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Day 5: Ankara: Ataturk's Mausoleum, Anatolian Civilisations Museum The Bus Ride Begins We had been given strict instructions by Sebnem the day before that we had to be ready to leave at 8:00am today. She had been a little annoyed by our usual casual disregard for timetables and she wanted us to be ready to leave. We were one person short on this leg of the trip. Sedat was staying in Istanbul with his family. That was a shame because he was so cheerful and such good company. It also helped that he spoke Turkish. We left, and I succumbed to my cold and dozed and napped during the drive, only coming alive when something exciting happened, like Mustafa having to brake and swerve to avoid the average Turkish driver. I saw snippets of the trip, like flashes through a strobe. We drove through the horrible Istanbul traffic and got onto the freeway that headed east. When we got onto the freeway, the road headed up and up towards the high Anatolian plain. Ankara is on the edge of that plain. Along the way there were lots of roadworks in sight, building new parts of the freeway, and replacing old roads. The road was pretty good, smooth and fast. There were parts were the road was dead straight, heading along a ridge, and parts where it wound around and around heading up. Although the road was good, the drivers were not. They had the most horrible driving habits. Three cars abreast on a two lane road, overtaking into oncoming traffic, little things like that. As I said before, on occasion, Mustafa had to brake and swerve to avoid maniacal drivers. It was a fairly long trip, and Jenny commented on what it must have been like to travel from the coast to Ankara several thousand years ago. For example, the Romans would have travelled this way, and for them to be out in the middle of nowhere, walking along, day after day, is hard for us to imagine. It took us half a day to get to Ankara, but would have taken them weeks of marching. Mid-morning we had our first toilet stop. Toilet stops were very important. This one was a new one, a very modern and clean building. There was a little mixed business store, where I finally was able to buy some soap. I couldn't get enough soap in the hotel rooms, and I had forgotten to bring some of my own, and this was the first place that I found where I could buy soap. Obviously I had been asking the wrong questions as Sebnem was amazed by my inability to acquire soap in Instanbul. There was also a little tourist shop, selling all sorts of silly and amazing things. I bought a selection of cough lollies and other sweets to suck on while we were travelling. My cold was getting really bad and I wanted to stop the hacking cough that was irritating the others. Jenny and Anne went into the tourist shop. Jenny already had planned on buying a small trophy or prize that could be used as a morale builder. They went looking for a nice little knick-knack that anyone would have been proud to own. When they saw the sort of stuff that was for sale, they started laughing and began looking for the worst item they could find. They kept finding worse and worse items, more kitsch than anything else they had seen, they laughed so much they were crying. Susan peered in through the window and saw them crying, then a small grooup of our tourists gathered and watched them. I saw the gathering and saw Anne crying and I headed inside to see what the problem was. No, they were okay, they were just laughing, so I headed off again. They chose the worst item they could find. It was a small plate, mounted on a wooden stand. There was a photograph of a building in the centre, and it was decorated with shells. It was a ghastly little item. When we got back on the bus, Jenny held it up and announced that it was a trophy to be awarded on the last night of the trip to the person who contributed the most to Oz-Turk Relations. This little item had a startling effect on some of our members. Richard took one look at it and fell to his knees and salaamed. He did this whenever the item was uncovered during the trip. I don't know what the attraction was, but that magical little trophy attracted some of the bizarrest behaviour during the trip. When the bus started again, I started on my cough lollies and sweets. I had chosen a wide variety because I wasn't sure of what I was getting. One of the lollies that I had chosen was called Tofitas. These were soft chewy lollies, each in a colourful wrapper printed with a cartoon and a pithy saying or quotation in Turkish and English. The English translations were delightful. This was one of the first ones that I found, and the cartoon and quote had an Australian flavour. As the days went by, I discovered some classics. You'll see them a little later on. We arrived in Ankara in time for lunch. Ankara has a long history, like about 