Istanbul, Byzantium, Constantinople … Rome of the East. More than any other city has this place sparked our imagination. Rulers like Emperor Constantine and Justinian, Sultan Suleiman and even Mustafa Kemal Atatürk have made their mark.
Few places stand for the colorful history of this region like the Hagia Sophia. It was the third imperial church built on this spot. Later converted into the imperial Friday mosque for the Ottoman empire and finally turned into a museum in the new found Turkish Republic. If I ever had something of a bucket list, seeing this monument was definitively on it. So today, we did. It was only tainted by our apparently eternal sight-seeing companion, the scaffold. Well, needs must and renovations have to happen at some point.
The inner sanctum: Built as a church, used as a mosque, now a museum
All in all, those were two hours well spent. This building more than any other for me showed the marks of its impressive history. From the Roman era over the crusades up to the Ottoman times, each century has left a mark and left a piece that became part of the whole of what we see today. It feels like a great analogy for the city as a whole.
We went for a quite disappointing lunch afterwards, the second time in a row, and promised ourselves to ignore the Lonely Planet for the rest of the stay. We would rather check out the lovely looking places near our hotel on the southern end of Sultanahmet.
It ended up being just that for the rest of the day. After an afternoon rest in our room, we could not really muster the energy for more sightseeing today. Instead, we did check out a beautiful place up the road called mitara cafe & art. We had brilliant mezze and I had a huge glass of good Turkish red. A beautiful way to let the day fade out.
Wednesday market with fresh fruit in Sultanahmet
An original obelisk from Egypt
A detail of the ceiling of the German fountain
The Hagia Sofia, now a museum, from a distance
Sultanahmet Camii or the Blue Mosque
A remain of the second Hagia Sofia: The 12 apostles as sheep
Beautiful ceiling in the entrance hall
The inner sanctum: Built as a church, used as a mosque, now a museum
Emperor Justinian’s monogram on the capitals
Looking up at the Upper gallery
Intricate inscriptions on the stained glass windows
The walls are clad in marble; each panel framed and separated from the next one
One of the places at the ceiling were the erased cross shines through
Half of the main nave and one of the aisles were taken up by scaffolding
The view from the Upper Gallery
Part of a rediscovered mosaic from the 13th century
Most of the Hagia Sofia is painted in yellow with different pattern but at some places the underlying mosaics have been freed
Inlays in the Upper gallery arches
Again, the crosses have been erased leaving some uninspired sticks standing
Ablution fountain in the courtyard
Inside one of the sultan’s tombs
Mother of pearl inlays in a window shutter
Great splashes of colour in this sultan’s tomb
Our tiny looking up excellent hotel
A piece of the old city walls with hiding holes
The second level of a beautiful cafe which we had all to ourselves
Food arrived and it tasted as delicious as it looks
Day 3 of relaxing. We briefly thought that today might be the day we get up and see some of the surrounding area but right after breakfast, we decided against it…yeah, nah…
So delicious, all of it
So we had another day of charging our own batteries, snoozing in the tent, jumping in the pool and I finished my book which I started on our first rest day. 🙂 It just felt great to do nothing.
In the evening, we decided to go out for really good food in a restaurant that is slightly more pricey than what we usually go for. Flo was particularly hungry as he had skipped lunch. It took some searching to find it (google maps was asked once) but once we sat down, everything was great. Flo even found good beer which is a big thing after going through Oman and Iran where you just can’t buy alcohol.
Cappadocia, we are really grateful that you decided to be sunny and warm for days because we really needed this rest. Thank you.
Another day in the pool – still cold
The walk into town
Like a bad minecraft experiment
City view
So delicious, all of it
Hmm, good beer!
This one would be great for zipping around on the sand tracks …
It seemed we had managed to hit the perfect camp spot – not too hot, not too cold and undisturbed the whole night long. I felt really well rested getting up this morning. Besides, we had only a light day ahead, so what was there not to look forward to?
Maybe I should have been a bit more suspicious of the fact that the Garmin found a “third way” over the mountain that was neither on the Lonely Planet map nor on our Iran paper map. But it was set to avoid dirt roads, so clearly it knew something the others did not…?
The condition of the dirt road deteriorated quickly
Well, as it turns out it may have been that avoiding a 50 km “detour” back to pass number two overruled the no dirt rule. Or the open street map is a bit ahead of its time, since for the most part there were roadworks actually on the way to transform this into a proper sealed pass. For now, however, it was not. For about 60 km we had everything from a perfectly compacted gravel road to “this is a muddy riverbed at a 30° angle, if it rains now, we die”.
You can see our camp spot and the tunnel we came through
In all fairness, it was mostly good though. I mostly enjoyed the exercise, but I also could do without any more drama on this last leg of the trip. In the end, we made it and were rewarded with another set of fantastic view from up to 2400m back down to the valleys to the north.
