The Galata Bridge in Istanbul connects the old city to the more modern suburb of Taksim.

Only 3% of Turkey is in Europe, and this photo was taken on the European side! The Galata Bridge has had a few incarnations, but the latest version seems to be a favourite fishing haunt for many of the locals.

I placed myself into the mind of a fish swimming in the Bosphorous when I saw this scene.  ‘Oh wow, look how many hooks that I could wrap my mouth around!’

The only thing anyone would catch would be someone else’s line!  Oh well!

Other things to do in Turkey after seeing the Galata Bridge – Buy a Carpet or check out The Oldest Profession in The World in Roman times.

Cappadocia, in central Turkey.

Can you imagine waking up after a big night on the booze, and stumbling out the door to see this.

What would you think?  I reckon someone must have teleported me to the Land of the Giant Dildos.

Actually, this is region of Cappadocia, near the town of Goreme, in central Turkey.  This region looks like a Star Wars set minus the far-fetched battles.

So how did these bizarre landscapes originate?  Well, volcanoes spewed lava across this high, flat section of the Anatolian plateau three million years ago and the subsequent erosion – by wind, rain and snow – gradually battered the lava, leaving weirdly-shaped hills and mounds made of soft, white volcanic rock called tuff, or tufa.

When the volcanic lava eroded, it left thousands of curiously-shaped conical rocks giving Cappadocia its uniqueness.  The Cappadocia valley was littered with thousands of these penis-like formations.

People even carved houses out of these formations and lived there for thousands of years.  I’ll write another post about that later!

Also in Turkey, you can also visit Gallipoli, Buy A Carpet, or visit Ephesus.  And drink Efes Beer.  I’ve spent over a month in Turkey, and that wasn’t enough.

There’s so many things to do there, but one of the coolest places I’ve been to is Cappadocia.

Today in ANZAC Day – a national holiday in Australia and New Zealand.

Gallipoli is probably modern Australia’s most spiritual European history place, even though it’s not in Australia.

I won’t go into the history of this battle (you can read more about it here), but the leader of the Ottoman forces, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, almost single-handedly won it for the Ottomans.

There’s a picture of Atatürk in every shop and home in Turkey.  Anyway, he later became Turkey’s first President, and said the following famous words after he met relatives of a lost ANZAC solider who visited the site in the 1930s.

Remember, these words came from a former enemy.

Most travellers know this – the best way to learn about a historical event it to actually visit the place where a momentous event happened.  And this is especially so with visiting the Gallipoli Peninsula.

And you don’t have to visit on Anzac Day either to appreciate it.

The Gallipoli museum is a real jaw-dropper – some of the exhibits highlight just how futile war is, such as bullets pierced by other bullets in mid air, skulls of soldiers shattered by shrapnel, and a bullet-shell cake formed from expended shells that had fallen into the mud.

I found John Simpson Kirkpatrick’s grave especially understated – the man who transported injured and barely alive soldiers from the frontline to safety on his trusty donkey(s), only to be killed by wayward shrapnel himself.

His tombstone was a non-descript one located within hundreds of others, and emblazoned with the words ‘John Simpson Kirkpatrick served as 202 Private J. Simpson, Aust. Army Medical Corps.  19 May 1915, Age 22.  He gave his life that others may live.’

The most moving part of the Gallipoli visit was undoubtedly Lone Pine (or Bombasirti).  Thousands of Australian and New Zealand lost lives were inscribed on the memorial.  But thousands of Turks also lost their lives here.

I’ll leave the rest of this post up to Atatürk.

These words are never forgotten by those who visit Gallipoli, especially on Anzac Day.

‘The events that took place at Bombasirti, 14th May 1915 are incomparable in military history.  The distance between the trenches was approximately eight meters, meaning death was certain.  All the men in the first row of the trenches fell, no one was saved.  Their places were immediately taken by men from the second row of trenches.  Do you know how calm and resigned to his fate the solider was?  His calmness would be the envy of others.  He saw the others dying under raining bombs, shrapnel and bullets and he also knew that he was going to die in three minutes – but he didn’t hesitate.  Mustafa Kemal.’

To read about ANZAC Day in more details, see 25 April 1915: The Day the Anzac Legend was Born.

Most people who travel to Australia marvel at the invention that is the Stubbie Cooler.

