Day 5 - The trip to Marmaris

We wake up to a long day ahead of us. We have a 4 hour bus ride from Pamukkale to Marmaris where we can catch a ferry over to Rhodes. With that in mind, we needed snacks for the trip. We head to the breakfast buffet with a huge bag and plenty of take away containers. We seat ourselves by the edge of a bush, as far away from everyone else as possible. And so the mission begins. Moishii rocks back to our table with about 10 breadrolls and about 10 slices of sandwich meat. I decide to go for the sweets and come back with a plate loaded with crossiants and other sweets. People must think we're complete pigs the way the rolls disappear one by one over a period of 5mins. With enough ingredients to make a footlong, I realised that we will also need cutlery. Yes...ANYWAY, we get back to our room to pack the food away and grab our bags. We head into reception to check out when we see that bitch who got our booking wrong. I pretended to take a photo of Moishii in the reception only to get this:


What da FARK is the guy looking at? FFS. We avoid eye contact with him as we try to find the best way to get back to Denizli town with our baggage. The receptionist calls up the taxi company to find out that it should only cost is $40 to get town. We book the taxi and quickly hop in. Now remember the night when we first arrived where we paid the $50 agreed rate? Anyway, as the taxi pulls into a petrol station to fill up, Moishii turns to me to ask if we have to pay whilst sitting at the petrol station. This is when I insist that its an agreed $40 rate and if he tries to charge us more, we will refuse to pay. 30mins later, we're handing over $55 to the guy and thanking him as we drag our suitcase to the bus station. Yes.....we're not very good at sticking with our decisions.....

We're about an hour early and our bus hasn't even arrived yet. Waiting at a bench, a young boy around the age of 13 comes up to us asking to shine our shoes. The thing is, we're not wearing shoes. I'm wearing white thongs and Moishii is wearing his black thongs which the kid INSIST that he can polish. How the HELL do you polish THONGS!? The kid kept grabbing at Moishii's feet who kept screaming at him to leave him alone. The kid then starts offering to polish his thongs for free when his friend rocks up to try and polish the other thong. This is when I get the shits and start screaming at them in english and throwing every Turkish swear word I know at them. One of the kid eventually leaves whilst the other one stands there staring at us. This is when the stareoff begins. I stand up and glare at the kid who kept backing away and after about 20m, he finally drops his eyes and retreats. Me - 1, Thong Polishers - 0.

Our bus arrives and we throw our suitcases into the luggage compartment. The guy that helped us load the bus starts talking to Moishii in Turkish asking where I am from. He answers that I am from Australia, but the guy asks whether I am chinese, korean etc etc. Moishii replies that I am chinese. This is when the guy turns to me and says in English "My wife is Japanese" and then walks off. WTF? How is that even related? Its like saying "I'm hungry", "Smoking gives you cancer". ?!?!?!?! Anyway, I managed to get a photo...


5mins later, a woman starts screaming abuse at the bus driver near the back of the bus. Apparently our luggage had taken up the luggage compartment and there was no room for her bags. They managed to shove her bag somewhere and the bus takes off. 10mins into the drive, the bus comes to a sudden stop. Apparently we "lost" a passenger. And by "lost", we left without the dude cos he was late. The bus driver starts chucking a tantrum whilst his workmate is busy on the mobile trying to get the guy to catch a lift to the bus. As this is happening, this woman climbs onto the bus and sits herself across the aisle from us. So the obsession begins. She's unloading all her crap onto the little table infront of her, when she pulls out this tissue from her bag. She opens the tissue and it is full of some leaves that look like weed. She picks up each of the leaves and sniffs it and places it back into her tissue. o_O And with that, we brand her the "Weed woman"


when the lost passenger finally arrives, we continue along to the next stop where we pick up more passengers and people can have a quick rest stop. The Weed woman jumps off the bus, and comes back 5mins later with another handful of plants which she again, sniffs one by one and wraps into her tissue. ????????????????????????? More people load into the bus which was already full. The buses in Turkey all have a Waterboy who hands out water and snacks to the passengers during the trip. He ended up standing for the rest of the 3hr drive because this woman who didn't buy a ticket, forced her way onto the bus. Not like the bus wasn't full enough already. There was a woman with 3 kids sitting in 2 seats and the woman STILL forced her way onto the bus. As we near the border of Marmaris, we suddenly get stopped at a security check. A soldier jumps onto the bus asking us all for ID. So here we were sitting on the bus, Moishii with his Cyprus citizenship card, and me with my passport. The guy walks up to us, takes Moishii's ID card, takes one look at me, and walks off without even checking my ID. What the hell? The guy runs off with all the ID cards whilst we sit in the bus and wait. This is when the weed woman jumps off the bus and quickly rips a plant out from the ground and shoves it up to her nose. When the soldier appears again with all the IDs, she quickly throws all the plants onto the ground and tries to run back into the bus, right before she runs smack bang into the soldier who almost cracks his head open on the bus door. She jumps over the dazed soldier and sits in her seat pretending nothing happened. I said it once and I'll say it again. WHERE DO WE MEET THIS FREAKS!?

We finally pull into a bus station after a long 4 hour trip. People start stampeding off the bus for no apparent reason. We casually stroll off and grab our bags. This is when we find out that in order to Marmaris, we have to catch the bus that everyone is stampeding towards. We grab our suitcase and literally run towards the bus. (Don't ask me why we were in such a rush, I guess we got caught up in the moment). A bus ride and a $30 Taxi ride later, we pull up to our hotel. The Blue Rainbow. Some of you may know that when we were booking the trip, the original hotel we booked in Marmaris was overbooked and we got upgraded to another hotel. The Blue Rainbow. We walk into the reception hoping for a top floor room with a view of the beach. Instead, the guy takes one look at us, doesn't even look at our booking voucher, and leads us towards the back door. We climb down numerous sets of stairs and trudge through a muddy garden to end up at another reception where we check into a room with no tv, no fridge, is on the ground floor where the balcony is overrun by plants and next to a pool with a broken lock on the balcony door where anyone can just climb into. The place doesn't even have a decent shower. Its basically a hole in the ground with a shower head over the top. I mean the shower curtains didn't even reach the ground. It was a full 1/2m short! This is when we realised that we got upgraded and then down downgraded!! What the hell!? The guy didn't even check our vouchers and just decided to downgrade us by looking at us. Did we have WANKERS branded across our face or something?

After scoffing some food down, we decide to head into town to pick up our ferry tickets from Marmaris to Rhodes for the next day. We walk along the beach towards the Dolmus stop when we spot a used condom on the ground. Enough said.


We find a dolmus around the corner and hop in. Thinking it would be a nice relaxing trip into town with just us two in the dolmus.....were we wrong. The driver didn't want to take JUST us into town. So what could he do? He left the doors open and drove for 10mins at 20km/hr waiting for more people to jump in. I mean we would've walked faster than he was driving FFS. We eventually pick up enough people and he speeds off at maniac speeds. We get off in one piece where we head towards the tourist information centre that closes at 5pm. It was 3pm. They were closed and people had peed outside the office. Nice. We walk around and finally find the ticket office only to find out that we can only pick up our tickets at the gate tomorrow morning. What a waste of our trip when we could've been lying on the beach!!

