The universal language of "stop" - yeah, it's a thing.

Back in the summer of 2013 we drove into the province of Quebec for our Nubian goat WWOOF gig and saw our first "ARRÊT" sign.

(au nom de l'amour)

"Arrêt" and "pamplemousse" are two of the few words I remembered from five years of French lessons more than 20 years ago. I knew that "arrêt" meant stop, and I knew that the official language of Quebec is French, so this sign seemed perfectly normal to me. (Honestly, I was much more amused by the Loblaw signs everywhere. I did admire Quebec's creative method of indicating a four-way "ARRÊT" though.)

We spent two weeks in Wakefield, Quebec, where one street featured the sign below... I smiled every time we drove past it.

Wakefield is the new Portland

It might sound silly but at the time, I didn't realize that stop signs were universal (at least in our journey's universe) - the shape and color were the same in every country we visited. Most traffic signs were easily recognizable too.

Now, I know that it's due to the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals and has been enforced since 1978, along with many other universal traffic signs and laws.

But I didn't know about this agreement while we were traveling. So I naïvely marveled at the common shape and color everywhere we went. From this miraculous revelation (!), I went on to notice that many countries we visited displayed the word "STOP" on their stop signs, no matter what their native language.

(I should note that many countries we visited didn't actually employ the use of stop signs, especially in rural or underdeveloped places where we were simply left to our own devices to get across the street or drive into zipping traffic. But in developed areas of Central Europe, Western Europe and Vietnam, even when the majority of the population did not speak English, the stop signs all said "STOP.")

So then, of course, I started noticing when "STOP" wasn't "STOP." Turns out there are quite a few exceptions, but here are just a few that we saw in our international travels...

Turkey

Morocco

Lao

Thailand

Cambodia (the only bilingual stop sign we saw -

also, possibly the only stop sign we saw in all of Cambodia)

Even the Aussies change up the stop sign now and then. Here's a reminder on the Perth train to reserve the seats near the doors for families:

this sign kinda freaked Patrick out

Universal stop signs and other traffic indicators certainly make driving internationally a lot safer and easier.

They also make this big giant world feel a lot smaller.

And I mean that in a good way...

Every-day-is-Friday five: songs about places we have been.

We would sing the song for days while in a particular city. Sometimes we sang it for weeks before we visited the city, and sometimes we couldn't get it out of our heads for weeks after leaving the city. (Sometimes this made us want to cry.)

Here are five songs about cities we've visited on this trip, in no particular order... complete with links to YouTube videos so that YOU can get the song stuck in YOUR head for days.

• One Night in Bangkok (Murray Head)
• Barcelona (Builders and the Butchers)
• Istanbul (not Constantinople) (They Might Be Giants)
• Kathmandu (Bob Seger)
• Marrakesh Express (Crosby, Stills and Nash)

And now, as our return to Maryland (and therefore "real life") is more and more imminent, I can't seem to get (Don't Go Back To) Rockville out of my head. Go figure.

What are some of your favorite songs about international cities?

On not even trying to be gluten-free in Turkey.

In case you're just joining us, I am not supposed to be eating wheat or potato.

Not eating the former is a joke in Turkey. A cruel, cruel joke. I mean, you could totally do it if you had to - fresh fruits and vegetables abound, and they do love their meats! It would probably be harder to be vegetarian than gluten-intolerant in Turkey, actually.

breakfast was always easy

until they set the bread basket down

But if you don't have to go gluten-free, why on earth would you?

I mean, the pide!

OMG the pide!

and all the lentil soup

requiring bread for sopping!

and the flatbread!

and the giant poofy bread!

and Nur's wood fired pizza!

and the baklava!

Not to mention the bread machine at our Help Exchange hosts' house. The temptation was too great and the audience, too willing. Cinnamon raisin bread, cinnamon swirl bread, corn bread, flatbread, rustic bread, garlic onion bread, herb bread... Anyway, like I was sayin', bread was the fruit of the sea for those five weeks. And still no major digestive issues. I even used live yeast instead of dry in the bread machine and I was generally okay. The only real issue was eating so much %*#! bread...

