AASebWorldTour

October 30, 2013

Annapurna Circuit Part 1, Nepal

The first three days, from Besisahar to Dharapani

We were really exited to start walking on our first morning. It was something we had been looking forward to for over a month now. It is a great adventure, walking hundreds of kilometres surrounded by some of the highest mountains of the world. What is awesome is also going through all the different climates. We started in a jungle, at 760 meters in altitude in Besisahar, and hiked all the way to the white top mountains in a matter of a few days.

Day 1 – To Upper Ngadi

On our first day, the trail already offered us great views of the valley and an insight into the life of people living in small Nepali villages. We took the opportunity to stop and have tea in a small family home and discuss with them about their lives. We stopped for the day around lunchtime in Upper Ngadi, a really small village with only one lodge. We didn’t know what to expect from all the restaurants and small lodges regarding the food. We were thinking that we would eat the same thing for three weeks, but the menu is quite extensive considering the remote location of the villages. We already walked 12.6 kilometres today, carrying our own backpacks. We were quite satisfied we could make it that far for our first day. We realized right away that our bed time would be really early on the trail when we went to bed… at around 8:15 pm.

First bridge

The restaurant and our room

The bathroom with shower

Upper Ngadi

Day 2 – To Jagat

The mornings were quite similar every day, as we picked the same things for breakfast and were getting up at around the same time. On this second day, we were feeling great and were still excited about this adventure. We walked with a good pace along the river that we were going to follow for most of the trail. We were going up in altitude, but the river seemed to stay with us, flowing down the other way. We made it to Jagat on this second day, 13.8 kilometres further up in the valley, and at an altitude of 1281 meters. We stayed at the “North Face” lodge, the sign outside even had the official logo, just as all the clothes in Kathmandu. We were really happy with the basic room and its three windows providing great views. We also enjoyed our hot shower in the shared bathroom. The menus were quite similar so far, but the food is always a little different even when ordering the same meal. It was, again an early bed time as we were quite tired.

One of the many bridges

Basic room

The North Face Guest House

Day 3 – To Dharapani

Our third day was similar, walking 15.4 kilometres. We had to put our fleeces on that morning. We didn’t keep them for long as the trail was going up right away, warming us up really quickly. Our tea and early lunch break in Tal was very welcome as it was located right on top of a crazy hill and we definitely needed to stop. We were still following the same river and it was weird to climb a mountain and end on a plateau with the quiet river beside us at the top. We stopped for the day in Dharapani, at an altitude of 1860 meters. We took a shower as soon as we arrived, but the water was very cold. Not easy to get under the water when it is that cold. We were hoping to see a hot shower on the trail again, but we were not sure if this would happen. We had supper while talking with a nice Australian couple that were just back from trekking in Tibet. We had a nice conversation but everybody was tired and wanted to go to bed at one point. That is when we realized it was only 7 pm. It felt like it was much later but it confirmed that we were not the only ones being exhausted at night!

Making new friends along the way

Arrival in Tal

Tal

Locals clearing the road block

Part 2 – Dharapani to Upper Pisang

October 27, 2013

Kathmandu to Besisahar, Nepal

We spent one and a half month in Nepal. Our goal was to trek the Annapurna Circuit. We heard about this from people we met on our trip. They all loved it and said they would love to go back. Most of them, if not all, said they did not spend enough time in this country. For this reason, we went there with only a one way ticket so we could be flexible with our plans.

We arrived from Istanbul in Turkey. The first feeling of Kathmandu was mostly chaos. It felt like Amman, Jordan, the main difference being people driving on the other side of the road which you don’t notice that easily in the chaos of cars. The hotel we booked online had a “free” airport pickup service but, when we arrived at the hotel, the driver wanted 800 Rupees. In this case, the taxi could have been cheaper if negotiated. After a night in a plane, it was already hard to think so we just paid and moved on.

Our first five days in this new country were used to get ready for the trail. At this point, we arrived from a summer in Europe followed by fall in the Middle East so we didn’t have any warm clothing left. We needed to find warm clothes and a sleeping bag suited to the temperature of the mountains. The Thamel district has everything a backpacker could think of, cheap and mostly fake brands. For us, the brand and quality wasn’t all that important, we just wanted it to survive the trail. We also bought a good map and downloaded offline GPS maps for the phone. We decided to do this circuit without a guide, carrying our own bags, as we felt it would be more challenging, rewarding and would allow us to be more flexible.

