Skip to main content

Trabzon

As I arrived into town the road was straddled by a harbour on one side and a string of hotels on the other. A few people had mentioned that these were brothels servicing the sailors from the frequent cargo boats. I noticed one of the hotels I was considering was in that group so I gave it a miss and went with the more expensive option in the centre of town. Hot water, Heating, Excellent breakfast, Not a brothel, No regrets.

Trabzon itself is pretty enough though short on specific sites to visit. I walked around town for the day visiting a few of the mosques, the bazaar and the St Sophia museum. At one point I was joined by a local who noticed I was having trouble navigating my way through the back streets. He asked where I was going. I told him, he said follow me and I did. Soon I had an entourage of kids following me around everywhere. We played a little football, drunk some tea, he showed me a few other things not on the map, we met a bloke who said he was sailor, he offered me a smoke, I said I didn't smoke, he offered me a drink of vodka from his plastic cup, I said not before mid day, he asked where I was staying, I gave him the name of the hotel across from the harbour, he said me too, perhaps confirming my earlier concerns and we parted ways. I was relieved. No scam. Faith in human kind restored.

Today I went out to Sumela Monastery. I may question the possible benefits of building a monastery into the side of a cliff but the effect was amazing. Unfortunately most of it was closed for restoration but I still managed to see the paintings in and around the rock church. The surrounding valley was also worth a look.

Tomorrow I leave for Erzurum, fore casted minimum -26 Celsius. Wish me luck.

cheers,
schuey
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Strung Treng

Strung Treng was an unexpected stop over, more a hospital visit then the usual tourist stuff. I was waiting in a guest house restaurant for the bus to Laos when i was rather suddenly overcome with a fever and fatigue. I rented a room and slept for almost 24 hours straight. The manger was understandably concerned, he thought it might have been Malaria, and sent me to the doctor for tests. It wasn't Malaria but was probably Dengue Fever but I needed a 10 hour bus trip back to Phnom Pehn to confirm this. Either way the 'cure' was Panadol, plenty of water and rest. I was going to do this in Laos anyway so decided against the bus back to Phnom Pehn and caught the bus to Laos the next day instead.
Post a Comment
Read more

Zabid

There's nothing like a big travel bag to attract anyone in sight who speaks English. This guy was a teacher keen to ask me about Australia. Like most who asked he couldn't believe that Australia only had 20 million people. He bought me a juice, helped me find the taxi stand for Zabid, asked if there was anything else he could do for me and went on his way. The drive to Zabid was another of those 'anywhere to Port Augusta' drives. The hotel was pretty basic and was the first on this trip to have the cold water only shower directly above the squat toilet. Zabid is the second UNESCO world heritage site in Yemen but walking around the streets you wouldn't guess it. So this was one those occasions I was glad to have a guides approach me. Again with the 'ask you like' payment. I knew where it would end but atleast it would work in my favour. With a guide you got to see inside some of the court yards and they were truly impressive. You even got to see inside some o...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hamburg

Its hard not to say how much I liked about Hamburg without contradicting what I said about Denmark. It had the bars and clubs, but it also had graffiti on the walls and dog shit on the street. It had a buzz to it. And strange things happened. Among other things, I was in a net cafe near my hostel when i got a tap on the shoulder. Turn around there's a bloke I had met in Jordan 4 months earlier. Creepy. Turns out he had just flown in for the weekend to meet someone he met randomly in Poland. I could have just as easily been in Bergen. Other than catching up with random friends I checked out a few of the museums and churchs around town. Highlight was probably the History of Hamburg museum which had more model cityscapes, planes, boats and trains than a boy at heart could poke a stick at. I got lost looking around a harbour that seemed bigger than the rest of the city. I also found myself in the middle of a joke when two germans, two indians and an Australian went out until dawn on t...
3 comments
Read more