Photos!!!

this is our journey to date, we're in Ankara tonight

this is my friend Nick from Brisbane who i met on the flight to Istanbul

they had a Tulip Festival on in Istanbul when i arrived

this is a picture of a picture of Istanbul that was hanging in the cafe at lunch on day 1

Even P-Dog gets her own petrol station over here!

 this is our guide Rashid, who is touching a wall that is 3700 years old at Troy

Troy

Trojan Horse, i climbed up to the top window and had a great view to the ocean.

visited the lone pine memorial before Anzac Day

this is the view from the highest point which was the site of the fircest fighting

Dawn Service!

here we visited Asklepion, like an Ancient day spa

Chris and Rob from Gold Coast, where we tried shisha for the first time, it was minty :)

cant remember this goddess' name, but Rashid pointed out her many interesting "Roundities on the chest"

outside the House of Mary

this is Murat and me on the bus, he's teaching me Turkish words

speaks for itself

in the ancient city of Ephesus, this blew my mind

 they even had public toilets at Ephesus

 a statue of the Goddess MeduSonn, who history tells us was as fierce as she was beautiful

 the view from our room at Kusadasi, it was looking over the Aegean Sea towards greece, so hard to leave here the following morning

 the Leather workshop, where Kate from our group got up to model one of the jackets

another old ruin - Heiropolis

graves in the necropolis outside the town

the limestone cliffs and waterfalls looking out over Pamukkale. took my breath away.

the cycling tour went thru Pamukkale on the day we were there, got this photo for Langers, not sure if its anyone famous :)

here is the shopping mall where we stopped for lunch, interesting to order food where they dont speak much english, i ended up with something pretty tasty :)

we visited the museum over the grave of the founder of the Whirling Dervishes

and had to wear these lovely bags over our shoes.

 at a caravanserai, this was cool

went to see the Whirling Dervish ceremony that night... strange and interesting at the same time

Jeff the 11 year old mascot of the tour, here with his parents

Cappadocia, the monks carved dwellings into the soft volcanic rock

this photo cost me 5 lira! I got completely scammed, but i got the bastards down from 10 lira

was talking to our driver Murat about my nasty camel experience, so at the next stop he arranged for me to have a free ride from the camel guy!! it was worth it in the end!

me and Tanya from South Africa at the carpet workshop - thats a Raki in my hand, traditional turkish drink, tastes like ouzo

Fairy Chimneys

this rock eroded into the shape of a camel

this guy from our tour reminds me so much of the little weasel creature who lives with Jabba the hut and has the evil laugh... eheheheheheh

more troglodyte caves

this is the underground city, a complexttwork of rooms and tunnels, glad we had a guide to show us the way back out

we went off to a traditional folk dancing and belly dancing show last night and got dressed up

Gus, Kate's husband, from central coast NSW

 Rob

 Chris

 the belly dancer was fantastic!

went to a turkish pottery workshop today, here is the artist who made this water jug on a wheel! he was so good

i bought this shisha - followed Lisa's advice and "just buy it coz you'll never see anything like it again"
i love it! Mum, watch out for it in the post, its coming to your house

Gozleme for lunch!

Mausoleum of Ataturk, founder of modern turkey

i've got one more day of this turkey tour, then on to Bucharest in Romania, 20 hours by train! woohoo!!

more photos later