Hey,

Turkey was amazing!! and Istanbul was such a nice clean city!! We ventured over on the 23rd of April for 6 days, in which we did a 3 day tour to Gallipoli for ANZAC day. Mike, Emma, Gee and Christine all made the trek over together! We arrived on the Friday and met up with our tour group at a hotel in the city centre, was a crazy van ride from the airport - that seemed to take forever! The first night was a massive get to know everyone night, and made it very easy to sleep on the bus the next day! On the Saturday we got up early and bused over to Gallipoli. The gates were shut when we arrived there, so we went to the mueseum for a look first. By the time we got back to Gallipoli, there was a massive line to get in, and by the time we got in - there was no grass space left, so we had to sit in the benchs all night! It was an earily quiet night, and we were so lucky with the weather ie there was no rain! They played clips of war movies, and paid tributes to the fallen all night long. At about 5.15 the dawn service began, and it was opened by a kapa haka group. At 6 it was all over, and we started out on our 8km walk to where the NZ service was held - at Chunuk Bair. The NZ was really good, there was only a small crowd, the kapahaka group were entertaining us before it all kicked off! After the service, we had to try and find our tour group and wait in a massive field while all the buses drove past. There were over 900 buses - and each one had a number - when it was called out you only had one chance for everyone to get on - or otherwise it would have to go and line up again, and a round trip would take about 3 hours! Luckily, and amazingly, all of our group were on time, so we made it back to Istanbul at a reasonable time!

The following day we farewelled Christine who had to go back for work, before we did a walking tour of the city, we went into the blue mosque, and the palace mueseum. After lunch we said goodbye to our tour group and moved to our new hotel with Mike and Emma. Then it was off to the Grand Bazaar, the largest undercovered markets in the world - where we spent the rest of the day, and our money! All the stall holders are yelling 'Aussie Aussie Aussie' at you all the time, and if you ever said you were from NZ they would give you a 'Kiora Bro' instead. That night it was out for tea, probably kebabs again, tasty though! The following day we went over to the Princess islands. To get there you have to ferry across the Bosphorus, which is the stip of water that separates the european and asian continents (Istanbul sits on both). The islands were a tourist trap, there were about 300 horses that were skin and bones that towed carriages around the island, and to eat there cost a fortune! When we returned to Istanbul, we had a quiet night, trying to pack all of our new posseions into our packs for the return trip the following day! In the morning we got up early and went to the Egyptian spice market - which was quite interesting, and smelt really nice, before venturing back for one last visit to the Bazaar.