My time in Ankara is at an end. I didn’t expect much and that’s exactly what I got. I ended my day as seemingly the only tourist in the city by going to Ataturk’s Mausoleum. By mausoleum standards, it was very modest. It was no Taj Mahal by any stretch. The museum attached to it was more interesting and contained quite a bit of information about “The Father Of All Turks”. I can see why Erdoğan tries to look like him.
After I left, there were cops as far as the eye could see and some streets were shut down by them. Not sure what’s going down (either a commemoration or protest) but it did make the trip back a bit of a pain.
Off to Goreme early tomorrow morning! Got two day tours planned and a day in between to chill. Not doing a hot air balloon because 160 Euros for one hour in a balloon with 20+ strangers sounds like my nightmare. And it’s way too expensive.
It is expensive, I’m always skeptical of those tourist magnets, and I’m a little afraid of heights, but the hot air balloon ride was pretty special. I was surprised how much I liked it. But you can also find spots around Goreme to watch all the balloons over the town, which is also really really cool (and 160 euro cheaper).
Below photo was taken from here, or somewhere in that historical park. But there’s probably 100 places with great views. Gotta wake up early though! Have an awesome time in Cappadocia!
I was in Cappadochia during a muslim holiday and got stuck there a few extra days (poor me) because all the buses were all booked out, but it literally might be the coolest place in the world to go on 5am walks. I mean I paid for the hot ballon ride too, and I guess it was worth it, it didn’t blow me away or anything. But as someone who is not a morning person, I could not stop getting up at 5am and just wandering through the hills and rocks formations with all the balloons in the sky overhead. So cool. And as a photographer I found you could get more interesting vantage points on the ground than in the sky.
We broke up the experience into two parts - Kruger, which is self drive, and then a private lodge where they drive you around in the safari vehicle - so it made it feel like two shorter safaris because the experiences are very different.
I don’t really ever tire of the safari - I find watching these animals pretty majestic - but you do start to tire of waking up at 5:30 that many days in a row.
You also reach the point - and I noticed this in Tanzania as well - after 2-3 days where unless it’s a lion or leopard, or an animal closer than 15 feet from you, you kinda glaze over it a bit. 3 elephant at a distance of 25 meters? You barely stop the car. And that’s when you know you’re become utterly spoiled.
Only been here for an hour and a half and I’m blown away.
Definitely super tourist trappy but I’m a willing participant. Got a couple of day tours planned and I’ll hit the open air museum the day after tomorrow.
I think what I’ve noticed as I’ve aged is that I have become kinda rigid in some ways. I’m nowhere near as bad as a lot of people I know but many things that I would’ve rolled with in my 20s in the developing world now bother me in my 30s.
Leaving Ankara is a perfect example. I bought my ticket online and got to the bus station with 30 minutes to spare. And thank God I did because it’s a huge bus terminal. Even worse was that I tried to find a timetable so I could see where my bus is. Except that none of the electronic timetables worked! Tried to find the terminal’s website but it doesn’t have one either.
Naively, I figure that maybe there’s only one bus that leaves at 9 am and that would be mine. Except there are 10 that do. I walk up to one driver with my ticket who points me to one bus. I walk to that driver and he points me to another. And I guess I caught the eye of a worker who saw a chicken with his head cut off running around and helped me find my bus. Though even when I did, my stop wasn’t listed. So, was it the right bus? The driver scanned my ticket and I hoped that meant all was well.
As a 27 year old travelling in Thailand, I had no beef taking a 9 hour train ride in a hard plastic seat from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. As a 37 year old, I got annoyed over not being able to find my bus or anybody to help me for my first 20 minutes there.
I’ve only been pickpocketed once (I was blackout drunk at a club in Spain) but had two attempts that I know of thwarted. One because I had nothing in the cargo short pocket that was slashed and the other becaue it was so shoddily done that I saw it coming from a mile away. Quite possibly the worst pickpockets I’ve ever seen in my life.
Confirmed USA#1 is amazingly backwards in this regard, I was last there in 2018 at which time tap and go was completely ubiquitous in Australia and I was amazed that I still had to swipe and insert and all that shit in the US.
I rarely come across non-contactless in Boston. They even are starting to let you pay at the table at restaurants. Definitely the more rural i go in the US, the less I see.
yeah it’s 2022, and even in a major city like boston you’re still seeing swipes occasionally, that’s the point, the civilized world has had ubiquitous contactless payment for years.
Going to Florence in September (my 2nd time and everyone else in the group’s first) and was kinda worried it’d be way too packed. It’s an awesome city, but pretty small for the amount of tourists it usually receives, and I figured it’d be even worse this travel season, but if it’s not too bad in July then it should be fine in September.
The city itself is basically a museum, I prefer just walking all over endlessly rather than spending all day in the Uffizi. And their Duomo is one of the few structures I’ve seen that made me go “holy shit” when I first saw it.
I’m headed to Florence from Rome on Wednesday. Going to be over 100 every day I’m there. Seeing David but not planning on doing the Uffizi.
Hot as balls in Rome but enjoying wandering. Did the colosseum this AM, checking out Trastavere tonight. Anybody have any thoughts on a day trip to Naples at some point?
We’ll only have 4 days in Rome but our crew voted on using a day of that for a Naples day trip so I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it if you do go through with it.
