Just looking at the view..

A series of accommodation choices that came with no or really bad internet (as well as me swanning around doing little more than look at the view) has meant this blog is now quite a bit behind where we actually are.  So I thought I better get updated – also because it seems the internet isn’t getting any better!!

Wandering down the Turkish coast
Last time we talked, we had done our Aussie national duty and paid pilgramige to the Gallipoli battlefields.  We crossed the Dardanelles to see the horse used in the movie “Troy” but alas there was no sign of Brad in his skirt and took one of the very nice Turkish buses to Selcuk (pron. Sellchook).  Selcuk’s claim to fame is that it’s right next to the ancient city of Ephesus (yeah those guys that Paul the apostle wrote to).  Well the ruins were… ruins.  They were quite interesting actually but probably set us up to be over Greek or Roman civilisation ruins from there on in.

We stayed in the ANZ Guesthouse, run by the fast-talking, Turkish born Aussie, Harry and ate kebaps (by now our staple dinner) at his mate Ali Baba’s restaurant.  We also met fellow Aussie travellers Hanna & Ryan from Sydney.  Hanna is a writer and her blog has both inspired me to get back to keeping it up to date, but also tempted me to just put a link to her blog and let you read her more professional musings.  They were, after all visiting most of the same places as us! (see the website link on the left).

Actually Hanna & Ryan were off to Cappadocia while we were going straight to the sea.  We spent 2 days watching the massive cruise ships come in and out of Kusadasi (that’s Kushadarcy for all of us non-Turkish speakers), before realising that wishing we were on a cruise wasn’t going to make it happen and we should push on. 

Finally…The Greek Islands
Another bus and a hydrofoil later and we were in a hotel in Rhodes town on the Greek island.  Unfortunately, so were most of the Swedish gap year who were intent on drinking, shouting and knocking on each other’s doors ALL night!   This is when Paul & I realised we really are old.  Twenty years ago we would have gone out and joined them, not telling them to pull their heads in that some people were actually trying to sleep!!  Needless to say, after having no sleep at all, we moved.  The beach wasn’t very good anyway..  We took a bus to the other side of the island to the village of Lindos – described to us as “much more family oriented”. 

We hadn’t been able to find any reasonably priced accommodation online so took a chance  that we could fall over something when we got there (something we’ve been loathe to do so far).  After parking me, backpacks & kids in a shady spot in the middle of the tourist shops, Paul went off to try and find some of the apartments we had seen listed. 

Meanwhile an old lady came out of one of the souvenir shops and said one word “room?”  I think that was the only word of English she knew but over the next week we were grateful, because her “room” was an apartment, complete with kitchenette and a balcony overlooking St Paul’s Bay. We spent a week going to the beach, sitting on the balcony and horror of horrors, we actually prepared some of our own food!  Don’t get too excited; we didn’t get any more culinary than spag bog made with bottled meat sauce and tuna subs. 

 Saying that though, it was the first “homemade” food we’d had in 6 months and it was great!  Made a nice change from our regular dinner which was now the Greek version of the kebab – the gyros.  We’d been living on these since Jordan – basically the same thing with different names depending on the country. In Jordan, it was kebab – meat, salad, fries & tahina; Israel it was shawarma – chicken, hommous, tahina & those fries again; the Turks were pretty similar to the Jordanian version and then the Greeks changed it slightly by calling it gyros (yiros) changing the tahina slightly and calling it tzaziki – still with the now ubiquitous french fries.  We had given up asking them to leave them out.

One of the highlights of our week was when Caitlin and I had our hair cut.  There was a very trendy looking salon near our apartment and we were both desperate for the attentions of even a half decent hairdresser.  We were both laughing when we went home to tell the others about the colourist who had started on me – dressed in thongs, cut off denim shorts and a shirt open to the waist; topped off with shoulder length blonde hair.  The cutter had short, brown hair topped with a pair of sunnies which never moved the whole time we were there; boardshorts and a pink surf shirt.  Oh… did I mention they were both men? 

Santorini
Surprisingly, getting a ferry off Rhodes was not as easy as we thought.  I had ideas that Greek island hopping was as easy as grabbing a ticket and jumping on like a bus.  Wrong!  For starters, nobody in Lindos sells ferry tickets (or could tell us the ferry schedule).  The internet is no help here either so we had no choice but to take the bus the 50km back to Rhodes town and hope there was a ferry, with seats available so we wouldn’t have to find another night’s accommodation.  Luckily the person who had told us he thought there was a ferry going that night, turned out to be right and we were delighted with our roomy cabins and the quite luxurious lounges…  15 hours later we pulled into Santorini – the posterboy of the Greek Islands.

First impressions were not great.  The island is basically a mountain in the middle of the sea.  It was brown and hot and the people were completely tourist jaded.  We had decided to splurge on a hotel overlooking the caldera for those famous views.  Unfortunately, the hotel didn’t mention that it was also overlooking a building sight.  Call us cynical, but paying $390 AUD a night had better guarantee me something better than that!  So we did it again – the kids, bags & I sat in a shady spot with a drink while Paul went off in search of an affordable caldera location, if such a thing exists. 

 Ok – it does.. but for us, the price to be paid for those views was the smell.  We were right next to the donkey track which snakes from port to the town, carrying the cruise ship passengers up and down.  When the wind blew the right direction, it was just like being at the Royal Show – a small price to pay for those views!

So once again, we sat on our balcony and watched the cruise ships come in and out and subsequently the mules going up and down.  One night while out looking for our nightly cheap gyros, Paul bumped into our fellow travellers, Ryan & Hanna.  They had in fact outdone us in the fantastic caldera views, cheap accommodation competition and minus the Royal Show!! 

Turns out Santorini is a small world.  The next day, we went to Oia – that’s the place on the island where they take the photos for all the postcards. We perched on the end of the cliffs to watch the sunset.  Here we were surrounded by a group of young Aussies on a tour and one of them happened to be a guy we met taking the ferry and bus from Koh Samui to Bangkok.  It’s a very small island (world)…