We walk around town and do a bit of sight seeing. Feeling hungry, we decide to sit down for a bite. Now let me give you a bit of a background story. We were watching the weather on tv the other day when the presenter said "Nagasake", and Moishii became absolutely obsessed with the word. Every second sentence he would throw the word "nagasake" in. Now we were sitting at our table checking out the hot chicks in bikinis walking by. And trying not to be obvious, we decided to use the word nagasake as a code word when we see a hot chick. Like nagasake left, nagasake right etc. After Moishii points out multiple hot nagasake girls, I decided to return the favour and quickly yelled out nagasake left. He turns to the left, only to see a 45yr old woman, in a low cut top and white pants about 3 sizes too small for her and the hair of an old mop walk by. I have never seen his face change so quick. If only I could get a photo of the look of disgust on his face that quickly turned into a look of rage when he wanted to stab me for subjecting him to something like that.

Learning from our last experience in Greece, we decided that we would stock up on alcohol before we head into the land of the euros. We walk into the only bottle shop we could find to buy some vodka. All the imported brand such as Smirnoff and Absolut was about $50 a bottle. With that price, we can buy it in Greece and save ourselves the hassle. We settle for a cheap $20 bottle thinking it was a small German brand. We pay and walk out of the store only to hold in our hands, a bottle of Turkish produced Vodka. Do they even DRINK vodka!? This is when we walk past a travel agent. We head in hoping to see if they can help us arrange transfers from the ferry to our hotel the next day.....since thats what it said on the window. We walk in and Moishii starts talking to her in Turkish. After he speaks for about a minute, she screams that she doesn't speak Turkish. Who the hell works in a Turkish Travel Agency in TURKEY AND DOESN'T SPEAK TURKISH!? We repeated the entire speech in English when she says she doesn't know and practically throws us out the shop.

We've just about had enough when we see a dolmus driving by. We jump in to head back to the hotel. It doesn't end there. This woman climbs in at the next stop and sits next to us. I didn't even realise it, but apparently I stared at her chest from the minute she got on, until she got off. Yes I like nice boobs, but that is not the reason why. This woman, in her 30s, had boobs that practically touched her belly button. I kid you not, gravity has NOT been kind to her. Not only that, she wasn't wearing a bra. And ontop of that, she was wearing the lowest cut silk halter neck that just let everything hang down and out. I was so itching to pull out the camera and take a photo.....but I reckon I would've gotten pummelled by her 6-foot tall, ham for biceps boyfriend.

We finally get back to the hotel where we return to our room to find it super nice and chilled. This is when we realised the only reason our room was prechilled, was that their electrical/security system was broken, and we still get electricity even when the key isn't plugged in. That is probably the best thing that has happened to us the entire day. A broken electrical system in our down-down-graded room.

Recaping the day that we've had after the bus ride, the taxi rides, nagasake, the weed woman and us being upgraded then down downgraded, we decided to call people. I don't remember who we called and what we yelled. But we have everything on tape.

Day 4 - Pamukkale

We wake up early in the morning so we can go to town to book our bus tickets to Marmaris. After a quick breakfast, we head into reception to hand in our keys. Moishii walks up to the woman at reception and hands her the key, without even looking at our room number, she says "Aren't you supposed to be checking out today? You've only got your room booked for one night". We start panicking when she decides to go and grab our paperwork whilst I start yelling that I have another copy of the voucher. I'm about to run back to our room when she comes out and says that she made a mistake and didn't enter in the extra night. Like WTF? The woman doesn't even look at our room number and tells us that we need to checkout, then she reckons she made a mistake with the booking even though she doesn't even bother checking the computer. I'm ready to jump over the counter and strangle her when we realise the time and decide that we're better off heading into town to get our bus tickets instead.

We walk out of the hotel looking for the bus stop that will take us right into town. The hotel bus is sitting right infront of us. We walk towards it only to notice that there is no driver. We ask the nearest staff where the bus driver is to take us to town, when they inform us that we're at the wrong bus stop. The bus stop we need to go to, is over a frickin hill about 1km away. They point into the distance saying "That's the bus stop". We stand there for a few minutes staring and staring and not seeing a bus stop. We have no choice but to start hiking. I pull out the sunscreen and start lathering up as we walk. The sun is glaringly hot at 10am in the morning. I whip out my sarong and wrap myself from head to toe and managed to save myself from burning to a crisp. About 20mins later, we finally get to the bus stop after climbing a hill and hiking through bush. The bitches wouldn't even give us a lift to the bus stop! Its not like the hotel bus was in use!

The Dolmus (Mini bus) arrives and we hop on. 45mins later we end up at Denizli town. The same town we were supposed to go to last night. Its not really a town as such......more like a bus stop that has a few shops surrounding it. We quickly by our bus ticket to Marmaris for the next day and sigh a big sigh of relief. We walk to the nearest shop to buy some simit (Turkish Pretzel) for lunch before Moishii decides to make a pit stop at the restrooms. I'm waiting outside, the only asian within a 20km radius, when these two turkish women walk up to me and talks to me nonstop in Turkish. I'm trying to tell them that I have no freakin idea what they are talking about (Considering I AM BLOODY ASIAN) when they start screaming at me and storm off. ?????? Where the HELL do I find these freaks?? We jump onto the first bus we see and asked the bus driver how to get to the actual Pamukkale. He said he will take us right to the door step for $2.50 each. We settle into our seats when he pulls into a little "town" at the base of the cliff where Pamukkale is (About 15km from where we got on). The woman also wants to get to Pamukkale, but the driver insists on charging her $5 instead of the $2.50 he's charging us. She throws a tantrum and refuses to get on. We drive off and eventually make it to the top of the cliff.

We get off the bus and walk to the start of the only open path through Pamukkale. In order to preserve the natural beauty of the place, you cannot wear shoes whilst walking along the path. We take our thongs off and hide them under a bush and start our walk. It was a nice relaxing walk through a few pools of cooling water.....for the first 2mins that is. The smooth cool stone beneath our feet suddenly became ridges of jagged rock and loose gravel. This is the start of the MOST PAINFUL 3hour walk of my life. Every step felt like I was getting the skin ripped off my feet. We decide to head into one of the deeper pools of water to try and ease the pain in our feet. BAD IDEA. The pool is filled with jagged gravel and rocks which dug into my feet like the needles on a cactus. If you look at the photos we took, there are a series of photos where we look so happy, we must have been on drugs. Let me tell you, that is not the look of happiness, but the face of agonising pain. We spent more time screaming "TAKE THE FARKIN PHOTO ALREADY!!!" than actually enjoying the water.


After limping along the path for about 30minutes, the crowd thins out considerably (Most people have given in to the pain a long time ago). Pamukkale is absolutely STUNNING. The view we saw at the beginning of the cannot COMPARE to what we are seeing right now. Looking all around you, if it wasn't for the baking heat, you would think that you are in the middle of a snowfield. It is the most wonderous sight you will ever see, and if you ever go to Turkey, DEFINATELY go to Pamukkale. You won't regret it. Amazed by the scenary around us, we decide to keep pushing ourselves along the path, knowing that the scene will only get more beautiful as less people venture this far along the path.



We limp for another 30mins when we see the end of the Pamukkale in the distance. Down the hill, is a path that will lead you all the way down the mountain. This is when we realised that had we carried our shoes with us, we can keep walking all the way to the end (where the ground is surprisingly smooth) and catch a bus back to the hotel. Instead, we will need to retrace our steps through the most painful walk of my life. !@#$!@#%@ Not willing to experience the walk so soon, we walk to the nearest pool of water and gingerly climb in. We manage to find a spot with less debris that will stab into every inch of flesh we have and soaked in the water.

