The tour of ruins continues in Pergamum/Bergama.

From Ayvalic, it was back onto the historical ruins trail! To Pergamum (Bergama) to see the Acropolis, the Asclepion and the Red Basilica. The top two shots here are of the Red Basilica, a temple made in 117A.D in dedication to the Gods of Egypt. They beleive that because it was built facing the West, that it was probably built for the Egyptian god of the Underworld, Serapis. But after some remodelling (and trashing really), it was made into a christian church, and dedicated to the Apolostle John. In early christianity, it was one of the seven churches in Asia Minor address by St John in the Book of Revelation. Really amazing history and quite beautiful. One of the structures is this massive dome, if you can imagine stepping inside a red-brick snow dome thing, about 6 stories high .. thats what this is like, it is EERIE! And inside, there used to be this massive statue which a preist would climb inside of and speak to the congregation from .. as though the statue was speaking. Would have been quite an effect coming from a huge marble statue (about one story high) from inside a huge brick snow dome! The photo I have taken from within the dome doesnt do the height nor the temperature (was very cold inside) nor magnitude of the building any justice. .. oh and the picture completely misses the amazing "KOOO EEEEEE" you can get from inside it!

The next 9 shots are taken from The Acropolis, perched on top of a hill about 300metres high, amazing ruins of an empire from 3rd century b.c. The first 5 shots (starting with the one of me and all the ones of the marble looking pillars) are of the Temple of Trajan, a massive temple built on top of the empire out of marble, it is most impressive! The next 2 shots are of the vertigo inducing theatre, built into the side of the mountain to seat around 10,000 people .. still one of the steepest theatres in the world. Fucking amazing and a bit scary! The next two photos (the photo of me and the one after it of the flat ground with the bricks and the little bits of marble posts, if you count down from the top of the pics, its pictures 10 and 11), are of a massive old library that Eumenis II built and which rivavled the one at Alexandria, the Egyptians werent impressed. Since the people of Pergamum didnt have papyrus like the Egyptians, they came up with parchment .. Ironically, when Pergamum came under Roman rule, Marc Antony gave all of the 200,000 parchments to Cleopatra as a gift .. which unfortunately all disappeared in a fire.

The next 10 photos are from the ruins of the Asclepion .. one of the first known hospital or health/ healing centres known .. although you couldnt be 'dying' or about to have a baby to entre this health facility! The Asclepion was built in 117A.D in devotion to Asclepios, the son of Apollo and the God of Healing. Most of the healing methods were ritualistic in nature, including dream interpretations and steam baths. It also has a theatre built into a small hill, which seats 3500 patients - pales in comparison to the Acropolis theatre. The ruins of the hallways, the tunnels for walk ways into the treatment areas which also channeled the water from the sacred wells all through the site, and the waiting areas for patients are still really well preserved - the sacred fountain still has running water from it .. which I had a little sip of and then read that it was weakly radioactive!! Good. Gorgeous shot of a family of tortoise living in the sacred waters .. two little ones following their mum around! Really cute.

So, continuing on my tour of the ancient world, its off to Ephesus, to see one of the seven wonders of the ancient world The Temple of Artemis.

Ayvalic - on the Angean Sea.

Ayvalic - the gorgeous little coastal town on the Angean Sea. I headed here from Troy for a couple nights stay in a gorgeous pension - which is basically a homestay. There are a lot of them here, people who turn their homes into a sort of hotel/bed and breakfast type thing. Ive attached a few shots of the Pension (the first two are of the house, one of a sign at the front door and another of the gorgeous medetarian feeling living room, really rustic and homely). I spent a couple days here just wandering about, relaxing and spent several hours in a local man's little 2nd hand shop learning Turkish. Ive put up a couple photos of him, one of him inside his shop and one of him sitting outside tinkering away at something. We had on particularlly interesting conversation, with his limited English and my almost non-existant Turkish about how our word 'sick' means 'dick' in Turkish so if I tell someone I feel sick, Im actually saying I want to fuck ... umm .. we spent quite a bit of time desiphering what the other one meant .. I thought things were getting VERY weird when he started talking about my babies being sick fuck, fucking, penis, sick fuck, fucking sick etc etc .. I nearlly walked off very upset that our Turkish lessons had taken such a turn! He was getting distressed that I didnt understand and that I thought he was being rude .. after much apologising and embarrassment on my behalf, I thanked him kindly for possibly helping me avoid a bad situation in telling someone I felt sick .. or rather that I felt like penis .. umm .. not so good!!! He was gorgeous and when I left, I asked him how much an old tin that I'd seen lying about cost .. he insisted that I take it as a gift and was most offended that I tried to pay, he said that if I pay him for something then the friendship would be broken .. it made a lot of sense, and I love the tin! Was a fairly uneventful stop, but peaceful and relaxing. Was nice to be near the water and stay in such a gorgeous home. I'm starting to like Turkey more and more.

