JITM

So, finally, after much galavanting, we made it to our destination – JITM, a technical college in rural Orissa. A car picked us up from the train station (the sign in the window said “Wel-come to Scot & Sherly – JITM/AID” – we kept it!) and brought us to the campus. It’s absolutely in the middle of nowhere, 7km to the nearest town and surrounded by green hills and mountains, paddy fields and little villages everywhere. The campus itself is a big groups of stark white buildings and looks quite out of place! It’s pretty self-sufficient with a canteen, shops, a doctor, guesthouse (that’s where we are!), temple…. But it’s much more fun to explore the surroundings – we have bikes and our own feet and have been doing lots of wandering – everyone wants to stop and stare at the weird white people, and most of them want to smile and wave to you, or shake hands or practise their English (“hi sir!”). The roads are more like an obstacle course – pot holes cover more area than the actual road does, and it’s all full of people walking, people carrying huge bundles of straw, kids running round, kids peeing at the side of the road, chickens, dogs, buffalo, goats and cows cruising around all over the place, motorbikes, bicycles, old rickety buses as wide as the road, jeeps with about 20 people on, in and hanging off them……

You may wonder what exactly we’re planning to do out here in woop-woop, staying at an alcohol-free college (!!!!). Well, there’s lots to distract us from the lack of bars - we're teaching some of the college classes (I took some Botany ones and Scott is doing Optics, Statistics, Electronics and maybe Management) which is quite intimidating and I appreciate the difficulties of writing on blackboards without breaking chalk or dropping the duster now! It's so embarrassing when you drop the duster. And when they ask you questions you can't answer.... Anyway, the college also has a community development program called AID, so we're helping out lots with that too - going to the local schools to help with teaching, teacher training, English etc (videoing some classes and taking notes and doing a presentation at the end - the teachers are all untrained so want all the help we can give! The kids love us too, and they are soooooooo cute!). We're also helping with their organic garden site, making chicken coops and compost - and the deaf guy who works there taught me sign language! And we've been doing some other things like proofreading and promoting the conference they're having next year. I'm also working part-time for Eco Innovation (the people I was working for in Ireland) so it's quite busy busy! Anyway, just wanted to generally introduce the place we're at and what we're up to - will start to put some funny entries up soon of what we've been up to - stay tuned! For now, here's a couple of pictures - the hazy sunset here, and Mina, one of the kitchen girls, and I........ We've been pretty crap at taking pictures so far, more soon once we have a photographic mission...

Hyberdabad Part 2

So we took quite a few pictures in Hyderabad - lots of pretty things! This is a huuuuuuuge Buddha statue, 17m high, and it's on a little island in the middle of a lake so you have to get a boat out there. Apparently when they were taking it to the island the barge sank and the buddha just waited at the bottom of the lake for a couple of years until they finally raised it up undamaged. Course he was fine, he's buddha!

Scott and Buddha Boat and Sunset....

Scott's pretty artistic photo of the statues at Buddha's feet

Man, motorbikes, cow.......

The state parliament all lit up for its 25th anniversary, with a Ghandi statue in front

Hyberdabad

Mumbai was quite busy, a bit too busy so we weren’t too disappointed when we hopped on our first overnight train towards Orissa. We were prepared for the worst with the trains. All of us have heard about the Indian transportation with passengers packed like sardines, but we were actually really pleasantly surprised. We had a sleeper each and were able to buy a chain to lock up our bags so no problems there. Well, no problems for Shell who slept peacefully unlike her paranoid boyfriend who awoke to every small noise and checked suddenly to see if the bags were still there, which of course they were, unmoved until morning (unlike Scott).

The rest of the train trip was almost like being in a market. Other than when we slept, five minutes didn’t go by where somebody selling ice cream, coffee, chai, bombai mix, sweets, samosas, pens with calenders, spinning tops, chains, stickers, chewing tobacco, sandwiches or various other goods we were unable to identify would walk up to your booth and state repeatedly the name of their product. Of course because we were white we must have wanted everything and hence the words seemed to repeated even more to us than the other travellers. Between the salespeople there was also the beggars. Most of them being cripples but one pair strangely being transvestites (go figure).

