Hopping around SouthEast Turkey

So last post I was in Hasankeyf, here's the next part of the trip

Midyat: A smaller city with many well preserved Syrian Orthodox churches. It’s most famous for it’s Mor Gabriel Syriac monastery outside of town, which was founded in 400 AD and still functions today, serving the small Christian community nearby. It conducts its weekly masses in Aramaic if you’re around on Sunday. Tours cost only $1, although they’re supposed to have some tour guides that speak English, but there were none around when I was there, so Turkish it was. Back in town everyone goes to the top of the highest building in old town to watch the sunset, which was pleasant. There is a nice old town to walk around. I just stayed one night here and that was enough.

the walls of the old town

goats on the loose!

whose gonna get em?!

Mor Gabriel Monastery

Mardin: Another ancient city, this one located on top of a big hill with views that look out over the plains of Mesopotamia. It’s a surprisingly nice city that seemed to be quite popular with domestic tourists. The main street and the shopping district was crowded with people, even during the middle of the day when it’s miserably hot. It has come a long way from the 90’s when the city was inaccessible due to the government and PKK fighting. Like most old towns, there are some interesting churches and mosques you can find hidden in the labyrinth of narrow streets and alleyways. Lots of people really like Mardin, but I found that one whole afternoon and morning of walking around was enough for me. Also I never do anything in the middle of day because its too hot, so rather than lying around in bed, I feel like I might as well hop on an air conditioned bus and get from point A to point B during the middle of the day instead.

the city on the hill

some interesting doors

overlooking the plains of mesopotamia

cats everywhere. This one didn't run away!

Diyarbakir: The walled city. One of the largest cities in the region and was the center of many clashes between the government and the PKK when the violence was near it’s peak. I think the UK government still has a travel warning on this city for some reason. It didn’t feel very dangerous to me. The old city was certainly more run down and poor, and had a much grittier feel than anywhere else I’ve been to in Turkey. There were still piles of rubble left around from the clashes with the government. But I really enjoyed it. The place had character. Old people sitting on street corners, bands of kids running amok, guys wheeling carts of peaches down the cobblestone streets. For walking around and observing local life and taking some street photos, it was my favorite place in Turkey.

Although I did have someone try to pick my pocket when I was walking around the back alleyways. I passed a group of kids who surrounded me yelling hello hello!, which  was odd because normally they just stare at you or ignore you. There were also some teenagers around and one of them ran up behind me and tried to slide his hand in my front left shorts pocket where my iphone was. The pocket is actually surprisingly narrow and he had trouble getting his hand in and I was able to swat his hand away, and then he sprinted back to his group of friends.

I reflexively yelled back at him “You piece of shit!”, he yelled “motherf’cker!” There wasn’t really anything left to do at that point but get the hell outta there. The last thing I need is to get the shit beaten outta me by a group of teenagers! So that dimmed my perception of the place a little bit, but it’s mostly an unfortunate reflection of the economic situation in the old city. Although it makes me wonder if this was in the US and the person in my place was packing with a concealed carry permit, how a scene like this would have went down. It just seems so easy for something, that in grand scheme of things just isn’t that big of a deal (even if he had nabbed my phone) to turn violent or deadly when peoples emotions are running high and there is a gun around. Although most people on the right seem to think that if someone takes your property they deserve whatever happens to them, and if that’s death, then so be it, because that 15 year old kid was a CRIMINAL! I can’t stand gun nuts. Ok, moving on! Here’s a ton of street shots:

Karadut: The small peaceful village on the foot of mount Nemrut. You can walk around it in 10 minutes. The only reason you’re there is to take a tour up to the top of the mountain at sunset or sunrise and see the mausoleum of King Antiochus 1, the ruler of a small Armenian kingdom called the Commagene. Antiochus claimed he descended from Alexander the Great on one side of the family and Darius the Great of Persia on the other, and was very insistent that he was a God-King.

So befitting of a god he had his tomb built on top of the region’s tallest mountain, where his followers could come and pray and worship him long after his death. Protecting the mausoleum were massive stone structures representing both Greek and Persian deities, reflecting his so called lineage. The heads eventually became dislodged from their structural bases at some point (nobody know how or why) and now are placed at their feet. You can see the heads of the Greek gods: Zeus, Apollo, and Eres and the Persian gods: Oromasdes and Mithras. The site one the greatest architectural achievements of the Hellenistic era and became a world heritage site in the 1980’s, which Antiochus surely would have liked!

Sanliurfa: A large Kurdish city, known as the city of the prophets. Old testament guys like Job, Jethro, and Elijah lived here (and they say Moses was being a shepherd off in the countryside), but the most famous is Abraham. There is a famous lake in the city where, according to the Koran, the cruel King Nemrod threw Abraham off the mountain and into a great fire, but God turned the fire into water and the sticks in fish. It’s very popular with the locals to come and feed the fish. But besides the religious history, Urfa’s surrounding areas contain some of most important places for understanding ancient civilizations. It’s astounding how many sites are being excavated and from so many different time periods. And in town they have a brand new archaeological museum, which is one of the best museums I’ve ever been in. Costs $1.25.

The most famous of all the excavation sites is called Gobleki Tepe, which was discovered only 23 years ago. It is believed to be the worlds first temple, dating back to 11,000 BC. Now keep in mind the pyramids were built around 2500 BC and Stonehenge around 3100 BC, so this is shockingly old. It’s so old that it predates agriculture (around 9500 BC) and pottery (around 10,000 BC), meaning that it was built by hunter-gatherers. This also upends how archaeologists traditionally viewed how ancient societies developed. Shmidt, the German guy who found the place says:

“these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies"

So it’s some pretty wild stuff! Even I got excited about it and I haven’t cared about anything archaeology related since watching Indiana Jones movies when I was a kid (the last Indiana Jones movie not included!).

So it is a very unique and historical region!

To the East! What some would call Kurdistan

You know you’re in Eastern Turkey when the guy working the reception at your guesthouse shakes his head with disapproval when you try to walk out the door wearing shorts. “Why?” he asked pointing to my shorts. “It’s so hot outside!” I replied smiling, not sure if he was joking around or not, making the fanning motion to my face. And it was hot as hell out there, probably around 95. He put his hands to knee level “this no good” then moved his hand down to ankle level “this good!” I sighed and went back to up to my room to change into my one pair of pants, that I hadn’t donned yet on this whole trip. Even though Turks, and the Kurds too, basically always wear pants, I assumed it doesn’t really matter for foreigners. Well I still think that, but maybe the guy was just trying to save me from looking like a goofy, unfashionable, tourist. Hopefully nothing worse!

I was in a town called Tatvan, on the far west shore of Lake Van, the largest lake in Turkey. I ended up here by somewhat odd happenstance, getting dropped off the night before at 3am. My plans were getting jumbled as booking buses, err buses to the places I actually wanted to go, was seemingly difficult as the Muslim holiday Eid was approaching. I had been in Cappadocia for 5 days and was hoping to get to a place called Mount Nemrut, one of the more famous attractions in Eastern Turkey. But it turned out every single bus going to that general vicinity was totally booked up. It was not looking good. Hitchhiking had crossed my mind, but it was pretty damn far. I eventually found a bus to a town four or five hours east, and decided to go with it, thinking maybe once I was there I could get a bus closer to Nemrut.

My convoluted, backtracking route through SE Turkey

Of course once I got there and enquired around at the bus station I got absolutely nowhere. As this wasn’t a touristy town, English also wasn’t so good. I’d say the names of the towns I’d like to go to and got nothing but head shakes (meaning they understood, but the buses were all totally booked up).  Hmm. Time to shake up the itinerary. Rather than steadily work my way east I could catch a long haul bus way out east and then work my way back to the west.  They had tickets available to Tatvan, a place I knew nothing about, but I knew geographically it was a good place to start doing my SE Turkey trip working back East to West, so I booked it. Nine hours later I was dumped off there on the side of the road! Fortunately they dropped us off in town and not at the bus station, so finding a hotel was painless, even at 3am. 

Tatvan is one of those towns where there really aren’t any tourist attractions. Apparently there is a nice crater lake up at the top of a nearby mountain, but that’s about it. That doesn’t mean the place isn’t interesting though. It is a primarily a Kurdish town and today it was hopping. People everywhere and all sorts of make-shift stalls and tables set up to sell clothes and produce. There was no room to sit in any of the teahouses that I passed by. This was the last day before Eid, so everyone was scuttling around making final preparations or catching up with friends who were back in town for the holiday. Eventually I stopped in a kebab shop that had some open bench seating, which completely filled up within seconds of me sitting down. But at 5 lira/$1 for a big kebab and unlimited water, no complaints!

old guys drinking tea, a ubiquitous scene in Turkey

You really can't get enough bread here either

I stopped in the bus offices to see what the situation was like. My intended destination was Hasankeyf, a scenic river village, kind of in the middle of nowhere. To get there I’d have to get a big bus to a town, humorously named Batman, and then a dolmus from there. There were no morning buses the following day, but I was able to book an evening one at 8pm, a seemingly late hour. At least that would give me enough time to get up early and hike to the crater lake outside of town. But around 7:30 that night I got a call from the bus guy, they made a mistake, the bus was tonight at 8pm, and there was no bus going tomorrow! Ok then, I threw all my stuff together and it was off to na na na na na na na na na na na na na na BATMAN!

Although like Tatvan, Batman also has nothing at all interesting for tourists (outside of people taking photos with the city’s namesake!). It’s a flat, hot, boring, oil town, but I was able to stay at a very nice hotel for $22! I was actually tempted to stay another night just because the the hotel was such a  good deal, but I did end up leaving the following morning. The bellboy walked me to the exact spot where the dolmus starts loading people and waited with me until it pulled up. Excellent, but unnecessary, service!

An hour later I was in Hasankeyf, a village on the shores of the Tigris river. It's got a lovely location, lots of ruins and cave houses around, and next year it will totally be gone. Yup, you read that right. It's going to be submerged when they release the dam upriver, as part of Turkey's GAP project, aiming to provide more water to the rest of the region. Right now they're finishing up a new cookie cutter little town for the residents to move into when the dam gets released. It's a pretty sad story, all the history in this town, poof, vanished. Apparently Erdogan doesn't mind. As a tourist I guess it's interesting to see this place while it still exists. 

old town

new town

I found a guesthouse with a terrace overlooking the river with a big friendly owner who spoke surprisingly good English. He said I could have a room, or lots of people like to sleep up on the roof, under the stars. This sounded kinda nice, so that's what I opted for. The village is pretty small so you can walk around it in no time. Apparently they had already carted off some of the famous monuments, such as one of the citadels, and a very small old church and relocated them in the new town already. An odd place. When the sun got lower I went up hiking in the hills to check out some of the cave houses. I met a Turkish couple up there who were also staying in my guesthouse. We hiked down together, got some nice photos around sunset and then had a huge meal on the terrace while the sunset colors faded to black. A very nice evening! And that's about all you need for Hasankeyf! I had a somewhat restless sleep on the roof and I'd be outta there the next day.

hiking

everyone sleeps outside

sunset from the bridge

A good spot for dinner

Although my morning didn't get off to a great start when I tried to pay and the owner quoted me a price about double or triple what I thought I'd be paying. When I protested, I got the "Hey, you're American, you have dollars, life is good!" spiel. Eh, I rolled my eyes and got out of there. It was the first time in Turkey so far where I thought I really got taken advantage of. It was my bad for not asking for the prices ahead of time though. I was now a little bit less sad that his business would be soon be going under. Anyway it was time to catch a dolmus to the next city, Midyat, only an hour away. There are no buses originating in Hasankeyf, they all come from Batman. The first one I tried to flag down was completely packed and didn't stop. 30 minutes later the next one was the same. This was not looking promising. Hitchhiking time! 

