Holiday time!

Yay!

It's once again time for me to go on holiday!

This time I'm going to Turkey. I've got a flight at 22:30 from Heathrow to Istanbul, then a few hours later a transfer to Nevsehir. I'm staying in Anatolia province, in a town called Goreme. I'm going to visit the cities in the mountains of Kapadokya, visit a friend in Konya, and a few other things, then on Wednesday I'm taking a flight back to Istanbul and staying there for about 5 days.

I'll be back on March 26th. Hopefully not on bail and with my ringpiece still unviolated

Have a good time fella

I demand free biscuits upon your return.

Ciao for now!

I'm back and I survived!

Turkey's a pretty good country. For historics and culture buffs it's the perfect country. Everyone seems to speak English too, and everyone's nice to tourists. I doubt I'll be going back to Istanbul but there are loads of other things in Turkey I'd like to see and do. I met some cool people, mostly Latin Americans, so I actually brushed up on my Spanish over there. I learnt a few phrases of Turkish too: Tesekkur ederim (thank you), evet (yes), birra (beer) & gulay gulay (bye bye).

In Istanbul I survived on doner kebaps. And I mean literally survived. I ate no less than 3 a day, and I think I had 1 non-doner kebap meal during my stay in Istanbul, and I was there for 5 days. They're a lot better than the ones here though. They taste pretty good, not so greasy, and most of the time the chef makes a good effort to actually put some fresh salad in there, arrange it, bung a few chips in. They didn't have chilli sauce either. A few places had like a shaker with ground chilli you could put on your kebap (kebap is the Turkish way to say it) so I was fairly happy. I like a slight burn in my kebaps.

Aside from kebaps there's loads of traditional Turkish food that I tried. Dunno what it was called or what was in it but it all tasted pretty good. Turkish food is surprisingly good.

Also had a Turkish bath. A good experience but I don't think I'll repeat it. You go for a sauna then some Turkish bloke scrubs you down and slaps your arms and back a little bit (I never figured out why they slap you), then they lather you up then give you a clean and a massage, then rinse you off, then you jump in the sauna again and then into the cold pool, then have a shower. It did feel nice and relaxing afterwards but like I said, I don't think I'll do it again, it was just a 'when in Rome...' thing.

Another thing they like there is apple tea. I brought back a few boxes of the stuff with me, it's really sweet. You have it with no milk and a bit of sugar in these small glasses, I brought some into the office today to drink but I don't quite fancy a full mug so I'll have to bring in the small glasses I got with it.

One last detail: after I arrived in Heathrow I had a wait of about 90 minutes for my bus, so I wandered over to the National Express desk at terminal 3 and asked if there was an earlier one. There was one leaving in like 20 minutes and they charged me £18.10 just to change the ticket. The bus was only half full as well - not like it was highly sought after seats! Bastards!

Aside from that I had a brilliant time. Next trip should be Zimbabwe in September!

Good stuff fella, glad you had a good time. And yes, proper Turkish food is much much better than the shite that usually gets served up over here (not that I have been there, but I have Turkish friends).

As for the Turkish bath, the slapping is designed to cause blood to rush to the skin surface, which in turn opens the pores and lets more of the crap out.

To be fair that goes for most food of foreign fame when it hits these lovely shores...

Me, I'm off camoping this weekend...not quite the same but...

Ahhh well at least there's a legitimate reason for the slapping, that's good. I don't feel so assaulted now

Hope you had fun camping Myron, you picked a good weekend to do it!

Apparently now we're going back to freezing cold & snow later this week. Typical eh?

Apart from managing to hit my head when we went through the lowest bit of Peak Cavern I had a fab time.

Nice work!

Yesterday I had to MOT and tax the car, total came to just over £500. Looks like buying plane tickets to Brasil will have to wait another month. On the plus side, my friend and I have found a suitable jungle tour from Manaus (northern Brasil in the Amazonas state where most visitors go into the jungle from), http://www.antonio-jungletours.com/ . Now I need to get to work planning my itinerary. If only I didn't have this pesky work to do...

When is the insurance on the car due? ;0)