Once on the other side, the motorway called and we got back into full cruise mode for a short hour to cover the last 120 km. Traffic truly got interesting once we got into greater Tehran, but nothing much surprising left to it. The Lonely Planet calls it “a Darwinian game of chicken”. There are still rules to it, though. They end up in a higher risk game than most sane people would engage in, but on the other hand, people get from A to B much quicker than they would in high survival rate countries under the same circumstances. I just go with the flow and compensate with better gear for the worst case, I guess.
Quite the shock to be on the motorway into Tehran
We had lunch in a hip cafe at the House of Arts – good burger and veggie pasta for once. A lovely place we probably like to come back to (the House of Arts, that is). For now though, we need to find a place to stay. Hotels are pretty expensive, so we settled on one place slightly too expensive, in the knowledge that A: There is not much else cheaper and B: we had saved some by camping the last few days.
When I parked the bike I saw another overlander bike from the Netherlands and back in the hotel found out that we were next door neighbors, so I knocked and introduced myself. Joris and his partner were busy for the day, but we agreed to catch up tomorrow.
That was pretty much our day, except for the one hour it took me to find some bread around here. The entire neighborhood – a full city block – is exclusively dedicated to selling auto parts. Not even a single little grocery shop anywhere among them for the most part. I did, however, get a replacement for the second screw that had vibrated off our windscreen in Iran.
Good bye Alamut valley! You have been fantastic!
Totally sealed, Garmin, totally sealed
Climbing higher up…
Last look back towards Alamut before riding through the tunnel
Old-school: No lights and an uneven muddy ground
Crossing over a bridge to get to the next mountain range
The long and winding road
The condition of the dirt road deteriorated quickly
You can see our camp spot and the tunnel we came through
It is just too hot to do anything. Yesterday, before going out for dinner, we had a look at a guesthouse we saw on Agoda for the remaining two nights. Our current hotel was still overpriced and underwhelming and not even the WiFi was that good. The place we looked at was lovely – it had shared bathrooms, but those were spotless and just around the corner. The room itself was perfect for us. Cute, with AC and a flat screen TV, and most of all a very comfy bed. So we booked in till Sunday.
The most touristy street we found
Which leads us to today, the move day. We stuck out in the old room until it was check out time, shouldered our few bags and walked the 15 minutes to the new guesthouse. That was pretty much our day, really. After the slightly stressful time with dropping off the bike and the sightseeing yesterday; today, we just chilled. After Nina took a nap, we put the flat screen to good use with season 4 of the Great British Bake Off (no judging!).
Food wise, we were quite conservative. For lunch, we walked a bit further out to avoid westernised stuff and found a cool little stall at a street corner selling food kind of Padang style with mix and match rice and ready-made dishes. Dinner was even more conservative, with another trip to last night’s Israeli place.
Waking up, Flo felt like having a cold coming on. Given that we had booked our 10 hour elephant experience for tomorrow, I wanted him to rest in bed rather than visit a waterfall. Said waterfall had turned into a tourist attraction anyway with the zipline company advertising a spectacular line over the waterfall. That might have been fun but was too expensive for us with US$70 per person.
So instead, we had a very slow day at the Happy Elephant Bungalows. Flo spent most of it in bed, as requested, while I sat on the terrace/dining area in the afternoon to enjoy a breeze and some jungle views. I also tried the hammock in front of our own bungalow but while it was only at an ok comfort level, I got insect bites all over my back and so abandoned it again pretty soon.
We literally only went out for lunch which seemed to be very exhausting for Flo already and had an underwhelming dinner at our guest house before going to bed early.
deflated in bed in our spartan little cabin.
In lieu of proper photos of the place – have this. I was sick, after all!
Hanging out at the “restaurant” for a little while.
our little box, with the boardwalk leading there. Everyting swayed a bit.
Having booked a second night in the budget room and one instead of two nights at the fancy place, our plans crumbled slightly. Since we spent a bit of money on the fancy room, we wanted to get some use out of it and enjoy the amenities. Thus, we would go to the temples in the morning, check out at lunch time and then spend the afternoon lounging and relaxing.
Good plan. Until we decided that it would also make sense to watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat today instead of tomorrow so that we could sleep in in our fancy room. This meant that the alarm clock went off at 5am. So freaking early. I mean, we don’t sleep in too much but with the sun rising at 6.30am, there is no reason to get up before 7am. Now there was, though.
Just enough light – and no muppet in the way
We rode Rocinante into the temple complex where we joined the long throng of tuk-tuks all moving towards Angkor Wat. It was going to be crowded. All the “perfect” spots by the pond were already taken. They are “perfect” because Angkor Wat is mirrored in the water if it’s a still enough day without too many clouds. We sat down on the grass a bit away from the pond but ended up moving around quite a bit while the sun was rising. It gets light so quickly before you can actually see the sun. We took some very pretty pictures but with the crowd, it didn’t feel like a special sunrise at all.