However, Hyderabad (pronounced Hyberdabad by Scott despite numerous training sessions) was also quite a busy city. We spent more time travelling in autorickshaws (a good way to make sure you appreciate the fact you're still alive) and we went to see an Indian movie (3 hours long and full of dancing and singing and in a language we didn't understand) but otherwise it was similar to Mumbai with much beeping of horns, many beggars and general chaos everywhere. We did see a few nice places though and took some photos.....

The charminar mosque monument thing - a rip off at $3 entry though so we just walked round it and admired it from a distance.

Kids playing in the fountain in the park!

Traffic chaos... intersections like this involve just pushing through traffic going the other way.

Pretty Hindu temple and appropriately dressed girl in Om t-shirt. Hindu temples are nice - lots of trees and rocks and free coconut! They also had quotes from other religions to show they're all the same......

Mumbai Part 2 - Stardom!

We’ve finally been discovered… On our 2nd day in Mumbai, we were wandering around the streets saying to each other that we may have booked too many rooms at our hotel. (I told you we only need one Shelley. Shut up and stop laughing. Yes I’ll change it – sigh). Anyway like I said, we were just saying that we had booked too many NIGHTS in our hotel. Mumbai was a big city but didn’t seem have a lot to offer that we were interested in.

"Excuse me. You want to be in Bollywood movie?”
“Sorry.”
“We need Western extras for Bollywood movie. You get 500 rupees ($17 Aus) each for day and free food and water and get to dress up in costumes.”
“Did you say costumes…”

So the next day we went to one of the big Bollywood studios. It was extremely interesting and boring at the same time. Just to be in a Bollywood studio was a bit of a thrill but we pretty much sat around 90% of the time, so we decided to explore.

We watched three girls practising their dance routine in a foyer somewhere and we snuck into the rehearsal room to watch a whole troupe of dancers performing for a few seconds until we were kicked out.

Anyway other than that we sat around playing cards and chatting to the other tourists who had also been roped in. Shell had a small exciting role as a doctor walking past a patient in some hospital scene. Then finally, our big scene came. Shell and I were both picked to be photographers of a newspaper covering an event, where the star, co-star and their team of race drivers were given trophies for whatever the movie was about.

Basically we dressed up in casual smart clothes, had an old broken camera and bad false id badges. The scene started with a guy in a suit giving the star of the movie a big trophy, then he, the co-star and their team went wild shouting and cheering everywhere.

The whole time, Shell and I and other extras had to pretend to be taking lots of different photos from different positions. It was a laugh and a half, especially when the explosion of confetti, which we weren’t previously aware of, went off about half a metre from us. The noise was deafening and the explosion was so loud that we could feel it rebound off our chests. It was probably actually quite dangerous but we were too busy having fun and getting showered by champagne (the next part of the scene) to care about something as petty as an explosion.

So all in all it was a fun day and great for our budget since we actually made money that day instead of spending it. Anyway if you want our autograph you have to wait until we get back but if you want to see us in action the name of the movie is, “Don’t Worry Be Happy” although it probably won’t be out for about a year.

Fame at last!

The stars about to shower us all with champagne

More fun in Mumbai - hanging out on Chowpatty Beach

A scene of figurines from the Mahatma Ghandi Museum - really eye-opening to learn all about his life and his part in the struggle for India's independance. Did you know he decided to fight persecution and repression after being thrown off a train as a youth in South Africa, because of his colour? And that he was assassinated but died praying forgiveness for his killer? He's a pretty cool guy, and its interesting to have a country where the leader-idol isn't a war hero but someone who only preached non-violence, tolerance and acceptance.

India Finally! It begins in Mumbai.......

So India hit us with a bang as soon as we landed. We stepped outside of the airport and breathed in the moisture that constantly hangs in the air, organised a taxi and were on our way to Mumbai. We just managed to squeeze our bags in the boot, which had to be tied down with a rope (no problem no problem… hopefully).

All that is offered in Mumbai was thrown straight at us as soon as we left the airport. With the driver smiling exuberantly as he swerved continuously, with only centimetres between us and the other ‘vehicles’, including autorickshaws (similar to Tuk Tuks for you Thailand travellers), normal cars, motorcycles with four travellers, buses, massive trucks, donkey carts, people carts (replace the donkey), beggeas dodging the traffic for a chance to stick their hand through a window, holy cows and all other types of transportation you can imagine.

If that wasn’t enough, there was even more action going on by the side of the road. Basically, take life, that is all the life that goes on inside of private homes, shops, factories, schools, toilets, social clubs, child care centres and display it on the street for all to see… trust me it’s quite a sight.