I'd read that hitchhiking in this part of Turkey is supposed to be relatively easy. They said if you really want to be picked up quickly and garner lots of goodwill, wear a Kurdish keffiyah, the headscarf with the colors of Kurdistan. I didn't have one though. I walked down the road with all my stuff trying to flag down cars. It was baking! 95 and a blazing sun. After 45 minutes, still no luck! Someone feel sorry for me! Two more public  buses passed, both full of course. I should have bought the keffiyah! But soon enough two young guys pulled over and I hopped in. I felt bad because I knew very little Turkish and definitely no Kurdish, so I wasn't really filling up my end of the hitchhiker social contract. Oh well, it was only an hour ride and they seemed happy to have me. You don't meet too many foreign tourists in these parts. 

streets in the old town

They dropped me off in the middle of town and I headed on my way. Then I proceeded to get completely lost looking for my hotel in the winding streets of the old town because google maps kept telling me I was in a different location than I actually was in. I'm helpless without a fully functioning google maps! And it's still 95 out, ugh. After attempting to get help from the locals and wandering down every single street, I picked the right one eventually, thank god. What was supposed to be a really easy travel day turned into an exhausting affair. But hey, I made it. I cranked the AC and passed out in my bed immediately. 

Aegean Coast: I'm on a boat!

The next day I got to the boat company office expecting a whole bunch of people waiting to board this boat, but it was just me and a middle aged Chinese woman. Apparently there were some people already on the boat and we would be joining up with them. And then more people were arriving later on in the evening or something. Hmm. A little weird. But anyway I was able to chat with the Chinese woman a little on our ride to the harbor. She had retired and had been traveling the world solo for a good chunk of the last four years. She had a husband but he had a heart condition so he just stayed home in Beijing, or that’s what I understood from her Chinese and Google Translate.

For as much as she had traveled, especially alone, her English was shockingly terrible! I don’t know how she managed the last four years. She didn’t even know the English names for the cities she had been to in the US, Chicago included! But she was very lighthearted and quick to laugh. The fact that she had so much trouble trying to speak English was very amusing to her! She also never picked up an English name at any point, but her Chinese name was pronounced Roo-en Jin Do, which of course was almost instantly shortened by the boat members to Roo after the meet and greet. 

A little dinghy took us out to the big boat where we met the crew. It was a pretty small one consisting of solo Turkish woman around 40, an Australian couple just slightly younger than me and a South African family with two kids, 15 and 17. Plus we had the captain, the cook, and the deckhand, whose English abilities corresponded with their level of importance. We all sat down for tea and everyone seemed pretty social and interesting, the teenagers included. My political views got brought up fairly quickly, as I get asked all the time if I want to Make America Great Again, but I had to disappoint. I think a lot of non-Americans have a kind of scientific curiosity to meet a real Trumpkin out in the wild, mostly to observe and take notes on this seemingly mythical creature, and maybe poke it with a stick a little bit to see if it gets riled up. Even I still haven’t met another fellow American traveler who’s a die hard Trump supporter. They're out there somewhere...

Anywho, we had to time to cruise around a little bit, stop and go for a swim, and then we’d go for a hike to the top of San Marcos Island to watch the sunset. We all grabbed some beers and got ferried over to island. Even hiking with the sun low in the sky, it is absolutely astonishing how much you can sweat here. All of us were absolutely drenched by the time we got to the top, I can’t even imagine trying to go for a big hike during the middle of the day. We passed the remains of a few churches on the way up and were rewarded at the top with a gorgeous sunset, with the sun coming down almost perfectly symmetrically between the gap of two chunks of land. Everyone was in great spirits. An excellent start!

They had a big dinner spread waiting for us when we got back. Loads of bread, vegetable salad, eggplant salad, roasted peppers, pilaf, tzatziki sauce, Turkish meatballs, grilled chicken, the works. They did a great job with dinner. After the meal we played some cards and had more drinks, which you’re technically not allowed take your own on the boat, but the crew didn’t seem to care.

The crew eating lunch

The next morning we met our newest additions, a Spanish family with three daughters in the 16-20 range and as 12 year old boy. Something tells me there was a push from one of the parents for that one last child… They were all very friendly, but you could tell the girls were a little bit shy about using their English, which was fine of course, just a bit accented. And then were off to cruise the Aegean! Although this strange staggered start had already threw the first chunk of the supposed itinerary to wind, which was already starting to draw the ire of some on board, and fairly so. But not me! I had already done all of the stuff around Oludeniz and the blue lagoon. Apparently we didn’t have time to stop at the lagoon, so I tried my best to help out the captain and smooth things over, telling everyone that it’s not that cool anyway, which I think is true!

Our first stop that morning was the Butterfly Valley, although it didn’t have any butterflies during summer. We renamed it dead bee valley, because for whatever reason the shallow waters in this bay were basically a bee graveyard. RIP bees. The valley is tough to access without a boat, so it’s functions as a hippie getaway, where people camp out for who knows long, have beach bonfires and listen to trance music at night. Sadly we would miss out on all of that. If you had time to hike there’s supposed to be a waterfall somewhere, but we didn’t have time for any of that nonsense of course. It was a nice spot for a swim though. Well, everywhere is a nice spot for a swim!

An ill fated backflip

We spent the whole rest of the day cruising with one long break for lunch. Lunch is always vegetarian, but there’s tons of good meatless Turkish food and the main course was delicious stuffed peppers. That evening we docked in a town called Kas. We had some time to do whatever we wanted, shopping, drinking, etc. Incidentally everyone ended up at the liquor shop at some point, so it looked like it was going to be party night! Although when 7:00 rolled around, the time we had to be back at the boat, Roo was nowhere to be found. I guess we only had an allotted amount of time to dock and the captain was getting some harsh words from the harbourmaster. He sent out his fledgling to look for Roo, but by 7:30 they had to give up and we were given the boot. Looks like we were leaving without her! Uh oh. She really is in her own little world sometimes. A butterfly valley we watched her grab some random towel off a line and dry herself off, funny woman! But this was getting a little worrisome.

docked in Kas

It turned out to be too big of a deal, we went off to anchor in a more seclude cove while the harbourmaster was on the lookout for a lost looking middle aged Chinese woman. Eventually she turned up and they sent the dinghy off to go pick her up and bring her back to the boat, to the applause of all. Now it was party time! Things got a little rowdy that night. Even the teenagers were allowed to drink, only because it was vacation of course! We had everyone take turns controlling the Bluetooth speaker; there were drinking games, shots of Raki (gross liquorice tasting Turkish booze), drunk swimming, Chinese singing, Flamenco dancing, and so forth. There was also rumored to be some late night hanky panky with the 40 year old Turkish woman and the 26 year old cook. Shhh!

Obviously everyone was dead the next morning, but we pulled ourselves together a couple hours later when we docked at our next destination, a sea village called Kalikoy? This was a gorgeous little tourist town with guesthouses cut into the rocky hillside, only a small place boats to dock and lots of little shallow lagoons, impossibly blue. If I were traveling on land, I’d for sure spend some more time at this place. It’s supposed to have some great homemade ice cream, but being that it was still morning and everyone was hung over, we all had to pass. Unfortunately that afternoon the Turkish woman, Aussie couple, and SA family were getting off the boat, as it was their 4th day on the boat. So after lunch we had to say our goodbyes, everyone slightly annoyed that we couldn’t all just have started on the same day!

So the rest of that day it was just me, Roo, and the Spaniards cruising the open the seas. Conversations got a little sparser as I was the only native English speaker left. We anchored in a nice quiet spot and had a pretty chill night. Playing poker for a living and Trump being the president of the USA make for some pretty good conversations starters though, as most people can’t really wrap their head around either! The next day Roo and I got dropped off and the Spaniards had the boat all to themselves the last day, which the girls didn’t seem too enthused about. They kind of got the short end of the stick as all they would do that last day is drive around the area again, where the scenery is much less interesting than at the beginning of the trip. So a lot of people were a little flustered with the organization of it all, just throwing on different groups at different times. But overall it was a very a nice trip. Would it have been better if we just had one cohesive group from start to finish? Sure. But everyone agreed they had a nice time.

I was soon off by bus further up the coast to Olimpos to reunite with the Aussies. There they have some nice coastline as well as some natural gas flames that never go out! But I’ve been typing long enough now! I spent one night in Olimpos and one night in Antalya, they were nice, blah blah, but I was hurrying along because at this point I had enough sun and ocean for now and I was really excited to get up to Cappadocia in central Turkey, the most unique part of the country!

Looking across the bay from Antalya

cat tax

Aegean Coast: Fethiye and Oludeniz

I didn’t want to turn this into to too much of a beach holiday, as I would be scuba diving in Egypt later, but I figured a week or so on the coast should do trick. The first night in Fethiye I was able to catch up with a girl I met in Sri Lanka who was also in Turkey at the time, although she was leaving the next morning on what they call the ‘blue cruise’, a 4d/3n boat trip, heading northeast along the coast in the direction of Antalya. Apparently it was pretty popular thing to do! Now if I could have planned better, we could have done the same cruise, but hers was all booked up by now. It sounded fun, but I didn’t get my hopes up, because for all I knew, all these cruises were booked up. She also mentioned the one thing I HAD to do around here was the paragliding. Apparently the paragliding in this part of Turkey is world class. Alrighty then!

The next day I set off for Oludeniz, which is a smaller, touristy beach town near Fethiye, which features the blue lagoon, one of the most famous beaches in Turkey. It kind of sucked getting there, the dolmus was just insanely jammed packed and it took way longer than I thought to get down to the beach, winding through the hills and all. And then once you’re there you have to pay to get into the lagoon, it’s so friggen crowded, kids running everywhere, all the sun lounges are taken (and they’re not even free!) and there is no sand, it’s only a gravel beach that is hot as hell to step on! So that sums up my thoughts on the blue lagoon pretty well. Once you’re in the water it’s probably nice I guess. By opted to walk back towards the town and find a nice section of gravel beach all to myself. But seriously any part of your body that strays from towel get instantly scorched on those rocks! This was now my second experience with gravel beaches on this trip (Brighton being the other), and all I can say is: not for me.

You do notice in Oludeniz, when you look skyward, there are big flaps of colored nylon just about everywhere in the sky. I decided to stop in some of the shops and do some inquiring. It was way too hot lay at the beach for too long anyway. It was getting later on in the afternoon, so most places were booked for the day, but I did find a place that had room in their last run at 6:00. Perfect. I chilled out for a bit and then went back to the office. They gave me some shoes to wear (can’t wear flip flops) and then a few others and I piled into the van that they drive to the top of the mountain. I guess they have a few different launch points depending on the wind, but they said our conditions were good so we’d be able to go to one of the higher ones. I met my guide at the top and there was absolutely no dawdling around! He laid out the shoot on the 45 degree concrete runway, got us strapped in, and the only instructions I had to follow were “walk, run, jump!”

And that’s what I did. A few seconds of walking, a few seconds of running, and I hardly even had to jump because were basically in the air already at this point. After the initial takeoff rush wears down, its very relaxing. You’re just floating above the sea and the beach and the mountains. And I must say the blue lagoon looks a lot better from above! I got to chat with my guide, he’d been doing it for 15 years now, sometimes competitively. Although the competitions he did were to see who could stay in the air the longest, which sounded pretty boring to me. Anyway, he knew what he was doing. I actually had googled paragliding accidents in Oludeniz before I jumped (probably not the best idea), but it appeared that almost all the accidents were from solo jumpers, usually inexperienced ones at that. The tandems sounded almost totally safe. Sounded.

Now in the air they don’t let you take your own photos but the guide has a selfie stick with a go-pro attached to take some photos and video. I kind of hate doing the video because when you’re paragliding it’s very calm and peaceful, but then when they do they video they want you to act all excited like it’s so amazing and exxxtreme! It feels way too forced. I hate that stuff. Most of my video is me sitting there smiling and waving like a dork. Maybe that’s worse, I’m not sure.

blue lagoon is much nicer to admire from the air

did I mention how much I hate the shoes they gave me?!

