we only have one travel suitcase that we use per country/portion) you're ready to settle and explore.
Istanbul however is congested and the lovely narrow roads, that you appreciate as an pedestrian, are a nightmare when you're here by car.
In a dead-end street, close to the Blue Mosque, Onno and I got out of the car, walked into a small hotel, asked for their bottom-last minute rate, asked for the obvious other questions (internet? non-smoking? including breakfast? Car park?) and checked the room. It was a small, basic two bedroom suite for a bargain price, but when the guy tried to turn on the light, the electricity failed and it was warm and humid inside. "Ah, problem with electricity. You get luggage, I fix problem."
Onno and I didn't think so, goodbye, we're not desperate enough...


A few meters further away was another hotel. It offered an acceptable rate, lovely cosy (small, in hotel-language) rooms, wi-fi internet, breakfast outside in the morning and a restaurant at the terrace. Onno and I checked the rooms, checked the mattresses and agreed downstairs with the duty manager. Deal.

And we love it: we're right in the center of everything and had dinner with the Blue Mosque view.

Today Thijs needed a few extra hours to get better from the bug but around 11 we could finally explore the city. We did two sites today; the Aya Sofya church/mosque and after lunch did the Topkapi Palace. As the kids really don't like 'licensed tour Guides' because they're 'boring' and they tell to much details that you don't remember anyway, we completely rely on our travel guides (Lonely Planet or Rough Guide). The Istanbul Guide from Lonely Planet has a detailed explanation about the sites and as we wander through the sites, I cite from the guide and try to engage the kids as much as is possibly possible with teenagers.

In the Topkapi museum the most interesting part is the Harem (private quarters for the Sultans). As I tell the children about the history of the place we're visiting especially Noelle is hooked to the story and background. We read the guide, try to imagine life in the Harem and meanwhile offering our children some incredible educational experiences while taking them to all these sites.

Onno is almost 16 and would have had no problem driving 10.000 km while staying at hotels and eating the odd hamburger to survive, ignoring all the incredible learning opportunities on his way. They qualify as 'particularly boring' and he has no clue why on earth Thijs and I keep jumping into every new site with new energy, interest and curiousity.
He vows he will never do 'such things' when he grows up...

So, after two interesting sites, lot's of cramps and bathroom stops for Thijs and Noelle, we called it a day and returned to hotel for some rest.

There's only one more thing on our list for today: A cold beer and dinner!

Courtyard in the Harem in Topkapi Palace

One of the Sultan´s privy rooms

The Bosporus

view on the Blue Mosque from the Topkapi Palace

Bugged by a bug

We're not sure, but somewhere down the road, we all caught a bug. We suspect it happened in Diyabakir where it was extremely hot.
Fact is that Onno was the first one to get sick, then Noelle (who got very sick with a high fever and rested all day in Goreme). Next in line was Thijs who got sick during the first day in Goreme and just when we decided we would prefer to carry on, I got sick...
As I'm not a big eater, my bug-ratio was less than with the other family-members, so I guess I was the least sick off all.

While Thijs got sick too and Noelle rested, got rid of her fever, visited the bathroom every 10 minutes and slept most of the day in the tent, Onno and I went for tiny drive and a stroll into one of the famous valleys in Goreme (another famous Unesco site). We both couldn't leave the camp-ground too long, as we needed toilets in our proximity, but we still enjoyed the little walk we did.
The view was amazing and I let Onno drive the car back to the campground again. He smiled all the way back (a small drive on a deserted dirt-road).
He now refers to this little moment of quality time (driving the car) as 'The best thing of this whole entire vacation.'

We regret to leave Goreme without having been able to actually explore the valley's, or a balloon-ride, but we don't regret to leave a tourist trap like that.
All feeling sick and irritated by the constant swarm of wasps, it took us hours to pack all our belongings again.
We did, however use the opportunity to wash a few loads and re-organize our luggage. We have now one suitcase left with clean clothes and should take us through the final 9 or 10 days of our journey!

Goreme, just behind our camp-ground

Onno during our little stroll in one of the valley's

Enjoying the view before departing Goreme

Breakfast in Goreme

Goreme

We have arrived in Goreme and we're still on schedule. The Toll-Highway has speeded up our journey at a price: we miss a lot of the beautiful scenery in Turkey...
As we were all tired and fed up with hotels, we have decided to put up the tent in Goreme. The weather temperature has dropped (29 degrees) compared to the places we visited in the East (e.g. Diyabakir: 41 degrees), so camping is now possible.
We all love putting up the tent and the kids were all in favourite for our suggestion.