These are typically made of wetsuit-like material that is used to keep your beer cold longer, whilst making it comfortable to hold.  Most standard beer bottles will fit into one of these coolers – except for one.

Efes Pilsen is a Turkish Beer – and quite a nice drop.  It’s nice to have one after you’ve finished haggling for a carpet.  Unfortunately, Efes Pilsen is usually contained in a 500 ml bottle that is way too wide for any Stubbie Cooler, hence, one has to drink it faster before it warms up.

I’ve included a picture of a 500 ml Efes bottle on top of one of my dodgy standard stubbie coolers below.

I guess there is a market out there for an enterprising individual to produce Efes Pilsen-fitting stubbie coolers!

You could use it in conjunction with this ‘Buy Me A Beer, I’m Turkish’ T-Shirt.

Buying a Carpet.  How it really happens!

Undergoing Intense Negotiations with a Carpet Seller!

I entered a random Carpet Shop where another couple were being subjected to the mystical marketing ways of a middle-aged carpet seller.  The walls were piled with carpets and kilims of intermingled scarlets, greens, indigos and any other colour female Turkish carpet weavers found appealing on any given day.

‘Hello, please sit down; I will be with you in a moment.  No obligation!’

At that point, I wasn’t that interesting in Buying a Carpet.

The carpet seller was in the process of commencing the carpet selling process to a couple sitting on the floor, sipping the customary elma çay (apple tea) that is always used to commence business proceedings.

‘How about this one?  Here is a nice carpet, for you.  Do you like it?’

‘Thank you, but…do…you…speak…Spanish?’ replied the daunted prospective customer.

‘That is okay, I can speak some Spanish instead. ‘Si, yo hablo español.’

These carpet sellers must know the words ‘sell to you at my very best price’ in every known language, possibly Martian as well.  I imagined how I could become a language aficionado at the Istanbul Academy of Carpet Selling to Gullible Tourists, which produced an over-abundance of graduates waiting in line to occupy their own carpet shop in Kapali Çarşi.

I figured out this is how carpet shopping in Turkey works – if you walk within eyeshot or earshot of a carpet shop, you will undoubtedly hear – ‘Hey, would you like to see a genuine Turkish carpet for a very good price? Is nice!’  This lures the unsuspecting tourist into the store, where the carpet seller will immediately throw their entire lifetime’s stock onto the shop floor.

You like this very much?’ whilst he throws a fantastically-crafted carpet on the flooring.

‘You like, this, how about this one?’ throwing more carpets on the ground.

‘This? This?  This one? You like this?’ once again, throwing more carpets on the floor, steadily forming a rug mountain rivalling Mount Ararat.

Suddenly, the ‘customer formerly known as window shopping’ is flooded with a pile of carpets with enough surface area to cover the entire Grand Bazaar, and possibly, all of Istanbul.  The now overwhelmed carpet punter starts feeling ‘carpet guilt’ because the poor carpet seller has to pick up approximately 10,000 woven sheep, goats, or camels after the customer had no intention of buying anything resembling livestock locks in the first place.

The carpet seller then supplies tea, sometimes of the apple variety, which is probably spiked with carpet buying conformity drugs.  They then tell you how much they like you; so much in fact, they will provide a fantastic discount – the dreaded ‘special friend price’.  They only paid (insert dollar value here) for the carpet and they will sell it to you for the ‘I sell my carpets so cheap that I have a closing down sale every week’ price, which is only (insert dollar value here plus 10 bucks, slightly less for handing wads of Turkish lira cash).

Unbelievably, whilst you may be the 1000th person to enter his shop this morning, you are the very first person they’ve ever revealed this special price to.  When you finally reveal that you are only a poor filthy backpacker immersing yourself into Turkish culture and they realise your current income is going backwards, they settle down a bit.

When you finally depart the Carpet Store, probably to be persuaded into another, three hours and 10 apple teas later, you are almost certainly the proud owner of at least three new carpets.

Overall, I thought the Carpet selling procedure was just a game, and a fun one at that.  If you do go through the process, don’t take it too seriously, because the carpet sellers don’t!

Hope this advice helps the next time you buy a carpet!

But if you want more serious advice – check out Rugs to Riches: Guide to Buying Oriental Rugs, Revised & Updated Edition.