After all the shopping and making sure we were ready for this new adventure, we bought our bus ticket from Kathmandu to Besisahar via a trekking shop. The bus station is located 2.6 km from Thamel so we started to walk early in the morning to catch the 7:30am bus. Besisahar is the small village where we started our hike. Some people are transferring from Besisahar in a Jeep to Bhulbhule or further but we wanted to walk from the beginning. The bus ride was a painful 8 hours, stopping 2 or 3 times for rest on the way. After our arrival, we decided that our original plan of starting the hike that afternoon wasn’t an option and we decided to have a meal and sleep in the lodge attached to the restaurant where the bus dropped us. We had a night of rest and a good breakfast in the morning before hitting the trail. This was finally the beginning of our journey in some of the tallest mountains in the world!

Trying some of the clothes.

All of our stuff… Ready to pack!

Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal

Laundry time, Nepali style.

Our bus, loaded and ready to go.

The traffic jam on the “highway” because of an accident.

View from the bus on the way to Besisahar.

Besisahar, Nepal

October 20, 2013

Second stop in Istanbul, Turkey

After exploring Turkey, we came back to Istanbul for a couple days to catch a flight for our next destination. We arrived in Istanbul after our night bus from Izmir. We surprisingly were able to sleep for most of the bus ride. We arrived at the main bus station under pouring rain. There was a little bit of confusion to know if this was the right stop, but we managed to communicate with the bus attendant. He told us to get out and catch a minibus to get to Taksim Square. We hurried toward the minibus, and it was a good timing as it only had two seats left.

As soon as the bus drove closer to Taksim, we recognized the area from our first stay in Istanbul. We stepped out and walked toward the hostel. It was located on a side street close to Istiklal street, the main pedestrian shopping street. Because it was 7:30 am and raining, the street was empty, with just a few delivery trucks. It made it a lot easier to walk through. We finally found the hostel and rang the bell. The owner showed us our room and we dropped our bags, as quietly as possible as one of the guys in the dorm was still sleeping. We went back out in the rain as we both really needed food.

We returned to Taksim Square where we had seen a little coffee and pastry restaurant. We enjoyed our breakfast of Americano coffee and chocolate croissants. While eating we looked out the window at all the Turks and tourists running around and breaking their umbrellas. We had though that the umbrellas being sold on the street looked sturdy, but after 15 minutes looking outside and just seeing people with the white transparent umbrellas having trouble, we changed our minds! After our breakfast, we went back to the hostel where we spent time to inventory everything we carry in our backpacks to see if we still needed all of it. Later we went for a walk to see the Citadel and the park surrounding it. We had a nice supper in a restaurant located in the main pedestrian street. Our our way back to the hostel we bought a bottle of wine to enjoy while chatting with our roommates for the night.

The next morning we had a weird experience. AA suddenly felt ill, runny nose and dry mouth. Our roommate from Dubai was laughing at us a little bit, but soon Seb started to have a runny nose and was coughing as well. Few minutes later, we were all three sneezing, and looking for tissues to blow our noses. There must have been something in the air outside or in the hostel because as soon as we got out, no more runny nose. We checked out and left our bags at the hostel for the day to visit some more sights of Istanbul.

We walked to the Bosphorus, where we sat down and had improvised breakfast sandwiches. We went for a walk in the more touristy quarters surrounding the citadel. We met many really cute kittens, one must have been just a few weeks old. Small enough to fit in a pocket (which AA considered for a few minutes). There are many stray cats and dogs in Turkey. It is really sad to see them eat garbage and being very skinny.

We finally made our way to Hagia Sophia Mosque as well as Sultan Ahmed Mosque (known as Blue Mosque). We decided to have a look at the Blue Mosque and followed the crowd. The inside courtyard of the mosque is filled with big interesting information boards. They cover the beliefs of Muslim and the history of the religion. We lined up behind quite a few tourists, but the line was moving fast. Seb had though of carrying his orange Jordanian scarf, so AA was able to cover her head without having to rent a scarf. We took our shoes off and walked in the mosque. The mosque is beautiful, and has amazing mosaic tile work. The area where locals go to pray is through a different entrance. The men and women pray in different areas as well; the men in the larger area in the middle of the mosque and the women towards the back. Many tourists where being really loud and not very respectful of the people praying. We spent some time taking the beauty of the place in before going back out in the city.

