No Turkey in Turkey at Christmas

12/24 - 12/29

So apparently Turks only eat turkey at New Year, and despite being all excited at the pun I didn't plan ahead and couldn't find any turkey for Christmas, oh well.

Evan and Gamze's party was awesome, as was chatting to a couple of other culture-crossed couples. There seemed to be a surprising number of similarities between Turk/American and Japanese/Brit culture clashes, as both Japan and Turkey are quite traditional and conservative when it comes to marriage.
I've done quite a few 'Secret Santa' gift exchanges, but the 'White Elephant' version introduced by Evan was a lot more entertaining.

Ephesus was a beautiful ancient Greco Roman city, and well worth the visit.

A chance remark about bouldering to Evan led to Hozumi and I visiting the beautiful Bafa lake and trying our best to climb without any equipment. Very dangerous, but good fun! I suppose this is as good a time as any to record our climbing exploits in the UK. Since Kieran and Paul are both avid climbers we visited an indoor climbing site in Bristol, got hooked and spent the best part of two months doing little else but bouldering.

Climbing can be rough on the hands

Of course, without crash mats or climbing shoes there wasn't much we could attempt at Bafa without risking broken bones, but there were an amazing variety of boulders around, and it was great fun finding my own routes instead of following mapped and bolted ones. This is one route I was really happy with, complete with sitting start, a nice long traverse and a big ledge for our crappy shoes!

Bafa wasn't just about bouldering though. The landscape was breathtaking, and reminded us of Hampi, but swathed in green and dotted with olive trees. A lovely German couple recommended that we walk to a ruined monastery, so we set off, picking up a stray dog along the way that we inappropriately christened 'Bob'. He stuck with us the whole day.

To get back to Evan's we were relying on a lift from the hotel owner, but when the time came he was cooking dinner and wouldn't provide one. Fortunately the only other couple there were on a day trip and offered us a lift to Bafa town, then called various bus companies until they found one going our way that we could flag down. To top it all off they even introduced us to the mayor, in whose company we waited for the bus, drinking tea and chatting with another guy who could speak English.

Lots more rakı with Evan, catching up, reminiscing on old times and good times, then a day of rest and off to Istanbul.