Last day in Istanbul - Tues Sept 30th 2008

Tuesday September 30th - Istanbul, Turkey. By Jim

Its our last day in Istanbul, and we are waiting for our overnight bus to collect us from the hostel at 8:00pm to take us South to our next stop, Selçuk in Southern Turkey, near Izmir and the ancient Roman site of Ephessus

Istanbul has been great. We've really enjoyed wandering around and taking in the main sites - The Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia Museum, the Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar, Galata Tower even though the weather has been pretty poor, and we have got more use out of jumpers and waterproofs that quite frankly we were hoping to over the course of the year. We've wandered along the banks of the Bosphorous, and taken the public ferry across it. And its been Ramadan too, so have enjoyed seeing how the locals behave during festival. The food is great - kebab, mezze, kebab in the old town, and a little trip to Wagamamas in the New town for a taste of home. Turkish pizzas (called pidas) are good too.

We also made it up to the Cagaloglu Hammams for a communal bathe and massage. Luce & I had to go off to separate men's and women's baths to change before going for a scrub. They're all marble and visually dauntingly impressive. After a coeple of rinses, it was time to move onto the central marble slab for a massage. My chap had possibly the firmest palms imaginable, but was a great masseur, and left me feeling thoroughly relaxed. Then it was through to the steam room for a chill out for 10 mins, and then back to scrubbing with a dish to rinse off using water from the marble sinks around the walls. Truly a memorable, and chilled out experience. I'm pretty sure that there was some Hollywood actor in the baths at the same time as me. While waiting for Luce to dry her hair, a chap with more than a passing resemblance to Steven Seagal, but a but younger was there. He had all the airs of a self-important LA actor, with a couple of chaps running around after him, being paid to be his friend etc, but cant quite place who it might be! Hey ho.

We've been here longer than initially planned as we've been trying to get our visa for Syria. We went up to the Syrian consulate on Friday morning to discover that we needed a letter of recommendation from the British embassy to go with our application. So off we went to Little Britain. After a thorough security briefing (although the metal detector was broken) we were ushered past perfectly manicured lawns into the visa office, where we had to hand over £60 for a letter which ran along the lines of: We jolly good chaps at the British Embassy send out heartfelt respect to you jolly good chaps at the Syrian Embassy. These two good eggs Jim & Lucy are definitely British, and we think you should let them into your country so they can have a jolly good time. What ho. It took them about 45 mins to type our names into this letter, by which time the 1100am deadline to hand in our passport at the Syrian embassy had passed. Never mind, we will stay on an extra couple of days in Istanbul, and then we can come back early on Monday morning. After all the Bayram holiday doesnt start until Tuesday, so we will be fine. On Monday morning, up we traipsed once again to one of the finer areas of Istanbul. The Syrian Embassy's neighbours include Gucci, Prada and, TopShop. However, our dear chums decided to start their week long holiday a day early, and we had to admit defeat, and cross Syria off our itinerary, and book flights to Amman in Jordan, passing Syria completely by. We dont want to hang around for another week, so have decided that Syria just wasnt meant to be this time...

Istanbul isnt the cheapest city in the world, and shelling out £60 for a pointless letter, and having to book additional flights means that the budget has taken a bit of a knock, but we've got firm plans to make some money back over the next ten days or so where the South of Turkey promises more, for less...

Athens - Istanbul. Sunday 28th Sept, by Jim

We've been in Istanbul since Thursday, and we'recoming to the end of Ramadan - today isthe final day of fasting, and tomorrow sees the start of the festival of Eid Al Fitr (Seker bayrami in Turkish) - to mark the end of the fast. So its a pretty cool time to be in Istanbul. Over the past couple of days, more and more temporary food stalls have been set up around the Blue Mosque in Sultanahmet, and the queues have started around 6pm waiting for sundown for the fast to end. Today families and friends were all sitting in anticipation for the 7pm call to prayer to sound, and the feasting to begin. I've never seen so many doner kebab stands all set up with the elephant leg turning, and the kebab master sharpening his tools. Meanwhile in the seats through the back people are waiting with their food in front of them (not sure how they manage to abstain) There are also loads of families sitting with their picnics ready to go once the signal sounds. There is an anticipation in the air like Christmas Eve, and when the siren goes, everything stops - fairground rides, shop sellers, even the call to prayer is shortened and everyone tucks in. So we did the same, and went off to find our own kebab...