Avoiding the latter, my good old friend potato, wasn't terribly hard. Sometimes the soup ingredients were a mystery; luckily we knew how to point and say "patates?" and when in doubt, Patrick was always willing to taste test for me. Sometimes the doner kebaps were topped with french fries; when I picked them off and ate the kebap anyway, I suffered from the traces of starch so I ended up skipping the doner and going for just the kebap.

sometimes that didn't work either, though

Sometimes my hosts made potatoes for dinner; they were always on the side and I always had a substitute option of couscous or rice. But sometimes I skipped it all. Mucking up after horses didn't consume that many calories, and even though wheat didn't really disagree with me, I'm pretty sure that all the starch and carbs (from the bread or rice or whatever) definitely made me feel more sluggish over those five weeks.

Snacks (other than bags of chips, which were easily accessible and oh-so-cheap) were a little more challenging...

... but ...

... we ...

... managed

So "Operation Avoid Wheat and Potato" continues to be half-successful. Approximately five pounds later, though, I'm either going to have to give it 100 percent or buy some running shoes...

does this ginormous falafel sandwich

make my butt look fat?

Turkey on $14/person/day.

Turkey was definitely expensive. Even in the low season most hostels were pricey and didn't have kitchens so we were forced to eat out a lot. (World's tiniest violin, I know, I know...) Tours were also pricey, and we did a lot of tours in Turkey.  And we saw a lot of the country - which just means additional transportation costs - but we did take two overnight buses which helped reduce our lodging costs.

We countered the costs with our Help Exchange gigs in Burdur and at the aforementioned rescue horse livery in Üzümlü. Not only did this give us some insight into small Turkish towns and allow us to see some really unique places, it reduced our out-of-pocket significantly and allowed us to rest up for a while (six weeks, to be exact).

Here's the breakdown with some details...

Initial budget: um, we didn't really do a budget beyond Central Europe (BAD project manager!), so we'll just call it $100/day, $50/person/day
Actual cost: 63 days at $1776 ($28/day, $14/person/day)
Approximate cost without Help Exchange: 20 days at $1776 ($88/day, $44/person/day)

So even without our volunteer gigs we were still within our general budget - not bad! Here's the breakdown with some details...

note to self: don't draw pie charts at 5:30am

• Lodging: $584 - 17 nights at hostels averaging $17/person/night
• Transportation: $361 - flight from Bucharest-Istanbul, overnight buses from Istanbul-Göreme/Göreme-Burdur, buses from Burdur-Fethiye/Fethiye-Pamukkale/Pamukkale-Selçuk, train from Selcuk-İzmir, nominal dollars spent on public transportation everywhere
• Groceries: $138 - delicious figs from the Fethiye market accounted for at least a third of this, otherwise mostly snacks for day trips
• Meals: $334 - eating out can be fairly cheap but we had to do this at least once a day when we weren't Help Exchanging, and we also splurged on Thanksgiving and monthiversary meals
• Tours: $187 - Green Tour and Open Air Museum (Göreme), Ghost Town (Kayakoy), Saklikent Gorge (Fethiye), Hierapolis (Pamukkale), Ephesus (Selçuk)
• Alcohol: $39 - it is a Muslim country, after all... but we were there for New Year's Eve
• Gear: $1 - batteries
• "Misc": $90 - $40 to enter the country, $44 on entertainment (hookah in Istanbul, hamam in Fethiye), otherwise public toilets and random other things
• Gifts: $35 on Turkish delight - we LOVED it, you're welcome

Other fun Turkey facts...

• Cities visited: 8 (Istanbul, Göreme, Burdur, Fethiye, Üzümlü, Pamukkale, Selçuk, İzmir)
• Cute cats encountered: A BAZILLION
• National parks visited: 1 (Göreme National Park)
• UNESCO World Heritage Sites visited: 3 (Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia, Historic Areas of Istanbul, Hierapolis–Pamukkale)
• Ancient wonders of the world: 1 (Temple of Artemis)

We loved, loved, loved Turkey. We highly recommend adding this beautiful, friendly country to your list of must-see destinations. And we hope to come back someday... the Lycian Way is calling!

Hierapolis v Ephesus showdown.

There is a lot of information on ye olde internet about Hierapolis and Ephesus. A LOT. And not just on Wikipedia, which we only link to because we are lazy and/or strapped for time. So we'll let you go off and read about it yourself, wherever you choose to do so.

