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| The Bosporus Bridge & the Ortaköy Mosque |
Day 54 Fri 18 July ISTANBUL - ANKARA Tach reading: 131,846 Distance run: 440 kms
I still can’t write much as I’m still in Ankara but success at last, we have Syrian visas! Today you will have left Istanbul by the Bosporus Bridge, crossing over this strategic waterway to Asia and climbed up onto the central Anatolian plateau, the realm of the Angora sheep, and have headed to the present day capital of the Turkish Republic. Ankara (formerly Angora) is a city of around 2,000,000 (1980), and has been the capital since 1920 when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk made the city his centre of operations in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 when the Greeks, with the encouragement of Britain and France, attempted to seize parts of Anatolia around Smyrna (modern Izmir), and eastern Thrace which had been ceded to Greece by the Treaty of Sèvres in 1919, which had divided up the former Ottoman Empire. After the Battle of Sakarya in 1921, the Turks under Atatürk drove the Greeks from Anatolia and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne over-rode the earlier treaty with Turkey receiving back the lands that had been ceded to Greece. In return, Greece received all the islands off the Turkish Aegean & Mediterranean coast, even though some of these are just 3 or 4 kilometres from the Turkish mainland. Britain, Russia and other European nations felt it made much more sense politically to have the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, the waterway between the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Mediterranean under the control of a single nation.
In
Ankara we will again be staying at a BP Mocamp and I will see you there.
Istanbul – Ankara – an alternative route commentary
(what
happens when you let the punters write the itinerary notes!!)
Today we retrace the steps of the greatest courier of all time, Alexander the Great, as he marched his band of merry men onwards to wondrous things. His first stop in Turkey was the BP Mocamp where he stopped for many days and many nights as he was rather partial to the ‘Aussie bums’ aboard the numerous Contiki tours staying there. Whilst there he built the swimming pool which contains the very water in which he used to bathe! On the other side of old Constantinople there is a statue erected to commemorate the passing on of one of his generals who suffered badly from an extreme case of the ‘Turkish trots’. There is a large hole by the side of the statue and we will stop here so that all can pay their respects to this man.
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| Typical small village in Central Anatolia |
For today’s run it would be handy to get your binoculars out. Just after crossing from Europe to Asia, Tom will be slowing down to pay the road toll. This is your big chance to spot a cargo ship on the Marmara Deniza (sea). After this amazing opportune vision, swivel your binoculars around anticlockwise several times until you spot Ibrahim hakki turbasi. All being well, the run today should be relatively uninteresting. Today we will be crossing the 16 rivers of the Turkish hills, 2 deltas, numerous levee banks and the floodplains of the Omerli Baraji and the Saraijar Baraji.
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| Old city of Ankara |
Hopefully we will arrive at Ankara, leaving you enough time for a free afternoon. Tom is full of detailed information and knowledge on this town. Refer to him today as I will be busy arranging visas for Syria, Jordan and Yugoslavia, as well as all our Pakistani visas; also I have to arrange a re-entry permit for England, health cards for the driver and bootpackers, arrange accommodation for Tom and myself in Italy and write home to Mum for more boardshorts and razors!
As this afternoon is free, you may wish to visit
some of the many places of interest in Ankara. Of course, you will not have
time to visit all of them, in fact you might not see any if we arrive as late
as usual, due to the bus falling apart etc. Anyway, here’s a list of ones to
consider worth a visit:-
1/ Shah
Jahan’s personal toothpick holder (no visa required)
2/ Harem Room of the Sultan Hefner, containing
false bellies of the 219 harem girls, although at present only 217 are on
display as 2 are undergoing restoration. (I’ve been told we’ll definitely be
able to get visas for this one in Timbuktu, and remember you’ll need an extra
visa for your camera, and yet another one if you want to use it. I am loathe to
tell you the cost of visas, as it depends on how many bellies you look at &
how closely you perve at them – i.e. front row pays more).
3/ The bizarre – located at the centre of the
city; it contains a varied selection of useless trinkets & rotting fruit
& blow-up poofs. At the entrance to the bizarre, there is a collection of
Roman ruins, only these days they are so ruined that there is nothing to see.
4/ The Mound – containing the bones of the fish
the Greek army ate on their way to fight the Persians – almost as interesting
as the one at Marathon!
This
evening I have arranged for a porno puppet show after our tasty minced beef
dinner.
You forgot to mention that there is also a very interesting loo stop between Istanbul and Ankara
Day 55 Sat
19 July ANKARA – GÖREME
Departure time: 9am Tach reading: 132,286 Distance run: 331 kms
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| The Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk |
In the 1920s and 30s, he was virtual dictator of Turkey after the abolishment of the Sultanate. Atatürk instituted many far reaching reforms. He adopted the Latin alphabet, replacing Arabic script - Turkish is a non-Arabic language - gave women the right to vote and to divorce, modernised dress, abolished the wearing of the brimless fez; he dissolved dervish orders, replaced the Islamic calendar with the Gregorian one, made Turks adopt a surname – he adopted the name Atatürk, meaning ‘father of the Turks, and an act of the Turkish Parliament forbids anyone else using that name.
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| The Tomb of Kemal Atatürk |
He abolished Islam as the State religion and adopted Sunday as the weekly public holiday bringing the country in line with Europe. He eliminated opposition ruthlessly, but his downfall was too much drink. A French journalist wrote that Turkey was governed by one drunkard, one deaf man (Ismet), and three hundred deaf-mutes (the deputies). At this Kemal commented, ‘This man in mistaken. Turkey is governed by one drunkard.’ (Lord Kinross – Atatürk: the Rebirth of a Nation). The Mausoleum was built between 1944 and 1952 and is regarded as a national shrine. In one of the out buildings is the Museum of the War of Independence and also a general War Museum with many exhibits relating to the Gallipoli Campaign of which Atatürk was the successful Turkish commander – in fact he never lost a battle in all his campaigns in the First World War.
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| Guard of Honour at the Mausoleum of Kemal Atatürk |
From Ankara, we head south across the Anatolian plateau, past Tuz Gölü, the Great Salt Lake of Turkey, to Aksaray – the original inhabitants were moved to Constantinople to form the basis of a Turkish population (now the suburb of Aksaray) after the city fell to the Ottomans in 1453. Near Aksaray is a well-preserved caravanserai which we will visit,
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| Children in Central Anatolia near Aksaray |
COMMENTS: Miss Westlake Miss Westlake where are your boobs It looks like they’re hidden under a Turk or two No need to worry, no need for surprise She’ll just keep smiling until the sunrise.
text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins |
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