Turkey - Old Ruins - Day 336 (24,008 Miles)

No, the title isn't a reference to the condition of us this far into the trip! As we headed east from Istanbul the places we planned to visit that week were mainly ancient ruins.

So, now it was going to be a very different pace of travelling, Turkey is 783,562 km2 compared to Nepal at 147,181 km2 (yes of course this is courtesy of Wikipedia and we cannot take responsibility for accuracy!) However we do know that in 4 days travelling here we had covered more Km's than during a month in Nepal. Me, I have say I preferred the Nepalese pace, slow, winding roads that gave me a chance to take in the scenery and get some decent photo's. Still, with so many interesting places that we hoped to visit in Turkey this was how it would have to be.

Late afternoon on our first day we arrived on the Gallipoli peninsular, a peaceful area of countryside and Aegean Sea coast line. It is a stunning backdrop for the war cemeteries and memorials which have made it famous. There are many cemeteries and you could easily spend several days visiting them all but we just spent a few hours wandering and sitting. John poignantly commented how sad it was to think of those soldiers who only got to experience the sights, sounds and smells of combat before dying here. For those that lived through the experience it must been hard if not impossible to appreciate the natural beauty considering the situation they were in.





A short ferry ride across the Dardanelles Straits.

A pretty easy picture clue we think but unfortunately no prizes for a correct answer (we're unemployed don't forget).

Yes, that's right our first ancient ruin was the city of Troia (Troy), various parts of which have been excavated since the 1860's when a wealthy German archeaologist began the work. Ok, that's enough I am not going to quote anymore facts about Troy or probably any other archeaological sites we visit, there's just too much history. If you're interested you can read up (even if it's just Wikipedia!).


We left Troy around midday and wanted to cover another 280 km to reach Bergama that day. The roads were flat, pretty straight and in good condition, good news then you may think. Well it was until John saw the white car with the blue flashing light and the man in uniform waving him onto the hardshoulder! According to the Officer of the Law we were travelling at 108 kph, he had no radar gun to prove this (that was back further down the road apparently). This equates to 67 mph, well I know when John is going this fast without looking at the speedo as it's noisy, vibraty and not very comfortable and it didn't feel like that, John thinks he was going more like 100 kph but the bottom line is anything over 99 is a speeding fine. It was all rather strange, we have been told since by a Turkish guy that the ticket will be linked to John's passport number and we will have to pay at the border but he didn't ask for John's passport! All that is on the ticket is his name, Reg and UK, no full address. To add insult to injury the policeman gave John two sugar cubes as a parting gift (or sweetener!)

Maybe we'll pay or maybe we'll 'forget to'. To be fair we certainly can't say we weren't warned, Matt and Anita were in the same position a couple of months ago and the guys at the Istanbul motorbike club told us to be careful.


Bergama (ancient name Pergamon), is a pretty town that markets itself as "The Cradle of Civilizations". We found a lovely guesthouse that we liked so much our 2 night planned stay turned into 3.

The Asklepieum.





The Temple of Trajan.

The Theatre.



The Temple of Serapis (The Red Courtyard).


The Temple of Serapis (The Red Courtyard) from the hill above.

To get up to this point it's a long hot walk, a 8 TLR cable car ride (our budget is too tight for this) or as we chose to do ride the bike. Asking directions brought to our attention how different the attitude to safety is here than in the countries we have spent the last 6 months. When asking directions I was told "you must be very careful on the motorbike it is a very steep road" the reality, a Nepalese family of 5 on a 125cc in shorts and flipflops carrying a sack of rice and a live goat would have been up this incline in seconds and it was no problem for us either.





We're on the 'Cat' diet at the moment, most evenings any fish or meat in our meals is portion controlled by sharing with the local cats.


There was a festival going on while we were in Bergama the evenings were lively with lots to see, everything from tractor exhibitions to a calypso band (ooh aren't you jealous).

This blog entry is dedicated to Coop (well there is a little bit more about the bike this time!)