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The Cairo To Istanbul Season 3 Trip Highlights
After settling into the home we finally found in Turkey, we didn’t go anywhere much outside of our locality for a few years until we visited our families in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. There we ate cheese, shouted at our sub dial up internet connection and plotted the longest, realistic overland route home we could find.
We aimed ourselves first at Dahab, to catch up on work, but we intended our journey to really begin when we arrived in Cairo. There we would revisit some old haunts and explore new parts of the city. From Cairo we hoped to travel home to Didim through Jordan and Syria. I say hope because plan would be too strong a word. We didn’t have a Syrian visa and were hoping to test the opinion we may have been able to get one at the border.
We would have liked to visit Lebanon too but felt getting into Syria twice without a visa was probably pushing it. Northern Iraq would be on the cards if I could convince Deirdre it’s safe to do so. I’d been keeping an eye on the situation on the, then still useful, Lonely Planet Thorn Tree, and through the excellent work of some other travel bloggers I regularly read.
I’d been pointing out for a while that Earl did this and Anil said that in attempts to sway her and was pleased to spot the New York Times had suggested the region as one of 41 Places to Go in 2011.
Since our previous trip, JAB had changed from a monthly email format and we had begun The Working Traveller blog (then as a standlone site). In that I wrote an introduction to our trip and suggested not knowing how things will turn out is part of the fun of doing something new. Just as well…
Egypt
We had planned to visit Cairo and Alexandria but first off headed to Dahab to catch up with work. We knew we would be able to both relax there and enjoy good wifi. We never did make it to the rest of Egypt. Protests, sparked by police corruption and brutality, kicked off in the capital so we rode out the revolution petting cats by the beach and doing a little snorkelling.
Forgetting our vows made after climbing Machu Picchu never to go near the summit of a mountain again, we decided to challenge ourselves and go see where God handed over the Ten Commandments to Moses on the top of Mount Sinai. We can be stupid fucks sometimes.
The God theme continued when we took a Jeep Safari in the company of a couple of creationist Australians. The creationists seemed to be good people so mostly I played nicely. Intrigued by their literal interpretation of the bible my arguments were fair and not mocking and only my not meant to be taken seriously claim to be related to God (a long story that involves DNA evidence, multi generation fidelity and draft dodging in 19th century Russia along with a literal belief in the bible) caused some offense. Together, we journeyed to places so remote no one had been there before. Except Bianca.
Though it wasn’t on fire flora is still used in the Sinai to communicate with a higher authority. The only spot for miles with a mobile phone reception, this tree attracted pick up truck driving Bedouin and tour group drivers trying to call the office or wife
I don’t have any photos of the day Mubarak resigned but these kittens might make you feel as happy as most Egyptians did that day.
Jordan
Though numbers declined drastically during our six weeks there, Dahab is a resort mainly for foreigners. Tourism in Aqaba is a more local affair and it was interesting to see Arabs at play in their own country.
If you have ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade you know where the walk through the rock split Siq is leading to. Even so it is still difficult not to let out a gasp at first sight of the Treasury at Petra.
Petra though is more than the iconic Treasury. The Nabataeans carved so much more out of the region’s cliffs it is worth investing in a three day pass to the UNESCO World Heritage site.
After small towns and tourist sites it was a pleasure to experience again the bustle of a capital city. We arrived on Thursday night when all the residents of Amman seemed content to set up stall and sell their wares to each other.
‘Welcome’ is a word heard often by visitors to Jordan; even in the capital city and well trodden tourist sites. There is no reason to go to Suf, a small town near Jerash, except to see how the Jordanians up their welcoming game. Needing lunch supplies during our stay at the Olive Branch Hotel we twice attempted to walk into town. On both occasions we didn’t make it as curious drivers stopped, picked us up and drove us there. We spent our second afternoon in Suf in one of the local barber shops (coincidentally the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was on the TV) where we had been invited in for coffee. Going back up the hill to our hotel we knew we wouldn’t have to walk all the way.
Fans of ruined cities will love Jordan. While Petra gets the lion’s share of visitors, a few hours by bus at the other end of the country is Jerash where we travelled back in time.
Starting at Hadrian’s Gate the ancient city of Jerash makes an interesting linear walk down a colonnaded street through the region’s Roman past. Highlights include the Oval Plaza, Temple of Artemis and the Theatre.
Laying slap bang in the way of getting to Turkey, we needed to cross Syria to get home but when we turned up at the border Syria said no and turned me away. We had to decide what to do next. The temptation was to turn around and head back to Egypt and take the once in a lifetime opportunity to have the Pyramids and the rest of Egypt’s historical assets to ourselves.
Then we remembered the country we bumped when planning our route. I had thought the Syrians wouldn’t let me in at the border twice without a prearranged visa but now that they had already rejected me Lebanon was on the table again. We flew to Beirut.
