We made it to Turkey! It was again another huge change in surroundings when we crossed from the Syrian border into Turkey, plus we ended up smuggling cigarettes in for the Turkısh driver :) Straight away there was so much (compared to nothing!) green and everything is so modern (comparatively), organised, tidy and different, I miss the vibrant Syria!
We spent the first morning here in Antakya - it was so hot (hottest so far!) so we camped out in the mosaics museum for awhile and then cafe hopped while we waited for the bus. We caught an overnight bus to Malatya where we managed to work out how to get to Mt Nemrut. And then we were off. We had a trip up the mountain to a very small hotel to drop off our bags and then onto the summit.
On the summit of Mt Nemrut is a memorial sanctuary of a Commangene King. There were amazing gigantic statues of gods and kings! All of the heads had fallen off the statues during earthquakes over the years but they were all sitting in front of the bases :) Pretty impressive and we watched a gorgeous sunrise over the statues before heading down to the hotel.
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn and trekked back up the mountain to watch the sunrise. The mountains over here are really pretty and even impressive at that time of the morning (the sun rises here about 5am) after 40 hours of no sleep the day before (ıt has to be pretty impressive to achieve that!) :)
After a very long bus ride through hours and hours of wheat flields (they like their bread over here) we made it into the wonderful world of Cappadocia. So after a whirlwind trip up from Syria we are in the middle of another world ....... yay, now to explore :)
We spent the first morning here in Antakya - it was so hot (hottest so far!) so we camped out in the mosaics museum for awhile and then cafe hopped while we waited for the bus. We caught an overnight bus to Malatya where we managed to work out how to get to Mt Nemrut. And then we were off. We had a trip up the mountain to a very small hotel to drop off our bags and then onto the summit.
On the summit of Mt Nemrut is a memorial sanctuary of a Commangene King. There were amazing gigantic statues of gods and kings! All of the heads had fallen off the statues during earthquakes over the years but they were all sitting in front of the bases :) Pretty impressive and we watched a gorgeous sunrise over the statues before heading down to the hotel.
The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn and trekked back up the mountain to watch the sunrise. The mountains over here are really pretty and even impressive at that time of the morning (the sun rises here about 5am) after 40 hours of no sleep the day before (ıt has to be pretty impressive to achieve that!) :)
After a very long bus ride through hours and hours of wheat flields (they like their bread over here) we made it into the wonderful world of Cappadocia. So after a whirlwind trip up from Syria we are in the middle of another world ....... yay, now to explore :)
2 comments:
How are we suppose to critque this blog if the place names are off ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Nemrut... Nemrut not Nermut...
Wikipedia seems to suggest the heads were chopped deliberately because of belief in iconoclasm... which seems more likely than Earthquakes.
But don't mind me - I'm just jealous I'm not there drinking tea and playing backgammon. Sigh.
Hey Spanna,
Sounds like you are having a fantastic time. It's getting cold here know brrrr.
Had a good weekend with mum, dad, matt and G'ma + Alaina's family down in the sounds.
Look afer yourself, catch you soon
Si
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