Three Continents in Three Days!

Hello again from the planet Moylandia!

Fortune finds us in a lovely apartment on the outskirts of the Medina in sunny, warm Marrakech.

Unfortunately we have been lax in our blog department so... let's back up a couple weeks to where we left off just before Thanksgiving back in the sunny southern coast town of Gundogan. (Enter backflash music)

So we decided being in Turkey was good enough for Thanksgiving and chose a traditional dinner of beans and rice, with vigorous games of Yahtzee and 10,000 for dessert.

The next day we went exploring again to try to find the elusive Cheese Flower Cave, which is nestled somewhere in these hills. We chose a new road to follow up into the surrounding hills. Our path took us through sharp, low pricker bushes and along the base of giant cliffs. After 40 minutes of scrambling around we spotted a small opening in the rock across the valley. It took us another few minutes of working through more brush to get to what turned out to be another tomb cut into the mountain side. As we wandered around the surrounding area of bare rock and grasses we found more ruins. Tombs and some stairs leading up to a small altar area. This was really cool so we looked around more.

As I stood up on a giant boulder, Isaiah shouted from below, "Dad! Come look what I found!" I climbed down and saw the most impressive tomb yet; this one was unlike all the others. Its opening was a rounded doorway instead of a simple square and around the door were ornate carvings of snakes and a horseman figure. The entrance to the chamber had a narrow seating area on either side of the opening. This was obviously for someone a lot more important... maybe some Lelegian king, who knows. [Editor's Note: maybe also from a later time period...] This site was also littered with pottery shards as well as a tiny penknife found by Diego; it was even engraved with the number 7! Happy birthday Diego! This turned out to be the best site we came across.

The last few days in Gundogan we continued to try to find that damn cave. We found a few more tombs, one quite large, and a 3 foot long legless lizard that Diego and I thought was a cobra for sure, but no Cheese Flower Cave. Oh well, it was not for lack of trying. [Editor's Note: We also saw large tortoises, one of which nearly scared me to death when I almost stepped on it... so much for brave exploring!]

Our time was up in Gundogan; it was time to head back to Istanbul and visit Buyukada Island, the biggest of four near Istanbul in the sea of Marmara.

We arrived at the Gokcen airport around 9:30 am. After realizing our lovely and very hospitable host had mistakenly overslept, we made our way to the ferry dock at Bostanci. The only hiccup was when we got off the bus at the wrong ferry dock and had to take a couple more buses to get to the right port... a very minor inconvenience.

The ferry ride was only about a 1/2 an hour and our host was waiting for us as we stepped off the boat. It was a short walk to their amazing 3rd floor apartment. We walked because no cars except for service vehicles are allowed on the islands. This means lots of bicycles and horse carriages and streets filled with people instead of cars. Sweet.

The view from their apartment was incredible. A vast amount of the Istanbul waterfront was visible and at night it was really something. Also the hospitality of our hosts was amazing. It really feels like every host is trying to outdo the previous in generosity. Honestly, people who have never met you inviting you into their home and feeding you traditional, delicious food, like you have been one of the family for years. Humbling and refreshing.

There were parties and a bit of island touring. On Friday Dec. 3rd we ventured to the European side of Istanbul for one last goodbye.

We returned to the Blue Mosque and saw the Basilica cistern. Huge, dark, and filled with columns and surprisingly large carp. This is the site of the famous Medusa head columns thought to have been brought here from some other temple in the time of Justinian around 600 AD. When walking underground in the cistern you feel like you are in another dimension. It was cool and a bit creepy at the same time. From here we tried to go to the Topkapi Palace but arrived a bit too late to make it happen; another one for next time I guess.

We had some time left before our 7:40 pm ferry home, so we made our way back to Taksim square. As luck would have it, the movie theatre in Taksim was showing the new Harry Potter in English, so we went (Diego wanted to go for his birthday). When we got out of the movie we realized we had missed our ferry, oops. The next one was at 11 pm, so we had some time to kill. This proved to be just fine as we got to hang out at Planet Paprika with our pal Serhat.

The night was warm and the walk to the ferry only about twenty minutes. The ferry ride home was 1 1/2 hours though, so we got home pretty late. The view of the skyline on the ride home was incredible with the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Bosphorous Bridge all lit up.

Not to be outdone, our hosts back in Buyukada had a party our last night, and in the morning we were off again. Goodbye Asia, hello Europe. Also hello ice cold, as London was sitting at a chilling 28 F.

