We went first to ANZAC beach. Now, I'd heard of ANZAC Day and the battles that took place in Gallopoli during the Great War, from having lived in Sydney during ANZAC Day several years ago. This was a nation-defining moment for Australia and for New Zealand, yet we do not hear much of it in the States. Chris and I got quite the history lesson from one of the Aussie guys on the trip... he was infinitely more knowledgable of the events than was our tour guide.
That night, the tour guide dropped us at our hotel in Eceabat, a small town across the water from Canakkale. She told us that another tour bus would pick us up outside at 7:30am the next day. Knowing that, we checked in, looked around town, and promptly decided to take the ferry across to Canakkale to have dinner over there where there looked to be a bit more activity.
We sat on the second level of the ferry, looking out over the bow toward the approaching city. While we were sitting there, a group of kids about 12 years old came over and sat next to us. They started talking amongst themselves in Turkish, laughing a bit, pointing at us, giggling and just generally seemed amused by two tall English speaking guys. After a few minutes of this, the group pushed one kid forward who stuttered nervously, "Where are you from?" in English. Chris and I both responded. He clearly understood, but the others started laughing at him and whispering other questions they wanted him to ask us. He ended up translating between the group and us for a while, until we got close to the shore and the group had to go back to get on their bus to continue its trip.
The next morning, Chris and I went downstairs for breakfast in the hotel lobby. We were two of four people staying in the entire place... the other two were a mother and daughter from Australia who were also in the breakfast area. We talked a bit then, before checking out. The hotel owner walked them over to the ferry right after we went outside to wait for the bus to pick us up. Like throughout the rest of the trip, there were stray cats and dogs just about everywhere. This is a shot from where we were standing on the street corner. Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot with the roosters who were also in the street.
At 7:45 or so, when we still hadn't seen the bus, we decided it'd be a good idea to try to get ourselves across to Canakkale on the 8am ferry. I wrote a note and was about to leave it with the hotel proprietor in case the tour group showed up. As I turned to go back into the hotel, though, the ferry left. Apparently that one is at 7:45 instead of 8, so locals can get to work in town by 8am. Oops. We tried calling the tour company office in Istanbul, to no response. I then emailed them with our situation and our mobile numbers, and then we sat down at a coffeeshop nearby, figuring we'd get on the 9am ferry if we didn't get a response or see them before that.
Now, throughout this, the hotel proprietor wasn't particularly useful, as he had very limited English fluency and we had absolutely no ability to speak Turkish. One of his friends walked over and found us at the coffeeshop a few minutes after we sat down. We chatted for a bit, then he told us that we'd been supposed to be on the ferry and that the tour guide had been calling the hotel asking where we were. Um, oops! It would have been great if we'd actually been told that...
This guy went back into the hotel, called the tour guide, then drove us down to a faster ferry that left at the same time as the 9am we'd been waiting for. By the time we got across the water, the tour group had been waiting there for more than an hour for us. Oops...
Later that day, we went up to Troy to see the ruins, then walked around town in Canakkale. We had (another) phenomenal kebab for lunch. Now, kebab (kebap, sometimes) in London is usually from a dense conical thing that you might guess was meat several years and processing steps ago. It's one of those things that sounds like a good idea only at 3am while waiting for a night bus home. In all of Turkey, though, you could actually tell what the meat was, and it tasted amazing!
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