4,00 years. I'll quote Jenny: "The Hittites called it Ankuwash before 1200 BC. Its strategic importance lay in the fact that it was at the intersection of the north-south and east-west ancient trade routes. As such, it was a resting place on the Persian Royal road from Sardis to Susa. After the Hittites, it was a Phrygian town and was then incoroporated into Alexander's Empire in the 4th century BC. After the death of Alexander, the city was claimed by the Seleucids and finally occupied by the Galatians. Augustus annexed it to Rome in 25 BC as Ankyra. It was fought over by the Ottomans and by the 16th century AD it was called Angora and was a major textile centre for the fine silky wool of the local goats. Ankara was made the capital of Turkey by Ataturk in October 1923 when it was still a sleepy Anatolian town." It was a created capital city, a planned city, just like Canberra is. And it looks like Canberra with long, wide boulevards, many roundabouts, lots of greenery and parks, an artificial lake and embassies wherever you turn. Just like Canberra. There was even a Luna Park. There's a lot to see in Ankara, both old and new. There's the Hisar fortress, bazaars and markets, a number of Roman ruins such as the Temple of Augustus. There's also a railway museum, the War of Salvation Museum, Gencliki Park, the Opera House, a Republic Museum, Ethnography and Fine Arts Museum, Painting and Sculpture Museum. Looking more and more like Canberra. As we climbed up to the Anatolian plain, the temperature had dropped. It had become quite nippy, again, just like Canberra. Lunch in Ankara We were booked into a French restaurant, so we went straight to it. It wasn't exactly what I call French cuisine, more like Turkish-French cuisine. But the food was okay, except for the dessert which was a lovely chocolate swirl. I had several of them, as some of our troupe passed it up. There was one aspect of the restaurant which received a lot of attention and that was the two toilets located just behind us. Western, one male and one female, but given the gender imbalance of our tour and the emptiness of the restaurant, both got heavy service during the meal. I don't know about the others, but I can remember with clarity almost every meal and every toilet we visited. Generally speaking, I can remember almost every memorable meal of my life. The milestones of my life are meals. Look at the photos of me for confirmation of this. But I don't think the toilet fixation was a perversion. The relief of my constant anxieties fixed the visits in my mind. The anxiety was exacerbated by the wildly varying conditions of the amenities along the way, the varying demands for money for usage of the amenities, and the odd reaction to the different food. I survived with no major mishaps and a great appreciation for my own amenities. Ataturk's Mausoleum After lunch, we drove to Kemal Ataturk's Memorial, Mausoleum and Museum. This was a very, very large building as the photos will show. Ataturk was extremely important to Turkey. He started as an Ottoman general and fought against us at Gallipoli, he fought in the Turkish War of Independence, became a national hero, declared Turkey a repuplic and completely remade Turkish society. The measure of his importance, and the regard that the Turks have for him, can be demonstrated by the size of his memorial. The memorial is on the top of a small hill. As you drive up to it, you circle it. There's a bit of a walk, and then there's a huge set of steps up to the top of the memorial. You can see them in the photo. Lots of statues and guards lining a cobbled walkway. After the cobbled walkway, you reach the centre of the memorial, and this is where you can grasp the immense size of this building. It's huge. On the left is the Mausoleum. In front is a huge plaza. Around the plaza are three small museums. We went up the Mausoleum and lined up and respectfully walked around the tomb. It's very tasteful and very respectful and very peaceful. You can see from the photo that it's also an extremely large building in itself, with very high walls. When we came out of the Mausoleum and walked back down to the plaza, we split up and went our own way among the three museums. These hold Ataturk's library, and personal effects and mementos. There's lots of interesting things in there, particularly the opulence of some of the gifts presented to him and the photos taken with the movers and shakers of the world. I found the library very interesting to wander through, to look at the range of books in different languages that helped shape Kemal Ataturk. It made me realise just how much of my reading is for pleasure and not for knowledge. After we had looked at the Mausoleum and the museums, we wandered back. While we were walking along the cobbled pathway, it turned out to be the time for the changing of the guard. The new