We continued to explore Istanbul for the remaining of the day, before walking back to the hostel to get our bags. We decided to get ourselves some Starbucks coffees so we could enjoy American style coffee and free WiFi. Seb ordered 2 large coffees while AA stayed outside keeping an eye on the bags and the only available table. When we tried to log onto the WiFi, it didn’t work so we asked the employees who told us we needed to register with a valid Turkey cell phone number… Which obviously we don’t have. And if we did, we probably would not need free WiFi as there is usually a data package with the phones… After drinking our huge coffees, we needed to use the bathroom, only to be told that they were not open right now. This was not the best Starbucks experience and we will probably stick to the very basic little coffee shops next time we are looking for a place to spend time and use WiFi.

After our deceiving Starbucks experience, we walked toward the underground station to get on our way to the airport. We decided to walk instead of getting on for just one stop on a different line. We were walking toward the station when suddenly AA said that maybe we should double check that our flight was really leaving from Istanbul Atatürk Airport. We had been so sure that this was the case that we didn’t feel the need to double check again. We were really surprised to see that our flight was actually leaving from Sabiha Gökçen Airport. This airport being at the other end of the city, on the Asian side! We didn’t expect that, so we rushed back to the subway station we were just at, got on for one stop to Taksim and almost ran to get to the bus stop where we first arrived in Istanbul. We were lucky enough to catch the bus who then brought us to the right airport. It is a good thing that we are always on the safe side when planning time to get somewhere, because we arrived just in time for the start of the check-in. It was a very good reminder to always double check the booking confirmation.

There was a pretty big line up at the Air Arabia counter, and things were moving really slowly, but hey, we were at the right airport now! The crowd was also different, because our first flight was to Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. Most women were wearing their headscarves. We finally checked-in and decided to go through security right away thinking that food could wait. Making sure we were going to catch our plane was the priority. We found our gate and went back to the restaurant area and sat down at a table only to be told they were closing in ten minutes and we couldn’t order food. We walked to the second level of fast food restaurant, but they too where already done, because they close at midnight. Apparently 10 minutes before you can’t buy anything. We hurried to the sandwich shop we had seen by our gate and surely, it was already closed. So we had to go with the only option left, a really expensive not really tasty dry sandwich and small bottles of water. We ate our lunch and finished jut a few minutes before boarding. The plane took off at 1:10am, almost on time. We had a short one hour and ten minute connection in Sharjah Airport, but we landed almost 30 minutes late. By the time we got off the plane, in the bus and through security, it was already the last call. We hurried to the right gate, and took another bus… who brought us to the same plane we had just left minutes ago. It was quite funny because when we checked-in at the Air Arabia counter in Istanbul, the guy had given us the same seat numbers for both flights so we sat in the exact same spots. This second flight was pretty smooth and we arrived on time in the buzzing city of Kathmandu in Nepal.

Hagia Sofia :

Sultanahmet :

October 16, 2013

Pamukkale, Turkey

After one last day relaxing and reading in Goreme, we grabbed our bags and headed toward the bus station. Our night bus arrived on schedule and was very full. The bus had multiple stops on the way; three times for a 30 minute break, and on a few occasions to pick up and drop off people. It was very hard to sleep as the attendant turned the lights on a few minutes before each stop, and the guy working in the alley was passing by a lot, doing the snack service as well. The bus arrived in Denizli around 6am, and a minibus was parked on the side of the highway to bring us to Pamukkale. We sat in the minibus which drove us to the Metro office. That is when we learned it was a big celebration day in the Arab world, Sacrifice Feast, so the hotels where not opened yet according to the guys working in the bus station. We waited for about an hour, listening to some machine gun being fired. The Asian tourists looked slightly startled by the sound when they got of their minibus. After spending one month in Jordan, where there was a wedding celebration almost every night with machine guns and fireworks, we now consider it a normal sound.

We walked to the hotel, checked-in, showered and went for a tasty and much needed breakfast in a restaurant attached to another hotel. After filling our bellies, we started our climb up the cascades of the Travertines. They are made of multiple pools filled with mineral water coming from a natural source. The water was still fairly warm which was a good thing as we needed to remove our shoes to walk in the cascades. The Travertines made of limestone rock are bright white, and the water a nice shade of turquoise. Pamukkale means “cotton castle” in Turkish, and it is a pretty accurate description. It was funny to us as it looked like snow. It definitely feels different to step on what looks like a snowbank, but is hard as rock and covered with warm running water. Our feet really appreciated the treatment, and our skin was baby soft at the end of the day.