It was cold all right. Proper winter weather. Not all this warm sunny bs. Great. Well, we only had to wait 10 minutes outside once we got out of Gatwick Airport. From here, we made it to a great little guest house just 5 minutes from the airport. Gatwick Guest House was really comfortable and had the added bonus of being a short walk through a super foggy old graveyard to a 500 year old pub, Ye Olde Six Belles Pub. We had pints of London's Bright, fish and chips and burgers. All the while being surrounded by lovely British accents. Unfortunately, we had very little time visiting our first English speaking country in 6 months as we had to catch our plane early the next morning to Africa.

Now we are almost caught up. Another early Easy Jet flight and some lovely conversation with a Moroccan man and his sister brought us to Marrakech. We were all bundled up for London and Marrakech was quite warm, maybe 30 C. The nice brother and sister who sat next to me on the plane stayed with us until we were met by our new host, a native Moroccan from Marrakech and partner of a family friend. He took us on the shortish drive to his apartment, our new home for the month of December. We drove through traffic, which seems to have a life of its own as traditional rules of driving appear to be more like guidelines. There were numerous motorbikes, scooters, cars and trucks of all kinds and even a few camels. It was not quite a white knuckle ride, but close.

We arrived at the apartment and were impressed with how beautiful everything was... Moroccan style is gorgeous. We were all tired and hungry and our host made us feel quite at home. He then produced one of the best meals we have eaten all trip [Editor's Note: maybe ever]. A masterpiece of Moroccan dishes. Salads, olives, fruits and barbeque chicken, cooked eggplant and squash. It was mind numbingly good.

So we thanked our lucky stars again and lounged off to sleep.

Marrakech is impressive at first impression: big, busy and pink [Editor's Note: all buildings are pink from the clay or concrete painted pink]. We will explore around and enjoy the heat while it lasts, and of course, post more pics. Until next time...
M4

Lucky Sevens, Tomb Raiding and Bowling

We decided that since we don't have any room for presents, we would give Diego the opportunity to excavate his very own ancient stone-cut dwelling for his birthday.

Impossible? Not out here...

While we were out hiking around to some old windmills and an Ottoman period cistern, we spotted what looked like little holes in the rock from way across the valley. We all decided to return later to investigate.

The next day we started out early with a purpose and after buying a loaf of bread and some sweets we were off, now joined by one of the local dogs, a real scraggly one. Our trip took us back to the cistern and the base of the windmills. At this point, we ventured down the slope to what we saw from so far away as possible caves. After a bit of scrambling around we found what we were looking for. Caves! Cut right into the limestone rock, rooms with graves cut into the floor, chimneys and old water collecting areas. There were four distinct structures along the valley wall connected by chipped out water runs. One of these had completely lost its roof. The others were intact however, and proved to be just what we had hoped: all overgrown with brush and super old. The openings were mostly hidden from view and the ones we spotted from far away were only a small percentage of what we actually found. Who knows what people lived here. Whoever they were, they took a considerable amount of time to make their caves. Some were decorated with designs and symbols. Pretty cool, like what you imagined as kids, finding old caveman houses. Well this was the real deal. We really couldn't top that, but a trip to the toystore and some milkshakes were in order.

This was not a problem. Bodrum has all this and more. A short bus trip and a insanely long walk provided us with more than we could handle. After walking around the 400 BC amphitheatre, which is right on the main road, we headed to the Oasis shopping mall for milkshakes, fries, presents, and bowling. Diego bowled a 119! From here, our energy restored, we ventured to more ancient ruins. The highlight of these was the Mindus Gate, another super old relic of a town long ago. Basically some big castle-like towers surrounded by bits of rubble and a moat. Still, like nothing in Portland... except maybe the witches house up in Lower Maclay Park.

We made it home, sore footed and hungry. We all did our best Silas impression: "I'm hongry!" and had a proper birthday meal of scrambled eggs and fried hot dogs.

As we realize our time here in Turkey, and especially the southern coast, comes to an end, we are sad and a bit shocked that it all went by so fast. One more week and back to Istanbul. So up next? A trip to Ephesus maybe and the temple of Artemis, maybe a trip further south. Not sure, but stay tuned: more wonderful times on the way!

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: One down, six to go.