Oh and my passport is still on holiday.

Turkey - Gettin my History on in Troy!

To kill a bit more time until my passport is returned to Istanbul, I started travelling further south from Galipoli towards the ancient ruins of Troy, an amazing spot which existed over 4,000 years ago and was thought up until the 19th century to be just a fairy tale, and did not actually exist. The amazing thing here is that it is layers of cities which have over thousands of years been destroyed and then re-built on top of each other, so Troy I to V was built roughly during the Bronze Age (Troy 1 existed from 3000 to 2600bc, Troy II 2600 to 2250bc, Troy III 2250 to 2100bc, Troy IV 2100 to 1950bc and Troy V from 20th to 19th century BC, Troy VI from 17th to 15th bc, Troy VII 1300 bc to 900bc, Troy VIII from 700 bc and finally Troy IX from 1st centurty bc). One of the shots I have here with all the little white signs on them, shows the layers of some of the ruins and from which era they belonged, it really was beautiuful and again hard to get my head around such history and time ... makes me realise how young white Australia is .. and that our richness of culture comes only in with our Indigenous History, which 'we' dont embrace anyway ... shame shame shame. Anyway! ... some pics above of Troy and one of me inside the Trojan horse replica! The shots of the ruins dont do it justice. Oh and note the red poppies littered throughout the pics ... you see them now and then scattered in the country side, makes sense why we have the red poppy for Anzac Day. They are sooo vibrant and beautiful.

Turkey - Anzac Day at Galipoli

Anzac Day - after deciding to go, I ended up scoring a cheap deal down to Galipoli on a local bus. I headed out from the hostel at about 8pm the night before Dawn Service started, arrived down at Galipoli at about 9.30pm and already all the tour groups that I wasnt in love with were there, taking up all the lying down spots. So found a pozzie in the stands and knew Id be in for a long night sitting on a hard plastic chair all night. They expect anywhere between 5 and 20 thousand people each year, and expected this year to be small (there ended up being about 3.500 people) because so many flights were cancelled due to the volcano. During the night they showed a few short docos about the first world war, I watched as the time ticked by veeerrry slowly until 5am when the service started - it was about 5 degrees overnight so needless to say I didnt get much sleep whilst sitting on a chair with just about every item from my backpack on (I only really had clothes for 45 degree weather in India with me). The pre-service started with a traditional Maori welcome which sent shivers down my spine, then our Navy Band which did NOT send shivers down my spine .. they only did a few numbers thank god. Then a group of 4 older Maori women formally opened the Dawn Service at the time when the Anzacs first landed on Anzac Cove, at 4.30am .. I'm sure theres a word for this song, but they basically wailed for about 5 minutes, this spine chilling most mournful sound Ive ever heard, there were just a few words sung but it was in looong wailing tones, that brought tears to my eyes. Of course, the standard minutes silence and bugal were played and it was all quite emotional, to be sitting on the cliffs at Anzac Cove in Galipoli, where thousands of Aussies, Kiwis and Turks were killed nearly a hundred years ago. I felt so humbled that the Turkish had given up such a HUGE peice of land as an Anzac memorial sight, it is really beautifully maintained with gorgeous grass and flowers everywhere, and the amount of land that they have dedicated to us is really amazing. Its really humbling to think that they faught against each other, but every year hosts our memorials in such a respectful and united way. An example of this was so beautifully highlighted in Ataturk's message to the Mothers of the Anzacs who had died at Galipoli (Ive attached a picture of it, I hope you can read it). Ataturk was the leader of the Turkish Army and went on to become the first President of Turkey and founder of the Republic of Turkey .. he is absolutely still seen as a hero in Turkey, his picture is everywhere and his name is seen on banners and posters still today. He amazingly said in 1935 "I am convinced that the excerise of social and political rights by women is necessary for mankind's happiness and pride. You can rest assured that Turkish women as well as the World's women will work towards world peace and security" .. he was very progressive for men in that era. His letter to the Mother's of Australia and New Zealand was really touching.

