I just spoke to my little bro & my mummy :o)

(WARNING: Rather long pos...)

I was just walking past a row of phone boxes & there was a lady selling phone cards so I thought why not call home. I have a very bad attitude at the moment when it comes to money… I'm spending it… but I haven't gone 'totally' crazy, it's been a while since I've talked to mum & it was only a $10 phone card. Don't know why but I kinda got the impression that mum had really been stressing cause I haven't been emailing or posting as much as normal. Just to clarify for everyone - the Middle East (or at least where I am & have been) is safe. Of course you have to use common sense, as per everywhere in the world, but really there is nothing to worry about! K?!

I'm totally going in to relaxation mode. It's fantastic & I'm having a blast! I've had approximately 30min to a hours sleep at the most & I've just drunk a red bull cause I don't want to waste today. Think I'll have a bit of a nap later though... I feel slack cause I haven't been posting but‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏, ahhh, such is life, I'm having fun & really like Istanbul :o) Everyone will be gone in a few days though & I'll have a week here by myself so I'll see how I get on. Great thing about staying in hostels though is you meet heaps of people, think I'm going clubbing with a group tonight… that is if I make it with out falling asleep.

It's so hard to post now…. Think my brain has decided to go on strike….I'm finally starting to relax & think I've just gotten plain lazy.

I can't believe I'm 16 days behind with my posts 5 of those days are Istanbul which isn't too bad. They pretty much consist of shopping, walking around, eating & DRINKING :o)

Ok here we go…

After Crac de Chev we headed for Allepo (where I brought my new toy… the laptop peoples where were your minds? hehehe).

2/9 – We arrived in Aleppo sometime around lunchish & were booked in for a walking city tour with a very cool guide, but I can't remember his name – Helen just told me his name is Achmed. We walked through the souk, which is pretty much a ‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ market place that has everything. There are basically shops on either side & corridor in between is covered in high arch ways & its nice & cool inside. Souks are quite similar everywhere & are pretty cool. We saw quite a few things but my mind is mush… although I really enjoyed visiting an old a mental hospital. Maybe I felt at home – Ha J it was really cool to see how the separated the inmates in to different categories & how the illnesses were treated. After the tour Helen & I went to the computer shop to see what was on offer & try & barter a little, not that they wanted too. So we went & had dinner & went back later to pick up our toys.

3/9 – Go the 5.15am starts! They suck! At least we haven't had that many on this trip though which is a really good thing. It was quite funny, Helen is really on to it & I'd never known her to sleep in or not be somewhere waiting for us. On this morning though she wasn't there… Kim went up to the second floor of the hostel where Helens room was & started calling out her name with no such luck cause we didn’t know which room number she was in, it didn't work. So I ended up waking up one of the guys that works there to get her room number. She'd slept in… Oops, no big deal J we all went down to breakfast & she was there 5 minutes later, no big deal.

I just had a huge sleep then, Helen & I got a DVD off the guys down stairs & put a mattress on the floor in our room & watched‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏ Along Came Polly on Helen's laptop. It was really cool; I haven't done anything like that‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎‎ since I was home. It felt very normal & was a bit exciting lying on the floor watching a movie & eating corn chips J

Wow, I'm only up to Aleppo…

3/9 cont. After our breakfast we jumped on the truck & headed for Cappodoica in Turkey. So a border crossing from Syria into Turkey, the last one of the trip… In Cappodoica we had the choice of either staying in tents or in a cave. We all opted for the cave. I'd actually thought it would be a cave like a big opening in a rock face etc but it was a bit different. Basically it's been carved out of the ground & was underneath a building & had been totally fitted out with carpets. It was rather cool down there too but was so much better than having to put up a tent! Once we crossed the boarder it was amazing the instant change in scenery & also in the houses. Going form all of the houses been the same colour to different colours & designs was a bit of an eye opener too. It's funny what you get used to seeing. Also as we drove through the small towns there were no where near as many women fully covered up.

