We caught the ferry over to Turkey at 8.30am in the morning. We walked out of the port and opened a map only to discover a sign 20m away for our hotel. Great location! The guy was nicknamed “"Mr Happy”, he greeted us with “Kia ora” as soon as he sighted our passports and then proceeded to poke the women checking us in with a stick saying “They work slow without the stick”. We ended up with a great room for a low price, we almost wish we’d booked in for longer! Also, there’s great breakfast in turkey! After going through Europe we were used to bread, ham and cheese… Here we were presented with French toast, omelettes etc. etc. we were fairly full by the end of it!
Once we’d dropped our bags we went out for a walk around the city, the guys in the markets are like persistent parrots! They have about 5 English sayings and they’ll try them all in a circular sequence hoping for the best… Such fraises include “Hi, where are you from?”, “Sir, buy here?”, “Cheapest here”, “Very good, very nice”. Trace bought a couple of items, she negotiated well and got quite a bit off but somehow you never knew if you’ve negotiated a good price or not!
After a couple of hours we headed back to our room to cool off as it was about 40 degrees outside and humid!
After recharging in the aircon we decided to hike up a hill which we could see would have a good view. Great views of the city! We were surprised that as the view got better the houses got worse… At the top of the hill with amazing views of the city was a collection of slums.
We went to dinner at a great restaurant recommended by the lonely planet and ended up on paying about 15NZD for a great meal. I think we’re going to like Turkey prices! We walked home along the water front and got a few photos as the sun was disappearing.