If our eyes were leading the race, they were being followed very closely by the rest of our sense detectors. The sounds of Mumbai for one minute are enough to last you a life time. The constant sound of all types of horns being blasted continually sends your ear drums into a panic – its almost claustrophobic. In fact it would be if you weren’t too busy taking it all in.

It doesn’t take too long for you to shove the noise to the back of your head but the smell is much harder to ignore. The mixture of human sweat, cooking spices, exhaust fumes and the sea create a smell that is original if nothing else. Shantaram quotes it as “being the best worst smell in the world” and I may not agree but it does smell like the essence of a hectic world that is too busy surviving to bother showering.

So this was India, where we hoped to live work and travel for at least the next five months. After planning to get here for so long, the arrival was as surreal as expected.

We spent the next four days in Mumbai, wandering around with our mouths continuously open and therefore continuously full of exhaust fumes and dirt. One of the best places we saw was a big Muslim mosque located on an island and connected with the mainland by a causeway. We were there at call to prayer so there were hundreds of Muslims gathered. One of the family took us under their wing and gave us sweets and stuff. Here are some of the happy snaps…

Lots of bathing people outside the temple!

The bustling causeway, full of stalls, beggars, people and colour....

Our friendly family - and such cute kids! Note the breastfeeding under the sari - a great idea!

Far away view of the temple

Turkey Part 4 - Selcuk

Ok folks, almost finished Turkey now! It was hard to leave Olympos but we finally tore ourselves away, and rode 3 hours on the bus to Kas, a little fishing town nearby. The bus ride wasn’t wonderful with a 3-day hangover from staying at Kadir’s…. We only spent the afternoon and evening in Kas, wandering around, watching the sunset and having some tea. It’s a pretty upmarket yacht-club type place. A nice pitstop though, because we had to get (yet another) overnight bus to Selcuk that evening.


Sleep deprived again we arrived at some bus depot at 4am, with 2 hours to wait until the first local bus to Selcuk. Bored yet? Why is she telling us this? Well that 2 hour wait was actually quite eventful. We were sitting half-asleep sipping tea in the waiting area when a scared-looking guy was dragged/led past us by a few other Turkish guys – we didn’t know what was going on because he didn’t seem to be resisting, and no one intervened although everyone stopped talking. They took him around the corner (perhaps out of public sight, perhaps out of sight of the police station across the road) and we heard a few bangs and thumps, then the group of guys emerged, one shaking his hand, and walked back outside. The guy they’d taken wandered out, his face bleeding, until someone led him off to the toilets. It was all quite surreal.

Anyway, onto more fun and exciting things! Our main reason for staying in Selcuk was to visit Ephesus, one of the best preserved Roman cities in the world. It was amazing, but soooooooo full of tourists. Some highlights were the ancient toilets, the huge theatre, all the columns scattered around and the world’s first advertisement – it directed ancient sailors how to get to the brothel! We thought it was impressive but the most impressive part was our personal documentary, historically accurate of course, tee hee hee. It’s a must see:

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoID=1422891133

(find Scott)

(Scott excitedly figures out how to get to the brothel)

Ramadan ended while we were in Selcuk – so there were a lot of very happy Muslims around, able to eat in the daytime again! They get a 4-day holiday so everyone parties – we went out with one of the hostel-owners and his mates and a couple of the other guests there. It was kind of weird, because we drove to a city with lots of clubs, just like Western nightclubs but with unbelievably bad loud music, snacks on the tables (including carrot sticks – Shelley was very impressed) and it seemed like a handful of 12 year old boys were allowed to get in because they were dancing all around the place.

Our last couple of days in Istanbul were spent sorting out a few things and hanging around – there were sooooooo many people around for the end of Ramadan celebrations, apparently all the public transport is free then too so it was hard work to get anywhere, we had to push through the crowd! We’re not talking isolated areas here. It was like the whole of Istanbul had turned into a sea of people.

Before leaving the country, we went to meet Phil and Angie (P & A) for dinner – a couple that Scott travelled through Africa with. It took a little longer to get to their place than expected because we caught the wrong ferry and had to go back to where we started from (giving the ferry crew a laugh), but we finally made it, and had a great evening of chatting, laughing, drinking, telling stories and eating Phil’s yummy veggie dinner.

So finally we waved goodbye to P & A, hopped onto the bus made our way towards India…..

