Sorry if this is boring or too "captains logish". I did it in a hurry but further below you can find some general impressions that might be more interesting.
Day 1
Arrived in Istanbul at 12:00 Noon, caught flight to Bodrum at 3:10. Arrived in Bodrum around 4:30 where Matt and Pedin picked us up at the airport. We then drove around Bodrum looking for our Pension (hotel). Once we found it we took a dip in the very refreshing swimming pool. Then we headed off to the main street that ran along the coast. We had our first Turkish meal (not counting the airplane food), after which we met up with Perin's mom and her boyfriend.
Day 2
Took minibus (dolmesh) to Turgutreis, where Matt and Perin were staying. We rented a boat from there and did some island hopping. We visited three or four Island and swam in some coves before heading off to lunch. After lunch we visited an under water city, though all we could see was water and no city. After lunch we headed back to Turgutreis and had dinner (and a nap for me) where Perin and Matt were stay (which was a summer time share owned by her mother).
Day 3
Woke up a little late (due to jet lag and general laziness). We walked over to Bodrum Castle to find out that it was closed on Mondays :(. So we walked back to our room and played in the pool while waiting the arrive of Matt and Perin. Once they got there they wanted to play in the pool a little so we did that some more. Then we spent the evening walking around the main drag of Bodrum again and we went to a Turkish bath, which was nice, but a little rough on the sunburns received the previous day.
Day 4
Matt picked us up from our hotel and we headed off to Pamukkale. It was a three-hour drive and we got pulled over once for speeding. Matt faked not knowing a lick of Turkish and they let us go free. When we arrived at our hotel the owner's son took us into town and we had lunch with him and visited the local super market, it's nice getting to know the locals. We came back to our hotel and then headed up the mountain. The walk up was nice, though tough on the feet. You have to take your shoes off to walk up the calcium deposits. Once we reached the top we briefly looked at the ancient roman pool. We didn't have enough money to get in so we opted to just go look at the ruins of Hierapolis, which was the city the pool use to be a part of. The ruins were one of my favorite parts. The ruined city had a necropolis (all the tombs had surfaced, it had a giant amp theater as well as a Temple to Apollo. At the Temple we met a local woman who claimed to be selling ancient coins. Our guidebook told us to watch out for such people. What they actually do is feed coins to goats and cows and once they run through the digestive track they end up looking convincingly old. So we bought one from her but at a much-reduced price. We also ran into a giant spider or two, Robyn literally almost ran into one, we decided to stay on the beaten path after that. Then we went back to the hotel and had a fabulous home made dinner and sat around talking about the moral reasoning of vegans and meat eaters.
Day 5
We drove to Afrodisias and explored some more ruins. This set had a huge collusiem and a temple to Aphrodite. We also wanted to hit world famous Ephesus that day but just didn't have enough time. I wasn't too disappointed since we'd just spent the last two days seeing ruins, but I know Matt really wanted to see them so hopefully he was able to later in his trip. We stopped on the way back to Bodrum at a hidden pide place that was pretty good. Matt dropped us off in Bodrum, we cleaned up and had dinner then headed over to the Internet cafe. At the Internet cafe we had the delight to find out that our car had broken down. So we had that hanging over our heads the rest of the trip, but we didn't let it ruin our fun.
Day 6
Spent morning at the Internet cafe dealing with car junk. Then we took one last stroll through Bodrum and headed off to Urgup at 5:00PM. Urgup is one of the bigger cities in Cappadocia.
Day 7
Arrived in Urgup at 7:00AM. We didn't have any idea what we were going to do there so we hooked up with the first tour guide to talk to us. We purchased a hotel and a day tour of the area with them. We met a wonderful man there (our tour guide). He was incredibly nice and we didn't feel like he was constantly trying to get as much money out of us as possible, which was often the feeling in Bodrum and Istanbul. So we checked into our hotel and then went on our tour at 9:30. It was a nice tour though some of our other tourist friends were annoying (that's what you get for being in a tour group though). We saw a lot of the rock formations that people lived in and even visited one that is still used as a home. We also visited monasteries and churches carved into the rocks. We also went to an underground pottery place. They gave us demos on how pottery is made and we did a little shopping for friends back home. After that we left our tour group and headed off to a rug coop. They gave us a tour and showed us how the rugs were made, including how to do the famous double loop. Then we purchased a rug for another friend back home. When we got back to the hotel we had dinner and crashed.