But if you're visiting Turkey and you're trying to decide which to visit, we thought we'd offer a side by side comparison of some of the highlights. A sort of "1... or 2" you might get from your eye doctor, only these will be pretty pictures instead of blurry letters.

First up, the sarcophagi.

one...

... or two?

If you prefer #1, you'd love Hierapolis. This was our first stop after the entrance fee, and as we wandered among the tombs in the cemetery we wondered whether the rest of the ruins would be this sparse. The empty graves are splayed about and overgrown; some are sealed tight and others are upended and wide open. A few paths lead here or there but otherwise you're free to just roam. The area had a certain sereneness and a gorgeous view of the mountains.

If you prefer to see tombs as they are lined up in #2, then Ephesus is for you. It was neat to see them side by side but it felt more like a museum exhibit than an archaeological site.

Next, the churches.

one...

... or two?

There wasn't much left of Hierapolis's actual church, and you can see in #1 that what is there is mostly under restoration. The adjacent building (St Phillipe Matyrion) was really interesting though - an octagonal healing center of sorts where pilgrims flocked for prayer, healing and fortune telling. And, in our case, baklava eating.

Ephesus's church in #2 seemed as long as a football field. We did like that the baptism area had been preserved (or perhaps restored) and we did like the sheer size of it, but otherwise, to us non-religious folks it felt confusing and unwelcoming.

The Roman roads. Do you prefer to walk down a Roman road that might result in a sprained ankle?

if so, head to Hierapolis (#1)

if not, go to Ephesus (#2)

And then there were the theaters. Theatres. Whatever.

panorama one...

... or panorama two?

Hierapolis's theater is allegedly one of the best preserved in Asia. It was pretty awe-inspiring, so much so that it evoked a collective "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" from a busload of elderly Japanese tourists as soon as they walked in. The echo was amazing! It made for a nice lunch spot... but there were no kitties.

Ephesus's theater was massive, falling apart in places, pristinely restored in others, also a nice lunch spot, and there WERE kitties. Lots and lots of kitties. Kitties that liked corn nuts but not raisins. Go figure.

The latrines.

one...

... or two?

Either would make a fine ridiculous photo op. We just happened to think of it at Hierapolis (#1) but not at Ephesus (#2).

The arches.

one...

... or two?

On the sheer scale factor, reconstructed or not, the giant columns and stone walls of Ephesus (#2) trumped Hierapolis (#1).

The crowds.

one...

... or two?

Granted, we went off season and it could have been a whole lot worse at either site. But the people annoyance factor was much higher at Ephesus (#2) than Hierapolis (#1). It was hard to find a moment's peace during our tour of Ephesus, whereas at Hierapolis we sat in silence a lot, just soaking things in.

In addition to all of the above, Hierapolis has an almost completely buried theater (took us a while to find it), ancient baths where you can swim, a nymphaeum with remains of ginormous fountains, and a giant rooster statue. Ephesus, on the other hand, has a stunning library, terraced house displays (extra admission $$), brothel ruins, and lots more signage than Hierapolis.

And let's not forget the random additional stuff. Hierapolis has Pamukkale (included in your ticket price)...

this counts on our list of castles, BTW

... "cotton castles" of calcitrate deposits spilling over the mountain. As much as Patrick wanted it to be snow, it wasn't. You can walk around the pools on the upper levels and then walk barefoot down the calcitrate to exit the park. Hot springs (and sometimes lukewarm or cold springs) are nice resting points for photo ops on your way down. A surreal experience, best done at sunset.

Ephesus has the Grotto of the Seven Sleepers...

Sleepy, Dopey, Happy... oh wait, wrong story

... which you can't actually walk through, but you can see (for free!) from above near a fenced-off area. It also has one of the seven wonders of the ancient world...

bonus shot: a mosque and a castle

... the Temple of Artemis, where you can just walk around (for free!) after you tour Ephesus. And it has Ayasoluk Castle...

fortress around the tourists

... which was closed for restoration so we don't know how much that costs to visit.

Hierapolis was rough, rugged, spread out across the hillside, and far less restored than crowded, compact, tidy Ephesus. Guess which one we liked better?

Of course we recommend both - they're only a four-hour drive from each other, after all, and when will you be in Turkey again? In hindsight we'd have done the more informative Ephesus before the more serene Hierapolis though. By the time we got to Ephesus we were a bit ruined-out and probably didn't absorb as much as we could have. We also recommend staying in Selcuk rather than Izmir for Ephesus, and afterward the tiny village in Pamukkale would be a nice break from the crazy tourists.