Turkey Part 3b - Olympos

So this is how it was. We all spent the morning hanging about the hostel, the afternoon re-exploring the ruins and then we began our hike towards Mt Olympos in search of the origin of the Olypic torch, the Chimaera - ‘THE ETERNAL FLAMES’ ooooooooooh. There’s a bus if you really want to get back, but if you’re hard (cheap) like us you can hike there yourself. The trek there was pretty easy in fact so easy we decided to stop in for a cheeky beer on the beach, plus everyone wanted a break from watching Scott hobble over the pebbles at the “beach” (no sand) complaining that they kept getting stuck in his reefs.


Anyway, we eventually got to the top of Mt Olympos (after having to pay a cover charge to walk through the beach and a cover charge to walk up the mountain – walking is expensive in this country). So we spent about an hour sitting around the eternal flames, eating eternal toast, smoking eternal cigarettes, talking about setting up a stall selling marshmallows (how much money could you make??) and fantasising about eating roasted eternal rabbits that were hopping around the place. (Shell protests that she didn’t want to eat the rabbits. They were cute.)


I should probably explain this eternal flames thing I keep going on about. Basically this mountain has a bit of a gas problem, in fact an eternal gas problem and it has these sections in it where fire just eternally burns like several naturally scattered small camp fires that flame from the cracks in the rock. Basically the gas emitted from the earth spontaneously combusts when it comes in contact with oxygen. Nobody really knows why but who cares, its still great for making eternal toast.


After relaxing by the flames for a while it was time to trek home but this was no leisurely stroll – oh no no, it was a race against time. You see, the hostel we were staying at included a free dinner, which was all you can eat and man if its free could we all eat, but you had to be there by a certain time. Since we wanted to hang by the fires until after sunset because obviously fire is more attractive at night time, we had only a limited time period to make it back – in the dark. With only 2 head torches between us we decided to split into 2 teams. Lets call them ‘Team Hungry’ and ‘Team Don’t Worry the Boys Will Make Sure They Keep Some Food For US’ shortened to Team DWTBWMSTKSFFU.” Long story short Team Hungry made it just in time and Team DWTBWMSTKSFFU were right in their reasoning.


After dinner we had one last drinking session (this time with 8 litres of wine between 7 of us) to celebrate the fact that we ate. It was in fact our biggest session in Turkey, where Scott woke up everyone in his room at 2am looking for the pack of cards, Shell decided to have a small emotional tantrum and Cappa tried to sleep in the fire instead of beside it. Needless to say our livers were happy the next day when we took the bus to Kas.

Turkey Part 3 - Olympos

Antalya wasn’t very exciting because it rained the whole time we were there (1 night). Highlights were having blackouts at the hostel and playing cards by candlelight, wandering the streets in darkness, learning some Hindi from an old English hippy couple, teaching their kids Shithead (renamed Poohead), and buying Shell a red bra. Not necessarily in that order, it is a pretty cool red bra and only cost $2.50.

So, onto the fun stuff, the next day we headed to Olympos! That’s right, like the Olympics and Greek gods and stuff (this part of Turkey used to belong to the Greeks I think) – which was much more eventful! Even before we got there we had drama – it was still raining and storming madly so electricity was out, some of the roads down to the town were closed due to treefalls and rivers gushing across them, so it took our bus driver a few tries to find a clear route. When we finally got there and tramped into the place we’d heard about, Kadir’s treehouses, we were greeted by a blackout, lots of candles, and an Aussie guy host who made us put down our bags and have a free beer – as you can probably guess there were no objections.
Anyway, we checked into our treehouse (that’s right folks we went from living in a cave to living in the trees) which had this cool little balcony overlooking a flash flood. Normally, the river bed was dry but the sudden storm had turned it into a fairly raging river rushing below our balcony. Coincidently there was a chick staying there who worked in flood disaster management but I think its best not to include her opinions on the layout of the camp, for our parents health’s sake.