We've been in Istanbul a little longer than initially anticipated. We got here after a couple of nights in Athens where we arrived to monsoon conditions last week. It was a bit of a mission to find our Greek room that we booked, and we were soaked through once we got there. Fortunately our bags are waterproof, so all was not lost. However, the chap in the International Ticket booth at Athens station told us that due to a strike amongst Greek border officials, no international trains were running, but come back and check tomorrow if the strike had ended. The next day was glorious sunshine, and we had a great day visiting the Acropolis, the Olympic Stadium, the temple of Zeus, climbing Lycabettus Hill and wandering around the Plaka and Psiri districts. Lucy's childhood studies of Latin and ancient Greek were of no use whatsoever except for reading train destinations but she has a lovely fridge magnet of the acropolis to celebrate the visit to the classics.

The dude at the station still told us that the strike was on, and we couldnt get tickets. After much discussion over souvlaki, we decided to head North through Greece en route to Turkey and see if we could get through, otherwise we would spend the night in Thessaloniki. The train the following morning was fine - packed for the first hour meaning standing room only, but fine. We had no bother at Thessaloniki station buying an onward ticket to Istanbul - no mention of strikes, or any problems, so we were off. We had 3 hours or so wandering around the town - lots of bars, coffee shops and good looking restaurants along a crescent shaped port - could be a good place to come back to in the summer for a long weekend (it was cold and rainy during our visit!)

The Dostluk Express from Thessaloniki to Istanbul is a great adventure, We had a 2 berth cabin, with just about enough room for us and our bags. We'd stocked up on beers and picnic and at 730pm set off into the rainy dusk, and then about 30 mins later stopped. And started and stopped some more. It was slow progress, but with our bunk beds made, we slowly nodded off full of beer and tzatziki until a rap on the door at about 3am. We'd reached the frontier. It was pitch black as we handed over our passports to the Greek border official, who looked very much like he had benefitted from being on strike. Half an hour later we were off. Peering from our window, there was little to see as we left the border town of Pithion, apart from a small army barracks with a smart looking sports field. The train went over a bridge, and entered Turkey where an equally small army barracks offered shabbier sporting facilities and a couple of armed soldiers watching our train trundle along. Again the rap at the door requesting passports, we needed to get up and go to the office to buy our Visa, which was a sticker into our passports. Tired Americans, Spanish, Chinese all joined us in the wait to get the Visa, and then boarded the train once more to get out of the cold. We were soon back to sleep. The next we awoke, it was daylight outside, the Sea of Marmara was on one side, and Istanbul's suburbs with high rise apartment blocks in amongst minarets and highways on the other. We arrived about 2 hrs late tired, but pleased to be into Turkey.

Our hostel here is on a cute cobbled street in the Sultanahmet area of the Old Town - the key sites of The Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace and Aya Sofia museum on our doorstep. After a coffee and a shower we hit the Palace, which even in our tired state is stunning - amazing architechture, and some great exhibits in the treasury and the costume room. We pay a bit extra to look around the Harem - the sultan's private rooms where he entertained guests, housed his wives, and even gave a bit of space to his mother. After a well-earned siesta, we were out for Kebab supper. Fabulous.

Next day we were up and out early to organise our Visa for Syria. We've not completed all the tasks set for us to achieve this next sticker in the passport - hence why we are in Istanbul longer than expected, but hopefully tomorrow we will be set. Its worth its own blog entry, so will save that, and the rest of our Turkish adventures (including a bath with Steven Seagal) for next time

Cyprus - the first leg Monday 22nd September

Monday September 22nd Larnaca Airport, Cyprus. By Jim

We're on our way to Athens this afternoon, after 4 fantastic days with Sarah, Pavlos & Konstandinos in Cyprus, but there is a bit to update until we get to here.

London was great, all jobs achieved, and as typical in London budget was blown to bits, but we had some great days and nights out seeing all of our friends. We will miss you guys, honest. It was nice to leave London though - being there without our house to use as a base was a bit odd, and not having the scooter to buzz around meant that doing things took twice as long as it should. Being a tourist in London is fun, but not the same as living there. Not missing London yet, but we'll enjoy being back there as a resident, not as a visitor.

Cambridge was lots of fun, thanks to Dan and Mima for looking after the whole Hyde clan so well.

Thanks also to Aby & Dee for putting on such an amazing wedding, it was good to see everyone from uni once again, and cant believe that it was over 10 years since we were 'studying' in the fine city, yet still know all the words and home-made actions to Angels. Hopefully the happy couple are having a fab honeymoon down under while we are enjoying ours so much too.

