Sep 30th, 2008

Got up at 8 today, and by the time A and KJ woke up and we had breakfast, it was 10:30 - called mustafa to see when we'd get the car - "by today evening" was the response.

We decided to take up our trip to Troy in the meanwhile. Started walking to the bus station, and KJ did the usual thing - asked a group of three "young women" about the bus. Not sure if he understood what they said, but decided they meant "follow us" - so we did, and landed up at the wrong bus stand. The guys there pointed us to the right place - a bridge under river sira - which wasn't far. KJ tried again with a "young woman" on way - "do you understand English?" "no" came the reply - today wasn't going to be his day! Finally, we boarded the minibus. There were a few other people headed to Troy - amongst them a group of four university students from Israel and a guy and a girl from NZ.

The bus journey was fairly pleasant, and it was great chatting up with the folks from Israel (for one, they knew english!) - the bus ride had an element to it that you just couldn't get in a car ride. Half an hour later, we were at Troy and right at the entrance, there was the wooden horse. Having seen the movie, A and KJ believed the story of Achilles was real, and it took a while to get them to agree it might not be. What indeed was real was the city, and the excavations were really interesting.

We were done by about half past one, and wanted to go about see a few other places before returning to Canakkale. However, the bus and ferry schedule didn't seem favorable, so we took a minibus back to C. On the way back, we had some of the same folks we had met on our way in, amongst them a local family. A decided to pip KJ to the post and started impressing the girl out there. After offering his seat to another woman (which did trigger an appreciative smile from the girl), he was practically hanging over her. I reminded him that he probably wanted to offer her some moving space. "no no, what she really wants is ki mein uspe chad jaaon"! "no arnab, trust me, no one in the world wants ki tu uspe chad jaaye". After a while, the seat next to the girl got vacated and A seated himself, ever so determined to start a conversation - "do you understand english?" no" - that was that. In retrospect, this was the point when A came into full swing, and would overshadow KJ with the fairer sex through rest of the trip.

Back to Chanakkale, we had lunch at Yeken, and then searched for a museum we thought we'd visit. KJ's woman navigation wasn't working today. We landed at the harbor and A decided we wanted to go boating. He was talking to the yacht guy and we ordered tea. Through the negotiation, we figured we didn't want to go, but the temptation of having free tea was irresistible. Said thanks, and rushed out of that place as soon as we could, before the restaurant guy would get to us - haven't done too many of these since college days.

Went sat at a waterside restaurant - beer and backgammon - and continuously pinging mustafa for the car. Let's see when we get the car and if we head out today... Finally, A & KJ decided to go back to Ecaebet and get the car back themselves. They came in at around 9:30pm and were still very enthu about camping at Bergama so we started out. I was tired and slept off for an hour or so.

After another hour (yes, its midnight), near the Dikli junction, we saw - guess what - a nightclub. Literally in middle of nowhere! We decided to get in for while - looks like this was going to be a long night! The atmosphere was very lively and some good music and dance going on. We had a drink each in about an hour we were there - A was total enthu and kept "skirting" the issue when asked to resume the drive - this place would go on for long but we got back on the road.

After a while we realized that we had probably crossed past Bergama - A's navigation as usual. I thought we should go ahead to Silcuk, but A was enthu to go back and see Acropolis tomorrow. So we turned back. About at the outskirts of Bergama, we asked a cab driver about the camp site we had booked. He offered us to guide us there, only to charge us a 10 lira when we got there!

The camp site was locked, and we had to wake the keeper at 2:30 - he showed us around what was a city pseude camp site in backyard of a restaurant - caravan camps. Utterly avoidable for any self-respecting camper. They also did not have any tents etc as they had claimed on phone. As A decided to converse in sign language, the keeper started waving his hands - A goes "kya, chidiya uda raha hai?" - the description was pretty accurate. That was a quick exit, and we started finding a hotel.

Got to Odyssey guesthouse - this is a greek house now modeled into a guesthouse - nice guy, woke up at 3 in the morning to let us in. A was best at bargaining with the other party wanting to retire back asap! As we parked our car, it was smelling funny again - hopefully we won't have to go over another repair tomorrow....