Anyway, near the end you start doing some acrobatics, some downward swoops and spirals and stuff to get your blood pumping. I was happy enjoying the scenery until that point! By now you’re getting close to the ground and it’s about time for the landing. You land on these grassy strips right off the boardwalk, you just have to worry about people not paying attention walking through them! It gets a little tense as you get close to the ground, because you feel like you’re coming in pretty hot! But then (if they do it right) the parachute really catches at the last minute, you jerk up a bit and then come down, landing softly on your feet. And that’s how ours went. Although after watching several landings I can say that not all of them were as smooth as ours! So that was pretty damn fun. I even shelled out for the photo/video because the photos over the blue lagoon were cool, plus it’s the guide’s main source of income. I’ll probably delete the video, hahaha.

The next morning I stopped in the boat company tour offices and asked about the blue cruises. The first two were booked up for the next week at least, while the third one said I could join their boat tomorrow. Perfect. I didn't really ask any question, signed up, coughed up my money and that was that.

Next I rented a mountain bike (bc couldn’t rent a scooter without a motorcycle license, which is lame), and that turned out to be a bust. There were some places a little outside of town I wanted to get to, but while the town is flat, everything outside of town involves going up hilly/mountainy roads, which is hard enough, but during the midday heat and zero shade or cloud cover, just no freaking way. I was dying like 5 minutes into the uphill part. It didn’t take me very long to bail and go find the beach! I eventually got back on the bike before sunset to go find some ruins overlooking the city, but once I got close it was just much easier to just walk! It was a nice place to watch the sun set though.

a stroll through the market

melon season is the best season

The next day would be off to cruise the open seas. 

Ephesus and Pamukkale

When I landed in Turkey I literally had no idea what my itinerary would be. Really, my knowledge of Turkey on the whole was very limited. It is a pretty large country so I figured about a month of traveling seemed about right. Googling one month Turkey itineraries was difficult at first because I didn’t even know the names of the any of the famous sites or any of the cities besides Istanbul, Ankara, and Antalya. So there were a lot of google tabs open at any given time! Overall the west is where most people go, being that it’s wealthier and more modern, has the nicest beaches as well as lots of Greek and Lycian ruins. Then you have Cappadocia in the center, which is probably Turkey’s most unique region that most would say it’s a must-do on any itinerary. Then you’ve got the East, which is generally poorer, has less infrastructure, and way less tourists. But there’s still lots of ancient towns, mosques, fortresses, and ruins to see, as well as a different cultural flair. You’ve got the Armenian influences in the mountainous Northeast and you’ve got more Arab influences in Kurdistan, which makes up most of the hot, flat Southeast region.

My loose itinerary

Two weeks for each half it is! I decided to start with the ruins of Ephesus in the far west, get down to the southern coast and work my along the coastline for a bit, go up to Cappadocia, and then figure out what to do in the East from there.  Domestic flights are very cheap, so I booked a flight out to Izmir to save myself a 9 hour bus ride (making sure to fly from Ataturk, not SAW!) and then took the train to city of Selcuk, which is the small city used to access Ephesus. I walked from the train station and found a hotel nearby for $12/night. Yep, Turkey is cheap. In the outdoor cafes you see all these old men out drinking tea, each tea costs 1 lira, or 20 cents. Same with a cup of lemonade, a bottle of water, a piece of Turkish bread, you got it, 1 lira. Ice cream might cost 2-3 lira. Things on the menu usually ranged from $2-$5, rarely more than that. I had learned that in the last few weeks the lira had dropped quite a bit, making it a particularly good time to be a foreigner making dollars and spending lira.

The next morning I woke early to get out to the ruins, which open at 8 am. I’m not gonna be stuck behind any tour groups! Although I will admit, I do get mildly tilted when I can’t visit a nice outdoor place like this during sunrise or sunset hours. I didn’t feel like waiting around for a dolmus (vans used for public transport) so I just hopped in a taxi. I got in right after the gates opened and for a short while I had the whole place to share with only a handful of people.

So about Ephesus: It grew in prominence a Greek colony around 1000 BC, then was taken over by the Persians for a while, then the Romans, where it reached its peak in the first few centuries AD, housing 300,000 people and becoming second in importance only to Rome. It’s crowning achievement was the temple of Artemis, which was over four times the size of the Parthenon, although a few columns is all that is left today. After the fall of the Roman Empire the city was mostly abandoned and forgotten until the 1870’s when British and Austrian archaeologists got permission to start excavating the site. While teams have been excavating this site for over 100 years, amazingly only about 15% has actually been dug up.

the main strip

umbrellas mean the Chinese tour group has arrived

The ruins feature such things as an ampitheater, public baths, the terrace houses, a stadium, and the best preserved feature is the entrance to the Library of Celsus (which was the 3rd largest library in the ancient world, behind Alexandria and Pergamon). So it was a neat little glimpse of what it would be like to walk down a Roman street about 1800 years ago. Half an hour later later the tour buses full of Russian, Turkish, and Chinese groups rolled in clogging up the whole place with selfie sticks. Fortunately it’s not that big so I got to see most of it before the hordes rolled in.

Ok, checked off the list! I mean it was pretty cool, maybe if I was a bigger history buff I’d appreciate it more. I came away with a ‘hmm, this is pretty neat’ impression rather than a “omg, this is amazing!” type reaction, which many other people seem to get from Ephesus. I mean if a fully intact temple of Artemis were still around, then yeah, that would be amazing. Ruins, and especially ruins filled with tourists, just don’t really do it for me. I guess that’s why I haven’t been to Athens or Rome yet! I could have left that afternoon, but it was market day in Selcuk, so I figured I’d relax and enjoy the afternoon and get to my next destination, Pamukkale, the next morning.  

I booked a direct bus at 8:30 am, but when I got to the station I was told the bus was not working. Uhh, ok. I was directed to take train at 9:20 instead. I get the feeling the bus just wasn’t booked up enough and they decided to call it off. On bright side, the trains are very nice. On the downside I’d have to find the bus station in Denizli and find a dolmus to take me the 20 km to Pamukkale. Being that it took a solid hour and a half to find the bus station, wait for a dolmus to fill up, and get to Pamukkale, a direct bus would have certainly been preferable! So far I’ve noticed in Turkey, they have very few ‘tourist buses’ where they take you directly to/from the tourist areas, instead you always get dumped at the bus station, which is usually at an inconvenient location on the outskirts of town and have to get a taxi/dolmus from there. Alas.

So Pamukkale is a pretty interesting sight, it basically looks like a snow mountain in the middle of the brown, arid Turkish landscape. In Turkish the word actually means cotton castle, which is kind of cute. The location is on a fault line, so as the fault shifted, it created hot springs with very high mineral content, which formed lots of calcium carbonate (aka travertine), which makes Pamukkale so white. They make you take your shoes off to help preserve the travertines. I was there during the middle of day, so it was pretty jammed, but still entertaining. You kinda  feel like you’re hiking up a glacier, just in a swimsuit and bare feet. It’s extremely hot during the day, but there are plenty of pools to take a dip in. If I had done it again I probably would have spent the night here just so I could enjoy the place in the late evening/early morning without all the people. Instead I spent about 2 hours there and then found a dolmus back to Denizli and another bus onto to Fethiye, my first beach destination.

Istanbul

Where East meets West! Ahh, the ole cliche! But nonetheless this city does have a fascinating history of fusing Islamic ideologies and western values. I'd been wanting to visit it for some time now. Just seeing some photos of Istanbul's majestic mosques alone should be enough to draw anyone in. But it's history, being the former seat of the Byzantine empire and the Ottoman empire, certainly adds to it's appeal. Plus it's location is extremely unique, at the confluence of two rivers, meeting in the sea of Marmara, which has always made it very tricky to conquer. 

The straight that goes up and to the right is called the Bosporus, which connects to the Black Sea. I stayed in Karakoy neighborhood, which is that part in the center. 

Right off the bat I had gotten myself into a bit of quandary as I landed at a different airport than I thought I was landing in. I had foolishly assumed that Istanbul only had one international airport! I was walking around outside the airport hopelessly looking for the metro, the M1, to get me into Istanbul when someone informed me that informed to M1 is the line that goes to the Ataturk airport. "This isn't Ataturk?!" I asked. Nope, it was Sabina Gokcen airport. Ohhhh. 

Ok, no big deal, just a different airport! One on the complete opposite side of Istanbul, and wayyy out there. I was able to hop on a bus that was supposed to take me somewhere near the city. But this was not looking promising, google maps (thankfully I bought a SIM card at the airport) was telling me that bus connections would take 2 hours to get to the city center! How big is this goddamn city?! And why is this airport so horribly connected? No metro, no direct bus, wtf! After an hour on this slow moving local bus I bailed to try and take the metro lines, but I didn’t have the card you need and I couldn’t read the directions in Turkish to buy one. Ok, I give up. Taxi time!

After a while in the taxi we finally crossed over the massive bridge going over the Bosphorous, which connects the ‘Asian side’ of the city to the ‘European side’.  Buildings and houses were smashed into the hills as far as the eye could see, a population of 15 million in total. You really got a feel for how massive and spread out the city is. The area I was staying in consisted of a maze of walking streets so the taxi had to drop me off a few blocks away. It was $12 for a solid 45 minutes of driving, pretty reasonable! I made it to Istiklal Avenue, which is the main shopping and pedestrian street, and boy was it a popular place to be. The most striking thing to me was diversity in the dress, especially for the females. Women in full on burqas walked alongside women wearing high heels, skirts, and bare midrifts. It was an interesting juxtaposition! Turkey is 99% Muslim, but attitudes about religion vary greatly.

The main pedestrian street, istiklal ave.

Turkish desserts

Walnut vendors

I found the side street up to my hotel, which was filled with outdoor cafes and Turks drinking coffee and tea and smoking shisha. I liked this place already.  I was pretty famished at this point so I found my way into one of restaurants nearby. I ordered some sort of meatball + eggplant kebab and a salad. I was expecting some sort of small bowl of salad, but what I got instead was a massive plate that could have filled me up all by itself. Then the kebab came out, but it wasn’t just a kebab, it was a whole plate of shredded lettuce, carrots, roasted tomatoes, peppers, pilaf, and bread. The salad order was not necessary. Well looks like I wouldn’t be going hungry in Turkey. The whole thing was $6. I wouldn’t be going broke in Turkey either!

definitely couldn't finish all this

That night I made it down to waterfront to take some photos. The most prominent mosque from my vantage point was the Suleyman mosque. Suleyman (the magnificent) was the Ottoman empire's longest running ruler and perhaps the most famous. He doubled the size of the empire in the mid 1500's to include most of north Africa and the Balkans, as well reforming the judiciary and building a lot of buildings. 

This one has the Hagia Sophia in the background

Suleyman mosque in the background

The next day was super jam packed touristy day! I rented a bike so I could get around to as many attractions as possible. Note: Istanbul is set up or horribly for bicycles! First up was the Sultan Ahmed mosque (blue mosque) and the Hagia Sophia Museum, which are right across from each other. The Hagia Sophia was used as a church for about 900 years, then as a mosque for 500 years, and then turned into a museum in 1935 by Turkey's very secular ruler, Ataturk. 

The walkway leading into the Hagia Sophia

Looks like something out of a movie set, very surreal

Next up: Istanbul's eccentric Balat neighborhood.

more mosques!

The Suleyman mosque

overlooking the Karakoy neighborhood

The Grand Bazaar

I love lamp

One more of the Suleyman mosque

fishermen in the Uskudar neighborhood

Awww yeah, doner kebabs everywhere!

Budapest: The best!