We got to Cannes once again with possibly the worst hangover in a long time. Racing to catch your flight at Stansted while feeling so ropey is not to be recommended. With the 20kg rule meaning we wore as much clothing as possible, to say we were sweating through security would have been an understatement. Once we arrived back at Rue Louis Perrissol we were down to Caffe Italia for pizza and pasta as soon as possible, We got talking to a couple who had just celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary. 50 years ago, they had gone to Guernsey for their honeymoon, and the most exotic that it got was a bottle of chianti.

Cannes as usual was as chilled as possible, and a time to regroup and see what we actually have got in our luggage for the next 12 months. Its soon apparent that we dont need 6 trailfinders brochures and can hopefully leave behind notebooks, address books, jumpers etc etc. We've got satellite TV in Cannes, so just as we were about to go down to the beach or at the end of our sunbathing day tuned into British daytime TV. I'm almost embarrassed to say that watching 22 people opening boxes randomly became event TV, especially when the £250,000 box was brought to the table 2 days in a row. Who could believe that Deal or No Deal could be so exciting? Its back in those student days again the last time that antiques programmes and cookery lessons were must see viewing, and if you weren't home in time for Countdown, worried glances were exchanged (these are pre-mobile phone times remember.) Obviously we still follow the antics of daytime TV and are well aware that Carol has been given the boot - maybe she will get a reprieve and still be choosing letters and numbers when we next get to see Countdown (or they will have changed its name to Upspell (C) Jim & Nik) Its still the same woman in dictionary corner after all.

Thanks to XL going bust, we had to change our trip from Cannes to Cyprus via Gatwick instead of Luton (every cloud etc) but we did have to get the 640am bus to the airport. We were lucky enough to be able to have lunch with Beej in the airport before boarding the plane to Cyprus. It was wonderful to see Sarah, Pavos & Konstandinos again, and to enjoy their hospitality. Honestly they are the most wonderful hosts and looked after us so well, so book your trip out here now, as this time next year, they will be back in Sunderland (not quite as good weather). Make sure you book the Pavlos Tourbus to take you to see all of the sites - through Turkish-owned Northern Cyprus that until very recently had its border's closed from Nicosia, to the presidents house, which would not look out of place in Abbeville Road. Saturday night out in Nicosia is good crack, buy yourself a bottle of vodka, and all of the mixers come for free. Also being on the Pavlos tour bus adds that added little excitement (so what shall we do now then?) 4 days here have flown by. It didnt matter that it rained on Sunday (first time in months - but not enough to fill the supplies) as we had the biggest pork chop ever, and some amazing crepe cake and coffee at Pavlos's parents house (where we also met the tiniest puppy ever) Once Luce confirmed that she was initially born in Sheffield, it was time to get the bus to the airport.

Now we really are off on our own adventure, with no-one to show us where to go, what to see, where to eat, or how to use the washing machine, and we cant wait!

From Gatwick To Cyprus, and beyond...

Thursday September 18th - Gatwick Airport

As we wait to board our flight to Larnaca, i thought that i would jot down where we are planning to go - we know that we've told everyone broadly the route, but in as much detail that we know, here is where we are off to:

Today - Cyprus
Mon 22nd - Athens
Thu 24th - Istanbul
working our way to Cairo over 6 weeks along the Southern Coast of Turkey for through Gallipoli, Kas, Ephessus etc to Syria, stopping off at Aleppo, Palmyra & Damascus, and further South to Jordan's capital Amman. From here we will go down to Petra and Aqaba, where we will cross into Egypt through Taba, and spend a couple of days with Susi as she is conveniently holidaying in the area! In Egypt we will visit Alexandria, Cairo, Luxor & Aswan, whilst in Southern Egypt take a trip to Abou Simbel, which is a strong recommendation from Lucy's Granny.

From Cairo, we are going to fly down to Mumbai, probably around the end of November. From here we will travel up to Delhi where we will hopefully be able to meet up with Lucy's sister in law, MIma, and tour around Northern India through Rajasthan, Agra, Jaipur, before heading South to Kerala to met up with friends Meeta, Graham & Arnie. We've got to pop back to the UK to wish Lucy's Granny a happy 90th birthday, and enjoy the stresses that being in the UK at CHristmas bring for everyone else, before we hotfoot it just in time to celebrate Christmas day in Hong Kong with Sue & Ed. We've then got to make our way to Singapore to pick up a flight to Perth on Jan 31st. 2 internal flights to Alice Springs (feb 4th) and then on to Cairns (Feb 8th) later, we're going to hire a camper van to drive down to Melbourne, picking up Nicky and stopping at Trish's en route. We fly out of Melbourne on 22nd March to Auckland, with visit's planned to see Wilfora, Jimbob no. 2, Alex & John (they dont know his bit yet) 3 weeks later on 12th April, we move onto South America, and land in Santiago, Chile before we left NZ thanks to the INternational Date Line. All we have booked after this is Rio - London on August 24th, and its not fixed, so if we decide otherwise, we might not be back for another 6 months....