Lebanon
We still want to go to Syria another time but what a great decision Lebanon was. We’re still high fiving each other that we went there. We both loved Beirut. The Northern Irish often compared their capital to Lebanon’s so it was slightly karmic that we went there and could see for ourselves the difference between far away perception and close up reality.
Mostly, as we do in most places that we visit, we just walked around, took in the vibe of the place and shoved food into our mouths. Lebanon is a great place for that. A lot of our walking was done along the Corniche, joining in with a pastime popular with high heel teetering Christians and covered up Muslims. While we walked beside the sea in sunny spring weather, snow topped mountains, the location of Lebanon’s ski resorts, could be seen in the background 20 miles away.
Our other favourite open air eatery was the American University of Beirut. With its green grounds sandwiched between the sea and the cheap eats on the appropriately named Rue Bliss, if I could have my time again this is where I’d want to study.
We had plans to travel around a lot more of Lebanon than we did but Beirut kept us happy enough that, despite spending nearly three weeks in the country, we only got out of the city once. We felt we couldn’t miss Byblos but did exactly that. Only 20 miles to the north of Beirut we had the feeling we had been travelling too long on the bus so asked another passenger if we had missed our stop. Unfortunately he was the only person on the bus dumber than us and, following his incorrect advice, we went to Tripoli instead.
Iraq
Being in Iraq was a surreal experience that quickly got normal. Had we not known the country’s history the combat fatigues of most of our fellow plane passengers would have given away that Iraq isn’t a typical tourist destination. Arriving at night we brushed aside the usual airport taxi driver bullshit, walked through the police checkpoints down to an unopened and deserted six lane highway, and hitched a lift into Erbil from the middle of the fastest and most dangerous road we could find.
Deirdre spent most of the first three days in Iraq sick in bed so I explored Kurdistan’s capital by myself. Other than a couple of parks where I got rained on but am sure would have been pleasant enough in the sunshine, Erbil doesn’t have much to offer the inquisitive tourist apart from the Citadel.
Travelling from Erbil to Dohuk we met British passport holder Rashid who invited us to meet his family and spend the night in his home in Biyuk, near Akre. The big man in the village is Rashid’s brother in law. Each night the former Colonel in the Iraqi army holds court and discusses the issues of the day with his neighbours and the occasional random tourists.
Unsurprisingly tourists are scarce in Iraq. Though we only saw one possible expat in Erbil, met one other traveller in Dohuk and another at the border, Iraqis generally paid us little attention. When they did they tended to invite us for tea or coffee rather than simply staring. The only place we got a few stares was in the mountain perched town of Amidiya.
Away from the bazaar and the central area around the Citadel, Erbil sprawled along wide roads. Dohuk is more compact and seems to keep its character and sense of bustle even away from the crowded covered bazaar and busy central streets. Internal tourism to the dam and the Dream City amusement park lend the place a happy holiday vibe without compromising the feeling that the city also earns its living in other ways.
By now we had started to change the name of this chapter of our travels from the Cairo to (almost) Istanbul trip to the Apocalypse Tour. After God, protests, revolution and war zones the strange orange skies when we crossed the Tigris into Turkey at the wifi enabled border ticked our final end of days box.
Once we crossed over the Tigris in to Turkey we were on the final leg home. Though we knew it is a beautiful country Turkey surprised us. We have lived here for four years but, having only seen the Aegean coast, a few towns in the west of the country and Istanbul, we didn’t understand quite how varied the landscape can be.
The mountain snowlines and the level of greenery particularly sat awkwardly with what we thought we knew about Turkey. The people too were different in the east. Turkish hospitality seems to be in even greater abundance nearer to the country’s eastern and southern borders.
Turkey
Diyabakir has a bit of a reputation in Turkey. The heart of the Kurdish insurgency against the Ankara government, we later met Turks who would fear to travel there. Walking around Diyabakir’s celebrated Roman walls we came away with memories of a curious and inviting people and a fascinating city very worth exploring.
Sticking to the main road through the town, Şanlıurfa at first appears a busy but approachable modern city. But head down the side streets and signs of Urfa’s past quickly start to be revealed. We didn’t spend nearly enough time in our three days here exploring those streets as we should have done instead spending most of our time loafing around the pleasant park.
I’ll let you in to a secret. We weren’t that fussed about Mount Nemrut. In fact I would put it high up on my list of greatest travel disappointments – though that is partly my fault for making assumptions. Whenever I have seen pictures of Nemrut I hadn’t noticed all the photos seem to be of the same few statues and imagined there would be far more to the site than there actually is. On this false assumption we got there far too early for sunset, and unwilling to circle the frozen summit and look at the same view yet again we left feeling a little underwhelmed. That is not to stay that the location and the fallen statuary are not impressive. I would just rather have spent more time and money exploring Urfa or gone to Gaziantep instead.