If you go...

Pamukkale food notes:
Mehmet's Heaven was closed for the night so we stopped in at Mustafa across the street.

the ambiance was nice, but the food wasn't anything spectacular

The next night Traverten Pide looked about as closed as a restaurant could be, but the owner turned off his soap opera and waved us in anyway.

we very much enjoyed a tomato soup, vegetable pide and chicken shish

Selcuk food notes:

Mehmet and Ali Baba's for spicy meat shish, meze plate

Nur for the best bread EVAH and pizza/chicken shish

Tat for soup, salad, hummus, chicken shish

Mahmet's and Tat were good but we wouldn't go back again. Save Nur for last (or just eat there all the time) because you won't want to go anywhere else after you taste their really amazing wood fired breads and pizzas.

Pamukkale lodging notes:
We got a private room at the Ozbay Hotel, right across the street from one of the entrances to Hierapolis. The staff were really nice and helpful, and we had a tea kettle in our room. It's the little things...

it was swanky and inexpensive

and breakfast was good

Selcuk lodging notes:
At the Artemis Hotel we opted for a four-bed dorm. It was small and not at all swanky, but it had an ensuite bathroom. (And annoying dormmates - not the hotel's fault, of course.) The staff were really nice here as well and the hotel is just a few minutes' walk from the train station.

Artemis breakfast - so much fruit!

You reading this - just go. SOON! And have fun. We sure did!

Friday five: fun in (and around) Fethiye.

Fethiye is a coastal town on the western Mediterranean side of Turkey. It's surrounded on three sides by mountain peaks, and one side by a gorgeous bay. It's definitely a summer tourist destination but we managed to find good hikes and good eats before and after our five-week farmstay with the horses in Üzümlü. We also managed some fun during our farmstay...

Five Fethiye(ish) outings in between poo duty over the last six weeks, in chronological order:

1. The ghost town in Kayaköy. The trek from Fethiye to Kayaköy (8km one way) started just a few blocks from our pension, meandered along an ancient Roman road in the hills, wound through the dirt roads of a tiny agricultural village, and ended right in front of the ghost town entrance.

ancient Roman turtle
(he'd moved about two feet
when we walked back through)

We spent over an hour wandering among just a handful of the 500 homes built to house thousands of Greeks who would abandon them in the 1920s when they were relocated back to their home country.

lots of churches too

Just like the wild west ghost towns we've visited, Kayaköy was simultaneously spooky and fascinating. And the layout of the village was impressive. Not only was it incredibly compact, it was also constructed so that no building cast a full shadow on another building at any time of the day.

vampires would love it

The magnitude of the ghost town surprised us and the recent occupation added to the eerie feel. And like many of our forthcoming hikes, it smelled wonderful from all the wild oregano and thyme!

2. The ruins of Kadyanda (Cadianda). This trek started about a quarter mile from our horse hosts' villa in Üzümlü. We and The Czech headed out after chores one morning and, a few hours later, had a picnic lunch near the ancient baths.

Uzumlu panorama

waiting for the show

The site was really nicely laid out with helpful signs at each major section.  There was more to it than we expected, including unprotected 15-foot deep holes where they once stored water.  Don't take your toddlers on this one.

3. The watchtower hike. We really have no idea how far we trekked; we also don't know if the mountain actually has a name. All we know is that we left our hosts' villa shortly after 8am and didn't get back until 3:30pm. And that it was all uphill and downhill. And that three quarters of the way through it, we started to get that familiar Tunnel Falls "seems like a good idea until you hit mile 10 and still have 2 miles to go" feeling... all of which led us to put this watchtower hike at about 10 miles.

the challenge, as seen from our balcony

(your challenge: find the watchtower)

We stared at the watchtower at the top of the mountain from the horse paddock for three weeks, plotting and scheming our route (there is no set trail most of the way up the mountain). We even made one half-hearted attempt before setting our minds to it Christmas Eve. The trek up was somewhat strenuous but the forest was peaceful and green, so we didn't mind the effort. About three quarters of the way up, we reached a large pasture where goats were grazing and we followed the dirt road from there up to the watchtower.

our lunch spot
(it was alright)

We opted to follow the creek bed on the way down. It was upper arm and knee-bending bouldering work the entire way, but it was a whole lot of fun.

fun until hour #2 of this, anyway

4. The whirlwind day trip around Üzümlü. New Year's Eve, we and The Aussie had two destinations in mind; everything else we could squeeze in was gravy. With a rental car at our disposal we found a lot of gravy.