Back in London for a short while....

We had a great couple of days in Madrid - wandering around the city, getting lost (luce helpfully brought the map of Valencia) and eating and drinking lots. We found some great squares and streets to spend evenings eating and drinking, and got well into the siesta culture. Our next stop was Cannes for a few days R&R with a little bit of tree husbandry to keep the garden from overgrowing. We met the Finnish neighbours upstairs, and discovered the free wi-fi at the Town Hall. After 5 days of beach and resting, we were off to the airport to fly back to the UK. Leaving behind blue skies and sunshine, we were met at Leeds airport by horizontal rain, and Ali & Al.

The next morning we left Cookridge to head to Sheffield for Nicole & Rich's wedding, which was fabulous. Nicole looked stunning, and Rich had an awesome pair of shoes. We danced the night away, and then headed back to Dore to PC Skipants newly enlargened living quarters. Feeling ropey the next day, we went off to pick up our hire car, thinking that we were going to the airport on the dual carraiageway out of Sheffield. Oh no, Doncaster Sheffield Robin Hood International Airport is actually nowhere near Sheffield, and is practically in Hull... Ski very kindly didnt complain once on the drive over. After seeing all the Knox family in the North, we drove back down to London to stay with Tom & Tally until next weekend. Lots of jobs to do in London including Visas, more jabs, shopping and saying goodbye to more of our friends who we are going to miss terribly over the next 12 months. We've booked our round the world flights, but bad news is that the train from Istanbul to Aleppo that we were hoping to take is cancelled due to over-running engineering works (they happen all over the world it seems) so we are looking into other ways of getting to Syria from Turkey...

Next stop is Cambridge on Friday, and then Norwich for Aby & Dee's wedding this weekend, and then back to Cannes on Monday...

Rob's best man speech

My brother, and best man Rob was kind enough to leave his wedding speech with us, so while i sit on our sunny terrace in Cannes, thought i would type it up to the blog to see if it is still as funny and emotional as it was on the 16th - cant believe that its nearly three weeks ago already...

Hello ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Rob, I'm James's brother....... slightly older brother, the one with all the hair.

Before I undertake the customary duty of giving James an uncomfortable few minutes, it is part of the official duty of the best man to thank James on behalf of the bridesmaids, for his kind words and for inviting them to play a part in this really special day. I have to say they all look wonderful and have done an excellent job. Indeed, they are only eclipsed by Lucy herself, who, I'm sure you'll all agree looks absolutely stunning.

It has been a wonderful day so far, and i would like to pay tribute to James and Lucy for the time and hard work they have put into arranging their own wedding. I believe I'm correct in saying that this part of the day, at the reception, has been the most challenging to organise, with both James and Lucy making several trips here for tasting sessions to ensure the best wine was served with our food today.

Now, about James.

I feel that to give you the best insight into him, I should take you back to the night of his birth. The 18th November 1976 witnessed a truly memorable occasion - as all our family gathered in the delivery ward , the doctor presented the new arrival and informed us that the latest member of the Knox clan had in fact been born with the biggest head in the history of Sunderland hospital. A circumference, he went on, tof such proportions that it was unlikely to be matched, let alone beaten in his lifetime, and it could well be a UK, if not world record.

It was of course then that we realized that my mother had not just been shedding tears of joy due to the arrival of her second son. I believe that James's record still stands to this day.

By the time James took his first faltering steps as a toddler, just before his 5th birthday, our family were reassured that he would have none of the potential balance issues that you would imagine a massive head would give you. That was because through a strict diet of cakes and roast dinners, he managed to keep the rest of his body fully in proportion to it.

As an older brother, I have to admit that it took a little getting used to not having the nest all to myself anymore. I'm sure it was also difficult for James having to follow in the footsteps of such high achieveing and well liked older brother! I'm afraid though I took the only course of action available to me, I followed a path that many older brothers before and since have. I teased the life out of James.

I now feel though that the time is right to formally apologise to you James for the teasing you endured, and hope that you can forgive me.

