Olympos

May 12-15,2009
Olympos is a neat place on the south Mediterranean coast of Turkey to hang out for a while if you've got the time. There's a nice little beach and a great little backpacker scene going on. Best of all, for 10 Euros you get a treefort hut, A real breakfast with eggs the way you like it and a dinner buffet; which at my place was served by real chefs! Olympos is also home of the eternal flame, some say the origination of the Olympic flame. Natural gas vents on fire for ages. They look like a bunch of small campfires among the rocks until you get close and see that the rocks themselves seem to be on fire.

Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey!

I had to get more Cappadocia pictures up before I could get on with the rest of my blog. The cave I slept in is pictured here. The woman who made me my gozume 'pancake' stood so still I got her in 3D...
You might also spot a hotel with some cave inn damage... it can be dangerous sleeping in Cappadocia! I also heard about a balloon accident from another traveller who was there a week or two after me.. many hot air balloons there!

Some of you know my current location... 3 countries later... Moldovia! Do you know where that is... I don't think I did! I'll get the in-between locations caught up on my blog soon. Oops.. out of Moldovia before I could send this... sitting at a cafe in Odessa, Ukraine without a place to stay yet!

More Cappadocia

cross your eyes.. or not!

more Cappadocia pictures!

Mostly (all?) 3D! Cross your eyes... or not!

Cappadocia Panoramas

Cappadocia, in central Turkey has stunning scenery that's almost impossible to capture in just one picture. I've stitched together a few...more pics to come!
Click to see full size... they're huge ;) Zoom in on a few to see the elaborate multi floor multi room 'Flintstones' apartment complexes! Some are in use today... including at my hostel... my room in fact.
If you are interested in how to make panoramas, search the internet for 'Hugin' - free, automatic - very wow!

Istanbul

Istanbul April 22-May 5,2009
Another late night arrival in a new city with no plans other than to
wait until morning to attempt to make any! ;) It's worth noting that
this was my second attempt to fly from UAU to Turkey... missed the
first flight then waited two weeks to try again as I had been strongly
considering staying longer anyways. Funny how the low cost airline
thought a 2 day wait for the next flight would be a hassle. Gotta love
traveling without a schedule. The visa for Turkey is puchased at the
airport on arrival ( I did at least check ahead on that): Canadians
60usd 45 euro Norway 60usd 40 euro everyone else 20usd Nice huh... kind
of insulting. Something to do with Canada passing a bill a while ago
now officially recognizing the Turkish history of Armenian Genocide...

Istanbul has some great sights and good tourist amenities. A suprising
number of people get food poisoning though!

Out of Dubai

After Muskat, Oman I returned to Sharjah just north of Dubai to wait
for a flight to Istanbul. The hostel in Sharjah gave me my own room for
the dorm membership price ( $15usd vs $20usd )! The manager was
glad to see me as he had just bought a new laptop... ;)

I made a day trip to the Emirates capital Abu Dhabi just 2 hours south
of Dubai. Abu Dhabi is Dubai without the ultra-mega projects... just
mega-projects and even less parking than Dubai. The drive down the main
drag all the way through Dubai was amazing and we didn't get to desert
until halfway down it seemed. Every station on the extensive elevated
transit system has 20% to go before it's done.. amazing. Wow.. they
either finish all of it or none of it. I was told there's a seperate
company building every second station! They didn't build out to Sharjah
though... where the slightly cheaper housing is.
Dubai seems almost like a one street town. It's
unreal that the "one street" has massive buildings along it with short
buildings or even just desert behind! It's so much so that it looks
more like a movie facade and in many ways you could argue it's an apt
description of Dubai. It seems very shallow and artificial. I think it
brings out a lot of envy in tourists who love to hate it. Some feel
it's built with petro dollars inflated by OPEC and then placed in front
of them at premium prices with not a scent of Vegas style perks. In fact
you definitely feel like you are expected to be the tourist revenue
that replaces the depleted oil that keeps them in their god-given
retirement palaces. Entitlement? A lesson to be learned? What's been
done so far is amazing though... maybe they can pull it off. Maybe
they'll learn tourism in time?

The local Emirates only make up 17% of the population ( and the best
place to spot them is in the shopping malls). The paper has stories
about the recent realization of loss of identity and culture due to
this imbalance. I'm not sure they considered this when they started
nor do I think they know what to do about it. They need the
population. Many buildings are still empty now and more are still
being built! Without the population they have no business or middle
class and without business they don't need all this infrastructure
they've built. I don't know how this is going to end. I talked to an architect who said there are more planned
project dollars halted now than are underway
- amazing given the huge projects being built now.

Many foreign workers don't seem to
like it here. You don't feel very free and if you run into a
member of that 17% of the population you might get a reminder that you
are considered beneath them. A young Phillipino woman almost had a
nervous breakdown in front of me telling me how badly she wanted to
leave.
Another interesting point: You get paid differently
depending on where you are from. People go through the hassle to get
Canadian/American/European citizenship then use that passport to go
back to Dubai and get paid double.

Picture: Young women about to be arrested for taking off their hijab
( the big black gown that soaks up all the sunlight ) and being
immodest on the beach. There are westerners on the same beach in
bikinis. The guy in white called the cops. The woman in black is with
him. I didn't want to get caught taking pictures so this is it (and
could get me in trouble as it is ). The girls tried to make a run for
it. Two got away, another was grabbed by her hair by the man in white.
All but the two were taken away by the police. Maybe tbey just got
dropped at home ?? :o

Yes... I'm now in Istanbul! More soon.