Underexposure ftw …
When the crowds started to disperse, we sat down at the pond, having a quick breakfast of Nutella toasts. Because sunrise and probably also sunset are such a thing, many kids were running around trying to sell you postcards or magnets. They were all incredibly cute but I got upset when tourists asked them for a picture and then paid them a dollar for it. All you accomplish with that behaviour is that these kids will continue to work there instead of going to school. There are actually signs posted at the temples with “Don’t give money or candy to children, it encourages them not to attend school” and some people still do it. /rant
Ta Keo was the next temple on our list. It’s a pyramid with many, very steep steps and it is currently under heavy reconstruction. Still, we saw only a handful of other people there so early in the morning. Very peaceful.
In a way, Ta Prohm is more impressive than the cleared temples. Nature’s power over man is awe inspiring.
The so-called “Lara Croft” temple Ta Prohm was the next in line. This temple is mostly a ruin as trees have wreaked havoc with the walls and roofs. Being famous for featuring in a Lara Croft movie, it is picturesquely broken to our eyes. There are efforts to reconstruct a couple of areas. Here, we only managed to be half an hour earlier than the tourist buses.
Being really tired and also hungry again already, we decided to visit Sra Srang and then call it a day with the temple visits. Sra Srang is not actually a temple but a huge basin that was built as the royal bathing pond. The stairs with the guarding lions is still standing but access to the pond is off limits except for the fishermen.
Back at the hostel, we were still in time for a late breakfast so our hunger was taken care of. Afterwards, I still got to nap for an hour before we had to pack and check out at noon. Our fancy accommodation turned out to be fancy indeed. Though we had to leave the budget hostel at noon, check in in the new place was at 2pm. Our room wasn’t ready when we arrived at 12.20pm. We were seated in the lounge on a couch, had wet towels brought for refreshment as well as a lime drink and banana chips. Good signs, huh?
Flo is sceptic…
About half an hour later, we were shown to our room which was HUGE and lovely and the staff had scattered flowers on the bed and there were swans made out of the towels and the phrase “Florian Bocher we <3 u” was spelled out on the bed…I LOVED it.
Still being tired but also being hot from the motorcycle ride, we jumped in the pool (extra pool towels ftw) before having a second nap in the plushy, comfy bed. At around 3pm, I dragged Flo along to another “dining for a cause” café, this time specializing in cupcakes while supporting Cambodian women in their vocational training. Check out the Blossom Café if you are in Siem Reap!
Uber-rich chocolate cupcake and lime splash
I couldn’t really decide what I wanted because there were so many flavours. In the end, I went with peppermint tea and a chocolate hazelnut cake pop while Flo ordered an uber-rich chocolate cupcake for me. He got a lime splash and a raspberry lemon one to his coffee. Very decadent, I know, but so worth it. 🙂
The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging on the comfortable furniture, reading, browsing the net or watching something. For dinner, we walked to the Peace café, another vegetarian restaurant, but it had moved so we ended up in the vegetarian restaurant across the road before heading “home” to watch a movie on the flat screen tv. It was almost like the shortest holiday in history.
Just enough light – and no muppet in the way
actually, the photos look better than the real thing this time
half an hour to go
There are about 10 rows of people in front of me
A normal high season crowd
Child labour is an all too common sight – and the whities are clueless …
Underexposure ftw …
The sun coming up on our way out
Sunrise over the gods churning the ocean of milk at the south gate of Angkor Thom
First stop, the unfinished Ta Keo temple
Up to the second level …
almost at the top … these steps are steep!
Top of the Ta Keo Temple
brief rest at the top for research.
Also known as the Tomb Raider temple.
Here and there, bits of plaster have been preserved.
about half the corridors have been preserver or reconstructed here.
angkor wat looked similar when it was “rediscovered”
Still, beautiful morning light
In a way, Ta Prohm is more impressive than the cleared temples. Nature’s power over man is awe inspiring.
All around, trees and roots hugging the stonework.
All this is already a manicured state.
almost every stone seems to be slightly shifted in some way
The inner gate from the east
never underestimate druid spells …
The so called Tomb Raider Tree had some prominent screen time.
Detail of Ta Prohm’s western gate tower
Lion guarding the stairs leading into the royal pond
Looking out over the massive basin
Everything past the lions is off limits at the moment
By now, we’ve gotten a holiday “rhythm” with a nice long breakfast, some light reading before lunch, lunch and then an afternoon nap to relax from the exhaustion. 😉
Also, there is always the pool if you really need a distraction. We are coming to the end of our special trip to Thailand in a couple of days so Nina, at least, maximized here time with a book.
Which leaves time and space for me to get to the mildly overdue Indonesia summary post.
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