As for my central European city tour, we’ve found our winner: Budapest! Beautiful, historic, cheap, amazing nightlife, kinda quirky vibe, not overly touristy, etc. I really liked almost everything about this city. So for those that don’t know (I didn’t before getting here) one side of the city is called Buda and the part across the river is called Pest. I stayed in the Pest side, as that’s where most of the action is. The focal point of the city is the Parliament building, which lights up spectacularly at night, also on the Pest side. The Buda side is more hilly, so it’s got the better views looking out over the city. Then you’ve got the bridges which connect the two sides which are also iconic of the city.

 

The first evening I made my way across the river to the Buda side of the city to take some photos of the Parliament building and the bridges. These are pretty classic Istanbul photographs so there were quite a few other photographers with their tripods out. But my photos surely turned out the best :p I had a drink at the hostel bar later on but most people were already out and about at this point. I mentioned this before, but when the sun sets at 9:15 I won’t get back to the hostel till after 10pm, and at that point it’s usually too late for social activities. Or everyone is already hammered. Alas…

The next day I rented a bike to ride around the neighborhoods. You do really feel like you’re going back to the 1940’s when you ride down these narrow streets. There are just rows and rows of old, historic buildings. And there is so much detail in the rockwork! Lots of intricate designs, sculptures of faces or even whole bodies are inlaid into many of the foundations. And if you look closely you can even see the bullet holes in the sides of some of the buildings. Plus there’s very little traffic, so it’s a nice place to go for a bike ride in general. Also from what I could tell there seem to just be very few big retail chain stores. Lots of little mom and pop corner shops, which seems to be a bygone era to anyone from the US. There’s lots of little things I liked about Budapest.

So many building like this!

lots of random street art too

indoor market

In one of the subdivisions there is a pinball museum, or flipper museum as they call it, which is basically just a massive collection of pinball games that you can play for free for as long as you want. They even have originals from the 50’s, which you really don’t want to play for long because they’re terrible. I stuck around for an hour or so, but I’m a pretty awful pinball player. Whatever knack some people have hitting the bonus loops and not letting the ball go through the middle, I ain’t got it. But it was a pretty cool place!

That night I decided to be bit more social and took a break from photography and hung out at the hostel bar. I ended up meeting some people that wanted to pregame in the park, mostly because they have little money, but also it’s like a popular thing to do in Budapest. So we grabbed some beer and wine at the convenience store and headed over there. I must say, it’s quite the scene. It’s a pretty big park and the place is pretty much jammed with people sitting in small groups drinking. There’s also pool for people to sit around. This one of the things that’s nice about Europe, it’s just very enjoyable to be able to sit around and drink in a nice public setting! No worries about the cops coming to bust heads.

I never knew this before coming to Budapest, but I guess it’s grown quite famous for it’s warehouse bars, where people have taken up spaces in old warehouses or crumbling buildings and turned them into bars, often several different type of bars in one location, and usually decked out in some grungy or kitchy type theme. There’s a whole bunch all over the city. We ended up at the most famous one, which has two floors, a hookah lounge, wine bar, cocktail bar, and couple of more normal bars, all with different themes.

A view from in the park

The hookah section

the upside down?

The next day I already had planned out, baths and goulash! There are a couple of baths around Budapest but I decided to go to the big outdoor one. It has a huge outdoor area, plus various indoor thermal pools, as well as various saunas and steam rooms. Good for a hangover! It’s also located in a really nice park, which makes for a nice bike ride and a very pleasant afternoon. I stopped at one of the restaurants in the park (I think there were 3 in total) for the Hungarian classic: beef goulash soup!

Castle in the park

Charcuterie and beef goulash, mmm

Then to ruin the happy vibes I stopped at the Terror museum, which is the same building that housed the AVO (secret police) in the Soviet era, who wreaked havoc on the Hungarian citizens. As I had just read a book on some American correspondents in this time period, I wanted to see if I could match up any of the names in the book to the museum. It is amazing the extent of the spying and surveillance on anyone who was suspected of being an enemy of the state. And so much work wasted to monitor pointless everyday stuff just in the hopes of picking up anything incriminating!

Sounds like a pretty awful time and place to live. In the book I was reading the son obtained and opened up the AVO files on his parents after they passed away, and because they were west-leaning journalists they had volumes and volumes of files on them. Pretty wild. Even they didn’t know the true extent of the surveillance. As for the museum itself, it wasn’t that great, mostly just videos of old people talking about those Soviet days and very little English on any of the exhibitions.

Then for my last night I hiked up the hill to get a view over the whole city at sunset. Some stunning views!

The scene on the pedestrian bridge around sunset

view from the top

Fisherman's Bastion

So I thought Budapest was pretty great and I'd recommend it to anyone!

Vienna

I’m going to keep this one as mostly a photo trip report. Vienna was a nice city, the main square and everything around it were very picturesque, with some great architecture. Some intermittent rainstorms made for some ominous skies. I really enjoyed the Schonbrunn Palace, as everything is so well preserved and you really get a good feel how the rulers in Hapsburged dynasty lived. The Albertino museum had a Monet to Picasso exhibit was cool, as I needed a brush up on my classical art.  Plus there was a contemporary art section and a photography exhibit, to my liking. 

Although I will say Vienna was probably my least favorite city in this European tour, there just isn’t enough things for tourists to do besides the dozens of museums around. Plus it’s the most expensive. I walked into a café that had this enough breakfast buffet spread, didn’t ask the price, and ended up paying almost $40 for the meal. Sheesh!

Very first photo in Vienna. I took a little nap and walked outside into this right after a rainstorm!

The view at my metro stop. These cool clouds wouldn't last long!

just a random street shot. Nice greenery around

Getting into the old town. The wet streets are nice for photos

St. Peters dominates the skyline

the visitors area

The square where all the horse carriages hang out

Hoffburg palace

Schonbrunn Palace

Nice place to chill outside the art museum

The rose garden at the Volksgarden

notice the little baby bee incoming!

Ferris wheel at the Prater Park

Lots of art collections in Vienna

aaand some more rain. Found a wine bar for cover

reflections of Goethe

ha, the Chinese and their props

The Wurst stand

Breakfast in the most famous cafe in Vienna

London

London: Rough Start!

There was a sizeable line at the London Gatwick airport to get through immigration. I didn’t think to print out proof of my flight to Chicago, so the guy wouldn’t let me go through. I was having trouble with the free wifi, so I had to sit off to the side and sign up for the Boingo wifi hotspot with my credit card to bring up my flight confirmation email, which was annoying obviously. And I know I’m gonna get billed once a month for it and I’m gonna keep forgetting to cancel it. Book it! Once through I bought my train ticket to the city (for $20!!), Victoria Station. I went through the gates to the Gatwick Express and hopped on the train that read “London-Victoria” on it’s electronic display. As soon as we left the conductor got on the microphone and alerted new passengers that the electronic display was wrong and this train is actually going the opposite direction, to Brighton. Great!

I got off at the next stop and waited 20 minutes for the next train towards London. Ok, now I’m good to go! We went back through the airport and on towards London but soon stopped. We heard through the speakers “We have encountered a MASSIVE points failure up ahead, this train will be stopped indeterminably. I liked the emphasis on “massive” to really let us know that we’re screwed. I guess a points failure is some sort of problem with track’s signalling. Well apparently this track was a dead end so we went back to the airport where were then able to switch tracks and then finally get into the city. Get your act together London railways! The conductor guy did apologize like seven times for the inconvenience though. So there’s that!

So many pubs

The hostel was a 15 minute walk, but I got distracted by a homely looking British pub and stopped in for a pint.  This was definitely a locals bar, I think I was the youngest person there by about 20 years. I finished that up, but then got saw a crusty looking fish and chip shop. I was going for the most British start as possible! The hostel was in a row of all white, older buildings. I was all the way up on the 5th floor, no stairs. Curse these old buildings! No AC either. There was nobody in my room so I plopped my stuff down and headed out. I still had a few hours of sunlight to get a feel for the city. To the riverfront!

Not gonna lie, London’s waterfront was not all that impressive! I guess I’m so used to looking a big looming skylines in the US and in Asia that I just kind of expected it from a huge international city like London. But alas, London really doesn’t have that many towering buildings. There quite a few modern looking, big glass windowed type high rises though.  But it’s the ferris wheel aka ‘the eye’ that dominates the skyline; whereas in Chicago the Navy Pier ferris wheel is just like a small blip.

The riverfront walkway was also kind of annoying as well, at least in my section of town. First, it’s walls were too high! If you’re not standing next to the wall you can’t actually see the river. Why even have a wall at all? Do they think people are just going to be running or bike so fast that they can’t slow down around a curve and hurtle themselves into the river?! Yea yea I know it’s old and historic or whatever, but I don’t like it. Also, the path occasionally diverts inland around certain buildings, including Big Ben.  Surely there can be a way for the city to build a path that runs entirely on the waterfront! Is that really too much to ask?!

riverfront didn't really look how I expected it to!

this was not the part with the high walls!

I had slightly poor timing because Big Ben was under renovation, so two of the towers were covered in sheeting, so that was a bit disappointing. Okay now I’m done whinging (British word!). The walk was still very nice! I did finding walking around London to be more interesting once I got away from the river. I hung out in Trafalgar square watching the double decker buses for a bit, then found then found my way back through the neighborhoods, enjoying all the very British sounding names. Williamsby Manor, Asherton Glen, Devonshire flats  … and the like. This neighbourhood was filled with older, very regal looking apartments. In my neighbor hood of Chicago if a unit is older they just knock it down and turn it into a sleek looking glassy rectangle. Here the oldness is a positive thing.

I also appreciated how these homes were decorated too, from what I saw in the few that had their blinds open. Big gold framed victorian paintings on the walls, detailed wood furnishings, large crystal chandeliers, ornate tea sets, etc. Very vintage! And lots of care in the garden work as well. The cobblestone streets also lend to the overall feeling of the neighbourhood. Everybody on the sidewalk dressed impeccably and every car on the street was an Audi or Beamer. Being rich is nice.  

gotta love the phone booths!

Trafalgar Square

Next place on the list was the Hippodrome, London’s biggest casino (I think) and home to some live poker action. I try not to play too much poker when I’m traveling but at least like to see what other poker venues around the world are like. I hopped in a low stakes 1/2 game where people usually buy in for around 200 pounds ($260). Some guy from Kuwait sat down and literally had no idea how to play, so he dropped about $700, and fortunately I got about $300 of it. 2 days in London paid for, excellent! After I cashed out I wandered around Soho, which is the main touristy bar/restaurant district in London, but it was after 2am so the only places open were some clubs, which I had no interest in, so that was all for the first night.

The next morning I took a little stroll around Hyde Park, which was relaxing. The weather was very British like, cloudy and cool. I realized how much I missed the cool weather like this – it’d been nothing but hot and humid for me in the last 7 months! I didn’t pack a jacket, but I certainly could have used one!

After I while I headed over towards Buckingham Palace and noticed that people were just streaming in. Something is going on apparently. I guess they were celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the Royal Air Force; there would be a flyover AND a visit from the Queen herself. The whole place was absolutely jammed. Plus it’s completely flat so you can hardly see anything. Naturally half of Britain came out to catch a glimpse of the back of the Queen’s head. After standing there for half and hour waiting, I decided I honestly don’t care if I see the Queen (and even if I did it would be some fleeting glimpse), so I headed out. I walked along the Pall Mall, which would also be on the Queen’s route, so it’s completely packed, and then to Trafalgar square, which was also a zoo. That’s when the planes started flying overhead, first single planes, and then ones in formation, and then finally a group that formed the number ‘100’. This was pretty neat. Much more interesting than seeing some 80 year old woman waving in a carriage.

What are we looking at?! Ahh yes the fuzzy hat guys!

waiting patiently

Do the British people really love the Queen? Here is your answer

Here come the planes

100 years of the RAF

Feels very American!