5 shades darker, we make our way back to the top of the cliff. The walk back was much faster since we didn't stop for photos. Except that one time we filmed a guy who bought his guitar with him to sing in the middle of Pamukkale. (???) We get back to the start of the path and I have NEVER been so grateful for shoes in my life. We walk to the nearest store and start buying postcards like there is no tomorrow. We find a rest area where we sit and zone out for awhile before we find a gozeleme stand. You would all have seen a gozeleme stand if you go to any fair in Sydney. There is always a red and white tent with turkish women standing in the back rolling out mass amounts of turkish pancake that is fill with spinach and cheese and sometimes mince. We order 2 servings and take a seat. 20mins later we still don't have our food. The woman who took our order suddenly looks at us, then turns to the woman beside her and asked her why didn't she give us our food. Apparently our food has been ready for a long time already, and the woman just "forgot" to give it to us. We're sitting right infront of you FFS, and you just "forget" to give us the food? What the hell? We grab the food off her and start shovelling the food into our mouths. It tasted like they put salt paste inbetween instead of potatoe and cheese. We quickly throw the rest of the food and our money down the drain and run into the nearest souvenier store and buy more postcards.


After roaming around the museum abit, we try to locate a dolmus that will take us back to the hotel. After searching for 20mins, we finally find one that has a driver in it and plonk ourselves down. This is when a car pulls up beside the bus and out steps the bride and groom. I mean, yes Pamukkale is beautiful, but who in their right mind will hike through the rocks, ridges, pebbles and pools of water BAREFOOT IN A WEDDING DRESS!? I nudge Moishii who looks out the window. Without even saying a word, we both pull out our camera to capture the moment.


30mins later, we're hiking our way back to the hotel from the bus stop whilst complaining about how tired we are. We decide that we're going to go have a massage the minute we get back since its an "all included" hotel package. We even agreed that if the massages aren't included, then we're not going to pay for one. We dump our things and head to the masseus. Now the next bit is a bit fuzzy to me since it all happened in Turkish. All I know is that we rocked up, alot of turkish flew between both parties, and the next thing I know, I am lying on a massage table $35 poorer. Despite us previously agreeing that we're not going to pay (Just like we agreed that we're not going to get off in the middle of a freeway), we ended up paying $35 each for a massage and a "facial". The facial turned out to be them slapping some mask on my face. I walk out of the massage room feeling all bruise and battered by the masseus and headed off to the pool area with Moishii. This is when he starts screaming at me saying that I screwed him over! Like wtf? Apparently when he got into his massage room, the masseus (Macho macho man) practically ripped his shorts off before slapping him around like a fresh peice of meat on the butcher's table. Totally professional of course.

After a nice relaxing dip at the pool followed by more soaking in the Thermal water, we head back to our room to shower and get ready for dinner. Dying of thirst, we call room service to bring us the biggest bottle of water they have. 2 hours later and still no water, we drag our dehydrated carcasses out into the court yard and start taking photos before heading to the buffet dinner. Now we happened to arrive at the same time as every single tour group staying there. We get ushered to the far side of the dining room where they have small individual tables. We end up with a really wobbly table, and instead of living with it, we changed to the table next to us which was a 4 seater. This is when the waitress chucks a tantrum saying that we're taking up too much room and need to move back to the 2 seater. My bitchiness must've rubbed off onto Moishii who refused to leave the table screaming that she wanted to give us a defective one. I felt so proud. :D

3L of water and plates of food later, we head towards reception where the souvenier shop is. Now if you remember, the previous night, the guy let us walk off with a tour book until we had money to pay. I walk towards the shop only to spot a huge rack of postcards. I throw myself onto the rack and start grabbing them randomly. I lost count of how many postcards I bought, but I ended up with 32 postcards JUST from Pamukkale. Postcards and another guide book in my hand, I walk into the shop to pay. This is when I spot a big rack of jewellery. I picked up a ring that I thought looked alright. Before I could even try it on, the sales guy starts bombarding me. Being use to this behaviour, I asked Moishii to ask him how much the ring is in Turkish. This is what happened.....

Moishi (M): He said its $50, but he'll give it to you for $35.
Me (L): $35? I'll do it for $20.
Sales guy: (Asking Moishii) Can I speak to your friend?
M: Go ahead (Who the hell asks if he can speak to me or not!?)
S: ITs a good ring, I'll do you a deal for $35.
L: I'll give you $20
S: The ring is $50! I'm only giving you a discount cos your friend is Turkish.
L: I'll give you $20
S: How about $30? Thats the best I can do.
L: That's alright then. I don't want the ring.
S: Why you break my heart for!?
L: Why you break my wallet for!? I'll give you $20.

What could he say? I paid $20. Happy with my bargaining, but not sure if I even like the ring, we head back to the room to dump our things. This is when we realise that we will be staying in serviced apartments throughout the whole of our Greek Island trip and.....

*Insert towel incident*

.....We leave our room and lazed around some of the deck chair/beds that they had around the pool deck. This is when the blue dress bitch walks past us and gave us the dirtiest look possible. The look of disgust on her face was unbelieveable! It was like we were laying around naked and playing ourselves! And all we did was laze around. Don't worry, we got a photo of that bitch. We quickly ignore her and grab a front row seat to the belly dancing performance.

The same guy comes out with his snake, shakes his ass, grabs audience up for participation etc. He was good. But the little 7yr old girl standing by the side of the audience was even better. She knew EVERY SINGLE move to his routine, and was dancing along with his performance. If I could move like her, I'll die happy. The belly dancer gets up and starts walking around to the tables to give "one on one" performances. Well, it wasn't a "performance", more like he danced at your table until you tipped him. The standing crowd quickly disperses, but because we were sitting and had a whole heap of cameras with us, by the time we were ready to make a get away, he was standing infront of us. Now don't get me wrong, he was a great performer and I would've loved to tip him. The only problem was, I didn't bring my wallet and neither did Moishii. The only thing we had was our cameras. So here we were, sitting at the table with a topless male belly dancer performing for us waiting for us to tip. It was the most awkward 1min you can go through. And the best bit? A photographer decided to capture the moment for us. He eventually gives up and moves to another table. We grab our cameras and run. By the way, he had nice abs *drools*

Happy 25th to Me!

This will be a mixed post. I think I should start from the beginning to explain what happened. My friend, who I shall dub Zena, was supposed to leave for Melbourne on Thursday night and miss my birthday party. Friday morning I send zena an email and get an out of office reply confirming my suspicion that he is in Melbourne. At the same time on Friday morning, my friend, who I shall dub Chocco, emails me from Melbourne saying that she is thinking of flying up Saturday morning and asked me how much the plane tickets are. After a few phone calls, I get a call at 9pm at night saying that she can't get leave from her Manager and will not be coming to Sydney afterall. I had my suspicions that she was coming up to surprise me anyway.

Saturday night during my party, I get a call from Zena wishing me a happy birthday and that he was currently having dinner with chocco. When he passes the phone on to her, I realised that she truely was in Melbourne and won't be surprising me after all. I hang up and return to the party. Not long after, someone comes up behind me and covers my eyes. I immediately thought that it aws my best friend Shirley, who has been doing that to me since high school. I even felt the hand and confirmed that it was a chicks hand. I turn around, and who was there but Zena and Chocco. Zena didn't go to Melbourne, he was just in hiding, and Chocco flew up at 6am in the morning to come to my birthday! I couldn't be more happier at Chocco and more pissed at Zena for lying!

