Sunday, November 21, 2010

Trabzon

I've got in the habit of putting my photos on facebitch, but that's evil, and means that not all of my potential audience gets properly bludgened about the face with photos of me looking pissed/pissed off in a succession of bus garages and restaurants, SO I thought I'd wop a few on here. Muwah ha haa haaaa. Plus I've got not a lot of note to write about, and am feeling marginally embarrassed about the last minute-of-silence post, so thought I'd de-bump it or whatever the terminology is with some photo bulk.

All of the below are from the trip I went on for last week's mega bank-holiday-a-thon. This time (to get in my obligatory bit of didactic spiel on things you aren't actually interested in) it was for Kurban Bayramı as it's known in Turkey, or Eid al-Adha to most of the world; either way that's Feast of the Sacrifice in English. (Or Islam's Festival of Death to the less charitable and/or animal rights conscious bloggers out there...it's a whole big live sacrifice thang.)

Anyhow, it was 4 1/2 bank holiday days off work, which because it fell Monday pm to Friday this year happily meant that most employers including mine couldn't be arsed with the half day Monday, so everyone got the full week off work with the weekends either side. Reeeesult. So this was enough time to justify the journey to the other side of Turkey, specifically Trabzon, S's home town on the north east black sea coast of the country. So. Are you sitting comfortably?



^ Setting off



^ On the coach to Trabzon. Bit of a way by bus, 2pm til 6am I think it was, but then turkish coaches are aces. They are constantly giving you free coffee and juice and cake, and stuff like tvs in the back of the chair are pretty standard. I was particularly enamoured of the fact that this bus had a channel for a camera pointed out the front at the road, so you could get an unimpaired view of the lunatic turkish driving. (I am not being an uncharitable blogger here, they are lunatic. You know that phenomenon whereby as traffic builds it also slows and soon enough you end up with a traffic jam? Well, here it just doesn't happen. Everyone keeps going merrily along at 90kph, just with a vanishingly small gap before the car in front.)



^ Shortly after arrival, maybe 8am - the view from one of S's hangouts - a cafe by the sea where she'd drink with her buddies...sort of Crooked Billet equivalent I guess.

Aya Sofya, Trabzon version. Which was nice and all, but you know, you've seen one Byzantian church...but this one did have one particularly cool feature. Because for a long time most of the people coming to Trabzon were Greek sailors for whom it was the end or start of a long and dangerous journey, this church was where they'd go and pray thanks for, or to ask for, a safe journey. And consequently hidden round the back of the church are walls and walls of inscriptions/graffiti that these sailors have carved into the stonework - pictures of their boats, and writing, which I guess read something along the lines of Panagiotis woz 'ere, 1400.


Me with kebab. Of course.



Trabzon and sea with haze:


Inland, black sea mountains with sunset (and camera flare)


Actually you know sod it I've got loads of fairly dodgy photos of the boootiful countryside, but frankly you're not interested and if you were just image google Trabzon, you're bound to see better. Instead look at these weird wooden things below. There's some tenuous fossil connection in the area where these were taken and so I think these are meant to be dinosaurs. I *think* they are intended to look like they do, but you can't discount the possibility that this is a genuine best attempt at accurate representational sculpture...





and my personal favourite - the sign is 'Welcome'



Lovely. And this gurning wooden baffoon is looking at this view:



You'd think he'd have a bit of decorum, wouldn't you?

Anyway. That's it I think. Once again I can't think of a suitable way to sign off. So here are some Turks for you, on a rock. On a rock, on a rock, got them sitting on a rock.



That was blatantly more dodgy landscape photos wasn't it? Ah well. It was very nice.

2 comments:

  1. Brilliant. THERE ARE NO MORE WORDS.
    (And the last post was brilliant too)

    Stop being so brilliant. By which I mean, please continue being brilliant.

    *sings ON A ROPE ON A ROCK in loop for rest of day*

    ReplyDelete
  2. Awww, fanks honey.

    (I would argue with your assessment of brilliance, but thankyou nonetheless.)

    ReplyDelete