ANZAC week in Turkey - the first 24 hours

Angela and Judith at Heathrow

Angela's diary, 17 April 2001: As I was anticipating a rush into the bathroom, I was keen to get up early to perform my morning ablutions without interruption. After quite a warm night I was looking forward to a shower before getting on a bus for the day. I convinced Mike he also needed to get up at the same time (not an easy task for my wee night owl at the best of times), but he got up and followed me into the bathroom.
The bathroom was a bit scruffy around the edges, but looked like it would be clean enough, given less population stress. Mike went into one cubicle and I the other. Mike’s shower started working, but mine didn’t have enough pressure to come out of the nozzle. As the tap was quite high up the wall, I switched to the tap, and water thundered out. Trouble is, that stopped Mike’s woeful supply – just as he was lathered up nicely. I finished my wash/shower then Mike finished his.

ANZAC Hostel

Karen and Scott decided against braving the bathroom, and I think Scott even decided against using the toilets. We packed up our stuff, and stumbled out into the bright Istanbul daylight. The brave (and England residents by some strange coincidence) among us had pulled on shorts – determined to catch some sun, and buoyed by the inviting blue sky. We were only called foolhardy by lunchtime, when clouds and wind sent us scurrying for shelter or our bags for more clothes.

We only had to wander around the corner to the square outside Aya Sofia (an old church, to mosque, to museum) to meet the bus for our tour. So, we gathered on the corner outside the hostel, and Judith and I grabbed some refreshments and nibbles from the corner shop. As we did that, Scott decided, upon reflecting on the nights stay, that he and Karen would book into the hotel up the road. The Lonely Planet just happened to say it would cost about 280 US a night and was THE place to stay in Istanbul.
Scott returned with a triumphant expression about 10 minutes later. He and Karen were booked in on their return, and he had beaten them down to around 200 US a night. Phew! We didn’t know it then, but Scott had a different set of motives to the ones we knew about. It wasn’t merely an uncomfortable night that had prompted his extravagance – but more of that later.

We wandered around the corner to the bus, and found the meeting spot, and decided to have a spot of breakfast at a rather conveniently located restaurant. While we waited for our omelettes to arrive, Channel 28 in Australia interviewed us in Turkish! John answered the questions as the rest of us tried to avoid the interviewers gaze. As we had only been in the country for about 8 hours at that stage, we couldn’t enlighten viewers too much. But the omelette was good, and John saw to it that they knew that!

After lunch, and some rasping coffee (enjoyed by Mike) we found our bus. Number 17 of the Hassle Free bus tour company. At this stage I was only glad that the company existed, had buses and knew who we were. I had booked it all over the internet, so was half expecting to find nothing as all. But, judging from the numbers on the bus, many others had done the same thing.

Kanakale ferry