Onno hasn't been feeling well for a day: he started having a stomach bug (inevitable) and had lot's of cramps. The trip to Goreme was fortunately not to long and he slept most of the trip.

Once our tent was put up, Noelle jumped in the pool, Thijs and I left to the supermarket to buy our own food and when we returned Thijs prepared a simple vegetarian pasta.

When the sun went down, the temperure dropped even more and we actually had to take some jersey's out of our suitcases.

In the middle of the night, Noelle wakes us up completely panicked and crying. The poor child had developed a huge fever and was very, very sick.
We moved her bed into our tent and it took both her and me hours to fall asleep again.

So today, we have all declared this day as a re-organize-, recover-, laundry-, car-wash- and relax day.
Noelle is feeling a little bit better but still has a fever. Meanwhile, the air balloons, horse-riding trips, quad-bike trips around us are tempting, but it will just have to wait...

Wereldomroep

 De wereldomroep volgt onze reis!

Lees hier het eerste artikel van Maurice Laparlière over onze binnenkomst in Iran. Lees daarna het artikel over onze reis wat vandaag gepubliceerd werd.

From Diyabakir to Adana

As we're travelling away from Iran, through Turkey towards Europe, everything around us changes constantly. The children perceive Turkey as a huge improvement (as it seems more civilized to them), for us, traveling to Turkey is much easier: the traffic seems more organized, we don't spend too much time in banks changing our money into two different valuta's, we haven't booked any hotels so we're more flexibile and there are actual supermarkets where we can buy bread, drinks, lunch, etc.
The view has also changed significantly and it changes constantly. We have now travelled from the more poor 'Kurdisch' part of Turkey to a more and more European view. For us, we feel as if we left the Middle East, so coming home is now getting closer.
Yesterday, we visited the most bizarre place ever: Mount Nemrut Dagi where a narcissist king (pre-Roman) ordered some statues to be sculptured. It is said he is buried underneath the rubble on the mountain, but nobody actually knows for sure. The statues are littered around the mountain looking over the Turkish country.

Leaving Diyabakir, a Kurdish city in Eastern Turkey

On the ferry on our way to reach the Nemrut Dagi

The trip meant a few hours long detour, time consuming with all the winding roads to reach the top, a steep climb to the top on foot (painful for me with my aching spine).
But my camera was itching in my hands, and I didn't want to miss the opportunity.

We reached the top, the car worked hard on the winding roads and when the temperature got up, the airco shut down. We all went silence in our car and I'm sure we all had the same thoughts:  "please, make it..."

Reaching the top was amazing: the view was incredible and the statues had been waiting for our visit for a few centuries.


After the visit, Thijs got extremely fed up with the bad road conditions and the continues road-construction worksite and little villages we had to pass. We've been travelling on Secondary roads for the past 5000 km and we were exhausted. We looked at the map (a gift from a Iranian traveller who lived in Holland and made the terrible mistake to travel from the Netherlands to Iran, taking his car).
With all of us, we decided it was worth it to travel down southwards, to the Syrian border to catch the highway to speed up our journey.
When we finally reached the highway, it appeared to be a toll-highway and as Touristic Turkey likes to be; no explanation was found on how to enter this road and how to pay toll...
Thijs got out of the car, took the map and his wallet and went looking for a living person around the entry to the toll way. He returned with a card and yes, we could continue!
Entering the highway felt like gliding on ice. The kilometers were melting away and we decided to use the opportunity and travel as much as we possible could so we would have an easy day to travel to Capadocia the next day.

We drove until it was dark (not a safe option on secondary roads, but you can do this on these highways) and checked in at a hotel in Adana. We were all exhausted, hungry (we have a bad habit of skipping lunch) and dirty.

How great the disappointment was when I discovered that a problem appeared with my flash card in my camera corrupting all 1000 raw files on my new card.
I could no longer find the pictures of Nemrut Dagi and lost all the other 1000 files from our journey.
Thank God, I copied and did backup my pictures daily and thank God for fantastic computer and camera freaks who develop restoring applications like Zero-assumption recovery.

And thank you Thijs, for acknowledging my frustration and helping me to find a solution while I was mourning for the lost files of Nemnut Dag...

I'm pleased to share my restored files, enjoy!

From Van to Diyabakir