Day 8
Woke up a little late again. We decided to go out on our own this day instead of doing a tour, even though there was a tour with the same tour guide going right where we wanted to go. We caught a bus and headed toward our first stop, but unbeknownst to us the bus driver forgot to stop and so he stopped an hour past our stop (after we pointed that they missed our stop) and we sat in a little town with nothing to do for two and a half hours. We walked around the area a little and met some kids and their mother, none of which spoke much more English than we did Turkish. But it was fun nonetheless, we traded them so trader Joes fruit snacks for some fresh watermelon. They wouldn't let us take pictures of them so we don't have any digital proof that it actually happened. Then we caught the bus back to our hotel and had to argue with them about the fact that we didn't want to pay for the ride back, in the end they agreed that we shouldn't have to. Back in Urgup we had Tandir for dinner, it's quite tasty and I'd suggest you try it if you ever have the chance.
Day 9
We woke up at 5:30AM and road mountain bikes out to the rock formations. Unfortunately the formations were a little further than we thought (and a little more up hill than we remembered), so we didn't quite make it there. Then we rushed back to the hotel to go on a private tour with our favorite tour guide of the area we tried to visit the day before. We met up with him and he took us to an underground city the goes down 12 levels and had over 2000 rooms and could house over 6000 people. Then we went over to the Ilhan Valley, it's a miniature version of the Grand Canyon except it has ancient homes and churches dug into the side of the canyon. We walked through half the canyon in about 3 hours. We had lunch by the side of the river that runs through the canyon. After visiting the canyon we stopped at a Caravan station. It looked like a mini castle, but was basically a place where people on the Caravan trail could stop and spend the night in safety. On our way back to Urgup we stopped at a huge monastery carved into the side of the hills. Once in Urgup we checked out of our hotel and catch an 8:00PM bus to Istanbul.
Day 10
We arrived in Istanbul around 7:00AM. We took a taxi from the bus station to Sutahement where our hotel was. We quickly found our hotel and met Suphi, a friend of Marks. Suphi showed us to our room and then took us on a little tour of Istanbul. We went to Taxim (which is the hip cool fresh part of Istanbul) and had lunch with him. He also walked us through the New Mosque and the Spicy Bazaar. On our way back to the hotel we visited his brothers shop and hung out with them listening to Turkish music and talking about Turkish alcohol. When we got back to the hotel we slept for about an hour and then walked over to the Aya Sofia. We found out that it too, is closed on Mondays. So we headed over to the Blue Mosque and waited outside till call to prayer was over. Then we went in and stayed there for a while. It's a weird feeling being a tourist in a religious building and I felt bad as people were sneaking behind the lines they weren't suppose to cross to take quick pictures. We then sat out side the Blue Mosque and talked with a guy who just wanted to practice his Spanish but was willing to do English with us instead. He was like a Turkish Robert De Niro, but nicer. For dinner we took a taxi back over to Taxim looking for Chinese food but settled for Indian instead. Then we walked half way back through dark allies and scary streets (probably not the smartest thing we did on the trip) before deciding it was too sketching to continue the journey by foot.
Day 11
We had Breakfast with Suphi. We made a second attempt at getting in the Aya Sofia, which worked this time. We stayed in there for a good hour and then headed over to the Grand Bazaar. I don't know how long we were in there, but I think it might have been forever. We bought a lot of stuff and worse me out in general (due to walking and shopping). Then we went back to the hotel and drug our luggage over to the ferry building and caught a ferry to the Asian side of Istanbul. Once there we took a bus to meet up with Erkin (Perin's brother). We went back to his house and then out to dinner with. After that we had our first taste of Turkish TV, which is a lot like American TV but with Turkish subtitles.