At the top of the cascades, we visited Hieropolis, an old Roman city. It had a great amphitheater with 12 000 seats. There is also a pool with remains of roman columns in the bottom. We didn’t pay the extra money to swim in the pool as it was getting very crowded. After our time in the Travertines and the ruins, we walked back towards the small town to plan our bus to Izmir the following day.

The next morning, we woke up late, enjoyed the well-presented breakfast from the Allgau hotel before packing up and heading out to the bus station. The guy from Metro had told us the day before that there were buses every hour, but when we arrived at 11am, he said the next one was at 3pm. So we decided to try Pamukkale Bus Company instead as they had room to leave right away. We took a Dolmus (shared minibus) from Pamukkale to Denizli to reach the bus. It was even more comfortable than the other company. Slightly more expensive but worth it. We read while listening to some music from the entertainment system for most of the 4 hour ride.

When we arrived in Izmir, the sky was very dark and it started raining. We tried to find information on how to reach to the city center by bus. The signs were not very obvious but we finally found the bus stop, and the little kiosk where we bought our tickets. The guy didn’t speak much English, but enough to tell us the right bus number to take. Seb’s GPS app turned out to be very useful again as we could see where to get off and find to our hotel.

Our stay in Izmir was brief, only two days, as we just needed to shop for good hiking boots for our next adventure. We also started to buy some warmer clothes as we don’t have any left after summer in Europe and fall in the Middle East. After our short stay in Izmir, we took another night bus to Istanbul where we spent one night and two days to prepare for our next flight.

October 13, 2013

Ihlara Valley, Cappadocia, Turkey

After our visit to Kaymakli, we walked part of the Ihlara Valley. We entered the park through entrance 1, payed our 8 Lira fee and started our descent down the stairs to the river. The trail in itself is fairly easy, wide and almost flat. But what makes it challenging and interesting is to visit all the rock carved churches. For each and every one of them we had to climb an impressive fight of stairs, when multiplied by the quantity of churches it amounts to a good workout! We started our walk on the west side of the river, visiting Kokar church and Purenliseki church.

When we arrived at the second entrance, there were many groups starting their hike so we decided to skip the churches in that area and keep them for our way back. We visited St. George church and then decided to turn around as we didn’t really feel the need to go to Belisirma village to see mostly restaurants. We made our way back to the second entrance, this time crossing the bridge to visit Serpent church, Dark Castle Church and Egritas Church.

It was very interesting to see the frescoes that remain in the churches. They also have different styles, some with columns others simpler rectangles. After our adventures in Ihlara Valley, we got back in the rental car for a short drive to Selime Cathedral. The Cathedral was also built in the rocks and there are many rooms to explore. It looked different than Ihlara churches mainly because of the size and the rock type.

Kokar Church

Purenliseki Church

St. George Church

Yilanli Church

Dark Castle Church

Egritas Church

Here are a few pictures of Selima Cathedral:

October 13, 2013

Kaymakli, Turkey

There are 36 underground cities in Cappadocia and today we decided to visit one of them; Kaymakli. Kaymakli is said to be the widest while the other popular one, Derinkuyu, is the deepest. We rented a car from our hotel, it was an older car with a lot of kilometers on it. It looked like it was the owners’ brother’s car or something like that. We left Goreme around 9 am. We had to fill-up the car as soon as we left and that is when we realized how expensive gas is here; it is one of the most expensive places we have seen so far at almost 5 Lira per liter We followed the signs to Kaymakli Underground City, only to arrive in front of what looked like a market. There were no indications on where the ticket booth and main entrance were located. We waited a little while watching tour buses coming in, we followed them through the little market and up the street filled with shops to the entrance.

Guides were there, ready to take people on tour and trying to convince us that without a guide we were not going to understand any of it. We politely declined and bought our tickets. The tour is clearly indicated with arrows once you are inside. At the same moment we started our descent, a big group walked by us. During our exploration of Kaymakli, we saw many tour groups. They were all going really fast, just walking by the rooms, not having much time to take good pictures or even try to imagine what was life like for persecuted Christians. We were glad we didn’t pay for a guide as they too were rushing their clients through. We spend a good amount of time in almost every rooms, looking at all the nooks and crannies, taking many pictures and even exploring paths that were not lit. Good thing we had brought our head lamp. We really enjoyed our tour but it probably wouldn’t be as fun if someone was claustrophobic! We had to walk bent over pretty much the entire tour as the rooms and passages were very small. After over an hour, we came back out and drove to Ihlara village to visit the valley and it’s many churches (pictures and story in the next post).