So, the next couple of nights were pretty big booze sessions. We found our friend Cappa, who we’d left after Istanbul, and made friends with a group of English people pretty quickly. The first night we all just drank the beer sold at the camp but decided that was too expensive so the next day we found a shop that sold 2 litres of wine for about 10 Australian dollars – COME IN SPINNER! (Shell says she’s never heard of the expression and thinks Scott just made it up but she agrees the wine was a great deal.) (Give me that back – its my turn. Anyway, like I was saying Shell stinks tee hee hee – so back to the story)

We spent our first morning in Olympos checking out the local beach and exploring some nearby Roman ruins, which included wading through an old aqueduct for about 100 metres that led to some ancient mosaic ruins - that was all pretty adventurous and exciting. Then on the way back we bought 4 litres of wine and started our next session, so that whole afternon/night basically consisted of us pissing it up and playing a whole bunch of games including Turkish Scrabble. Scott with his extensive vocabulary absolutely smashed Shell and Cappa (not only coz he got all the good letters – which makes a big difference when the Ks are all worth 1, some Ss are worth 5 and others 7, most Gs are worth 5 but one is worth 9 etc etc) (Shell would like to point out that he scored 83 from ‘Sky’ while Shell and Cappa had about 5 K’s each) (Stop taking that away – anyway Scott was the winner and the other two were looooooooooooosers).
All in all it was a fun and hazy couple of days, including lots of beautiful views and head aches, but the highlight of Olympos was definitely the Chimaera, which needs a whole section of its own…

Turkey Part 2b- Cappadocia

By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, Scott has decided that he wants to be part of the blogging process now we’re doing more adventurous stuff he can write silly stories about. So now you have to work out by yourselves who’s writing. Anyway, back to Shell for this entry and more of Cappadocia…… Cappadocia was too much fun for just one blog entry – and besides, we have a million silly pictures it’s hard enough limiting them to this! For our last day in Gorome (gorgeous sunshine unlike the day before!) we decided just to wander round the stunning valleys that surround the village – and that was pretty much our entire day! Every time we rounded a corner there was another breathtaking view (see picture above). We met a couple of Israeli girls and explored with them for a while – it was interesting because they told us how they are strictly Jewish and can’t even eat at restaurants here because food they can’t eat may have touched the plates – so they brought two weeks worth of food with them to Turkey! Also, they’d just finished school and were having a brief escape before their compulsory two years of army service…. We climbed into caves, wondered about how people could possibly create windows up in impossibly high places, admired the layers of colours in the rocks, explored rooms, wandered round valleys with them for the morning, then caught a bus to another nearby village, where someone had told us you could walk back to Gorome from, through a really gorgeous valley. Hitchhiking is remarkably easy in Turkey – we were just waiting at the bus stop (admittedly not sure when or if a bus would come) and a local guy pulled up to ask if we wanted a lift!

The town was nice and had a huge cave castle (we’re too cheap to pay to go in these things so we just wandered round behind it to get a great view – besides, once you’ve explored a hundred or so of the things you get a bit caved-out). This is the castle....
Then we tried to find the valley – all good, it was about 4.30pm so we had a couple of hours to walk the 4km back to Gorome before sunset. Sounds all too good so far? So there we are, happily wandering along, laughing, being silly and going oooooo every now and again at particularly pretty bits when we hear some shouting at us from halfway up the side of the valley. It was a local Turkish guy and a group of German tourists, and they were shouting to us “too dangerous, come this way!”. So, a bit dubious, we clamboured up to where they were and found out that the Turkish guy had told them the same thing a few minutes before, and was taking them “a safer way”.

“Oh well” we thought, “he’ll probably try to get some money out of us but we have about 3 lira in change ($3) so we can give him that – he is THEIR guide, we’ll just tag along and see what happens.” What happened was one of the scariest experiences in my entire life. (Shell you’re a big wus – I wasn’t scared. I’m rough and tough. Sorry for the interruption – Scott) He took us up this smooth slope with little foot holds (think Giraween or Mt Beerwah) and made us walk along this thin ridge which sloped away on either side down to the valley floors, then we had to climb/slide down the other side…. The German girl started to cry halfway down and had to be persuaded to move for a while – I don’t blame her, I felt like crying a few times! (You big wussy wus bag – rough and tough I tell you – ROUGH AND TOUGH! Sorry again) Scott said it was one of the most amazing views we'd seen but all I was looking at was my feet. Of course, when we got to “safety”, the “guide” asked for money for the “very good guide” and told us how earlier that day an English couple had given him 20 lira each – we thought he was bullshitting us but the Germans gave him quite a bit of money. We gave him the 3 lira, I don’t think he was too impressed! The funny thing was that at our next stop, we hung out with an English couple and eventually discovered that it was them, and they had given him 40 lira! I don’t think they liked our funny story of how we only gave him 3……