Now let me fast forward 24hrs to 9:20pm on Sunday 25th September 2005. (I'll get back to last night soon). My original plan was to party hard all Saturday night and spend Sunday resting at home and spending my birthday with my parents. (Since today is my official birthday) But since Chocco flew all the way up from Melbourne, we had to celebrate the only way we knew how. Fish Markets for lunch. After stuffing our face, Chocco, Zena and my dear sweet crunchy Cookiez took me to QVB shopping where we have immortalised our 4 faces into a Crystal. This was followed by a trip to our favourite restaurant. Sumalee. We rock up to Sumalee to see all the lights off and all the windows boarded up. They're under renovation. Disappointed, we head to Thai Pothong down the road where our friend V joined us for a nice relaxing dinner. Since Banks hotel was closed, we enjoyed a very sober night and enjoyed all the food for a change.

Clutching our stomaches, we walk towards V's car who will give us a lift. We wait at the pedestrian crossing whilst the rain drizzled around us. The light turns green, we start crossing the road when you hear this really loud screeching sound. I turn towards the sound, just intime to see oncoming headlights, and the car slam into V and Cookiez. Both of them fly into the air and land on the bonnet of the car. This all seemed to happen in slow motion to me. The car ended up stopping about 1m away from me. We pull V and Cookiez off the car where I proceed to scream and slam the bonnet of the car. Instead of coming out to see if they were ok, the driver motions for me to piss off and get out of the way of his car. The fuckin asshole didn't even get out. He didn't say sorry. He didn't even have a reaction except for me to get out of his way. The same goes for all the passengers in the car.

Let me reiterate, the Traffice lights were RED and the pedestrian lights were GREEN. At first we thought that we had crossed when the light was red. The woman behind us confirmed that it was DEFINATELY green. The lights were still beeping when this was all happening. I mean, there were two cars that were already stopped at the lights when this happened! We quickly grab his license plate number whilst I pull out my camera to try and take a photo of the car when the Traffic lights turn green. The bastard tries to drive off with me standing infront of the car. Cookiez screams for me to get out of the way whilst he starts to speed off. I quickly jump onto the footpath before I could take a photo whilst the guy drives off.

We spend the next few minutes checking V and Cookiez out making sure there was no major damage. The girl who was there with us, rummaged through her bag and wrote down the license plate number and her contact details down for us. Thank you so much Alison. Still shaking, we're trying to make sure that V is ok, when she screams "Oh hey! Thats Shirley!" *Waves at her friend*. Her friends managed to witness most of the incident from across the road. After chatting for awhile and making sure everyone was still in one piece, the lights turn green. We waited for ALL the cars to stop and start crossing. I was half way across the road when ANOTHER car runs a red light at full speed and nearly knocks me over. If I hadn't been so shaken by the previous incident and was walking really slow, the next one to be hit would have been me.

We end up on the other side of the road where a security guard at Zanis bar urges for us to go to the Police station. We spend the half hour at the police station giving our statements and watching V's leg swell up and turn purple. I hope the police catches the bastard and gives him more than a caning on the arse. Fuckin lunatics like that need to be locked up. I'm just glad that everyone is safe and sound and in one piece. Thank you girls for spending my birthday with me and saving me from getting hit by a car. Thank you for absorbing the impact of the car. And Thank you all for being my friends. I thank God that I know you guys and that you are safe. V, I hope you won't feel as much pain as we expect you to. Cookiez, good work on trying to pull V out of the way and ended up on the bonnet with her. Ems, thank you for keeping calm throughout the incident. All I could do was swear and shake. And again, thank you all for being my friends.

On a lighter note, let me tell you about my weekend. Sweet Meymei decided to take me out for dinner on friday night since she will be attending a wedding on saturday. We had the beste long island tea at Hunter Bar, followed by Dinner at Masuyas where we stuffed our face (again) and listened to the horrible stories from my Holiday. This is when I get the call from my beloved Chocco saying that she won't be coming to Sydney.

Saturday started early with shopping with my family. I went to the city early to meet up with Cookiez for drinks at Lowenbrau before we headed to Vivaz for my birthday bash. We the food was great (From memory.....they had awesome mushrooms), we were squished into two tables which made the whole incident so much more cosier. I caught up with alot of people I haven't seen since I've been on holidays. Thank you all so much for coming and the pressies, I promise I will put them all to great use. Thanks again to my sweet Chocco for coming all the way up from Melbourne, and Zena, you're a dead man for lying to me.

Moishii, if Zena is a dead man, you're compost. I can't believe you blew up the photo and took down a photo lab with you! I can't believe you put the bloody photo on display! It was like a billboard sign!! And for those of you who don't know what I am talking about.......

And those of you who want to know who he is......stay tuned to my holiday blogs. The rest of the night was filled with more food, drinks, dancing and photos of my clevage. Apparently everyone has a photo of my chest on their mobile as wallpaper. I'm glad my assets can make everyone happy. The night ended at 12:01am when it officially ticked over to my birthday. Thank you guys for staying! The ones who could still walk after the party headed with me to the Establishment where I try to find a sugardaddy for my birthday. Leaving empty handed, we walk out to see cop cars and an ambulance. Someone was standing there with his head half open and blood down his shirt. I guess that would have been a sign as to what was going to happen tonight. Again, girls, I'm just happy you are all safe. Thanks for spending such a memorable 25th with me. And for also experiencing my first time with me. It was a very interesting experiment that we had with the broomstick.

Happy 25th to me.

Happy Birthday to me?

Apparently its my chinese birthday today. Happy birthday to me! I found out during dinner when they pulled out a birthday cake that had 4 names written on it. One of them were mine. Then the presents started flowing. :D

Day 3 - Going to Pamukkale

We wake up feeling like we've been crushed between a taxi that was free-rolling down a hill and a stationary car.....wait.....Bad Memories. The morning started with breakfast where everything tasted like Carpet. We check out of our hotel room and leave the most of our baggage with the hotel. We managed to pack all the crap we don't need into a spare suitcase, and we drag it over to Sude Konak where bellboy was on duty and would look after it for us. We decide to head to Erboy, which was across the road, to check if they are overbooked for the period that we will be back in Istabul, and if they are, we want to make alternative arrangements NOW. The Erboy bitch was on duty and ensured us that everything will be fine (Yeah right), and told us to leave any luggage we have with them. Somehow, she managed to see us drag our luggage into Sude Konak across the road and she was NOT happy. I think she may somehow try to screw up our booking now that she knows we're bunking with the competitors...

We make our way to what we think is the "New Grand Bazaar". We have mainly been focusing our attention on the Old Grand Bazaar where they sell all the belly dancing costumes, tea sets, jewellery, carpets etc etc. The New Grand Bazaar, should hopefully have all the fashion items on discount. We catch a tram to the New Grand Bazaar call "Laleli" and hit the first store we see. Now this bit gets a bit hazy. Everything was happening in Turkish, and all I remember was grabbing clothes off the rack and trying to rummage through their stocks for other sizes whilst the sales assistant gave me dirty looks. For some reason she was not happy in doing business with us. We manage to grab a few shirts for Moishii who went into their "change room", which was a storeroom at the back of the shop with no lights. After alot of fuss, we finally pay and get out of there. We start hitting all the other fashion shops to try and get Moishii a new pair of Jeans. All the stores we walk into refused to serve us and most of them started talking gibberish to us. And by Gibberish, I mean any language but English and Turkish. We somehow find our way back onto the main street only to realise that the entire "New Grand Bazaar" is a Russian wholesale district IN TURKEY! I asked Moishii why was the first store not a whole sale place when he replied that the told the woman that he was going to buy ALOT for his "store". No wonder she gave me the dirties when I tried to get the clothes in other sizes....