Even though this is a small community, fairly closed down for the winter season, they still have a really nice bus system. We woke up early, which only posed problems for the preteens, and took the 9am bus to Bodrum. The buses run every 1/2 hour starting at 7 am and the last one home from Bodrum is at 9 pm, every day. The ride was comfortable and only about 30 minutes. Not too pricey, 14 TL, about 10 bucks one way for all four of us. The other choice was renting a car for around 65 TL, about 50 bucks for a day. So the bus it was.

Bodrum was much busier than Gundogan right from the start. A much bigger town with more of a year round population as well as a night life. A little tourism info center in the bus mall provided us with a good walking map of the town. From here we set off towards the waterfront about 300 yards down one of the main streets: Cevat Shakir. This was loaded with shops and doner stands, people and bank machines. It almost felt like a really tiny Istanbul.

The street ends at the harbour, home of some of the most beautiful wooden yachts I have ever seen. Maybe 100 or more all lined up and docked for the winter, I guess. This short walk brought us to one of our destinations in Bodrum: the Bodrum castle. The Crusader Knights of Rhodes built the Castle in honour of St. Peter in the 15th Century AD on the site of an earlier palace and temple. It is presently home of the Museum of Underwater Archaeology, no scuba required.

The castle juts out into the sea on a large jumble of rocks, and it has been restored since the 1960's. Big towers and ramparts as well as a large courtyard with a mosque that now houses a replica of an ancient sailing ship. Everything in the whole museum is salvaged from wrecks off this coast. The oldest was around 15th century BC. Lots of intact amorphae, copper, anchors, ivory, jewelry, glass and all kinds of other stuff you might want to trade thousands of years ago. One of the coolest things was a very small gold seal, which was very old even when the ship sank years and years ago. This particular little thing was an Egyptian seal bearing the name of Queen Nefertiti. The only one ever found bearing her name. I guess the priests who came after her decided to erase her from the history of Egypt. So anything with her name on it is exceedingly rare. All in all, this museum was really cool, set in a castle, and filled with sunken treasure.

After putzing around here for almost two hours, we needed some food. This was easily solved a short way up the street we had come down earlier. For a couple Lira you get a great kebab sandwich, and complimentary tea. Hunger slaked, we decided to wind through the maze of tiny streets until we arrived at the Tomb of King Maussolos.

This is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and the namesake for which all other burial chambers of its kind would be named forever. Now it must have been pretty amazing in its time, for when Alexander the Great conquered this ancient city he did not smash down the tomb but rather honored it and its incredible beauty. It once was immense and really pretty, but now it is just a pit filled with bits of column and a few passages - sort of catacomb like. It was cool anyway as you could actually walk all around the inside of the tomb and burial chamber and touch all the old bits of column and stuff. Pretty cool field trip.

From here we walked down the old main drag of Hellacarnassus now called Turgutreis Street. Another crazy narrow street. This led us past Ali Baba road and Artemis Street right back to the bus mall and the bazaar, which is held on Tuesdays and Fridays. The weather was a bit cloudy and when we got to the bazaar it started to look a little ugly, so we darted inside to have a look. I swear, Turkey is the place to buy your mandarins. Just loads of them, and super sweet, for like .30$ a pound. I wouldn't be surprised if we have eaten 15 lbs by now. Not just mandarins but all kinds of fruits and vegetables, spices and cheese, and sweets, teas, coffee, whew! We made it out of there with pounds of spinach, carrots and mandarins, some chocolate and a cookie for like 4 bucks. The cookie was free.

The bus was ready to leave just as we arrived, so, yeah. We only scratched the surface of Bodrum... so much history and many more interesting sites to see here. As well as the legendary night life which will have to go on being legendary. Anyway, it is easy to get here so we might undertake at least one more trip.

This next week gives us the Muslim holiday Bayrami, sort of a sacrificial lamb holiday. People eat and have fun and take a week off work. Nice. And yes, it has the same name as the other Muslim holiday we observed in Bulgaria, because they both mark the end of Ramadan... only this one is seventy days after the first bayrami.

So on the menu for us is more lounging at the beach, and ... not much else. Rough.
Big love to all of ours, and Happy Birthday to Paul, Rory, Josh, Nicole, Caitlin, Elaine, Diego of course, Bryan, and Tim. And if I forgot you, let me know I'll add ya in!

Oops, and lovely Phoebe too!