Next I headed into the National Gallery, which is free, and then into Soho and London’s main shopping districts, Bond St. etc. It feels similar to when I walk around Michigan Avenue, being on the outside looking in, watching as people shop for thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on some nice looking cotton textiles made in Bangladesh. But it was fun walking some of the famous streets that I’d only seen in movies or wherever. The sun came out and it ended up being a gorgeous day. I got back to Soho and stopped in a café with street seating and live music. Feeling fancy I ordered some charcuterie and red wine and observed the Londoners walk by. On average they certainly do dress better than Chicagoans!

A diverse clientele

Lots of mens' shops

This is quite the fancy bookstore

So much different looking than high end Chicago shopping buildings

These guys adding some color to the scene

I didn’t want to hang out too long though, because people at the hostel were getting together to watch the world cup game that evening and I wanted to join in. France – Belgium was the game. Probably a dozen of us headed out to one of the neighbourhood pubs, which was already pretty crowded. But the nice thing you can chill outside the pub on the sidewalk with your beer, and the bar has huge open windows, so you can just watch easy from outside. Fortunately Britain isn’t so strict on public drinking. I was routing for Belgium, because they were the underdogs, and to hell with the French, but they prevailed anyway. I kind of blew it because I was flying out the next day, and that was the day England was playing Croatia, and it would have been really cool to see that in London. Oh well.

After the crowd died down me and another American went out to Soho, and then finished the night in the Hippodrome. I won enough to pay for this entire Europe mini tour, ha. Poker is fun this year! It was a good day in London! But only enough time to scratch the surface. London really is one of those cities you need a lot of time to explore, because it’s so spread out. It’s more like a collection of neighborhoods than a big city, so I do have a lot more to see. Until next time…

Some more photos

The real purpose of the phone booths now...

haha

They let you drink outside the bar in the street with your beer

Tour bus watches this American classic rock cover band at a red light

Prague

Everybody likes Prague! I don't think I've met a single person traveling so far that didn't say good things about Prague, other than maybe that it's super touristy, but so is every other awesome city. After hopping off the bus the first thing I did after getting to Prague was stopping in a shipping container market where they had all sorts of foodie type stalls. I only ordered fries with chipotle aioli (delicious) so I could eat while walking, and I asked if they took cards. Turns out they only take cards! No cash at all. Ha! I’m not used to this.

A few shots from my first 15 minutes walking around

The architecture in Prague is amazing! Even just walking along random side streets all the buildings are fascinating to look at. Just have to watch out for the trams that are everywhere! I checked into my hostel, and of course everyone I meet is college aged. This is by far my least favorite part of traveling Europe, all these hostels seem to only have travelers aged 18-25. When I’m off in Indonesia, Africa, the Stans or other more far flung places I meet a much more diverse group of travelers of all ages, who I’m much more at home with than university aged kids looking to get drunk in Europe in between semesters. So even though some of these cities are really kick ass I can’t see myself doing any long term traveling in Europe unless I’ve got a travel partner. That’ll have to wait! And of course I could afford to stay in hotels if I really wanted to, but that’s boring and the price difference is just so much bigger in European cities.

Aaaand now it’s off to the Old Town. There is no shortage of nice old towns in this part of the world! It didn’t take long for me to realize that motorcycles had seemingly took up every available parking spot and the sound of loud mufflers could be heard around every block. It was bike week in Prague! Harley Davidson Chapters from all over Europe had made their way over to the city for this. Lots of rough looking dudes (and chicks) with some pretty tricked out bikes. Apparently Eastern Europeans really dig the whole macho man type schtick! They also like to vote for authoritarian asshats… Coincidence??

I found the center of Old Town quite easily and ordered a big hunk of ham and some sauerkraut with a beer right in the middle of the square. Great spot to eat, but 15 bucks, oof. Gotta stay away from the super touristy places! The square was gorgeous like always, but unfortunately they were doing construction on the old clocktower with the astronomical clock that goes off every hour. This was supposed to be one of Prague’s biggest tourist attractions, although I wasn’t too bummed not to see it.

Eventually I made my way over to Prague’s most iconic structure, the Charles Bridge. The nice thing about Prague was that it was somewhat well preserved, ie it didn’t get levelled during WW2. That Bridge had been connecting the old town with the new town for hundreds of years, stretching over the Vltava river. You can see the Prague castle up on the hill on the other side. The bridge is lined with statues of various saints as well as some other religious imagery. And then there’s the hundreds and hundreds of tourists! It’s a pretty good place to pull out your camera! I’ve got lots of shots from around that bridge.

I walked up to the hill park on the other side to get a different vantage point of the bridges and at the top of the hill and there was this pop up bar and a DJ. On this towering rock wall you had this large crowd of young people sitting, drinking and smoking :0 (no worries about being arrested obviously) overlooking this absolutely gorgeous city and listening to a live DJ. What a cool scene! Really one of the cooler things I’ve ever seen in any city! Fun stuff. I ended up meeting some other Americans up there and chatting them up for a bit. One just moved here to study Czech, mostly as an excuse to live in Prague for a year. She was pretty jazzed up about it, and I beginning to see why! The city is historic, gorgeous, clean, open minded, diverse, has great nightlife, and isn’t crazy expensive. Like I said, everybody likes Prague.

The next day was more of the major sights, the Prague Castle and the big cathedral, the usual European touristy type stuff. I give myself one really big touristy day in each big city, I can’t really handle too much more than that. But I wanted to be a little more social in the hostel, so I made it back there by 8pm when they cook up a communal dinner type thing. It was some vegetarian stew, meh, but I did get to meet some of the people there. A few people from Perth, oddly. Then it was on to the world cup and drinking games, and then off to the bar, which was a place that had a whole bunch of different music venues, with a different theme in each one, the biggest being the EDM set with the lazers and smoke machines and all. It was a pretty cool place. I left with some people at 3am, but a bunch of the hostel peeps stayed there until 5 or 6 am. I can’t hang anymore!

Then it was lazy day the following day, sleeping in and then taking a long walk through some of the local, non-tourist neighborhoods. All of these places were quiet and nice with plenty of parks around. I liked how all of the big parks had some sort of bar and beer garden in them! Also almost all of the dogs were off leash, and every one of them was so well behaved. I was impressed!

Ok, I’m getting tired of typing, here’s a couple more photos from around the city! Highly recommended!

Wroclaw

This place was recommended to me as a good stopover before Prague. Now I will admit I knew only of Warsaw and Krakow, the two largest cities, before getting to Poland. Well now I know the 3rd largest. I also will also admit that I still don't know how to pronounce anything in Polish, especially Wroclaw! Poland uses the roman alphabet, which is deceiving, because about half the letters aren’t pronounced like they are in English. There’s a popular beer called Zwiec which I utterly failed at ordering in the bar. I also had a conversation with someone about my itinerary that went something like this:

Me: After this I’m heading to Wroclaw (pronouncing it ro-claw, like any normal English speaker would)

Him: Blank stare

Me: You know, the big, nice city not far from Prague, ro-claw!

Him: Ahh you mean Vlo-Slav

Me: Uhh yes… (shame sets in)

Anyway I still have no idea how to say anything. But if I need to, I can just type the word on my phone and show it to the person, and then they’ll be like “ahhh that” while thinking I’m a dullard. Polish is hard!...

A smooth 3.5 hour bus ride later and I’m in Wroclaw's nice new bus station. Once again it’s blue skies and mid 80’s, perfect weather. I hopped on the tram into the city, but their self pay thingy only has the tap reader for the credit card and not the one where you actually insert it, and tap reader never seems to work with my American cards. (why don't we have the tappy tap card readers in the US??). I could have probably paid the dumb tourist card and stayed on the tram, I don’t even think anyone was checking for tickets anyway, but I ended up hopping off and walking the rest of the way into the city. With only one small backpack and my shoulder bag, I’m free! I can walk around for a few miles with all my luggage and still not get worn out. It’s great. It was about a mile walk to the old town.

I liked how even the worst looking buildings always seems to have cheery gardens

Soon enough I was in the center of the old town, and these places are just gorgeous! Gothic (I think??) style buildings line the square, painted in light pastel colors. The focal point was this very unique looking church with an Alice in Wonderland reminiscent clock tower. There was a hostel right across the street from this, but it was all booked up, not surprisingly. Eventually I found a room overlooking a different church a 5 minute walk away. I’ve noticed in Poland that there aren’t as many hotels as most places, but there are tons of tourist apartments for rent, and they’re pretty reasonably priced, most are around $50 a night.

view from my room

I only had one day in Wroclaw, so I didn’t linger in my room for long. I had lots of walking to do. The thing I liked about Wroclaw is once you’re outside the main square, everything is still very nice, lots of outdoor cafes and all, but it feels like there are a lot more locals around as opposed to tourists everywhere. And the prices reflect that. I stopped in this restaurant with huge glass windows giving you nice views of one of the major churches in town; it’s the type of place where it buffet style and you weigh your plate at the end. I had a whole plate of food and a strawberry banana smoothie and the total came out to less than $4. Wroclaw seems like a very live-able city.

I really liked this restaurant

I eventually made my way around to the Panorama Racliette, which features a massive 360 degree panorama of some point in Polish history. Sadly I missed the last showing by 15 minutes. Oh well, there were still lots of nice things to see. I walked through a park and to the river path overlooking some new modern apartment buildings and 200 year old churches on the other side. The path was full of joggers and bikers. I really wasn’t expecting Polish cities to be this nice. I mean you see some pretty ugly concrete housing blocs but almost everything else was modern and clean with tons of quaint outdoor cafes and healthy looking people out and about. And on a random side note, Polish people walk quickly! I’ve never felt like a slow walker before, but these Poles burn rubber on the sidewalk!

churches churches everywhere everywhere

just random places I found walking around

In this part of the world the sun doesn’t go down till after 8:30 so you get lots of time for sightseeing and exploring. I finally made my way back to the main square to take some photos while the light was still nice. I’ve been taking way too many old town photos, but I just can’t seem to help myself! The downside to the sun going down this late is that it kinda hurts my social life. It kills me to not be out photographing between 7:30-10pm when the light is the best, but those are also prime intermingling hours at the hostel. So far the photography is winning out. So there is some benefit to the sun going down at 6pm in Asia!

back to old town

Luckily I did find some people hanging out around the ping pong table and drinking. A mix of Swedes and Aussies. For whatever reason there seem to be lots of Australians in Poland and Europe in general. We ended up going out for some drinks on the square. I believe I might have already mentioned this, but Poland has some pretty decent craft breweries these days. Although these beer/burger bars need to take it easy on the word ‘craft’. They have ‘craft’ beers, ‘craft’ burgers, ‘craft’ wings, 'craft cocktails,' I mean c’mon, you can’t just throw that word in front of evert type of food/drink and expect people to take it seriously! Or can you…? All these places were crowded so maybe its working. I ended up just going for the classic Polish sausage and kraut, which at least didn’t have the word craft in front of it.

The next morning it was back to the bus station and off to Prague! Traveling in Europe is just so damn easy. I bought my bus ticket online in minutes, the people in the stations speak English, everything is on time, roads are nice, most places aren’t really that far, and you don’t even need to stop when crossing borders! I still have vivid memories of some horrendous border crossings in the Stans last year. Thanks Europe for being such a breeze!

Krakow

Next up: Krakow by train. And the trains are surprisingly nice! Fast, modern, easy to navigate, etc. Somewhat pricey. Warsaw to Krakow was only a little more than 2 hours. And the train station is only a block away from old town, which is convenient. It’s always a PITA to be dumped 30 minutes outside of the city. I found my hostel two blocks away from the station, dumped my stuff, and had a look around. Almost instantly I was smitten! It’s like a fairy tale city! The sun was shining, the  sky was perfectly blue with a few puffy clouds, the architecture is colorful and gorgeous, the cobblestone streets are immaculately clean, church spires rise in the distance, horse drawn carriages ply down the streets, all the while classical violin music plays off somewhere in the distance.