Feeling unsatisfied, we throw ourselves back into the Old Grand Bazaar and start hitting the shops. We stop by a "Pide" place near the entrance for lunch. Now most of you would've seen a Pide before, even at the local food court. It basically looks like 1/3 of the SBS logo and is a turkish pizza. Our "Pide" turned out to be a pizza. An undercooked pizza as well. If there was an Italian in the house, there will be HELL to pay for serving us that "Pizza". Meanwhile, we amuse ourselves by watching these 2 honkie chicks trying to figure out what the hell was going on with their order. Don't ask us why we were obsessed with those 2. We don't even understand.....

We make our way back to our hotel and wait in the lobby for our hotel transfer. Yes. The transfer guy is picking us up. Bellboy walks into the lobby and plonks himself down next to us and starts smoking cigerettes like they were free viagra. Thats the thing about Turkey, you can smoke anywhere, anytime, as much as you want since they are only $2 a packet. We practically choke to death when transfer guy arrives. We grab our bags and hop into the van. For some reason, Bellboy jumps in with us. This is where it all goes downhill.....literally. The next 30mins of my life, was one of longest and most terrifying moments I have ever gone through. Anyone ever watch "The Pacifier"? Where Vin Diesel is trying to get the kids to school on time and the girl throws herself onto the ground the minute the car stops and screams "LAND!!!". It was very similar to what I went through.....only we were tailgating other cars at 120km/hr on a freeway, cutting across three lanes without indicators and cutting back again without indicators WHILST HE WAS ON THE PHONE!! The Transfer guy managed to create a 4th lane out of a 3 land freeway....we managed to get wedged inbetween a truck and a taxi and had to slam on the break in the last minute before we get crushed, we almost knocked a guy off his motorcycle during this as we had to swerve into the next lane to avoid another accident. The best bit? We have most of this on tape.....although I am still too traumatised to watch it. We somehow manage to get to the airport in one piece, when the Transfer guy takes the wrong exit trying to take us to the International Airport. He slams on the brakes almost causing an accident, then REVERSES 50m+ DOWN A FREAKIN FREEWAY!!!! I throw myself out of the van shaking and hyperventilating. I was practically close to tears because of the number of close calls we had. Bellboy practically wets himself because he was sitting in the front seat! Of course he deserved everything he got. Transfer guy is Bellboy's friend. And the reason he was driving like a maniac is because he's obsessed with the Grand Prix (Which was held a few days before I arrived) and that he wanted to scare the crap out of Bellboy. Had he not gotten into the van, he would've driven like any other normal person!! I grab my luggage and start running towards the terminal whilst screaming "NO TRANSFER!! TAXI!!".

We get into the Terminal where we drop our bags and have a group hug and have a good cry after that near death experience. It was more than we can handle after the taxi rolling down a hill incident that we went through the night before. We quickly find a gate to check into, got through security and hit the first cafe we could find. "KOKPIT". I knew nothing good would come out of a place called KOKPIT. We ended up paying $15 for 2 cans of lemon tea and a slice of dried up cake. After feeling like we've been royally screwed by the KOKPIT, we decide to wait at our gate before we do anymore damage. We plonk ourselves down at the nearest seat and try to take in everything that has happened so far. We sit there for about 45mins when I suddenly had a flashback from our last trip. We were sitting at the Istanbul International Airport waiting for our flight to Athens when suddenly our gate changes and another flight will be leaving from our gate instead. With this horrible feeling in my gut, I run to the nearest display monitor only to find out that our gate has changed! They didn't even bother announcing it! We grab our bags and run for the gate thinking they may change the boarding time as well. We get down to our new gate to find it chockablock full of people. There is not a single airport staff in sight. Not even security. We have no idea if we were even at the right gate. The announcer comes over the PA, but the crackling was so bad, we couldn't tell if she was speaking English or Turkish. We wait around for another 30mins, checking the indicator board every 5 minutes. Finally a woman comes through to help us board the bus that will take us to our plane.

It was at this moment that I saw HER. This woman sat next to me on the bus and spent the entire time staring at my chest and giving me dirty looks every 5 seconds. Understandably she was one to cover herself up from head to toe, but I still didn't expect the type of death look she gave me. The only thing I could do? Shove infront of her and get onto the plane first only to find out that we have "First class seats". By first class seats, I mean we got the first row on the plane with plenty of leg room. Not that we get any special service except for a curtain to seperate us from the rest. We land after an hour and make a run for the baggage claim. We grab our bags and try to find the Information Desk. You know, before going on the holiday, I got really excited and did alot of research. Including on how to get from the Airport to Pamukkale. The information I found said that the easiest and cheapest way will be to catch the Turkish Airline shuttle bus to Denizli Town, and from town, catch a Taxi to your hotel for about $17. The information desk was closed. The only thing we could do, was either go with the information I found on the net, or catch a cab. We walk out of the airport only to be attacked by a Taxi driver who was yelling something about taking us there for $50. Without even listening to what he was saying, we head to the nearest bus and paid $11 each to get on.

The bus driver was going to take us to Denizli town and we can cab it from there. Or so we thought.....he reckons that it would be easier and closer to drop us off at Pamukkale Road and we can catch a cab and save some money. Half way there on the bus, I suddenly occurred to me what he said. He's going to drop us off at Pamukkale Road. Does that mean he's going to stop in the middle of nowhere and tell us to get off as opposed to taking us to a TOWN? We decided that if its going to be in the middle of a road, we're going to refuse to get off. 20mins later, the bus driver stops in the middle of a freeway intersection and tell us to get off. Totally disregarding the conversation and decision we made, we get off the bus, grab our luggage and thank the bus driver. The bus pulls away, and suddenly we find ourselves with two massive suitcases, standing in the middle of a freeway at 9pm at night. What. The. Fark!?

We grab our suitcase and drag it down the hill on an unpaved road where my wheels practically fall off. (See picture below) We spot a security both in the distance and head towards the light. There is a guy standing in the middle of the road trying to direct traffic. We ask him where can we grab a cab to Pamukkale. His response? You can't get a cab to Pamukkale from where we are. There are no cabs driving in this direction. We would be lucky to even spot a cab driving anywhere near here. Can anyone say Screwed? We try calling the hotel to see if they can pick us up or tell us the easiest way to get there. There is no response. The security guard calls the local taxi company and the response that we get? Its $50 to the hotel. What happened to the $17 fare? Do we even have a choice? 20mins later, the taxi driver (Who we suspect is the security guard's friend) pulls up and we hop in. The meter reads $16 before we even get into the cab. By the time we get to the hotel, the meter is reading $40 but we're charged $50 because it was an "agreed rate". We just don't care anymore. Our cheap $20 transfer turned into a $72 nightmare.

My suitcase after being dragged through the roads of Hell.

