Still waiting...

Not 8am afterall! I'm having my first taste of TJs' slightly loose approach to planning. Apparently I'm going to Selcuk in the minibus like the annoying South Americans did yesterday, after the Troy tour has finished. So I wont be getting there until 7pm if I'm lucky. Nevermind, hopefully it wont make me as obnoxious as them. Just spoke to my darling Nadia - she's feeling rather flat and low on energy - I  hope she feels better again soon. Can't wait to see her in exactly one week's time.

I keep finding myself whistling Eric Bogle's The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. A haunting song and a very fitting account of the senseless slaughter that took place here 95 years ago. But the ending is obsolete - the young people are marching now on ANZAC Day and the legend has taken on a life of its own - I guess they'll still be marching in another 100 years and the legend will have morphed into something else altogether.

Bus to Ephesus

8am bus to Ephesus this morning. Flaked it again last night - went down at 9pm to see if Gallipoli was going to be screened but there was noone there and only an annoying X-Men film running. How can people be allowed to make such poor films? I felt really tired from about 3pm onwards - not tired enough to sleep but not alert enough to concentrate on a book. Really annoying - just ended up vege-ing out, watching TV , trying fairly unsuccessfully to surf the net.

Jetlagged ...

Holed up in my room after flaking it a couple of hours ago - this jetlag is really hanging around. The cold and windy day has deteriorated to cold, wet and windy. I bought some supplies from a local Aldi-like supermarket: cheap ayran and some muesli bars, dried apricots, chocolates, baklava and a pudding. Pudding turned out to be excellent - rice pudd/creme caramel-style. So the streets of the town and the decks of the ferries are now washed with rain, and I've packed away my delicious dried apricots so I don't give myself a stomach ache. My plan is to watch Gallipoli tonight at 9 if they're showing it downstairs.

Every country, every nation is different but each one seems to function just fine in its own way. Things are less orderly here than in northern Europe but everyone's on the same page so it works. A ferry has just pulled up full of cars and sure enough, all three lines of cars are charging off at the same time with noone directing them. On a Hebridean ferry, the personnel would ensure that one line after another disembarked. I suspect the Turkish way results in more scrapes and bumps but ultimately, who cares?

I crossed between Europe and Asia twice today and I'll do it again once tomorrow. The weather report from further south seems much better than here - 26-28 and sunny instead of 20 and wet.

Gallipoli

Another early start today, this time for Troy. Unfortunately, the very annoying Sergio the Brazilian from Mulgrave (Melbourne) is still here and I think will even be travelling to Ephesus with me. He flipped his lid yesterday at Ramazan because he'd boarded the bus in Istanbul not knowing it was 5 1/2 hours to Eceabat. We had one pitstop at a roadside service station, at which a young couple caught my eye. She was wearing a strapless dress which went to her ankles, problem was, it was decidedly see-through. Whether she or her well-dressed, slick-looking partner were aware this, I'm not sure, but it proved to be a distraction throughout the day not only for myself but for everyone else, judging from the sidelong glances  that I noticed many of the local men sending her way. The couple were Australian.

When we arrived in Eceabat, we had an uninspiring, watermelon-dominated lunch at a nearby restaurant, then gathered in the town square, where Hassan, our guide, introduced himself before we all piled back into the bus and set out for the Gallipoli sites. It was a excellent afternoon - Hassan was extremely well-informed and passionate about the subject. His stories and explanations greatly enhanced the experience. The whole area is beautiful - lovely pebble beaches, green hills, commanding views.

I think I was mostly moved by the Turkish side of the story - these boys defending their homeland against an unknown enemy from the uttermost parts of the earth, especially the 57th battalion, which was asked by Ataturk to lay down their lives, which they did. The Turkish cemetery was the most profound example of this, including the little prayer area, which some Turkish men were making use of, when they weren't being distracted by see-through-dress girl. The New Zealand presence I also found touching - probably because there is no chance of that little nation turning this hideous tragedy into a jingoistic John Howard-style swagger. Hassan related many New Zealand stories - probably half of all those he told but after years of ANZAC Day in Australia effectively being AAC Day, it felt like an NZ bias! I found the occasional headstone of a lad from Otago (see my tribute to my Great-Uncle George) - surely the uttermost of the uttermost - and mention of them at the New Zealand memorial at Chunuk Bair.

So, now I've seen these places for myself that I've known the names of since I was a boy - Anzac Cove, Suvla Bay, Lone Pine, Shrapnel Valley, Chunuk Bair, the Dardanelles.

A New Zealander approached me in the foyer of the hotel before we embarked on the tour and asked where I was from - he must've noticed my Maori hook. I said Gisborne but smiled and added that I'd left there over 30 years ago. He was from Wellington (but his family were originally from Poverty Bay), as were a number of others in the bus. I ended up having a beer with Phil (McCarthy) when we got back and had dinner with him and Marie-Claire his Irish-born wife. Phil had been in charge of NZ Corrections for 10 years before retiring and now works as a consultant. We had a great chat ranging across all sorts of topics including (Richard) Dawkins, (Francis) Collins and Celtic spirituality. They spoke glowingly of Patmos. Phil said they were Catholics who'd been involved in the charismatic renewal movement in the 70s and were currently worshipping in an Anglican church in the place they were living, as the Catholic church there was as dead as a doornail.

I headed off to bed after a shower and a few minutes enjoying the 1000 channels of rubbish on the satellite TV.

Eceabat

I didn't make it to the Grand Bazaar yesterday, in fact I didn't make it anywhere at all. I completely ran out of energy at about 6pm and fell asleep and I didn't get up again until 5:15 this morning. Breakfast was 2 pears and an antibiotic and was followed by a rather taxing 5 1/2 hour bus ride down to Eceabat in a midi-bus most certainly not suited to long-distance travel. After a basic lunch, we headed out on our Gallipoli tour with the enthusiastic and well-informed Hassan. Right now I'm too tired to write anything else but will update tomorrow afternoon after the Troy visit in the morning.