St. Mary's Basilica

The main focus of the old town is the St. Mary’s Basilica, smack dab in the middle of the square. The courtyard is massive and lined with dozens of umbrella-laden outdoor cafes with looking into the square. In front of the church the buggy drivers wait with their horses to take tourists around town. I mean I haven’t been to Europe in a decade, but it’s certainly the nicest old town I’ve seen! I’m assuming there are better ones out there, but I’m a Euro-noob, so I was pretty damn impressed. I can certainly see what draws people to Central Europe! And being that it’s mid-summer, there was definitely no shortage of people.

I decided to stop in a rustic looking restaurant on a side street. Pierogie time! And unlike my usual family occasions they other options besides potato and sauerkraut! These were fancy pierogies. I ordered five different kinds, and opted for steamed instead of the fried. I had potato and cream cheese, spinach and kraut, duck confit, minced pork, something with horseradish. The potato cream cheese and the duck were both killer. And still less than 10 bucks for the meal and a large beer. Much better start to Krakow than Warsaw!

Eventually I wandered all the way through the old town and across the river to the museum of contemporary art. I’m not a huge museum guy, but given a choice between art and history I’m taking the art museum every time. Every time I’m in a history museum it’s information overload and I feel like my brain shuts off after an hour. Plus I can get all that information online, at my own pace, if I want; whereas looking at art is much more powerful in person. So needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed the museum, especially some of the photography exhibits

You can tell from some of the exhibits that Europeans see America's presence in the rest of the world a little bit differently than many Americans do. 

When I got back to my hostel I found some people getting geared up for the evening World Cup match, Colombia vs Britain, so I tagged along. It’s kind of fun traveling in Europe during the World Cup because everyone is so pumped about these games. And with Colombia tying it during penalty time and Britain winning in penalty kicks, it was a pretty great game to watch. But really, there has to be a better way to solve these huge matches than with PK’s! After the game some of the group moved to another bar to celebrate, but I really couldn’t have cared less that England won, so I called it a night.

Now, what should have been a straight to bed, pass out before hitting the pillow night, turned into something much more sinister in the hostel. Right above my bunk was the most dreaded thing that can happen in a dormitory, a snorer! AGH. I didn’t have earplugs either. Seriously there is nothing worse a snorer. It’s like you’re whole existence becomes part of the reverberations from this random guys nostrils. Seriously these people need to shamed, Cersei style, dragged naked through the streets with people cursing and throwing rotten food at them. If you snore don’t stay in a hostel dormitory, JFC! I’m getting too old for hostels. Even after I passed out I had nightmares where I was getting chased around in an old factory where there is constant off-kilter groaning sound going off and on in the background. An ominous sign for my travel plans the next day.

That morning I was off on a tour to Auschwitz, which is one of those things you really should do in Krakow, even though it does kind of kill the fun travel vibe. I won’t get into the gritty details of the camp, but what really is amazing to me was how seemingly easy it was for the systematic elimination of Jews to happen, even in Poland, where before the German occupation, the Poles and Jews lived side by side. For months and years the Germans blasted constant propaganda, meant to dehumanize the Jews, claiming the Jews were thieves, different from everyone else, dirty and disease infested, and eventually separated them from the normal population ‘for the public good.’ First it was the ghettos, then it was the death camps. And people just watched it happen, many of whom bought into the propaganda. It’s scary how well propaganda can work on the masses. And I’m not going to get into politics too much, but the similarities between ICE and the Gestapo are a bit eerie, and having an authoritarian president who constantly lies and uses choice words meant to dehumanize an entire group of people should be disconcerting to anyone who follows history. Or anyone what at all.

Anyway, so after that sobering experience it was back into Krakow, this time I wanted to check out the Kazimierz neighbourhood, just outside of the old town. The buildings are a bit older and more run down, but that gives them their own kind of appeal. It’s kind of the more hipster part of the city, I guess you’d say, with an art street, funky coffeeshops, and bars boasting of Polish craft beers. My kind of place. For lunch I had some sort of cheesy casserole with potatoes, bacon, sauerkraut, onions, and polish sausage. Fantastic! Later in the afternoon I got around to sampling the local craft brews, which is something I always miss in Asia.

Then it was back to the old town to visit the Fawel castle around sunset and some beet soup + beef ghoulash from a more local place for dinner. Mmm. Ghoulash is one of those things that tastes better than it sounds! I had one more drink on the square to admire my surroundings and listen to a guitar player. A very romantic place, it certainly would be better with a girl around. I ended getting to bed somewhat early, as I’d be taking a bus to Wroclaw the next morning. I can also appreciate having a more normal sleep schedule after having poker mess mine up for so long!

And that's all for Krakow! Next up Wroclaw. Here's a few more photos of the old town:

Warsaw

After a 10 hour flight to Kiev and another hour+ connecting flight I found myself in a strange new country, Poland. There’s not much about Poland that had really motivated me to travel there in the past (or really anywhere in Europe) but being that my Dad’s side of the family is all Polish I do feel like I have some cultural obligation to see some of the fatherland. Plus I do enjoy pierogies, sausages, and sauerkraut!  And Poland does have a interesting (unfortunate) history. And the flight was cheap. So why not?

I landed later on in the evening, got through immigration easily, stopped at the ATM to get some zlotys (but only big bills) and went to McDonalds. I know I know, I’m in a new country with fantastic food and I’m eating a freakin McDonalds! But I needed to break a 100 zloty note ($30 bill) and this was my best option. It was weird, there was nobody at the cashier, but a big group of people waiting for their food. What’s going on at this McDonalds? Turns out they have an electronic kiosk system that most people use instead of ordering from the cashier. They make their order, pay with card, and pick it up, easy! I always like noting things other countries do differently than us, and in this case, better.

After my Big Mac (and they call it a Big Mac, not anything cool/different) I hopped into a bus that goes into the city. Being the stickler I am I absolutely refuse to take a taxi when I have the option of bus/metro for a fraction of the cost, even if I don’t exactly know where I’m going. This has backfired on multiple occasions, but that’s not gonna stop me. I attempted to buy a ticket directly from bus driver, who had some harsh words for me in Polish. Oops. Fortunately some younger Poles directed me to the self pay machine. Easy. Why don’t our buses have these?! In Chicago if you don’t a have Ventra card you have to supply exactly $2 and 25 cents, how dumb and outdated is that? Seriously for all you USA#1’ers out there, you at least have to admit we run on some outdated technology sometimes.

Now, like a total rookie, I completely forgot to download the offline version of Google Maps when I had wifi, so now I couldn’t see where I was in the city. Flying blind! I didn’t know where to get off, so I finally hopped out in what looked like a well lit, central location. I stopped at bar to get some wifi and my bearings on the map, of course the wifi didn’t work, so I finally hopped in cab to get to my hostel. It was located in a large, ugly concrete building with little signage; odd for a hostel with such a high rating I thought. This feels like Eastern Europe! I rang the buzzer to get in. Nothing. I then started reading the piece of paper posted on the side and it says that the reception closes at 10pm, and you absolutely cannot check in after that. It’s 10:45. Uh oh.

What kind of crap is this? The thought of being completely screwed if you get there a little late is preposterous to me. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a hostel that has that kind of policy. I mean sometimes you might have to pound on the door for a bit, but you always get in! Welcome to Eastern Europe I guess. Always fun to be in a strange new city, stranded in what doesn’t look like the nicest part of town, at night, with no phone, no internet. Even though the streets are dead, I’m not too worried, mostly just annoyed. I am glad I ditched the big backpack for this trip though! I walked around for a while and eventually found another hostel, but they were all booked up except for a weird apartment style lodging down the street that was like $65. Meh. She showed me two hostels on the map not far away, so I tried both of them. One was full, the other also had no night reception.

Wellll…. Options pretty limited now! If this was me backpacking when trying to keep a strict budget I would have been a bit more stressed out, but given the choices of staying in the apartment place or wandering around Warsaw for who knows how long, it was a pretty easy call. The receptionist gave me a few sets of keys, directions on how to find the building down the street and that was that. It was a strange accommodation in a run down building complex with a bunch of individual rooms in a shared apartment style set up. But the bed was comfy and I slept easy, as I should have, being that my internal clock was at 5am or so.

my view

I woke up to view of this lovely courtyard. I’m not gonna lie, Warsaw isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing city you’ll ever see. It’s got lots of modern parts, and a nice old town, but walking around some of the local neighborhoods can be a bit bleak; lots of big ugly concrete housing units with random smatterings of graffiti. That’s more or less what I was expecting though. Plus the weather was kind of chilly and gloomy, which added to the overall mood. I didn’t really do anything much in Warsaw, mostly just randomly meandered around. I spent a few hours in the old town, a few hours at a museum, and a few hours wandering around neighborhoods across the river, and well that was my day! I stopped in a bar every once in a while to try a different Polish beer, grabbed some sausage and sauerkraut in the old town for dinner called it an early one. You know you're getting out of shape when a whole day of walking knocks you out.

 A friend recommended that I don’t spend too much time in Warsaw and allocate more time to a city called Wroclaw, which is enroute from Krakow to Prague, so I decided to heed that advice. Plus the weather looked better in Krakow. I booked a train ticket to Krakow online for the following morning.

Escaping Sihanoukville

I'd been trapped in Cambodia.

In a good way! I couldn't find a good reason to leave. I’d been saying I’m going to leave Cambodia in ‘a week or two’ for months now. In my case I was waiting for the poker games to die down a little bit as my excuse to get out of town. And they just never did! The amount of free money is Sihanoukville is incredible. I wouldn’t normally use the term free money, as there’s always plenty of luck involved in poker in the short term, but there’s such a steady influx of players, who play so recklessly (usually because they’re loaded and just don’t care at all), that they will lose all their money by the end of the night, almost every single time. If you’re playing in a game where someone is basically gifting away thousands of dollars every single night, that’s a pretty big opportunity to pass up on.  
 

Finally when the rainy season hit in June, the games started to slow down a little bit. Certain poker rooms would struggle to get games started, or the game might die down before midnight instead of raging into the early morning hours. But then again you could still find great games occasionally, but not as consistently. Also, Sihanoukville is kind of a dumpy town; which is fine when its sunny everyday and you can cruise around on a scooter and hit the beaches, but once it starts getting to be rainy and overcast all the time, it really is kind of a miserable place. I had, at times, considered staying in Snooky all year to just grind, but now with the weather and the lull in the action, it was time to make a move. Plus what’s the point of being a poker player if you’re just gonna work all year? The  whole point is to get to take time off and travel! On June 10th or so I bussed it back to Phnom Penh, intending to stay a few days (as my visa expired on the 15th) and pick a new place to travel. But that’s not what happened!

down at the Sihanoukville Port

You still get some very nice sunsets in Sihanoukville

When I arrived in Phnom Penh I found the games to be much much better than how I had left them. In addition to more Chinese guys playing, there was a Malaysian Chinese guy, who had started a bitcoin mining business in Phnom Penh, who was creating all sorts of action. He went by Mr. Lee, or Harry, as his English name, and when he wanted to play, a higher stakes game would just appear out of nowhere. He didn’t play every night, but usually 2-3 times a week, so you kind of had to be waiting around for him to show up, but when he did, it was totally worth it. The game would be 5/10 blinds, minimum buy in $1,000, but with people often buying in for several thousand, as to cover Mr. Lee’s stack. He’d also buy an oversized bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label for anyone at the table that wanted some, and it was very much encouraged to partake! He’d usually buy in for $3,000 at the start, but he’d usually go through a few buy ins playing like a complete maniac, and usually dusted off about 10k. I don’t think I’d ever seen him win. He really didn’t mind at all though, he seemed content with his works of charity.

O'Russey Market

The mean streets of Phnom Penh (they might look it, but they're really not mean)

So with Mr. Lee in town, my plans were changing again! He said he was staying until the end of the month, so it looks like I’m staying until the end of the month. Now this presented a slight problem with my visa expiring on the 15th, but that’s the nice thing about Cambodia, they’re super lax about this sort of stuff, you just have to pay $10/day to overstay for up to a month, no problem. You’d probably get into some sort of trouble for anything longer than that, but then it’s Cambodia, so nothing money couldn’t fix. This might also be a problem if you’re checking into a nicer hotel, but then again, nothing photoshop can’t fix!