Tlos was one destination. All the ruins we've encountered have been unique; this was one of the largest that was inhabited fairly recently (if three centuries counts as "recent"). It was fairly well-preserved, expanse, and possibly due to the holiday, free! Our favorite word.

he lives to fight another day

Saklikent Gorge, one of the deepest canyons in the world, was the other planned destination. In the summer you can wade through shallower parts and hike almost 20km. In the winter, not so much - unless you are crazy, have a wetsuit, or don't mind freezing to death. What little we were able to see was still totally worth the ~$3 admission though.

skinny canyon

means bad lighting

trust us - it's awe-inspiring

The canyon walls were narrower and taller than any we'd seen, and the water rushing through the gorge drowned out any other noise. We couldn't hike so we absorbed the sights and sounds for a while and moved on.

We tried to find Xanthos but couldn't (and we were even sadder about this when we learned it was a UNESCO World Heritage Site), so we turned left at Esen and wound our way up narrow canyon roads to the lesser-visited ruins at Sidyma. A little old woman greeted us and, after changing her shoes, gave us a brief tour of the ruins while she collected firewood.

our guide and The Aussie

The ruins were spread out around the site, and we appreciated her random pointing and one-word explanations ("church", "medusa", "Roman") as she led us through mucky trails and goat poo. She invited us for lunch afterward but we were losing daylight so we politely declined, gave her a few lire for her trouble, and moved on.

Lunch and a beach visit in picturesque Ölüdeniz, where we may have also seen the Blue Lagoon, back through Kayaköy to show The Aussie the ghost town, and a sunset stop to end our New Year's Eve adventure. All in all, a great day.

5. Last but not least, the Aktas Beach hike right before we left town. The bus ride alone was worth the $13 round trip for this outing.

somewhere on that cliff is the road

the bus drove along

Faralya is an easy day trip from Fethiye. It's home to Butterfly Valley and you can also hike there, but we opted to turn left at the fork instead. The views from the coastal cliffs (and of the opposite coastal cliffs) were breathtaking.

happy hikers

We ended up meandering down a forest trail toward the beach but because of a late start and an early last bus back to Fethiye, we didn't make it all the way to the coast. We did see the hippie camp in Butterfly Valley from above... and agreed that we'd made the right choice for our hike.

Fethye(sh) food notes - SO MUCH DELICIOUSNESS!

our "welcome to Fethiye" treat -

cay at the marina

an amazing and colorful thanksgiving
dinner at Mozaic Bahce

eggplant kebap at Altın şiş

the wonderful Fethiye fruit and veggie market (open every day)
where we got a hundred packs of lovely figs

pide and kebaps at Paşa Kebap

(our least favorite meal, actually -

but even it was pretty good)

banana honey pancake
at Fethiye's Saturday market

homemade pancakes at our

Üzümlü farmstay

delicious meze before our main course

at Pasamzade

and back to Mozaic on our last night
("enough with the pictures -

CAN I JUST EAT ALREADY??")

Fethiye(sh) lodging notes:

• Our first few nights we stayed at Ideal Pension. Nothing about it was ideal, other than the price. And maybe the location. Our private room was tiny, the breakfast was okay, we had hot water in the shower if we were lucky, and the entire place was pretty dirty. The common area was freezing and no one seemed to mind if people smoked even though there were "no smoking" signs everywhere. We chalked it up to the off-season, enjoyed the price, and vowed to stay somewhere else if we were ever back in Fethiye.
• So, for our last few nights in Fethiye we "splurged" on Yildirim Guesthouse. For just a few dollars more we had our own spacious private room, hot water all the time, and a really friendly owner. The wifi in the room was the only challenge but we made it work.
  

and the breakfast was lovely!

There was just too much to see and do... and EAT! But this is true for Turkey in general, actually. Really hoping to come back to this part of the world someday.  Before we leave, though, we've got more ruins to see!