7/5/2000
check out Hotel Sarikonak, Sultanahmet.

Stamboul Otogar. 12:44pm.

About to leave for Canakkale.

Au/NZ tourists complaining about the toilets, so I guess they were squats.

Feels like we're finally getting out of the really modern touristy bits. The bus station was huge and Turkish, not Turkish/English.

12:52pm.

On the road!

[Long rambly bit of journal]

Asia. 8:16pm

Restaurant First Class.

Long bus ride. Met a guy who seems genuinely nice and not just nice to sell us something.

We were just in another cafe but our attempts at ordering food, which at first seemed so triumphant, turned to tragedy when we realised that what we'd thought being waved at us was cheese for some kind of [vegie] cheese dish, was, in fact, a chip. Consequently, we were proudly served with a plate of chips with tomato sauce.

[We later discovered that Canakkale is obsessed with anzac tourists, which might explain why they didn't seem to think we'd want any real food.]

So now we're in a different cafe, after an actual meal.

11:03pm

Twice people have mistaken Fraser and I for brother and sister and twice I've been jokingly called Chinese.

Something I totally failed to mention earlier is that I get stared at a lot, sometimes to the point of feeling harassed.

Also, Turkey is full of street and domestic cats - you could trace generations of street cats in Sultanahmet.

Did I mention that I get stared at a lot? Whole streets stop and nudge each other to have a look. At first I thought I must have been dressed inappropriately (in an ankle-length dress!) but maybe it's just cos I'm pale. One guy crapped on about my milky skin, but maybe he was just trying to sell us something.

Bus to Canakkale. Stayed in noisy pension.