I felt also realy honoured to be there on behalf of Grandad and Gramps, and have a new found respect for their time they spent in the War. I just simply cant imagine it.

After the Dawn Service, I headed up to Lone Pine, where the offical Australian Memorial is held. The first time Indigenous Australians were mentioned was here but a Grade 9 girl who won a prize for her research project on "people forgotten in the War". She did her story on Aboriginal people who were not allowed to enlist in the war (I dare say because at this point they were not counted as 'citizens of Australia' or counted in a census .. actually I do beleive that they were still classed under the Flora and Fauna Act), so many of them got false documents and forged their way to enlist and fight for THEIR COUNTRY. She found one man called Maynard who managed to enlist, and for her project she brought some Red Ochre from the cliffs near her house and brought them to Galipoli to rub on his name (theres a picture Ive attached of it) because she thought it might make him feel closer to his home country. I was moved to tears. The first time Indigenous people were mentioned (and there was A LOT about Maori contribution to the war) and it was by a 9th grade girl for her school project, who understood that for an Aboriginal person to not be buried on their land causes a restless wandering spirit ... good on you girl.

After the Austalian Memorial and the Attorney General gave her speach (picture attached of her receiving some stupid beanie from the Fanatics group), I signed the book for Grandad and Gramps (picture attached) and headed back to Eceabat.

The following day I felt like I didnt really get to see much of Galipoli or the sights that were central in the Anzac campaign, so I headed back down on a day tour with the hostel. I took some shots of the graves, there were many moving enscriptions on the stones, mostly ones from Mothers. Ive just taken some shots of the more freqently seen ones.

One of the things that really did impress and shock me was the proximity in which the Turkish and the Anzacs were fighting .. in some places there was a one way road in between them and they were throwing each other bits of supplies (cigarettes, beef jerky, bread etc) to try each other stocks .. I cant imagine how making that human connection felt in the context of killing each other. I was overwhelmed with the mental images of the war while I was walking around (there is still a lot of gun pellets and remanents of actual fighting littered around the place), seeing the trenches, hundres of K's of trenched dug by bare hands (a pic attached of one of the trenches and an underground bunker thing) .. was really hard to wrap my head around actually. To think that I was standing where more than 8000 Aussies, 22 000 British and about 3000 Kiwis died and where 86,000 Turks died ... yes ... EIGHTY SIX THOUSAND. The history is amazing and I didnt realise how much I didnt know about the first world war .. what happened at the Nec, at Lone Pine and that the whole fucking thing may have been avoided if the British had have kept their promise to the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) and gave them their 2 battle ships that they had purchased from the British .. this simple deception made the Turks who were until that point neutral in the war, decide which side they would take .. the British or the Germans ... so they supported the Germans because the British had ripped them off.

They called this the last Gentleman's War .. a war where the two sides help feed each other, called 'time out' so that the other side could bury their dead .. it really is hard/impossible to imagine so much death in 40 degree heat, wearing wool uniforms and boots, covered in lice and bugs, starving, dehydrated and scared out of your mind .. not to mention that around you, thousands of bodies lie dead and decaying for days and weeks .. your friends, and sometimes your family. That hundreds and hundreds of people died of exposure and dysentry is really just horrible to imagine. Its just overwhelming and makes me sooo fucking angry that wars even happen. They are absolutely pathetic .. selfish ... abusive .. avoidable ... violent and unthinkable.

It was an honour to be there for you Grandad and Gramps .. and for Grandma and Nan who also faught in a different way in the War xxxx