We get to the hotel reception and check in, the local bellhop took our luggage and showed us the way to our room. Now this hotel is HUGE. I mean HUGE. Its about 2-3 blocks wide. And guess what? We got the very last room in the furthest corner to the hotel. We walked past about 100 rooms to get to our room. By this time, we're tired, starving and ready to kill anyone who gets into our way. We dump everything and grab our wallets to head to the restaurant. A menu is posted at the entrance, and a decent main meal costs about $15. We decide to get the cheapest thing on the menu and end it. We walk in only to find that the restaurant is a massive buffet hall. The waiter comes over to try and seat us and we find out that dinner is included with our booking. We practically throw ourselves at the buffet and start loading our plates with everything on offer. To a bystander, it looks like we haven't eaten in a week the way we demolished the food! We cleared our plate within 10mins and headed back out for seconds. This is when I spot the desert bar. After spending $72 on our transfer, we kick into budget saving mode. I walk up to the desert bar, and grab enough fruit to feed 5 people. Slowly, the fruit disappeared one by one into our bags. My bag turned into a fruit salad bowl by the time we were finished. I was just lucky that the strap didn't break when we tried to make a get away back into our room.

Feeling satisfied after our meal, we decide to make the most of whats left of the night. We change into our swimmers and head out to the thermal pool. Now let me give you a quick history on Pamukkale. Pamukkale is basically a snow white cliff formed by cascading pools of calcium rich thermal water. This water is so rich in minerals, that it is supposed to heal things from diabetes to heart disease. Because of the health qualities of the water, alot of hotels were built close to the pools and redirected the water to the hotel for the enjoyment of their guests. This then caused some of the pools to dry up or the water to turn into a disgusting colour and therefore ruining the snow white appearance of Pamukkale. Most of the hotels were torn down in order to preserve the place, and the hotel we were staying are one of the few around that area that still has access to the thermal water.

We head towards to pool and bar area to find two pools. One is a brightly lit chlorine pool with the beautiful deck chairs near the bar with a huge group of people in it. The other is the thermal pool that has absolutely no lighting what so ever and had a total of 5 people in the pool. The only thing lighting the pool is the few lights that light up the paths and the moonlight. Considering the trouble we had to get to Pamukkale, we HAD to get into the thermal pool. This is when we realise why there was no one in the pool. Because of calcium and minerals in the water, there was a build up of calcium on the pool floor which made it extremely slippery. Ontop of that, because it was "thermal water", things tend to breed in that type of environment. Like scum....I'm just glad it was night time and there was no lighting, otherwise there was no way in hell I would get into that pool. You would be wading through the pool when something brushes past your leg or your arm. I pray that its leaves and grass....

Luckily, at this time, the night time entertainment starts which helps to distract us from the life in the pool. A male bellydancer. Thats right! MALE bellydancer! Now I've never seen one before so this was going to be interesting. I spend the next 10mins gawking at him and his abs. No guy should be allowed to move like that. It defies all laws of nature! Everything was going well until I realise that the scarf around his neck is actually a python which he proceeded to swing around his head like a lasso! That is more than I can handle in one night. We quickly jump out of the pool and make a run for our room. Our bed awaits.

Jetlagged

Its currently 8:55pm. My plane pulled in at 6:15am this morning after a 13.5hr flight.....and I haven't slept. We had a huge party at my place with all my family friends and relos. My brother and sister in law is back from overseas, my uncle and aunty is visiting and the entire world is in my livingroom singing karaoke right now. I will crash very soon......as soon as I fix my fuxing iPod.

I bought an iPod when I was in the US along with the camera adapter so I can transfer photos from my camera directly to my iPod whilst overseas. The only problem is that the iPod is formatted to work on a Mac. In order for me to get my photos off the iPod and onto my PC, I need to format the damn thing and wipe the hard drive before I can get my photos.....can anyone say screwed? Luckily I've still got all the photos on my memory sticks...I was || that close to deleting all the photos off my memory sticks thinking they have been backed up...Now I'm throwing songs randomly on the thing and pack for work.....work....UGH!!! Tomorrow will be HELL.

Day 2 - Istanbul

We wake up early to head to Ortakoy. So early infact, that none of the stores are open, and there are no tour ferries til 1:30pm. We walk around for awhile and take some photos whilst the shops open one by one. We walked past a tarot card reader about 5 times, each time wanting our cards read, but refusing to pay $25 for it. We head to the next best thing. A fortune telling rabbit. Thats right. Moishii paid $1 for a rabbit to pick a fortune for him. Thinking that that wasn't too bad, I also pay $1. The rabbit refuses to tell my fortune. The guy starts grabbing the rabbit and shoving its face into the pile of fortunes, but it refuses to pick one out for me. Finally, another rabbit jumped in and told me that I should get getting news. For $1, I find out that I will be getting news......

After wasting our money on crap and gobbling down a "stuffed potato", which is a baked potato where they mash the insides with cheese, we grab a ferry ticket and head over to the maidens island. There are numerous tales about this island. One legend states that a King received an premonition that his daughter will die of a snake bite. In order to save her, he locks her in this tower in the middle of the sea all by herself. Unfortunately, she died when she got bitten by a snake that was hidden in the food delivered to her. Apparently her body is buried in the St Sophia's Mosque that has two holes in her coffin that is supposed to signify the snake bites.

After climbing the tower and taking a whole heap of photos, we sit at the cafe at the top of the tower to sit back, relax and enjoy the views. Suddenly, this woman grabs her baby and shoves his bum right into the window we are staring out of. I thought she was about to strip him and start changing his nappy right infront of us. After a few seconds of shoving her kids butt in our faces, she picks him up and walks into the cafe and plonks him on our bench. The baby then proceeds to trample all of the place and practically sits on our drinks with the help of his mother. The kids father walks over and tells his wife to move the baby so he won't bother us (Its too late buddy) and the mother replies "But the baby is enjoying the view!". FFS woman, this cafe has a 360 degree view of the harbour with about 20 windows, and you choose our window for your baby to enjoy!? You're lucky I didn't kick you down the stairs!

We scull our drinks and quickly run around grabbing photos and disturbing the local dogs that sleep under benches, we head back to Ortakoy where I get to have my Kazandibi again. Its basically a burnt milk pudding that tastes oh so good! Its the one thing I've been craving for ever since I left Istanbul last time. We sit down at Mado cafe only to find out that they use Chicken in their pudding.......so thats whatI forgot to add....... *Cough*

We had some time left before the sun set, so we decided to head towards Pierre Loti. I ask Moishii whats at Pierre Loti, and all he said was that it was some place to do with a french guy. No duh.....We hop into a taxi and tell the driver to start driving. The only problem was, this guy had no idea where Pierre Loti was. He drives us around in circles whilst using his mobile to call his friends for directions. Somewhere in between, he grabs a bottle of some clear liquid and shoves it in Moishii's face. He declines but grab the bottle anyway. Moishii screams "Hold out your hand" then proceed to slosh this liquid all over me. Like what the!? Then he yells "Put it on your face". I did what any normal person would do in this situation, I splashed all the liquid over Moishii instead. After much arguing, I finally found out that that liquid is supposed to help cool you down if you smear it over yourself on a hot day. You know, it would help if you told me that BEFORE you splash that crap all over me...