The fact that each new visa takes up a whole page really grinds my gears. I'm going to be out of pages soon thanks to Cambodia :(

And have mentioned how nice it is to be back in Phnom Penh after being in Sihanoukville for a while? Literally everything is better than in Snooky. The most noticeable thing is the value for the hotels. In Snooky I stayed in a small guesthouse with almost no amenities for $25/night, which is about as cheap as you can find for an AC room in town, with the whole Chinese invasion going on. Terrible value. In Phnom Penh I found a new high rise hotel that had just opened up (the tallest in the city actually) and for $22/night you get a very nice room, super comfy bed, flat screen, fridge, microwave, safe and an amazing view over the city. Plus two immaculate pools, a fitness center and steam room. Best value in the city I’d think. And it’s near the mall. A mall! Where you can do all your shopping in a totally air conditioned environment, and you can even stop an American fast food chain! You think Snooky has anything like that? Hell no! High end shopping is buying a $3 Angkor Wat t-shirt on the street.

a little extra motivation to work out

the pool on the 39th floor

nice little room, super comfy bed

So being back in Phnom Penh was pretty great. The poker room in NagaWorld also doubles as a sportsbook, so with the World Cup going it was hopping every night. I might add that Asian timezones are perfect for watching European sports. The first World Cup game would start at 8pm and the last one would go until 3am, which really can’t synch up with my poker schedule any better! I’ve definitely watched more of the World Cup this year than probably all other years combined. Even though there are small moments of intense excitement, and I can appreciate the insane amounts of talent on some these goals, I still find the sport to be pretty boring on the whole.

With the end of the month rapidly approaching it was time to figure out some concrete travel plans. I’d been strongly considering the Eastern Mediterranean region, places like Turkey, Lebanon, Cyprus, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt for some time now. But I also have a few friends traveling in Eastern Europe at the moment, so that was now crossing my mind as well. I’ve been putting off Europe in my travel plans forever now. As someone who almost always favors some sort of adventure travel, I worry that Europe is just going to be too cookie cutter and boring: nice city, nice city, nice architecture, nice museum, nice church, nice café, rinse and repeat. It sounds all very lovely of course, but just doesn’t really light my fire. Also it’s more expensive, so I’d probably be mostly staying in hostels, which at my age I feel like I’m starting to get a bit too old for.

So after looking at flights and with a decent amount of inner conflict, I booked a cheap flight I'd found from Bangkok to Warsaw via Kiev. To resolve my indecision I’m opting to go for a one month, kind of whirlwind trip through Eastern Europe, just to get a taste, and finish up in Istanbul. Then I’ll have the rest of the time for Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan etc. And then back to Cambodia when the rainy season starts to finish up. The games are too good and more Chinese keep coming in with more casinos being built, so it might be even better this year (as long as other people aren’t finding out about it!). It really doesn’t make fiscal sense to leave Cambodia for too long. Gotta get in while the gettin’ is good. So next stop, Euroland!

Cambodia (again)

Well it's been forever since I've done any blogging, but here we go. I'm back in Cambodia, but this time around I'm based not in Phnom Penh, but in the much smaller coastal city, Sihanoukville. On one hand, it's nice being near the beach, on the other hand you miss out in quite a few ways. The food is nowhere near as good (or diverse), the nightlife options are much worse, the massage places are weak, and shockingly, it's more expensive to live! There has been a massive Chinese influx and they've basically been buying up the whole town, driving real estate prices way up. If you had owned property in sleep little Sihanoukville, you're now in luck!

Of course this is bad news for backpackers and expats who are used to living on the cheap down here. All of the backpacker bars down by the beach have been knocked down to make way for a new resort. The backpacker scene has largely been forced out of Sihanoukville and down a few kilometers away to a place called Otres Village. People who have been living here long term have seen their landlords sell out their apartment units with rents subsequently being jacked through the roof. A one year lease you say? Not anymore. The Chinese are a very sore subject in the ex-pat community.  So while many people are unhappy,  life is great if you're a poker player, as the games here are nothing short of amazing. It has the be the best place in the entire world to play at the moment. 

To right is where all the beach shacks used to be. A brand new hotel dominates the skyline

The main draw for the Chinese in Sihanoukville isn't the islands, the beaches, Cambodian culture or anything like that it. It's the gambling! Gambling is illegal in mainland China, so many people are coming to Sihanoukville, which is a cheaper alternative to Macau, the Chinese version of Las Vegas. When I was here last year there were a few casinos around, this year there's around 20! It's amazing the scale of things being built around here. In the next year or two that number will be at least doubled. The Cambodian government has basically sold out the whole town to Chinese developers. Hotel/casinos are currently being built in any halfway decent location you can imagine. The whole town feels like it's under construction. The sheer scale of it is really something to see.

Some grand plans in the next few years

There is so much money coming into this town! If you just walk around the table games in some of these casinos you see some of these guys sitting with $10,000 bricks, rifling in hundreds or thousands at a time. And many of them are so young! I don't know where some of these young Chinese kids are getting this kind of cash to throw around, but they've got it.  Then there's the shadier side of the industry, as it's widely known that a lot people want to get their money out of China and these casinos are perfect way to launder lots of cash. It's kind of the wild wild west out here. All these casinos and basically no regulation. Supposedly the Chinese mafia has a strong presence around here as well. God only knows how much some of these casino operators are currently making. 

The gaming floor at the Oriental Pearl. It's always packed. 

Driving around town you can play a fun game called count the Bentleys. If I cruise around on my scooter for an hour I'm sure to spot at least a couple, plus maybe one or two of the various Rolls Royces and Ferraris that are also around.  It's a stark contrast the rest of town that is relatively poor and undeveloped. The roads in Sihanoukville are still by and largely atrocious! Chinese infrastructure spending is supposed to change that, but it hasn't happened yet. 

One of the roads leading out of town

In a bunch of these casinos you can find poker tables set off to side, offering Texas No Limit hold'em, the poker game of choice. The people who operate these poker tables pay the casino itself to rent out the floor space for a table or two. As it happens the best games are usually the ones in the most popular casinos where anyone can watch the game from the side and decide to sit in. There's good money to be made running these games so there's lots of card rooms all vying for a piece of the pie. This is also good for the poker players as you can sit in any game you like and if it's not good you can hop around to try and find a better one. And there is almost always a good game going on somewhere. 

Some random poker hands

Compared to the games back in the States, these games are just incredibly soft. Poker is much newer in China so most of the Chinese players don't have very developed poker games. Of course there are some good players, but your average player is pretty pretty bad. But also pretty pretty loaded. Most of these guys don't really mind losing, poker is just another form of gambling entertainment to them. They expect to lose like most people playing roulette expect to lose, but maybe they'll get lucky for a bit and run up a big stack every once in a while and that keeps them happy.  Or they have a trial by fire type mentality, where the only way to get better at poker is to learn the hard way, by getting stacked many, many, many times! 

So yea, poker is good here. I've already stayed much longer than I expected to and honestly can't justify leaving. But my visa is finished on June 15th so that kinda when I have to get outta here. I originally had some grand plans to hop around Eastern Europe and parts of the Middle East fpr a few months, but now I'm not sure if I really want to take that much time off from these games. So we'll see. 

Here's some semi-random iphone shots from various places around town

View from my bungalow in Otres Beach

Pretty damn good pizza

A day out at the waterfalls

some untouched coastline way outside town. Untouched except for all the trash gets washed up from Vietnam. Seriously the plastic waste situation in SE Asia is a massive problem. 

Some massive Chinese housing community being built somewhere down along the coast

Gotta love this decor that looks like came straight outta the 70's

The pool I go to, it's pretty awesome

The pho place I like

Otres Corner, the psychedelic hang out

Otres Beach

Otres Market, where they have good live music. Here's a Russian metal band. 

Otres Market

Riding around the hills outside of town

Jack Daniel's the after hours bar

pulled pork on the beach

This guy has got his stack up to $26,000!

Ok that's all for now! Snooky is an interesting place!

Beach Life: Mirissa and Unawatuna

These are two of the more popular beach towns on the Sri Lanka’s southern coast. Located about 30 minutes apart, they’re pretty similar, a nice stretch of sand lined with bar/restaurant/guesthouses. Every night these places put out all their tables and chairs and everyone eats and drinks out on the beach. It’s pretty tame, everything shuts down around midnight and maybe one of the bars will try to get some sort of party going.

There’s not a ton of stuff to do outside of laying at the beach if you’re not a surfer, but Unawatuna does have a couple of shipwrecks that you can dive at, where Mirissa is known for it’s whale watching tours. Although the amount of time you spend battling the choppy seas only to see the back end of a whale for a few seconds didn’t exactly sound worth it to me. As for the scuba diving, the current was too strong to do the well preserved wreck so we had to settle for the one that was in pieces, not really the most spectacular dive! Overall I liked Mirissa a bit better because it’s easier to find accommodation right by the beach, it’s slightly more upscale, a little cleaner, and has less Russians. But either way it’s best to rent a scooter so you don’t have to limit yourself to just the beach, as there is lots of great scenery all around the coast!

the lighthouse at Gaulle

Welligama bay

From Ella it took me about seven hours on three different buses to finally get to Mirissa. When these bus drivers get on the open road it feels like you’re in the movie Speed or something, no going below 50mph! These guys spend half the time in the opposite lane blaring on their horn and overtaking every possible vehicle, forcing oncoming traffic off to the far side of their own lane. And its so silly because then eventually somebody pulls the ropey thing that signals they want off  and the driver has to slam on the brakes, pull over, and then try and retake all the cars that just passed them all over again. I mean what’s the point of being a maniac driver if you have to stop all the time?!

Anyway, I got dropped off on the main road in town, and found the place that was recommended to me. It was between Christmas and New Years so unfortunately it was all booked up. But there was a new hostel right across the street, and being the lazy person that I am, decided that was my best option. Apparently hostels are popping up all over Mirissa and Unawatuna this year. The owner of this place (Colors Hostel) said that last year there were five hostels in Mirissa and this year there’s now twelve! People are very optimistic about the continued increase in tourism in Sri Lanka. I even noticed it a bit myself when I posted some photos on facebook and a bunch of people asked for travel advice because they were headed there soon or were thinking about going. I guess Sri Lanka is the place to be!

Mirissa Rock

sunset shoot

The hostel itself had a nice open balcony on the top floor and big long table for people to hang out at (very important!) and speakers – all you need really. So I met some pretty cool people there. Although it was kinda weird because everyone was either Australian, Dutch, or American and hardly anyone from anywhere else, and there’s just not that many Americans in Sri Lanka to begin with.

Most people there were content to just chill on the beach all day, which I’m happy to do for an hour or two, but I also wanted to do some exploring, so I made to sure to find the nearest scooter rental place. It’s so incredibly nice to be able to go wherever you want, whenever you want. I can’t live without my scooter! And Sri Lanka has a long gorgeous beachside road, plus lots of smaller roads that snake their way throughout the countryside. There’s nothing like cruising around on well paved, winding country roads early in the morning or around sunset. Good stuff. I even stumbled upon a snake farm one of the days.

took a little trip to the temple in Matara

got some curious looks

I like how they weighed out the produce in the market

the snake guy teasing the cobra

tree snake

So I was enjoying my time in Mirissa and decided to stick around for New Years Eve, when there would be lots of big parties on the beach. The owner of the hostel suggested going to an all white party, which sounds a bit weird saying, but it’s just a party on the beach where you have to wear all white clothes. We ended up buying tickets for $40 a pop, which I thought was a bit crazy for Sri Lankan standards, but that’s New Years Eve I guess. Overpriced NYE parties are certainly not limited to the States! So we all went to the market in town to buy white clothes, as most backpacking types don’t wear too much white because it gets dirty and disgusting wayyy too quickly.

