Chitwan National Park: Nepal
We came from Lumbini in Nepal to Chitwan in a sevenhour drive. Itwas a nice drive but our driver went a little bit too fast for my liking or for any one elses liking to be more to the point. When we got into Chitwan we figured we were staying in a really nice location because it was right on the river and near a small town. The bad thing is that our room is not right next to the river and does not have a very good view of the river ( in case there might just be a crocidile waiting to eat the next tourist who is stupid enough to go swimming). Tommorow we go on an all day jeep safari which was quite exspensive ( we will probabley have to live on bread and tap water for the next month now ).
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The Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi
Today I got up early and played with the new lego that my mum got me to travel with as an extra thing to do. After that we went to the Grand Mosque. I had to wear long pants and a top with long sleeves and my mum and sister had to wear head scarves. I did not like this because it was so hot. It was kind of fun there, but it was a little bit too fancy and new. It was a nice place with a massive carpet and some very big fancy chandeliars. It was a massive relief when we realised it had air conditioning inside.
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Valley of the Kings (Egypt)
Today we got up at 6 o’ clock in the morning to see the the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. We got in the car and started driving the 20 minute drive to the Valley of the Kings on the West bank of the River Nile in Luxor. We got there and almost immediately we started getting hassled by all of the shop keepers . Once we passed them we got to the security ( there is a lot of security in Egypt ). We were then met by the intesifying rays of the sun god Ra as the ancient Egyptains called him. With the ticket you got to visit three of the tombs that were open, and there was an extra ticket if you wanted to see the tomb of Ramses 5 and 6 and the tomb of Tutankhamen. The first tomb we visited was the tomb of Tutmoses which was nice and both of the cools (As in the temperature and experience, even though it was really hot at 7.30 in the morning . After going to the tombs we left and then went to the museum which was pretty cool as well.
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Arriving in Istanbul
Today we arrived in Turkey. I got a big surprise as it was not how I imagined it as it was all green and it was a really nice temperature . When we got to the baggage claim we realised you had to pay one Euro for a trolley. Luckily I was given some money as a late birthday present from my Aunty. We put the Euro in this little machine on the side of the trolley and then we realised the trolley was basically free because all you had to do to get your Euro back was lock another trolley to it and then your money would be automatically given back to you. When we got to our hotel it was nice but it was not awesome. We then had our lunch at a local Kebab store and I got an Et Durum. It was good because I have been craving one since the first time I had one which was like four years ago. It was then I realised that there were heaps of kebab stores and from then on, I absolutely loved Istanbul.
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Our trip to Gallipoli
Today we woke up early to go to the Gallipoli battle fields and the memorials. We had a rental car then which made it very easy to get around Turkey. We used the google maps to get to Anzac Cove but we forgot to turn off and we ended up in Lone Pine memorial. The memorial was very nice so we stayed there for a bit longer than expected.
After that we drove up the mountain to Chunuk Bair memorial where there were a lot of Turkish soilders visiting the memorial as well as us and a few other tourists. Then we began the small descent to Anzac cove where we had a walk along the beach. As we were walking on the beach my mum suddenly called me over, “Look at this”, she cried”. “ It’s a bullet that has not been fired” ! And sure enough there was an old rusty bullet in her hands. We kept on walking for a little bit longer and then my mum called me over for the second time. “Hey Jasper, look at this I found a bone”, she said. She was holding up a medium sized bone that I took from her and buried.
Later my mum called me for the third time, “Hey Jasper look at this”, she said and I hurried over to where she was standing and there in her clutch was a small baby turtle. Finnaly we had a swim and then went to have dinner with some fellow New Zealanders we met along the way.
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Pamukkale
Today we wet to Pamukkale ( a big white calcium build up ). At about 11am we got in the car and went to the bottom gate. We got our tickets and then we enterd the national park. It was a lot different than I expected ( you could just go swimming when ever you like in any random place).
We found a pool but alas this was a dumb pool so we moved to a different pool. This one was a lot better than the last one as it was a lot deeper. It was not so muddy and we got it all to ourselves. We stayed in this one for a lot longer than any other pool.
Soon we started to walk up the big white hill to the top where we looked at a whole lot of cool ruins for about half of our time. At about noon we started to walk down the hill back to our rental car. On the way we stopped at the cool pool again, and then we left.
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Goreme
We had booked a place in Goreme but we cancelled because it did not look very nice and my brother got bitten by one of their dogs. We started looking for good places to stay and soon we found a place with kind people that was big and kind of cheap (because of the bombing at the airport the week before which meant lots of tourists did not want to go to Turkey ). Soon we were stayiing in the biggest place we had ever stayed in that had everything ( it even had a traditional Turkish bath). On the fist day in Goreme we did not do anything because I was extremely sick although thankfully I did not vomit but I had very bad diarrhoea.
The next day I was better and we went to the underground cities which were so cool. We got to explore of all the underground passages. After that I bought a balloon with my pocket money .Then we went to a church which was also very cool.
The next day we went to Zelve Valley where we climbed a cool but tricky ladder. After that we went to the open air museum which had so many cool churches with beautiful mosaics.
In the last coulple of days we went carpet shopping where we bought five carpets and I got two more cool balloons.