4/9 – We spent the whole day on a tour of Cappodoica which was pretty cool. We went to the ferry chambers which are pretty much lots of little pinnacles of rocks in quite a small area for want of a better way to describe it. They were pretty cool. Then on to the open air museum which was awesome. The museum consists of caves. The really interesting thing about the caves is that people used to live in then until the 1950's. Now when I say caves we're talking 3 stories that have separate rooms then for each valley of group of families a kitchen/cooking area. Most of the caves have been carved out & are fantastic. They even had churches, mosques, everything really. The only reason people moved on was there was an earthquake & people got a bit scared so created a settlement nearby.
I think my favorite part of the day though was the underground city, it was mad. To think that people actually lived there & went to all the trouble of carving it out. We were only there for 45 min on a guided tour but by the looks of it the city had everything, form ventilation shafts to pipes to bring in fresh water. It would have been so co‏‏ol to run wild there just to explore, it seemed to go on forever. It was cool J
Turkish Night. Free alco‏‏‏‏hol, need I say more…. Well, it wasn't exactly free for 25,000,000 TL (approx $23au) we got dinner & to watch belly dancers & the traditional dances of Turkey which was great. At one stage they played out a Turkish wedding which was cool then everyone was gotten up & formed a conga line & we ended up outside around a big fire which people proceeded to jump over. It was a really good night & we all proceeded to get a just a little tipsy… At about 12am the Turkish night was over so we hit a local pub called Flintstone's & partied on.

5/9 – We were actually supposed to drive then bush camp somewhere between Cappodoica & Olympos but Ian & Helen thought it would be better if we made the 10 or 12 hour drive (I can't remember which) straight to Olympos. Because there was only 5 of us it cuts down on the time for toilet stops & I think the truck actually goes faster when it's not fully loaded down so it was cool that we got to spend in the tree houses. Anyway, after an hour or so's sleep I woke up & managed to wake every one else up & got up to help Helen prepared breakfast, we were still kinda drunk though but did a good job… After brekie we proceeded to get on the truck & sleep most of the way to Olympos. In Olympos we stayed at Kadirs tree-houses. Nick, Tracey & I went on the night tour to see the eternal flames on mount Olympos – Kim & Frances weren't feeling the best so didn't come. The walk up the mountain was a bit of hike (not really that bad but the night before was a huge one so we were still recovering). It was cool to see the flames coming out of the ground & watch some one just use a lighter to bring forth a flame from supposedly nothing. Helen had given us some mash mellows so we toasted them & made a few new friends by shearing.

6/9 – The plan was to be a bit active cause Olympos has a lot of activities on offer including canyoning, rock climbing & sea kayaking just to name a few. The boys did canyoning & us girls booked in for sea kayaking but it was too windy so they cancelled it. We just ended up on the beach then hang out back at the tree houses. Helen & I were supposed to go rock climbing, which would have been cool, but I just didn't have it in me & neither did she so we gave it a miss. That night we smuggled our very 'special' water bottle in to the bar area at the tree houses. It's so much more expensive to drink in the middle east than it has been else where so buying bottles of vodka to shear works out a lot cheaper, although I believe the proprietors are always so keen on BYO hence the water bottle J At about 12am the tree house bar closes & the bull bar very near by kicks off. It was a really great night.

7/9 – The bull bar closed about 4am & Kim & I went down to the beach with 2 lovely boys that we met. We stayed down there & watched the sun rise which was cool, then made our way back to the tree houses. Waited up for breakfast at 8.30, then packed & left at about 10am, on no sleep. It was only about a 1.5 hour drive to Kas (pronounced Cash) & I slept a little for about 30 min. We were supposed to be camping but there was an upgrade option for 5 million TL a night which we all took. Just the thought of battling with a tent wasn't to appealing. Once we had our gear in our bungalows we headed into town to check out the net & I actually did a bit of shopping & brought a couple of new tops &‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏‏ a pair of shorts. I hadn't had any sleep & managed to make it to 8.30ish pm before I completely crashed. I'd helped Helen get dinner ready then as soon as we ate it was like – "ok, have to go to bed, can't help clean up – Night".

8/9 – Great day. Kas is beautiful! Right on the Med. We spent the day on a cruise & dived off the boat in to the crystal clear waters. It was so nice just to chill out & relax. We sailed past the sunken city & just had a really good day. That night we had dinner in town then after dinner I proceeded to shop some more… only brought a singlet top & bra though. My clothes are literality falling apart after 6 months of continuous wear so I have a good excuse….

I'm going to give up for tonight. I'll eventually get up to date. It might just take me a little while.

Istanbul – Turkey, Thursday, 16th September 2004, 9.37pm