Thursday 24th April & Friday 25th April - ANZAC DAY - Breakfast at the hotel was interesting with about 12 different types of bread on offer. By this stage the jeans i have been wearing from Bangkok were feeling very uncomfortable but still had 2 more days in them. I forgot to mention yesterday the airline (swiss international) gave us a little emergency travel pack that had undies & shirt so at least we has 1 spare pair of undies.

On the bus we meet our tour guide and was shocked at the way she spoke, her sentences didn't flow & was all over the shop. Strike 3. Very hard to listen & after about 3 hours i started to tune out as was to hard to follow.

The country side was very beautiful & istanbul, we found to be a very clean city. Watch a video on Gallipoli in the bus. Our first pit stop in Turkey was funny, we had to pay 50 Liar (about 40c AUD) then found out it was a swat toilet. Turns out these toilet are everywhere. At one of our stops we brought a jumper, socks and blanket to help us for the coldness ahead.

We stopped for lunch with all the buses (total of 9 buses) Strike 4 the food was disgusting. Time now to see the slights of Gallipoli. The country was still beautiful. Strike 5 we felt rushed and never told proper times to get back on the bus. Anzac cove was exactly like they explain. The steep hill they had to climb was incredible, very had to believe.

We paid 8 pounds for a BBQ dinner & this was a huge strike out for the company. They didn't have enough food for everyone and we were towards the back of the line so got feed mini portions of everything. In the line for the food it took about 30 mins and i heard all about other peoples dodgy experience with the tour company. One bus had to stop for 2 hours while they got all their passport checked, hotel bookings were stuffed up and a bus never came back to pick people up from an extra option on the tour. There was lots more of stories.

We jumped on the bus after dinner to prepared for our freezing night ahead. Considering we didn't have our bags we felt pretty prepared. We got one sleeping bag from the tour company (were promised 2, big surprise we only got one) I was wearing 2 pairs of socks, sandals, jeans (still), singlet, anzac shirt from tour, thin long shelve shirt & jumper (like rain jacket material) & scarf (really a borrowed jumper). We stepping off bus at anzac cove 10pm we went through security check and found a seat in the grandstands. The coldness was bearable for about 2 hours then started to get uncomfortable but i managed. Minya was feeling the cold. We have learnt to sleep in all kinds of positions by now so on grandstand seats i got about 30 mins nap here and there. Dawn service started at 4:30am, it was beautiful but freezing, i ended up numb.

The Australia Service was to follow so made our way with all the other thousand of people to Lone Pine. Lined up for security check again and found a seat. The day wasn't warming up. We got some food which was disgusting but thankfully didn't pay for as the guy thought i already paid so i just went along with it. The Australia Service started at 10am. The place was packed and with so many Aussies we just felt like we were some where back in Australia. I like this service better and i took it all in. After the service we had 2 hours to kill before the bus came to pick us up so we found a great stop on the grass and had a sleep, everyone was doing the same thing, the ground was lined with bodies. I didn't drink enough water and got sun burnt so i felt like spewing for about 2 hours, i survived without spewing though.

Getting back on the bus was hell there were 400 buses all heading for one place to pick up everyone. Very long drawn out process. I found the whole thing a little over rated and could of been more memorial and moving if there were less people but still enjoyed the experience.

Our 4.5 hour bus trip home turned into 6 hours with all the buses heading the same way. I slept most of the way home and me & minya were lucky cause got a seat to our selves.

We were looking forward to getting back to the hotel and finding our bags waiting for us. Yeah Right, like we could be that lucky, They were still at the airport............Someone stuffed up somewhere

We hit the pillow for a long good night sleep.