October 11, 2013

Goreme Day 3, Turkey

This was our third day of hiking in Cappadocia. After our breakfast, we grabbed the backpack and headed towards the Open Air Museum again, but this time we walked to the end of the parking lot to start the trail. While we were walking to the museum, some hot air balloons were being deflated. They are really big! We thought about doing a tour, but it was very expensive and we already had very good views of the valleys on our first day when we hiked over to the top of the plateau. The first part of our hike was a small trail going through some gardens and more caves. It was about three kilometers long before we had to cross the main road to head toward Red and Rose Valleys.

We walked down in Red Valley, before coming back up in order to go in Rose Valley. In between we stopped for lunch on top of a big rock overlooking Red Valley. The views were so great, it felt like our eyes were not big enough to be able to take everything in all at once. After our rest, we walked down Rose Valley. The trail was fun, and we walked by many caves again, some of which we could easily explore. One of them had a little wooden bridge, so we decided to have a look. Turns out it was an amazing church carved inside the rock. From the outside it didn’t look like much, but the inside was definitely worth seeing.

When we got out of the valley, we followed a little trail that was on the GPS map but not on the paper map. We arrived in another little valley filled with cave buildings that we could explore. AA made friends with a really skinny stray dog before we continued our walk back to town. It was getting very hot and the sun was pretty strong as well. We came back to the bungalow after 11.2 kilometers.There is the hiking trail link:

Goreme Day 3

And some pictures of our day:

This is what the church looked from the outside

Please read carefully so you don’t get lost!

October 10, 2013

Goreme day 2, Turkey

We started our second day of hiking in Cappadocia by finding the head of the Pigeon Valley trail that starts in town. It was not easy to find as the paths are not clearly indicated. We finally made it to the beginning of the trail and hiked our way down the valley. At one point the path was unfortunately blocked so we decided to try to climb the rocks to go over it. It didn’t quite work, we made it up but then we would have had to do some serious rock climbing, so we decided that coming down and trying to find another path was a better and safer idea. Thanks to Seb’s GPS application in his phone, we were able to follow the path we had originally planned on taking. There are no indications to follow to make sure one is on the right path so we had to guess most of the time. After enjoying the apple trees, we crossed the main road to get into White Valley, which led to Love Valley. Walking in the valleys was really cool as we got to see more rock formations. It was also pretty quiet as in October there are not that many tourists in town and in the trails. We had a great time and really enjoyed being out in the nature and seeing amazing scenery. After our 11.8 kilometers hike, we went back to the bungalow to relax and shower. Later we went out again to mail a few things back home and buy some food in the supermarket. We settled on a traditional Jordanian meal as making supper without a kitchen can be challenging! We had some delicious bread, lebaneh, hummus, olive oil and homemade za’arta.

A couple night shots around Goreme:

These are in the town of Goreme:

Old flourmill

Buildings in Goreme

The Pigeon Valley:

The White Valley and the Love Valley:

And there is the trail:

Goreme Day 2

October 10, 2013

Goreme day 1, Turkey

After our short stop in Istanbul, we were heading to the middle of the country, in the region of Cappadocia, where we spent a week. We had an early start at 5:30 AM, walked to the shuttle bus stop, and waited for it to arrive as we were too fast getting ready. We sat in the minibus who brought us to the main station. We then waited while looking at the chaos of Turkish buses and cars all trying to have priority. Our coach turned up about one hour late, and we were the only ones in it for the first 45 minutes, until we reached the next station. Some people entered the bus and strangely the company seems to be only assigning seats starting at the front. So the back of the coach is empty and the only few people are crammed in the front. We received complimentary crackers and coffee and enjoyed the free WiFi for our really long bus ride.