Day 12
We were tired and maybe a little ready to go home. We unsuccessfully searched around for an Internet cafe for about an hour. Then had lunch and decided to go watch a movie. We watched Elephant, which was kind of a depressing movie to watch on vacation, but we had know idea what we were getting into before hand. Then we went back to the house and slept some and watched some more Turkish TV while waiting for Erkin to get home from work.
Day 13
Got up early and headed off to the airport where it took 3 hours and 7-9 lines to get to our airplane. We were sad to leave Turkey but happy to be coming home.
People and us, the Americans:
I was worried a little that people wouldn't be super nice, especially once they found out we were American. Robyn and Matt normally choose to say they were from California as opposed to America since parts of California reflect their believes about that part of the world (and how we interact with it) more so than America does (or we assume as such since so many people seem to like Bush). I on the other hand usually just said we were American because I felt odd saying I was from California. I'm not 100% sure why that was, but it's not because I don't feel the same way as Robyn and Matt do (about not liking Bush and how he represents our country). One reason is I felt rude assuming that everyone in Turkey would know where California is, as if we're that important, but there was something else that I haven't been able to put my finger on. It might be that I've been sufficiently brain washed into thinking saying I'm American is somehow important, but I think it might be because I do feel the ideas of America are important and it's sad that things have gotten so unreasonable under bush that we felt ashamed to be American. I don't know; I haven't figured it out yet.
The Turkish people were quite fond of American tourists, but possibly for the wrong reasons. Robyn, Matt and I (and Perin) were the only American's we met along the way and the Turkish people said that Americans (and Japanese) have stopped visiting since the start of the "war". There were Europeans everywhere but one of the tour guides told us they need Americans and Japanese people because the Europeans just won't spend a lot of money. So there you have it, they love us for our money. That's probably not true, but I believe they liked us better than Europeans because of this reason as opposed to the fact that Americans are just really great, kind, loving people when they travel. Though they did like us Americans the only person we met there that actually liked Bush was a Turkish man who lived in Ohio for the last 5 years (good old mid west). Even little kids who spoke about as much English as we did Turkish could get out, "Do you like Bush?" and usually they were happy with our reply of "Bush Bad" in broken Turkish. I was just glad they asked and didn't assume that everyone from the States loved the man and that his ideas and characterists didn't necessarily reflect poorly on us as individuals. Not that I thought Turkish people are especially bad at such reasonableness but I think I and others like me have made such judgments from time to time on other people, such as the Germans and the Jewish people because of the actions of their leaders during different points in history.
Language:
We got around fairly well with only a few phrases that Robyn has mastered (while I was still fumbling around with "hello" and "thank you." Most Turkish people in the tourist areas could speak some English but one problem was with transportation and food. We were probably cheated out of $5 while riding in a variety of taxis around Istanbul. We had a map and knew how to get to where we wanted to go but sometimes it was just to far so we'd grab a taxi, but then the taxi would end up taking us the most round about ways to get to our destination instead of the straight line we had mapped out. If we'd known the language we could have at least protested the tactic and saved a little money. I know it's really wasn't much money but it's the principle of the matter, no one likes to be taken for a ride (literally here). Another time the bus we were on didn't stop at our stop and then we had to try to explain to them how we didn't want to pay, which lead to an unpleasant ride back till we could hook up with one of the employees that spoke much better English. As for food we noticed more than once extra items would show up on our bills. We didn't know what anything was (since can't read the language) and so we'd always just count up the total number of items and compare it to how many things we ordered.
