Our Travels | The Working Traveller

Archive for the ‘Our Travels’ Category

Why Winter Seems Longer in a Tourist Resort in Turkey

Posted by The Working Traveller on October 14th, 2011

It rained last night. A big rolling storm buffeted the house, soaked the streets and blew our mosquito net down. If you are reading this in, say, Manchester or Belfast I am sure your reaction is big freaking whoop. It rained here last night too and I’m not writing a bloody post about it.

But I haven’t seen so much as a cloud since April. And while that makes me a lucky man my good fortune is about to run out because winter is coming and winter in many ways is better spent in a cold climate like the UK. There hundreds of generations have adapted to the cold and wet and to cope they invented clever things like drainage, central heating and roaring fires in warm, friendly pubs.

Posted in Living in Turkey

Tags: didim, expat, turkey

2 Comments »

The (not quite) Cairo to (almost) Istanbul Trip Highlights (in Pictures) 3

Posted by The Working Traveller on July 24th, 2011

Once we crossed over the Tigris in to Turkey we were on the final leg home. Though we knew it is a beautiful country Turkey surprised us. We have lived here for four years but, having only seen the Aegean coast, a few towns in the west of the country and Istanbul, we didn’t understand quite how varied the landscape can be.

The mountain snowlines and the level of greenery particularly sat awkwardly with what we thought we knew about Turkey. The people too were different in the east. Turkish hospitality seems to be in even greater abundance nearer to the country’s eastern and southern borders.

Posted in Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Photo Features

Tags: accommodation, avanos, cappadocia, diyarbakir, goreme, kas, koycegiz, mt nemrut, olympos, sanliurfa, selimiye, turkey

No Comments »

The (not quite) Cairo to (almost) Istanbul Trip Highlights (in Pictures) 2

Posted by The Working Traveller on July 20th, 2011

Laying slap bang in the way of getting to Turkey, we needed to cross Syria to get home but when we turned up at the border Syria said no and turned me away. We had to decide what to do next. The temptation was to turn around and head back to Egypt and take the once in a lifetime opportunity to have the Pyramids and the rest of Egypt’s historical assets to ourselves.

Then we remembered the country we bumped when planning our route. I had thought the Syrians wouldn’t let me in at the border twice without a prearranged visa but now that they had already rejected me Lebanon was on the table again. We flew to Beirut.

Posted in Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Photo Features

Tags: amadiya, beirut, dohuk, erbil, iraq, lebanon, tripoli

2 Comments »

The (not quite) Cairo to (almost) Istanbul Trip Highlights (in Pictures)

Posted by The Working Traveller on July 16th, 2011

Now we are back we are attempting to wean ourselves away from writing solely about our recent adventures. Having predictable access to the internet again means we can get back to writing researched pieces about working and volunteering abroad and focus more on other areas of the planet outside of the Middle East.

For the rest of this month though I’m taking a last chance to indulge ourselves and show some pictures of our travels. I learnt a long time ago our friends ain’t interested but the advantage of having a website is I can force them on to you. (Tip: I don’t pay much attention to our stats so if you want to slowly back away from the computer now I won’t know about it).

Posted in Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Photo Features

Tags: amman. aqaba, dahab, egypt, jerash, jordan, petra, sinai, snorkeling

No Comments »

Photo Feature: Apollo Temple, Didim, Turkey

Posted by The Working Traveller on July 8th, 2011

Our home town in Turkey is very much a package tourism destination. Young families and the retired from the UK come to lie on the beach in the mornings and afternoons and drink in the bars and clubs in the evening.

Turks from nearby towns and villages daytrip in Altinkum, the beach area of Didim, and residents of Ankara or Germany spend some of the season in their summer homes.

The vast majority go nowhere near the Temple of Apollo, Didim’s only notable attraction aside from the beach. It is the same story for the Turks who staff the bars for six months each year before returning to their homes dotted around the rest of Anatolia.

Posted in Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Living in Turkey, Photo Features, Travel Features

Tags: altinkum, didim, photos, seven wonders, turkey

7 Comments »

Back Home

Posted by The Working Traveller on July 4th, 2011

Sitting at my desk a month or so after our return it seems almost like we haven’t been away and that there hadn’t been a seven month gap since I last sat in this chair.

I haven’t forgotten that in those seven months we followed Moses’s footsteps up Mount Sinai, walked in the desert, swam over coral reefs, waited out the Egyptian revolution, swore at numerous taxi drivers in Beirut, stayed in a cave, walked around the Byzantine walls of Diyabakir and crossed the Tigris under an orange sky in Iraq. Those things happened to Traveller Shane, not to Home Shane.

Posted in Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Site News

Tags: egypt, travel blogging, turkey

2 Comments »

Photos of Beirut Street Art

Posted by The Working Traveller on June 18th, 2011

Bordering Israel and with its own multi fragmented political scene, it should come as no surprise that the most politicised street art I have noticed was found in Beirut.

I don’t go around looking for such things but I have had a soft spot for stencilled street art ever since I lived in south London. The Tooting Bec chapter of a Peruvian political group was particularly active in painting small clenched fists on blank white walls in the streets around my home.

Posted in Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Photo Features, Travel Features

Tags: beirut, lebanon, photos

4 Comments »

Caves, Chimneys and Stone Houses in Cappadocia

Posted by The Working Traveller on June 14th, 2011

As poor travel editors our budget usually buys us a night in a charmless room in a central part of town but recently we took advantage of our website and traded some of our advertising space to stay in accommodation that were worth enjoying in their own right.

The Cappadocia region of Turkey offers an array of hotel options where competition drives hoteliers to compete on style, uniqueness and ambience rather than on price alone. We took the opportunity to compare three different cave hotels in the region, one in Avanos and two in Goreme.

Posted in Accommodation, Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Travel Features

Tags: accommodation, avanos, cappadocia, goreme, turkey

No Comments »

Photo Feature: Jerash Roman Army and Chariot Experience

Posted by The Working Traveller on June 2nd, 2011

Twice a day Saturday to Thursday (except Tuesday) the Romans come to the Jordanian town of Jerash. There they demonstrate their soldierly skills, stage a gladiator fight, and race their chariots around the former Empire’s smallest Hippodrome.

The Romans have been in Jerash before. Pompey’s Legions took over the region in 64 BC and Gerasa as it was then known later become part of the Decapolis: ten Roman city states on the eastern border of the Empire.

The Roman Army and Chariot Experience is good fun but I have a fantastic suggestion to make it even better.

Posted in Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Our Travels, Photo Features, Travel Features

Tags: jerash, jordan, photos

3 Comments »

Beirut? Why on Earth Would We Want to go There?

Posted by The Working Traveller on May 24th, 2011

Lebanon was another country that was only regarded as a maybe for our current (didn’t quite make it to) Cairo to (almost) Istanbul trip. Sans visa we had hoped to introduce ourselves to Syria from Jordan and be granted entry on the spot but didn’t think we would get away with it twice if we tried to re-renter the country from Lebanon.

By the time we got to Syria revolution was in the air and I was turned away at the border. From Jordan Syria awkwardly sat slap bang in the way of our route home to Turkey so we instead flew in and out of Lebanon.

Posted in Cairo to (almost) Istanbul, Our Travels, Travel Features, Travelling

Tags: beirut, lebanon

5 Comments »