Anyway, after all the adventure and adrenalin of that short climb, we wandered back to town chatting to the germans – 3 guys and one of their daughters – all very rich and (it’s true!) who were having a 2 week ballooning holiday in Turkey because THEY OWN A HOT AIR BALLOON! And we met them the day we were leaving, nooooooooooooo! Not that we try to use everyone we meet, but c’mon, how often do you meet someone with a hot air balloon??? We spent our next overnight bus trip grumbling and plotting how we could have taken the daughter out drinking and tried to get a free ride if we’d met them earlier….. So, curled up against each other in uncomfortable positions once again, we headed to Antalya and Olympos…….

Turkey Part 2 - Cappadocia

So, sleep deprived once again, we step off the bus and we're immediately blown away by the scenery. It's like taking a bus to the moon. The volcanic region has left the landscape looking like some surreal Salvadore Dali interpretation. One of the guide books decscribed it as "like the Grand Canyon on acid" and it was right. So anyway, we start negotiating our way around Gorome looking for a place to crash. We'd been reccomended a place, but Scott being Scott, decided it was a "good idea" to try the other not so known places first. So after realising that the "cool unknown places" were actually abandoned for a reason, we went where everyone told us to (the Star Cave Lodge) which admittedly was a cool way to sleep in cave.

Anyway we so we had a little look around town that day then ended up boozing it up with a whole bunch of people at the hostel at this bar called the Flinstones, cave dwelling town... Flinstones... get it? It was kinda weird hanging out with Ozzies again, smoking a shisha and listening to "classics" by Brian Adams and Bon Jovi. But actually it was a pretty fun night.

So the next day we wake up hung over to the max but determined to see this beautiful area, so we trudged down town and hired a couple of bicycles. Five minutes later it started to rain. Fucking typical! Anyway, we rode (in the rain) to this little area we heard was spectacular and it was and yay it stopped raining in time for us to explore all the little nooks and crannies. It was amazing. There's all these little dwellings that had been there for thousands of years, where monks used to go and live and pray and I guess that was about it. But supposedly the area was actually the first place to have monasteries. Combine that history with the spectacularly bizarre and weirdly placed living areas and add the fact that the whole area resembled fairy chimneys and you get a pretty amazing and atmospheric spot. Anyway we had lots of fun exploring and taking silly photos.

Then it started raining again and didn't stop till we got back to Gorome (3 hours and 25km later). But it was worth it and got rid of our hangovers.

Mwaaaaaaa - Shell after a day of cycling in the rain

Tasty! (Shell's says sorry Mum but its too funny)

Turkey Part 1 - Istanbul

So it begins! Yes, I know you could say that we've been away from home for months now, but all that was just a warm up, just the beginning of the fun, the trouble, the mischief, the indecisions, the crossing of fingers, the laughter, the tears, the death threats (to each other), the getting lost then found again, the overnight bus trips, the sights of otherworldly terrains, the sound of unknown languages, the smell of body odour, the taste of foreign foods, the unmistakable sound of diarrhoea and vomit (and retasting of foreign foods), the sense of adventure that you can only get by realising you have no fucking idea where you are or what you're doing and you're LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!!

So anyway, after that little melodramatic intro, we landed in Istanbul at about midday, nice and sleep deprived since we got the cheap 6am flight and thus had to be at the airport by 4. In a nutshell, Istanbul was OK. I mean, fair enough the markets were bright and beautiful, the blue mosque was spectacular and the people were fairly friendly (especially for a big city) but unfortunately it was a little more developed than we had hoped.

(bright and beautiful markets)

Don't get me wrong, we had a good time and all, wandering around listening to the call of prayer (5 times a day), taking some happy snaps, buying shell a head scarf, having a couple of booze sessions with Cappa, getting lost a couple of times, living off lentil soup because of the Turks inability to understand the word 'vegetarian', watching the locals fast themselves from dawn to dusk and then stuffing themselves silly after the sunset call to prayer, cruising up the bosphorous and checking out all the interesting architecture on the way. But in the end it was pretty much still just a big European style city but with a few cool little things to make it unique. Anyway we weren't too upset when we jumped on our first of many overnight bus journeys in Turkey, towards Cappadocia.

Shell pretending not to be an aetheist sinner at the blue mosque

Scott and Cappa making fools of themself on a local castle