Food and drink:
The food was tasty, but not a lot of variety. We had feta cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers and bread for breakfast pretty much everyday. Then for dinner and lunch I'd have a Kebab (meet dish) and Robyn would have a cold vegetarian appetizer that normally involved eggplant and/or yogurt. They also have a popular tradition of drinking Turkish coffee (like a shot of coffee from what I understand) that is drunk after meals. As part of Turkish hospitality people will always offer you Tea (or Apple Tea if you're a tourist) when you come to their house or place of employment. Even in the smallest of shops they offer you free Tea to drink while browsing through the goods, you can except with no obligation to buy anything.
Weather:
It was hot, usually in the high 90s and fairly dry. It only rained one day and it was nice because the air was still hot.
Islam:
Little did I know but when the great leader Ataturk (Father Turk) took control of the country he did away with Islam in the government and secularized the society. I believe that was shortly after WWI, since then the government has followed the same path, though I understand they are thinking about letting some things like wearing religious garbs in federal buildings take place once again. This move toward secularization makes Turkey highly westernized. In some places everyone is dressed like American's with women who are obviously Muslim showing up once in a while. The country is considered 99% Muslim but from what I could tell a large percentage are no longer practicing and those who are practicing do so to varying degrees. We only saw one completely covered woman the whole time. One of the things I think will stick with me the most are the daily calls to prayer. They have loud speakers at the top of the Minarets on the Mosques and I think 4 times a day they turn them on and a call to prayer takes place. I'm not sure all of what it says, but I think you're asked to remember Allah and if possible to come to the Mosque and pray, though doing so in privacy is also acceptable. These calls normally took place around noon, 5 and I think around 4AM. I'm not sure at what time the other one was. They're quite peaceful and even if one does not believe in Allah one could use it as a good time just to remember that which is good in ones life. Though I did talk with someone there who wasn't a practicing Muslim and he says that he barley notices the calls anymore. All in all I felt very safe there and didn't feel like I had anything to worry about from extreme Islamic fundamentalists, not to say there aren't any there but I don't think there are that many.
Natural Beauty:
While there are many wonderful ancient sites to visit in Turkey I left feeling an appreciation for the natural beauty that one can find here in the States. I think we may take it for granted that the rest of world doesn't have so much natural beauty in it. That being said we didn't visited Eastern Turkey which is suppose to be more rural and naturally beautiful, so maybe that region can rival some of the beauty in the States.
History and Art:
The amount and variety of history in the region was quite amazing. The Greeks and Alexander the Great once ruled over the area, the Romans and the Ottoman Emprises as well. You can find both ancient Churches and Mosques, one literally built on top of the other. This was one of the most interesting parts of the history I thought, the fact that each new religion would take over old sacred sites and either deface them or build right on top of them seems a little odd to me. I guess I'm not as serious about my religion as others are or have been in the past. Even if some one were to hand me the Blue Mosque I can't imagine defacing it and changing it into something that suited my needs better.
My Ethnicity:
Usually one or two times a day someone would come up to me and start talking Turkish. Apparently I look quite Turkish. We tried to explain my Native American heritage to people but they always seemed to think we were talking about South Asia Indian. We even had one guy say he understood what we were talking about and that he had some pictures of Indians in his office. So he brought out three or four paintings of Asian Indians riding on Elephants, I guess the Native American part of our history isn't spoken of much over there. Robyn was jealous because everyone knew she wasn't Turkish, she so doesn't want to be white.
Other Odds and Ends:
I don't know if this is true in most other countries but in Turkey you have to ask for your check at a restaurant. It's considered rude for the waiter to just give it to you since it's seen as a sign of them asking you to leave. Robyn and I sat around at a few restaurants feeling ignored before we finally asked a local if you always have to ask for your bill.
The people were very free with water. Our guidebook said that you should try to conserve water while in Turkey because they don't have a lot of it, but we saw it being wasted everywhere. You go into bathrooms and every sink and stall would be running with water and if you drove down the highway you would see multiple sets of water spouts in front of restaurants just spewing gallons of water in the air. I think you were suppose to drive you car under them for a quick wash but they literally ran all day long regardless if anyone was using them.