guard came marching down the middle, and stopped at each of the guardposts and changed the guards. There were representatives of each of the Services, and the navy boys in white were the most interesting. It was Susan who first remarked on their apparel, declaring that the white uniform made it possible to see what type of underwear they were wearing. This remark prompted much giggling and a nomination for the award. Anatolian Civilizations Museum A short bus ride and we offloaded at the Anatolian Civilizations Museum. This was a very nice looking museum. It's in what used to be a a covered market and an Ottoman warehouse called the Kursunlu Han. It's all been restored and looks fabulous. There's lots of stuff here, mostly from the earlier Anatolian civilisations such as the Urartu, Hatti, Hittite, Phrygian and Assyrian. There's also plenty of items from Catal Hoyuk, which we detoured to see later on in the tour. Most of the group headed off into the museum. I made a beeline for the toilets, and when I came back I couldn't find anyone. So I my had my own quiet and peaceful meander through the museum. I caught up with the others eventually, but managed to stay mostly on my own. Having a bad cold does not make me very sociable. I was particularly impressed with the tiny statuary, the little stags and bulls. And the mother-goddesses. I also liked the gold and the coins. But one thing that amazed me was that so much of the carvings and reliefs was out in the open where they could be touched. Many visitors touched. Everything else was beautifully displayed while protected, but the carvings and larger rock pieces were vulnerable. It was a beautifully laid out museum, and every piece was clearly described. There were also guides who took small groups around and described the pieces. I found these very interesting and attached myself to several as I went along. In the foyer, there was the obligatory sales desk, where they were selling lots of replicas of items. I had been so impressed with the little statues of stags and bulls that I bought a little bell with a replica of a stag as the handle. It had a very sweet tone, as well as looking good. Of all the little replica statues that I bought in Turkey, it's the only one that made it back to Australia undamaged. Metal. Anne and I settled down in the foyer, and had some tea while we waited for the others. Then on the way out, we had a brief argument about it and then bought the first in our collection of books about the tour. It was just a little book about the museum, with mostly photographs of the exhibits and not much description. But it wasn't cheap. By the end of the tour, we had a considerable collection of books, all very heavy. Ankara Hotel That was the end of a pretty hectic day, and we drove off to book in to our hotel. It was a pretty nice hotel, large and impressive. Anne didn't think it was that good, but I was very impressed. We settled down in our room, but Anne heard some excitement and went walkabout and found a number of our troupe (Jenny and Caroline the main culprits) cavorting on the roof of the building. Dinner was fairly formal, and we were seated at a big U shaped table. One of our waiters turned out to have lived in Australia for a while, and spoke Australian English. His wife was still living there. So while he dished up for us, there was lots of chatting about Australia and what he was doing back in Turkey. He looked after us very well and seemed to enjoy the chat. However, when a table of Japanese arrived to be seated and served, the maitre de was very short with our waiter for spending so much time with us. He rushed off and did his duty, but managed to keep popping back to look after us. Near the end of meal, one of the ladies wanted a bit of bread and asked our waiter for it, but he didn't quite get the drift of the request and returned with a couple of slabs of dry cake. She passed them around. After dinner, Anne stayed and had coffee with Caroline, then went up to bed. Richard and I decided to be adventurous and go and see what the night had to offer. It wasn't much. We walked down the street till it ran out then came back. The street was mostly lined with small shops. The most interesting was a small hardware store. Bicycles and small motorbikes and generators and things we had no idea what they were for. When we got back to the hotel we decided to strike into the back alleyways and see what was in there. There were more people wandering around for a start. There was a small police station, looking just like any small suburban police station in Australia and right beside it were a number of large rooms, glass-fronted, which were full of small tables each with four Turkish men playing cards and smoking. Hundreds of Turks all playing cards. We wandered around, soaked up the atmosphere, then went back to the hotel and to bed.