I apologise for the time I forced that tray of ice cubes down your underpants and made you cry. It wasn't part of a science project i had to do, and I wasn't going to get expelled if I didn't do it, and you weren't going to be responsible for ruining my career before it had started. I'm sorry.

I would also like to apologise for the time when at a large family gathering one of our Aunties wondered out loud as to why you had so many girlfriends. It was remiss of me to point out that it was " because you gan on like a bloody great blouse" and I would like to apologise profusely for that comment. You are of course a handsome devil, with sparkling repartee. They were of course the true reasons. I'm sorry.

As James got older, he developed a keen sense for what was right and wrong. The best example of this I can provide is one evening when we were all at home together during the time of my mother's illness. James had had the hub caps stolen from his car earlier in the day and was showing the signs of indignant incredulity that he has honed to perfection over the subsequent years. But how to right the wrong?

Fuelled by the creative powers only a dozen or so bottled of Stella can provide, he rationalized that the only way to put his world back into equilibrium was to go down to the local Marriott hotel car park, find the same model of car, take them, and return those hub caps to what he believed was their rightful place - his car. For this mission he enlisted help. Our Auntie Sue, who can probably best be described as the token adult in the party, along with my partner Kerry and a couple of James's friends got kitted up with balaclavas and screwdrivers for their big adventure.

I'm pleased to say that they returned with the correct hub-caps and James's world was put right again. Well it was until a few days later when posters from the Marriott Hotel's car park CCTV appeared locally asking if anyone recognized the 4 individuals in balaclavas pinching hub-caps from their car park. I'm sure it was around that time that James realized he had to pop back down to Norwich University for a few weeks to catch up on work...

As James reached his late teens, we had both, of course matured and we became good friends as well as brother - well until this speech perhaps - and the bond between us has grown stronger, despite the geographical distance between us. I would in fact go so far as to say that there is nothing I wouldnt do for James, and likewise I believe that there is nothing he wouldnt do for me. In fact we spend most of our time doing nothing for each other.

On a more serious note, I now have an awful lot of respect for my kid brother. I think that chrystallized just after our mother died. We'd lost our father at a young age, and then the passing of our mam was a hammer blow to us both as you can probably imagine.

James was 19 at the time, and away from home at Norwich University studying for his degree. It would have been easy and perhaps understandable for him to fall off the rails at that time and waste the talent and opportunity that he had. That he didn't is to his credit. I know that it can't have been easy getting through that time in his life, and I understand that there were many dark days during that period where James relied on his close friends and family members to help pull him through. But get through it he did, he passed his degree and I was very proud to be in attendance with our Uncle David for the award ceremony to see him presented with his degree.

It has been a real pleasure to see James's career progress since then as he has established himself in the world of PR - an industry where apparently going on like a bloody great blouse is a pre-requisite. I must advise you though James, that my research for this speech has uncovered a nickname that your former work colleagues call you behind your back. Apparently you are known as God - this is because they rarely see you doing any work, but if they do, its a bloody miracle.

I mentioned the loss of our mother and father earlier in our speech, and James has quite rightly proposed a toast to our parents and Lucy's father. These were people that had a great influence on our lives and who we would dearly love to be with us today. I would like to acknowledge them too, but also make mention of others who can't be with us today. Grandparents that are not well enough to travel; Grandparents who are no longer with us. Great Aunties and Uncles that are no longer with us. We were very lucky in our family, we had a large family on both sides that were very close and gave us both unconditional love and support and also some fantastic fun times and memories as we were growing up. For that, and I know that I speak for James as well, we are truly thankful.

I would like to close my speech by talking for a moment about James and Lucy. I could tell from the first moment that I met Lucy that she was well suited to my brother.

James had brought Lucy up to the North East to meet us all at our Great Aunt's 90th birthday party celebration. Having got through what must have been a nerve wracking day meeting a whole host of our distant relations, we invited James and Lucy back to our house to relax and have a couple of beers to wind down. Lucy managed to wind down in spectacular fashion, and whilst James was trying to fish her out of one of our bushes en route to their taxi that was waiting to take them home - a mammoth journey of some 10 yards - I distinctly remember turning to Kerry and saying, " I think our James has found his soul mate."

Seriously though, it is obvious to anyone who spends even a small amount of time in their company that James and Lucy are extremely well matched and very much in love. Its great to see, and it just remains for me to say that I wish you both much happiness, a long life together and a lot of laughs along the way.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please be upstanding to toast James & Lucy - the bride and groom.



Yup, still brings a wide smile to my face, and a tear to my eye. Thanks Rob for adding so much to such a tremendous day