We stopped in a rest area for a quick pit stop, and also stopped in the very modern and huge Ankara bus station. We didn’t feel the need to visit Ankara, even though it is the capital, there doesn’t seem to be much to see. When we stopped in Nevsehir, a minibus was ready to bring us to Goreme. It must have been the driver’s last run because he drove like a maniac (110 in a 50 km zone). We arrived in Goreme, found our little bungalow, put our bags down and went for supper. We had Gozleme, a traditional pastry dish filled with meat and/or veggies. A good recipe to keep in mind for the future!

We had a really good night of sleep in our small cabin. When we woke up, we had breakfast and started our first excursion in Capadoccia. We followed the street towards the Open-Air Museum, and kept moving all the way to the Sunset Viewpoint. After 5 km, that is when the real hike started. We climbed on top of the plateau at 1360 meters and had amazing views over the different valleys. We saw multiple caves carved in the stone. We did a grand tour and had a great time. We really enjoy hiking to the top of mountains, when we can see very far, and especially when we are by ourselves.

Here is a link to the hiking map.

Goreme Day 1

After our 14.4 kilometers hike, we took a well deserved rest in our little bungalow. For supper, we splurge in a nice restaurant where we tried the pottery lamb and pottery veggies. It was very tasty and filing with the complimentary white beans. We bought a bottle of Turkish wine to enjoy in our room.

Here are some pictures of the first day:

We also visited a church carved in the rock on our way back. It was located in the town of Cavusin. There are a lot of those churches in this region. We discovered a lot more in the Ihlara Valley, which was on our forth day in Cappadocia.

October 7, 2013

First stop in Istanbul, Turkey

As some of you know, we spent the last 40 days in the Middle-East. Our flight was a round trip ticket from Bucharest, where we ended the European part of our round the world trip. We went back to Bucharest only for a few days, deciding on our next itinerary. After comparing prices to get from Bucharest to Istanbul, we opted to fly with Pegasus Airlines. Our first choice was the train but they do not run all the way in Turkey anymore and we would have had to catch the bus at the Bulgarian-Turkish border. Our next option was the bus, but a 12 to 14 hours bus ride was not appealing as we will most likely be spending a lot of time in Turkish buses. The minor difference in price to fly made our decision an easy one.

The security video on board Pegasus Airline was notably different; showing people dancing around in the airplane. With Pegasus you have to pay to select seats, we choose not to pay so we ended up in the same row but on different sides of the aisle. The guy between us was nice enough to switch places with Seb so we could sit together. The flight was uneventful, beside the fact that we had to pay for water. A low-cost airline was substantially different from Austrian Airlines where we enjoyed free wine!

Because it was night time, just before landing in the Asian side of Istanbul, we could admire all the green lights of the many minarets. We had to wait for a while at the passport control, but it was wonderfully easy to go through as we had previously applied and received our e-visas. We picked up our bags and followed the signs to the shuttle bus. We withdrew some money from the ATM and arrived just in time for the 8pm shuttle. We sat in and enjoyed the view of the endless city center, crossing the bridge to the European side.

After a really good night sleep in our little apartment, we woke up late. We were a bit slow getting started so we left only in the afternoon. We started our exploration of Istanbul by walking all the way to the Grand Bazaar. We saw a large number of big mosques on our way. We walked for a while in the Sultanahmet neighbourhood, the area where they actually make the shoes. It is pretty impressive to see the amount of little sewing shops, the multiple stores filled with boxes, the many people running to the market with brand-new shoes. We enjoyed again being in another Arabic city. It would probably have looked a lot more different than Europe if we didn’t arrive from a month in Jordan. Istanbul is a good mix of Europe and Middle East; a really huge city with a myriad of shopping opportunities.

The next day, we tried to buy a bus ticket to go to Goreme, in Capadoccia. We asked the lady at the tourist information office located near Taksim Square, and she wasn’t really helpful. We walked on the street she indicated and went in the first office. It felt like we were bothering the people working there by wanting to buy tickets, so we walked across the street to the next bus company where we got our tickets and a smile! We chose to try our luck in Cevahir Mall for some hiking boots. We took the subway and got out in the right area, but not quite on the right street. We spotted the Trump Tower which seemed to have many shops, we walked in and found the information desk and asked the smiling girl where to find the other big mall. In Turkey, when entering a mall, one needs to go through security just like the airport. Cevahir is huge and crowded. Unfortunately, we had no success finding hiking boots. We came back and looked around for the post office but somehow we missed it, so we decided it was time to go back to our little nest. After supper, we packed our bags and prepared our lunch for the long bus ride planned for the following day.