Moylan luck: nothin to sneeze at

Yeah we spent Halloween in Istanbul, and the only scary thing was a suicide bomber!

For more on this, google search: Taksim square suicide bomber. You should find all about it. The good thing is we are all safe. Having the bomb go off 100 yards from our hostel was a bit unnerving. However, we were 1/4 mile down Istiklal street near the Galata Tower getting juice when we heard the very loud explosion. At the time we had no idea what or where it was. A bit further down the street, we saw a large crowd of people gathered around a kebab vendor watching the tele. As we paused to see what all the fuss was about we immediately recognized the footage as Taksim square. Not 5 minutes later a Canadian we met on the night train from Plovdiv came up to us and informed us of the unfortunate news.

"Be wary," he warned, "these events usually occur in multiple." Ah, yeah and, "have a nice day."

Well needless to say we felt relieved we were not actually in the strike zone, so to speak. As well as a bit, what's the right word, terrified. Well as the New Yorkers say, "ah what can you do?" So we continued on to the Galata Tower for more sightseeing that day.

The whole of Istanbul was as cool as a cucumber, just life. So although it was a big deal, I guess Istanbul is just like any other major city around the world. Lots of people trying to make a living, with a few crazies thrown in to keep you on your toes.

We saw the inside of the Blue Mosque. Very impressive indeed. Kept very up to date in all its glory of gold and blue tile and just stunning. This is a functioning mosque, so take off shoes, ladies cover heads, and hush hush everyone. A truly awe inspiring place.

The Grand Bazaar, what a maze! With over 15 entrances or gates and thousands of shops, it is a covered labyrinth that makes the Saturday Market look like a garage sale. It is literally impossible not to get lost in here. Unless you have been working here for 15 years or so. Its floorplan is like the maze of the minotaur, but no Aryiadne string to lead you home... but also no minotaur waiting in the center. One main street splits off into smaller and more confusing passages just to meet up with another main street... all inside mind you. Plus, the whole of the inside area is surrounded by outdoor stalls and more streets filled with vendors sprawling out in every direction.

Every passageway of the bazaar and the stalls surrounding it offer a veritable treasure trove which Ali-Baba may have seen upon uttering the famous phrase, "Open Sesame!'' Carpets, pashminas [editor's note: OMG the scarves are amazing!] gold, ceramics, clothing, food, toys, carved anythings, artwork, beads and jewelry, man, you name it. So, we entered at gate 5, got miserably, wonderfully lost for two hours, and somehow managed to emerge at gate 7. It was really cool. [editor's note: the true miracle is that we left with money in our pocket. Talk about amazing restraint.]

Sadly, we had to say goodbye to our newest favorite city, Istanbul. Just as sad to say goodbye to Planet Paprika and our great friend Serhat! Bambooche chingaso! If you ever happen to find yourself in Istanbul, don't miss the chance to stay at Planet Paprika. Really nice rooms and very helpful friendly people.

So goodbye we said and took the early, like 4 am, taxi to the Asian side airport Gokcen. Our flight was not packed and only about 50 minutes to Bodrum airport. We were met there by our driver who had all our names on a little piece of paper. Just like in the movies! The ride to Gundogan, (silent g on the second one) was picturesque and about an hour.

We arrived at Villa Joya shortly after 9 and were greeted by the friendly owner. We now are staying in this beautiful little bay community. The tourist season here is over and most of the shops and restaurants along the bay's boardwalk are closed for winter. Because there is a year round local population, there is a good grocery store, bread shop/bakery, fish market, car rental, internet cafe, and half a dozen other amenities available just minutes from our apartment.

We have all we could want in a lovely little town here. It is sunny and warm every day. The Med is still plenty warm to swim in. We basically have the beach to ourselves, and we have a great little one bedroom to rest our heads after a strenuous day of lounging on the beach. Not to mention the weekly veg market and bazaar, with the best produce we have seen all trip.

We plan to head to Bodrum, on a mini bus or by car, next week sometime. Many things to see in Bodrum. The underwater museum in a castle filled with shipwreck treasures going back to antiquity, the ancient city of Hellacarnasus, also the birthplace of Herodotus, and much more.

So never fear dear followers of the Moylanism weekly, our spirits are good and our resolve is strong. Not to mention that luck! We'll take it.

Nothing goes with adventure like a good dose of rest and relaxation.

Much love to all our dear ones and friends at home and abroad.

Next week: Bodrum