So, through another student in my TEFL course, I met this girl named Kelli from Nevada! The world is really a freakishly tiny place. I mean, yeah, sure, I met her 'cause knew Kerryn and Kerryn is from Nevada, but still! Anyway, turns out Kelli and I got along smashingly (right, Kelli?). We met once and then made plans to travel to Cappidocia, Troy, and (she) made arrangements to see the whirling dervishes one night. Actually, honestly, she did all the planning for everything. I just stopped planning stuff at some point and she is attentive to detail. We could have butted heads, but I think we got along... Hmmm...
Anyway, my last weekend in Turkey we decided to venture over to Canakkale to see the ruins of Troy even though everyone--correctly--says they aren't as impressive as the ruins you can find at Ephesus. But still! Troy!!! Hector! Agamemnon! Helen! Odysseus! Poseidon? I have to go!
This trip, of course, requires a bus. I catch one bus in Kadikoy which took me to a station called Duddulu where I happened to spot Kelli buying coffee. Now, I made that sound quick and easy, but I don't speak Turkish, my reservation was missing in Kadikoy, I was sure if I was on the right bus, and Kelli and I weren't really sure where we were going to meet. It was really quite stressful. The bus ride down to Canakkale took, hmmm, 8 hours? Now, you can do it in a car in 4.5 hours, but Heath and Safety rules for bus drivers in Turkey dictate that a bus driver can't sit for more than ten minutes without a forty-five minute break or something. I dunno the specifics. All I know is that this was the second Turkish bus trip I have taken where we just. kept. stopping. Kelli and I were greatly amused when the bus got on a ferry across the Aegean, and it worked out best for us to leave the bus on the ferry than continue on to the actual bus stop, even though that would have showed us where the bus stop is. Which will come up again later.
Sooooo, I liked our hotel. It was an apartment complete with full kitchen and sofa that pulled out into a bed. I let Kelli have the bed since I made the reservation and... we... experienced.. some difficulties getting into our room. Okay, there was no check in desk. Never mind the fact we couldn't find the hotel for a good thirty minutes, which was mostly our fault, but once we did get to the hotel, no check in desk. No check in machine. No key code. Ummm... We find a number on the building and try calling the owner (?), but there is a bit of a language barrier. Kelli gets the brilliant idea to just pass the phone over to someone who speaks Turkish, so we find ourselves in a cafe eating baklava trying to chat with the cafe owners while we wait for someone to bring us a key. Maybe we were supposed to prearrange things in advance? There was no information to suggest that on Bookings.com. Heads up, y'all. We check in, every things cool, and my credit card doesn't work. Since I am leaving the country in 48 hours, I am running low on lira and don't have the balance. The guy is pretty uncomfortable as he has to take us deeper into the office on the floor below our apartment which is a fantastically amusing sex shop. I mean, The Wall of Dildos. Pleather BDSM gear. DVDs, lubricants, anal beads. I'm from Vegas and went to an art school so I'm cool, and Kelli is from Reno so she is pretty unaffected, but the poor man checking us in is just done with life. In the end, it all works out and we have a great view from Kelli's bedroom.
After all the drama and long day of Bus, we need beer. Of course we need beer. We especially need beer since I am not allowed to drink in my apartment in Kadikoy. We received a recommendation to go to some uber-fancy, we-couldn't-afford-to-use-the-bathroom establishment, but instead found some bar in an alley where the beers were 6 liras each and the tables next to use were full of bikers.
So, yeah. It starts off all responsibly silly with card games and beer served in glasses, and then Kelli made friends...
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| This is what beer looks like. |
After we left the first bar and went to the second, it's a little fuzzy. There was live music, the gentleman in the leather vest below was my Spirit Animal of the evening, and the band tried to communicate with Kelli. It ended up being a fantastic night, I think. If memory serves, we got home at a decent hour and took showers...
The next day, it's off to Troy! Now, I have a general idea of how to do this. Kelli has a general idea of how to do this. The only problem is that there are conflicting accounts of how to get from downtown Canakkale to the Troy area. We need a
dolmuş, of that we know, but there are different ways we are told to find said mode of transportation. Now, my reading said follow the river and then you end up under a bridge where the
dolmuş are, but Kelli's says the river thing is at Troy. Whatever! We are two college educated women! We've got this...
Well, two hours, a few miles, and several people we asked on the street later, we have no bloody idea. We found a river a couple of hours ago, but no bridges with minibuses under them. Everyone we talk to has either no idea where the bus station is in English or we are unable to communicate in Turkish. (Both of these scenarios are true.) Just for giggles we start heading back into town and...
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| We will never be so delighted as we were at this moment to see some guys with vans chilling beneath an underpass. |
When we got to the river two hours ago, had we gone RIGHT, we would have been here in under five minutes. Whatever. Adventure? We find a dolmu
ş and realize we juuuuuust missed it and the next one is in an hour. Sounds like it is time for an ice cream break.
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| Mmmm, tastes like it wasn't meant for adults! Yum! |
So, an hour later, we are at Troy! Insert fanfare and trumpeting! The funny thing about Troy is, should you ever find yourself on the way there, that it has a few different names all equally used. Troy. Truva, and Troia which are all, also, common street names. So, asking for directions is a bit difficult. You sound rather indecisive as you test one name then the other to the person you are talking to and they will, ultimately, point you in the direction of Martin Luther Kind Boulevard. It doesn't show up on Google maps, and there is a tiny village called T/T/T just outside the archeological site. Which made our finding it just that much more amazing. Also, we did get to have one of those magic moments when you get off the bus and have no idea when or how to get back home. Figure it out later!!!
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| There is no Troy. |
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| Wait. Seriously? Is this it??? |
Troy was lovely. Sure, there are BETTER ruins that are better preserved or more grand but there is some definite name recognition (or not, sigh) to Troy. Here are a bunch of pictures instead of me trying to describe stuff I have images for...
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| I can't believe we are allowed to touch this stuff. |
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| I spent a good deal of time trying to picture clashing armies. |
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| You could see the layers of each time the city was rebuilt. |
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| Kelli looking all sorts of pensive. Or pissed? |
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| Clapping at no one on the stage. |
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| Totally authentic. |
Well, after an hour so at the place that took us three hours today and eight hours yesterday to get to, it was time to begin the commute back to Istanbul. Our bus reservations were for 7:30 so we ended up having a couple of hours to pick up Kelli's forgotten charger (using our friends at the cafe from yesterday to call the hotel again) and walk around a bit. We ended our trip with a couple of photo ops by the horse they used in the movie Troy (pictured below) and ice cream (not pictured 'cause we ate it too fast). It was another X? hour commute back. Kelli and I ended up parting ways at 3am at the bus stop we met at the day before. Now, we too distracted with trying to figure out how to get the rest of the way home to be emotional and say fare-the-well, and by the time I got home, my landlady was waiting up for me for some reason and PISSED.
Uh, sorry?
It was a pretty damned nice way to finish my time in Turkey.
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