Housekeeping1st November 2009 After several months of spam I have decided to close the ability to post comments. Old (non-spam) comments can still be read. I'm going to try and switch to WordPress, which will hopefully solve this issue. Rob UPDATE - the start of the Wordpress experiment can be found here |
Karma1st November 2009 Karmic Strikes I killed my PC, and now it is alive again. It's a sport of mine, and although I don't always know when the next match is due, I seem to be winning in the long-run at the moment. This time my timing was a little wayward, managing to make the computer forget that it should load anything when I press the power button, an hour before a load of guests appear for a formal. Luckily, things are now up and running again and I can play with Ubuntu 9.10. It's a nice improvement on the last iteration, and if you have some spare time and a backed-up pc to run it on, it's worth a try. I especially recommend the Netbook Remix edition if you have one of those toys. Someone looking down on me I'm off to Taiwan for some field work next week, at least that is the plan. Sonya has an awful cold, though it doesn't seem to be swine flu at the moment, and I am trying to balance looking after her with not catching it. I'm succeeding at the moment, and as such it seems that on Thursday I will be getting up early in order to partake in a 15-hour flight. Bit of a hoo-ha with that though, as I initially managed to do all of the following within an hour - get my credit card blocked due to transactions to foreign airlines, charge two tickets to my debit card account, book tickets to the wrong airport in the first place. Luckily I realised in time, the multiple initial bookings have been cancelled (although I am still waiting for my money to be refunded) and I have found a flight going to where I want. So it seems that the two mistakes have somehow cancelled each other out. Phew. |
Recovery22nd September 2009 After the Perge marathon, we decided to take a few days out, which has transformed into four days of beaches, swimming, eating possibly too much and very little else. To be fair, Sunday was Eid - meaning that most places were less open than usual, and Monday is traditionally a day off here as well it seems. We did manage to get the tram to Konyaalti beach and roast on a different set of pebbles yesterday, and today we took a boat trip up and down the coast to see everything from a slightly different angle. In general though, little to report except that this lazing around does seem to agree quite well with me :-)
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Expedition to Perge18th September 2009 Today took us to the ruined city of Perge. Eventually. Following the directions of the hotel clerk, we wandered into the newer part of the city and waited on a street corner with a old lady, in the hope that it was a bus queue. Luckily it was, and we hopped onto a nondescript minibus which displayed the word "Otogar" on the front, apparently that means bus station. The driver didn't seem to want money straight away, and we headed off safe in the knowledge that we knew what a gaggle of busses looks like. Fourty-five minutes later we were driving around some suburban side-streets in the back-end-of-nowhere, having just dropped off the last of the other occupants. Realising that a) paying and b) stating clearly where we wanted to go would have been a good idea, we eventually got dropped off not too far from what turned out to be a huge bus station, apparently going everywhere. Except Perge it seemed. Asking the information desk got us a direction but it wasn't until we had wandered around for a good while that we found an empty bus stand where one of the possible destinations looked promising. Lo-and-behold a minibus soon swept in, destinations were shouted out and we were hustled aboard. Retracing a significant portion of our previous journey, we headed out of the city and onto the motorway, heading east (which was a good start). However we began to feel that our old friend, not knowing where we were or when to get off, was about to visit again. Toddling to the front, I tried to get across where we wanted to go, only to be told that we had to get off there and then, divine timing indeed as the bus would have gone a long way otherwise. By this point we had been travelling for two hours and found out that we were not yet at Perge (pronounced Per-juh not Pershe it turns out), but that it was a 2km walk through the mid-day heat and as such we stopped for lunch. After two meals and two bottles of water for four pounds we started off on our trek. About two-thirds of the way there a friendly taxi driver came along to extort us for a ride the rest of the way, but we took him up on his offer just to get there at last. It was worth it - the city had three periods of success, borne out by multiple impressive gates and a large bath complex. The architecture itself was definitely ruined though - the statues that weren't destroyed by 2000 years of rain have been smuggled off or transported to Antalya museum, leaving only the walls and occasional columns to wander around. Regardless, the city must have been both huge and wealthy by their standards, and we spent a good two hours wandering around the streets, market and 12000-seater stadium.
By blind fluke, while we were wandering back to the motorway, we were picked up by a Dolmus, a bus-cum-taxi that will alter the route to accommodate the wishes of the passengers, and we were back at the hotel within the hour. |
Seaside time17th September 2009
Antalya itself is a booming package tour destination, with long beaches on either side of the city. We're staying in the old town, which is short on beach but has lots of architecture dotted amongst the cute guesthouses and hotels, rather than the high-rise rooms nearer to the beaches. The historical side is emphasised by the expansive archaeological museum which took up most of our day today. The exhibits have been rescued from the local ruined towns, although the smugglers have unfortunately got there first on quite a few of the treasures - they seem to be ending up in American museums which are reluctant to give them up :-( There was still plenty to see at the museum though, here is just a sample:
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Arrived in Turkey13th September 2009 Success - contrary to the news reports Istanbul hasn't been washed away too much, and so we have arrived safely. The weather is overcast but dry, perfect for sight-seeing, and we've made the most of it today. Five sites done so far, including the comprehensive archaelogical museum, which draws on an almost unsurpassed range of historical artefacts to produce a good three hours of wandering. Moving on (after a nice long lunch) we managed to tick off: Hagia Sophia, a cathedral/mosque/museum - in its time the most impressive church in the world; the neighbouring Blue Mosque, built to surpass the Sophia; the relaxing Hippodrome park and beautifully-lit underground Cisterns. Now we've a day-and-a-half to cover the rest of the city - easy!
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After a brief but worthwhile stay in Istanbul it's time for the relaxing part of the holiday. We chose Antalya on the Mediterranean coast partly because it is well set-up for some relaxed tourism, partly because of the proximity to a series of ancient sites, and partly because the hotel was only 48 pounds per night from Expedia. When we arrived we found out that the going rate for our room is 150 Euros, so we've managed a good deal there. The hotel is very plush, with good-sized rooms, a jacuzzi (!) and a generous breakfast around the world's smallest swimming pool. The ratio of young people to elderly German tourists is perhaps a little too far on the teutonic side, but in general we've landed on our feet.