Anyway, back to the taxi driver. Whilst all the splashing was happening, he was going around in circles. He finally pulls into a taxi station to ask for more directions, only to realise we've been going in the wrong direction. He cuts 3 lanes and pulls onto a free way. Now what happens next can only be described by my crappy drawing.......(We are the yellow one)


Waiting at a red light at the intersection.....wait. Let me rephrase. At a red light at the intersection, the taxi driver slowly starts to pull into the intersection trying to turn left to point C WHILST THE LIGHT IS STILL RED. He manages to block all the traffic in the lane nearest to us trying to get to point A. This happened at the exact same instant that the traffic light turns green for people trying to turn into point B. This caused complete gridlock. The taxi driver keeps trying to edge forward even though there is absolutely no room for him to get through. This is when the drivers and passengers from all the surrounding cars jump out and start screaming whilst running towards the taxi. I was half expecting them to pull a club lock out of his pants and start beating the shit out of us. After much screaming and slapping of the taxi, the guy manages to force the taxi driver to reverse back enough for the red cars to pass so the blue cars can turn and hence clearing the way for us. Not that the taxi driver waited for all the blue cars to turn.....he tried forcing his way through the traffic once it started flowing again....That has got to be the worst traffic indicent I've been in so far.....

After surviving that near death incident, we finally make it to Pierre Loti where I practically throw myself out of the taxi. We make a run for the nearest hill and try to find out what this bloody Pierre Loti thing is that almost cost us our lives. We start walking and all we see is a cafe, and lots of graves. We walk around the place and end up hiking up a huge hill and end up back at the first cafe we saw...we're exhausted by this point and drop into the nearest table we see. This is when we finally realised what Pierre Loti is......basically a French guy visited Turkey, fell in love with a married Turkish woman, and he would come to a cafe very similar to the one we're sitting at to think about her. Then he got famous for his books. Thats bloody it. I almost got killed for that bastid!! Realising how much our lives are worth, we head back to the hotel ready to kill the bellboy who sent us there in the first place.....

We catch another taxi (No we never learn) back to the hotel, only to be told to get out about 5 or 6 blocks early because the traffic was really bad and that we should walk the rest of the way. No arguments from me after that ride today. We walk along the street towards the hotel, when Moishii gets attacked by a parrot in a cage that was being carried by some guy. We can't even walk without causing an incident. I practically get run over by a tall guy riding a kids motorcycle that was 1/3 of his size. His knees practically touched his ears! This was after we saw a guy beat the crap out of another guy on the streets. He even pulled out an extendable baton to beat the guy.....

To calm ourselves down after that much excitement, we head to the nearest kebab place to buy a cheap $1 half kebab (half size). Somehow I ended up with a full size kebab for $2.50 and Moishii ended up buying 4 massive pastry/breadrolls as a "snack".....This is right before dinner where we meet up with Bellboy instead of killing him for sending us to Pierre Loti. After dinner, we head back to Sude Konak (The hotel where he works and where he tried to hold me and my luggage ransome on the first day) and we plonk ourselves at their terrace bar having turkish coffee. Suddenly more people appear. Enter the Reception guy. Somehow we convinced him to read my Coffee cup, and according to him, there are 4 roads ahead of me.....and the 4th road is closed......by a guy holding a gun. What the? (Photos to come) After we freak out thinking that its either Mykonos, or New York, or even Sydney, we decided that we needed to get away from the place and head to the most "happening" clubs in Istanbul. "My Day".

We walk in and there is about 10 people in there........all sitting at tables having drinks......in a court yard......that doesn't have a dance floor. Yes, I did say we're going clubbing. Apparently clubbing in Turkey is a tad different to the clubbing the rest of the world knows it as. People would stand up from their seats and just dance on the spot. Theres no dance floor as such....people just dance at their tables and then sit back down. And by "happening", it means more than 20 people in the same place together.....The only highlight of the night was watching this tart stand on a balcony and flash her undies non-stop to everyone down below and practically having sex with the railings.....theres only so much of that you can take. Eventually we leave the place.

We walk into Taksim. Let me refresh your memory, Taksim is like the Pitt St Mall of Sydney. Only 50 times the size and about 10 times more people. We start walking along Taksim towards the taxi stand when the ENTIRE CITY BLACKOUTS. I took down Taksim......walking in the dark guided only by the moonlight, we somehow manage to stumble our way to a taxi stand. This is a HUGE taxi stand. There is about 20 taxis waiting in line. We jump into one of the taxis near the front of the queue. This is when we find out that the taxi infront of ours is broken and would not start. So our taxi driver decides to jump out and help push the taxi DOWN A FARKIN HILL INTO A STATIONARY CAR!!! Luckily they managed to stop the taxi right before it slams into the parked car. This is when we realised that in his rush to help his mate, he forgot to put the brakes on in our taxi. We also start to roll down the hill when the bellyboy and the terrace guy manage to leap into the front seat and put the brakes on.

The taxi driver finally gets back into the cab after we saved it from rolling down a hill with us still in it. The taxi driver tries to restart the cab only for our engine to die as well. Without missing a beat, his fellow taxi drivers quickly run behind us and proceed to push us down a hill after we just stopped the taxi from rolling. Here we were rolling down the hill headed straight for the taxi that almost hit the stationary car when the engine manages to start in the last split second, just long enough for us to swerve into oncoming traffic and miss the parked cars......Lets just say, I'm glad I was wearing my black pants.

We get back to the hotel around 2:30am, and instead of heading back to our room to crash, bellboy insists that we go to his hotel, sit at the terrace bar to eat watermelons......After consuming huge amounts of watermelon, we finally crash into bed around 3:30am.

Day 1 - Istanbul

I knew it was all going to go downhill from the minute I stepped off the plane. After the whole asshole incident on the plane, I quickly jumped off, ran straight to the Visa counter, got my visa and started lining up at immigrations. There was a family infront of me. Their youngest son was feeling majorly sick. Instead of taking him to the toilet and losing their position in line, they gave him a bag to vomit into. He was doing well. Managed to hurl into the bag about 5-6 times without incident....but then one time he missed. He managed to vomit all over the floor right infront of me. I couldn't change lines fast enough.

I finally get through immigrations, grab my bags and ran towards the arrival door. Moishii was there waiting for me. We had our usual hugs and stuff, then he broke the news. Apparently I got a hotel transfer....to a hotel I wasn't staying at. Apparently the hotel he has been staying at is obsessed with him and wants me to stay there instead of the hotel next to them. Moishii tried to explain that we've already booked AND paid for that hotel. They insisted on getting me a transfer, thinking that once they get me there, I'll stay with him.

We hop into the van, only for the transfer guy to take me for a tour around Istanbul instead of to the hotel. He even stopped outside a museum insisting that we go in for a walk. I've just been on a 13hour flight FFS. That LAST thing I want to do is go for a museum tour. We decide to finally head towards the hotel, where he almost ran over several dogs on the way. For some reason, we drove past this one street that had about 15dogs sleeping in the middle of the road. 2 blocks away, there was about 20 cats on the road, step, roof, you name it, there was a cat there.

We FINALLY get to the hotel, there Moishii's Bellboy throws himself at the van and makes a grab for my suitcase. He drags it into the hotel (The one I'm NOT staying in) and tries to take it up to the room. I had to fight him for the bag and managed to take it across to the right hotel. This is the same Erboy hotel we stayed at last year....well....almost stayed at. Guess what, they were overbooked, AGAIN. So the rush to find us accomodation starts all over again. Can I scream De Ja Vu any louder!?