Our first few days in Cappadocia were spent in the small town of Avanos. There is much to like in this normal, relaxed town that seems to attract older, wealthier and mostly French visitors but it wasn’t until we moved on to Goreme that the iconic Cappadocia that frequently illustrates guidebook covers comes into view. Standing up on the crowded local bus to Goreme I was unable to see out of the low windows so it was only on exiting the bus that I got my first sight of the rock formations that make the area famous.
It is possible to do more than just admire Cappadocia’s craggy beauty. The strange rock can be excavated and lived in as generations of inhabitants of the area once did. The Turkish government, embarrassed at some of its citizens living in caves, evicted many of the residents to modern housing. The empty caves were turned into cave hotels where travellers today spend a comfortable night before exploring the area in the day.
Another disappointment, the Open Air Museum is overly expensive and overrun with coach loads of tour groups. Walking back to Goreme we turned off the road and up into the heights nearby. Though there are no frescoes, the walk, in sight of the tour bus car park, is peaceful, free and stumbling across small rock churches, though very primitive in comparison to the Open Air Museum, feels like a genuine discovery.
I think Olympos may be one of my new favourite places in the world. Which is quite surprising considering that neither of us are particularly beach people. Protected from the sun by a forest canopy we would walk from our relaxed accommodation at Olympos Orange Pension through the ruins of an ancient city to get to the beach. It was a bit of a nuisance to have to pay an unavoidable entrance fee to the ruins every time we wanted to hit the beach but we got around that by walking down the centre of the shallow river that runs to the sea.
The winding coastal road along the cliffs to Kaş is typical of a bus journey to the Mediterranean resorts. Often a magical first glimpse is offered as the bus descends from forested mountains to sea level. The green of the interior slowly changes to sea blue. Kaş is a small town and the playground of both a yachtie crowd and adventure sports enthusiasts. Far quicker than the bus, paragliders descend from the overlooking mountains passing Lycian tombs and the ancient Greek theatre on their way to the ground.
I can’t quite put my finger on why we liked Koycegiz so much. The farming community beside a lake attracts small numbers of tourists compared to the country’s many seaside resorts and the townspeople of Koycegiz go about their daily business striking a balance between maintaining their semi rural lifestyle and the more demanding needs of incoming tourism. This was best reflected in the presence of the cockerel in the garden of Tango Hostel, our accommodation. While he wasn’t about to move on for the tourist and expat incomers he was considerate to crow at a decent hour of the day so as not to wake patrons enjoying a lay in.
It sounds stupid, even selfish, but sometimes we need a holiday from travelling. It can be hard work at times travelling independently. There are lows as well as highs and when you have been moving far and fast it can be wise to take a break. We took our break at a boutique hotel in Selimiye, close to Marmaris. We had considered going on to Bodrum for the last destination of our trip but we know that town well and felt that we wouldn’t be able to top staying in this lovely small hotel as the perfect end to our trip. We boarded a bus and went home.
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This updated piece was first published in the old version of our blog which included the following comments:
Mike Lenzen said: “I’m looking forward to reading about your exploits in the middle east. That area is definitely on my to go list. Keep us up to date on your plans for Iraq, I’m curious to see if you deem it safe to travel to or not. I’d love to check it out, but I’ll need some compelling evidence attesting to it’s safety to convince my wife Ashley.”
– we replied: “Thanks Mike, I hope you do make it here, the region is definitely worth a visit and we are looking forward to exploring more once our trip properly starts. I’m chipping away at Deirdre with regards to Iraq but we’ll have to wait and see if we actually make it there.”
Ryan said: “Good luck in Dahab! I absolutely love it there. I visited twice in 2010 and I enjoyed just lounging by the sea at Sham’s Restaurant, lying in a pile of pillows while stargazing on the rooftop hangouts along the sea. If you ever need any tips on Dahab, be sure to let me know. If you get over to Sham’s Restaurant make sure you tell the guy that stands out front trying to get people to come in (mohammed) that Ryan says Hi! Enjoy yourself…”
– we replied: “Thanks. It is a great place. We’ve barely done a thing. It’s possible I was chatting to Mohammed a day or two ago (could very easily have been another Mohammed though). We’ll probably be over there in the next day or two again and I’ll say hi to him for you.”
Natalie said: “I never knew you was in the Middle East Shane. Only just got back into routine after having it full on here so not had change to read other blogs. Looking forward to your posts though, especially on Syria.”
– we replied: “I’m particularly looking forward to Syria too, having heard so many good things about the place. Fingers crossed they let us in.”
Andrea said: “What an experience! I really hope next year takes us to the Middle East – so much to explore and see there. Must have been an incredible learning experience”
– we replied: “Hey Andrea, I hope you both get here next year. With its great food, friendly people and long history the region is definitely worth exploring.”