As I was kind of expecting, the party was kinda pretentious and lame. The $40 didn’t even get you free drinks, and the drinks of course, were not cheap. Our section of beach was fenced off from the rest, very exclusive indeed! There was the DJ at the front and lots of cheap white plastic tables and chairs in the sand. The crowd was somewhat surprising, mostly well-to-do Sri Lankans and not that many foreign tourists. Bathroom facilities were lacking, so it was a long line whenever you had to go. I mean it was still fun, but I much rather would have been at one of the many free parties going on further along the beach. Oh well!

The next day I had to say goodbye and get back to Colombo as my visa was now one day past the expiry date. Uh oh!

Up in the hill stations: Ella

It’s the most popular tourist spot for those looking to experience Sri Lanka’s hill country. Ella is a small town located among the various tea plantations. It also has some nice easy hikes that aren’t in national park land, hence no need to fork over $25 for a hike that may or may not have views totally obscured by fog/rain. I liked Ella. It has plenty of things to do during the day to keep you busy and lots of decent restaurants for somewhat higher end Sri Lankan food at night.

One of the hikes, Ella rock, is particularly interesting, not just for the scenery at the top, but also for finding the proper route. At the beginning of the hike you walk along the railroad tracks and you have to find the proper turnoff point to get you on your way up the mountain. Various people have tried to put up signs or markers to let hikers know the right way, but those seem to always mysteriously disappear, as there guides along the way hoping that lost tourists might employ their services. Those sneaky guys!

view part of the way up the hike

But you can get a map and decent description online ahead of time to help you on your way. And don’t listen to anyone telling you that you’re going the wrong way! I might have taken this too far when a little old lady pointed me in the direction of the trail near her home that veered off from the main trail I was on and I didn’t believe her! I kept heading on my current path and ended up getting temporarily lost and had to scramble my way back to the main path. Hmmm.

Eventually I made it up to the top to find this view of stunning, gorgeous, total whiteness! The best! You never really know what you’re gonna get with weather in this part of the country. Eventually a couple of girls from Perth joined me to view into the abyss. We decided to stick around for a while and eventually the mist disappeared for a few moments at a time, just enough to get off some photos. Success!

the climax

the excitement is palpable

Finally the mist cleared for a bit. We also made some new friends

We also did the other small hike, little Adam’s peak, which I kind of had to do, as it bears my namesake. This one is easy, just stairs to the top with some more nice views of the hills and tea plantations. We could have done a tea plantation tour as well, but I’ve done them in India and I think they’re one of those things where once you’ve done one, you’ve done them all. Plus I don’t really care for tea all that much anyway! But we did have some time to walk through the tea bushes and have a drink at the resort on top of a hill overlooking everything. It’s a very pleasant place!

The view of Ella Rock from the other side of the valley

One of the tea plantations

one of the tea pickers

the landscape

So I stayed two nights in Ella, and would have liked to stay three so I could rent a scooter and explore around a bit, but some rain was coming and I decided it would be better to get down from the highlands and off to the beach. Next up, Mirissa.

good place for a beer

Kandy to Ella Train

The Kandy to Ella train (or vice versa) is certainly the most famous train ride in the country, thanks to the marvelous landscapes it winds through in the Sri Lankan hill country. Undulating terrain, tea plantations, and small villages all add to the charm of the journey. Of course with tourist numbers picking up in Sri Lanka and the fact that it was peak peak season, getting a ticket for this train was no easy task. All 1st and 2nd class tickets were all booked up and the only option left is buying 3rd class tickets the morning of, which basically means you'll be crammed in the car standing for most of the trip. 

A popular trick to avoid this is to go the Kadugannawa station, 30 minutes outside of Kandy, and board there, waiting for people to get off in Kandy so you can snag a seat. But I've heard that this method isn't so secret anymore and doing this in no way guarantees you a seat during peak season. 

I liked the flowers planted at every station, a nice touch

So what to do? I already took one standing train ride from Colombo to Kandy and it was miserable! So if it was likely that I was going to have to stand again, I'd much rather take the bus. But to many this train journey is the highlight of their whole Sri Lanka trip and I didn't want to miss out on it. Fortunately there is one last option, the 3:30am goods train! This is also a slower train because it stops at each station to load/unload stuff, so what is normally a 7 hour ride turns into 10. Obviously a 3:30 start on the slow train isn't for everyone, but you do get avoid the hordes of tourists during the day trains!

This train had four other tourists and the rest were locals. I was easily able to snag a forward facing window seat on the right side, the optimum seat for the views. And there was plenty of room to lay out on my bench seat and 'try' to sleep until the sun came up. There was one interesting quirk about this train. In my car and in one other car were a group of Sri Lankan teens, and they brought with them drums and their singing voices. Normally this would be a welcome cultural experience, hearing all of their traditional songs, which everyone in the group knew, enthusiastically. But not at 3:30 in the morning! 

With my noise cancelling headphones in I did manage some sleep and eventually got up when the sky started turning a faint blue. I could start seeing the outlines of the tumultuous landscape and the fog that sat in the valleys. It was Christmas morning and as others back home were waiting for daybreak to run downstairs and see what was under the tree, I was waiting for daybreak to see these lush green tea plantations illuminated in the soft, warm light. It was a very nice experience watching the sunrise from the train in the hill country while listening to some traditional Sri Lankan music. 

The view from outside my window as we headed into the rising sun

looking back

tea plantations everywhere

With so few people on the train you're free to get up and walk around the cabins and hang out the door to get a better view if you'd like. We'd stop for a few minutes in each station so you could hop off and stretch your legs a bit and not worry about having someone take your seat. So much more laid back than the other train I had been on. Vendors would hop on occasionally and sell some fried snacks, which were pretty tasty! After a few hours the train finally started filling up and all the seats were taken. A Sri Lankan family packed in around me. They didn't speak much English and their children eyed me curiously, but they did offer me some sweet snacks, which I happily accepted! 

After 6 hours we arrived at Nuwara Eliya, which is one of the hill station hot spots. The whole station was filled with tourists getting on this train! At this point there were almost no seats left so the vast majority of the people getting on would have to stand, at least for now. Eventually Sri Lankans would get off and people would snag those seats, and some very polite Sri Lankans actually voluntarily gave up their seats, knowing that it's such a novelty to foreigners. But still, a lot people were standing the four hours to Ella. I was pretty content with my spot! Although the majority of the views switched over from right side to the left side, but I guess you can't have everything. 

selfie time

After 10 hours we finally rolled into Ella station at 1:30 pm. At this point my butt was thoroughly sore and I couldn't wait to get off the train. I hadn't booked anything yet, so I basically found the nearest guesthouse, checked in, and promptly passed out for the next few hours. I'll get into Ella in the next post!

Sri Lanka

I hadn’t done much research before getting to Sri Lanka, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect. For some reason I was thinking the country was going to be a bit more off the beaten track, perhaps given to the island’s remote location of the SE tip of India. That was not exactly the case! Apparently Sri Lanka has gotten pretty popular in the last couple of years, so there was no shortage of people on the beaches and prowling around the country’s cultural sites. I even met some young Australian girls who joked they were doing an instagram tour, trying to recreate some of the their favorite photos they had seen on various instagram accounts. Hmmm…

I arrived at the airport in the mid-morning and got through immigration in no time. I had plenty of Indian rupees that I was hoping to exchange for Sri Lankan rupees, but to my surprise at the money exchanges, with about 30 currencies listed on their boards, did not change Indian rupees. What!? I still don’t know what the deal is with this one, but the ATM worked fine. Outside the airport it was very easy to find the airport-city bus. It seems like most of the time you have to go off hunting in far flung corners of the airport to find these buses, so it was nice to have it just waiting out front. $1 to get into the city center vs $30 for a taxi. I was welcomed by a pouring rain, which felt strange because it never rained in Goa.

arriving at the bus station in a drizzle

The streets of Colombo, tuk-tuks and busses 

the touristy Fort area

The main city, Colombo, was nicer than I would have expected. It’s certainly not as crowded, chaotic, and dirty as similar Indian cities. Although the traffic is still pretty awful and the bus drivers arguably crazier. I still can’t understand the need to overtake every single car as possible in heavy traffic, especially when you have to pull over every couple of minutes anyway! Then there’s the honking, dear god! And the sudden braking with absolute no regard for the passengers on board. Fun times. But I still prefer the bus over getting a tuk-tuk, who just wait around at touristy areas to try and rip people off.

I ended spending more time in Colombo than 99% percent of tourists would, due to the poker games. And what I came to realize is that Colombo is friggen BORING. I can’t think of many big cities that have less to do than Colombo. Once you hit the museum, one or two fairly average temples, and spend the sunset at the Galle Face waterfront area, you’ve got the city covered. There’s very little local nightlife, and even if there is something on a weekend night there’s hardly any girls, except maybe the handful there with their boyfriends. It’s redeeming factor for me was the poker action.

Some rotis and seafood snacks at the waterfront

The sacred tree at the Gangaramaya Temple

playing some cricket till dark

A lovely view of the whole new island-city complex starting to be built

playing in the waves (but never swimming!) at the waterfront

Colombo has a few casinos, two of which offer poker, with most of the action at the biggest casino, Ballys. It’s still a very small player pool, just one table going during weekdays and maybe two tables during the weekends. The nice thing about the casino is that everything you could possible want is free. There is a big buffet going all night, but if you don’t want any of that food then you can order a bunch of things ala carte. Want a shrimp tray, fruit plate, cheese plate, some sandwiches? Done! All alcoholic drinks are free, including top shelf type stuff. If you want to smoke they’ll give you cigarettes or a cigar, or even a shisha to smoke at the table. This is also one of the biggest downsides of the room if you care about your health at all. The majority of the players playing poker are smoking cigarettes at the table and the whole place is just way too smoky in general. But I do really like the novelty of smoking shisha at the table! Oh and they have all these different live song and dance routines going on at the center stage, so plenty of entertainment.

The Indian food part of the casino buffet. I realize this picture doesn't look particularly appetizing!

pole dancers? sure why not?

As far as the gameplay, it’s about double the stakes of India, and the games are quite a bit more aggressive. There is much more reraising preflop and bluffs/semibluffs. There are more very good regulars in the game, but also more loaded dudes who don’t care about money and will happily blow a couple thousand in a night. When I was there, there were some guys in from the middle east making the games pretty crazy, which unfortunately did not go well for me that week, but what can I say, those are types of games I want to be playing in. Certainly nothing like that action in Chicago. But this is the problem of trying to play poker and travel at the same time, obviously I don’t want to spend all my time in Sri Lanka in the casino, but traveling after losing a bunch of money tends to put a damper on things. But that’s how things go sometimes.

my shisha, hehe

As for the rest of the country tourists mainly go to three areas: the southern beaches, the hill country, and the ‘cultural triangle’ where they have some ruins of ancient cities. The one thing to note in Sri Lanka, that annoys the hell out of most travellers is their policy of tourist pricing, where anything of tourist interest they charge the hell out of you, especially by Sri Lankan standards. Want to go to a temple? $10. Go for a hike in a national park? $25. See some ruins? $25. Meanwhile the local price would be 50c or something like that. At least on the beaches they can’t charge you to go into the ocean.

Normally the best way to see the country is by train. Thanks to British, they’ve got a nice rail system running through the country. Unfortunately during heavy tourist season it’s extremely difficult to get a seat on the train. My first train ride from Colombo to Kandy was three hours of standing completely jammed into the car. Of course your head is over the window level so you can’t even look out and see the scenery. So I was careful to not replicate that experience again!

Train departing from the Fort Station

Our packed ride to Kandy. Not fun!

Riding around Goa

Just posting some photos from around Goa. Away from the beaches its a nice mix of small towns, rural scenery, brightly colored houses, churches and temples. It's very nice for an evening scooter ride!