After much fuss, we finally get a room at Romance hotel where they didn't have any air conditioning. I decided that if I can't get air conditioning, I will have a shower instead. I crack open my suitcase only to find out that my bottle of body wash had burst open and I had detergent all over my clothes in the suit case! So instead of having a nice relaxing shower after my long flight, I spend an hour trying to wash all the detergent out of my clothes. The worst bit is, my jeans copped it the most, and they take forever to dry in a non-ventilated and humid area!!! I turned the whole hotel room into a laundry within 15mins with my clothes hanging on anything that can be hanged!

After washing ALL my clothes, we head towards the Grand Bazaar. The first thing I do is run back to last years Scarf guy and rummage through his piles and piles of belly dancing scarves. He walks in on me throwing myself onto the racks and recognises me straight away. He greets me and starts screaming that I should buy a scarf for every one of my friends. I screamed back that I have no friends. His eyes light up like he just walked into a gold mine. I was only going to buy one belly dancing scarf TOTAL for myself. But then the guy pulled out this belly dancing bikini top which I wasn't really interested in, until he pulled out the most gorgeous skirt which I tried and fell in love with straight away. Then the guy pulls out this matching veil which was also gorgeous. And since I was getting the scarf, the veil and the skirt, I might as well get the top as well. So the bargaining process begins. He reckons that the whole thing will cost $120 and that it was a discount already. It was at this point that Enver's phone went off. There was an awkard silence which I had to fill. So the best I came up with? "I only got off the plane today. I have no money. I only have $100". His response? "You are so cute, how can I not sell to you?!". He quickly shakes my hand. Then I realise that I actually don't have $100 and had to rummage through enver's pockets whilst he was on the phone in order to pay for a belly dancing costume that I don't intend on wearing. The whole deal and done and sealed before he even got off his 1min phone call and I was about to run out of the store. As we were leaving, scarf guy calls me back and gives me a free pair of finger cymbals.

You may all think why is this worth blogging? Well to this day, I reckon I got ripped off. The whole bargaining process was too quick. It was over and done with within 10 seconds. There was none of that 'no no! I won't make any money!', it was wham bam thank you mame. AND he even threw in a pair of free finger cymbals. If i got such a good deal, would he even throw in a freebie? I reckon I could've gotten the whole costume for less than $80!! I felt so offended leaving the Grand Bazaar. The guy didn't even put any effort into the bargaining process. I just know that this is going to eat into me for days.....

We head on over to Profilo so Moishii can go get his pills and a shave. Meanwhile, he leaves me at a shopping centre feeling severly jetlagged to deal with a french woman, asking an asian woman (me) in turkey for directions. What the...? After alot of commotion, we make our way back to the hotel room so I can get some rest, only to find out that there is still no air conditioning. I'm about to chuck a tantrum from the lack of sleep and extreme heat, when reception finally sends someone up to look at our aircon. Apparently, in order to turn the air con on, you need to crank it UP past 28 degrees to cool the room down......yes..... *cough*

We rest up and head next door to Sude Konak, the hotel that has an obession with Moishii to get picked up for our Turkish Night. This is when we find out that the Erboy bitch went around calling the other hotels asking if they have a room for us "even though we only paid $15 per person per night". What the fark? How the HELL you get a hotel room for $15pppn is beyond me. But she insisted that we ripped her off by only paying $15pppn even though on our hotel voucher it states that we paid $30pppn. No wonder the other hotels didn't have spare rooms for us!

The bus finally arrives and we jump in not knowing what to expect. We pick up the biggest group of tourists before we arrive at our destination. The place looked like a wedding reception more than anything. We get seated at a table which was beautifully decorated with flowers and flags. The waiter looks at me, walks over and grabs the flags off our table and puts it onto another table. Moishii starts throwing a tantrum about how he wants a flag on the table because everyone else has a flag. The guy finds out I am from Australia, so he decides to put a New Zealand flag on our table. At first I thought the waiter got the flags mixed up, but apparently everyone there doesn't know the differences between the flags because the Entertainer for the night starts singing Waltzing Matilda to me. Don't ask.....

Overall, the Turkish Night was great fun. There was heaps of folk dancing, greece knife throwing, and of course, belly dancing. I was quite impressed by the first chick that performed. I thought she was quite hot as she resembled Catherine Zeta Jones, until after her performance where she walks from table to table taking photos with everyone hoping we will give her a tip AND buy the photo. Fat chance lady. The waiter that walked up to us and ASKED for a tip didn't get jack all......what makes you think you would get any? Oh......yeh......the waiter told us that the "service" fee isn't included in the price we paid (30 euros each....). I personally HATE people asking for a tip. I usually always leave a tip without asking. But the fact that you asked pisses me off. Which was why we put the tip down on the table. And the minute the Waiter thought he was getting a tip from us and started walking off, we grabbed the tip and made a runner for the door.

Thinking that we would make a quick get away, we run back towards the van that dropped us off earlier. We climb in and wait patiently for the driver. This is when another driver walks towards the van, points at me and Moishii and asks us where we are going and then proceeds to tell us get out and go into his van. Thinking that the guys must work for the same company and are trying to save time by sorting the people by destination, we get out and walk towards the other van. This is when our original driver comes running and screaming his head off in Turkish. Somehow we get ushered back to our van whilst they have a screaming match on the streets. Apparently the guy was trying to steal us into his van. Who in their right mind, would choose me and Moishii out of a van of people to kidnap into their vehicle. If he actually knew me and Moishii, he would NEVER make that choice in a million years!

We somehow make it back to the hotel in one piece and crash.......what a great way to start my holiday....

The flight...

Ahhh......after a long wait, I finally board my flight for my second journey to Greece and Turkey. My first stop is Singapore where I enjoyed the free Singapore Sling cocktails on the plane. I get trashed. Not too trashed so that I could get to my sisters place only to be greeted by my niece who threw herself into my arms. I picked my nephew up from school only to see that he has lost his two front teeth. "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth....my two front teeth..." hehehe. We went out for a nice dinner followed by my frantic shopping. I didn't buy a single thing. My favourite shoe store disappointed me, and there was no more buy 1 get 1 free VCD offers. I decided to head to the airport early and hit Duty free instead. In the space of 10mins, I spent $200..... Not a good start.

I jump onto my next flight to Dubai only to sit next to some asshole who insisted that his seat was broken and that it was giving him a pain in the ass. I think it was the stick shoved up there that was giving him pain. He started chucking tantrums at every opportunity and even refused to eat. I deliberately chowed down every single thing infront of him to make him starve. The bastard. I decided to annoy hiim further by watching all the comedy shows and laughing my ass off. He changed seats.

We get to Dubai to have the captain announce the following:

"Attention all Transit passengers, you MUST REMAIN ON THE PLANE".

That's fine with me. I wanted to sleep. 5 Mins later...

"Attention all Transit passengers, you may leave the plane if you wish. You can leave your luggage on board"

5 mins later, the security jumps into the plane and starts screaming.

"Attention all Transit passengers, you MUST leave the plane and take all your luggage with you!"

Image the tantrums people chucked who left the plane early, to come back and find their bags thrown all over the floor. The only good thing about the rest of the flight was that I got a whole row of seats to myself! I finally arrive in Istanbul after a long flight to be greeted with more suprises....but that will have to wait til the next entry.