"sleeper" train

After Istanbul next stop Budapest.

On nearly every form of transport. 

First, to get to Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport from our hostel we caught the light rail and then a ferry followed by a hour bus ride. From the airport by plane off to Belgrade. We had a couple of hours in Belgrade before our 8 hour night train to Budapest. Leah had done lots of research on this night train and the majority of reviews were negative with stories of theft, scams, several passport checks, taken passports, no sleep etc. 

Belgrade train station.

we were a bit concerned when we got onto the train and all the lights were off.
(they turned them on with the train)

Besides little sleep (I had about 1 and a half and Leah about 4 hours) our trip was pretty much just what we expected. We booked the cheapest seats rather than a sleeper seeing we wouldn't be getting much sleep anyway. 

Passport checks: The one exiting Serbia went smoothly. Going into Hungry our passport check was a little more thorough, with the guard flicking through and really inspecting our Estonian passports (they are both different, Leah’s being more recent). 

And then there was the Russian guy. 

This guy had one day left on his visa. So Serbia were happy for him to leave but the Hungarian boarder control were not welcoming. After 15 minutes of discussing on the train he was taken off for a further half an hour of “discussing”. Well something was sorted out and he was finally back on board and we were off again. Because of the delay we must have missed our window of time to travel on a certain track because a short time later we stopped again this time for an hour. All up our trip was from 9:30pm to 7am. We capped off  our 24 hours in transit with a metro ride from the station to our hostel in Budapest.

Defiantly an experience but not nearly as scary as people say!

the sun rising just around 5:30. Two germans sleeping opposite us.

finally in Budapest at the train station bright and early.

- Arvi

Istanbul

Wow, what a culture shock! Turkey is very different from any other European country we have been to but we loved our 6 days in the country's capital, Istanbul. 

fountain and the Blue mosque

View from our hostel of the Aya Sofia

We stayed in a hostel just down the road from the Blue Mosque and you got a beautiful view of the Aya Sorfia from the upstairs terrace bar. A traditional turkish breakfast was provided for free every morning and we feasted on boiled eggs, olives, soft Turkish cheese and bread, all washed down with a Turkish tea. We couldn't use the kitchen to cook up cheap meals at this hostel so we were on the search for cheap meal ideas.  I'll just say that we ate ALOT of kebabs; cheap, quick and convenient with thousands of kebab Büfes lining the streets of Istanbul. We supplemented our meat heavy kebab diet with hot corn and prezels from the street vendors. 

Hot corn

Being a predominately Muslim country, Istanbul is full of beautiful mosques, over 3000 of them. When visiting the mosques we had to take off our shoes and I covered my legs. shoulders and head. Arvi just had to wear long pants. It was amazing to see inside these beautiful buildings, decorated with floral tiles. We also heard the call to prayer 5 times a day during our stay. The exact time of the calls vary from day to day depending on the sunrise and sunset but the first call is before dawn around 4am! Thankfully we only heard this call once. We witnessed a large variation in how muslim women dress. Some wear nothing while others wear a colourful hijab, some along with a long, trench style coat covering their arms and legs. Some women also wear the long black robes covering everything but the eyes (Niqab) but we didn't see anyone wearing the full burka, with a dark mesh covering the eyes too. I guess it all comes down to the individual's decision. While I never felt unsafe walking around and there were heaps of other western tourists dressed lightly for the hot weather, I did get some strange/disapproving looks from some men, mostly the older ones.  

New Mosque

ready to go into the Blue mosque

inside the courtyard

inside the mosque

outside the mosque

inside the mosque

We also visited the Basicalia Cistern, an underground water storage system built in the 4th century! The atmosphere down there was so dark and eiree as were the two medusa heads featured inside, one placed upside down and one on its side. The water was filled with fish of all shapes and sizes from the river that flows into the cistern. 

selfie in the Cistern

inside the Cistern

Medusa's head

Of course we went for a visit to the famous Grand Bazzar and the Spice markets. The colours, smells and noises were a treat for the senses, with vendors trying to lure you into their stall. Some had given up on the friendly chit chat and were simply asking 'what can I do to get your money?'. We thought this was pretty funny. We tried a selection of different Turkish Delight (yes there are more flavours!), baklava and sticky, pistachio turkish ice-cream. 

"hello you like to try?"

"we have the cheapest"

"you from Germany? America?"

"don't break my heart"

"how can I get your money?"

We also walked across the bridge to Taxim, where the recent protests have been held. It was all very tame when we were there, with no protesters in sight but we did notice a large police presence at the main square. 

Police buses in the background

Galata Tower

One day we decided to take a nice ferry ride across the water to the Asian side of Istanbul. So we made it to Asia on our Euro trip! It wasn't really all that exciting and there was no 'Welcome to Asia' sign or anything. We did have fun exploring the little shops and market stalls and bought a few essentials as the Asian side is cheaper than the 'touristy side'.  We stopped on the way home at Eminönü by the water of the Golden horn for a traditional 'fish sandwich', grilled fresh fish and salad in a crusty roll accompanied by this weird looking little cup of spicy pickles and cabbage in a red brine. 

The ferry over to the Asian side of Istanbul

one of four boats that fish are cooked on. The cooks just rock back and forth all day.

Food with a view

We both felt 6 nights was enough to take in the city of Istanbul and see all the major sights but also gave us a chance to relax some afternoons, reading books on the terrace or in the nearby park. 

Blue mosque at night

 Leah xx 

Athens

a view from our ferry out to one of the islands

Yay a big ferry ride! No spew boy for me. A 5-hour trip from Mykonos to Athens and then into the hustle of real Greece. None of this holiday – relaxed - quad bike riding - island living that we’ve been enjoying the last 11 days.

location of our picnic 

little museum in the airport

We had beautiful weather on the islands around a constant 26 degrees (perfect weather to build our tans) and we could cool down with the sea breeze. But not in Athens. 34 degrees awaited us at the port and stayed hot throughout the first of our hot sticky nights. Along with the shitty air-con, our hostel room mates had a 5am wake up the first night and the second night our new roomies had a 3am wake up. Ahh hostels again.

steaming hot football pitch 

So Athens held the first  Olympic games and still has ruins everywhere and standing structures 1000’s of years old.  The first official Olympic games was held in the Panathenaic Stadium, which is still open to the public today. It is made entirely of marble, even the seats! Walking through the shopping and restaurant streets around where we stayed we saw so many authentic Greek nifties and lots of rude tourist t-shirts. We were shown lots and lots of restaurant menus (not as bad and being nearly smacked by them like in Lisbon). Our trick is to hold your stomach and pretend you’re already full as you walk by.

old stuff near the acropolis 

Leah and some old runes 

Arch of Hadrian

whats left of the Temple of Olympian Zeus

Panathenaic Stadium 

After a picnic in a nearby park we came accross a little pond full of turtles, maybe 100! Heaps of them! They were just swimming around or sun baking on the rocks in the middle of the pond. Leah fed them some leftover pear and we watched them race for each little piece. 

Sun bake time all trying to get the best spot.

we threw some pear in and they went crazy 

these two were fighting the one on the right was trying to scratch the others  eyes out 

Next stop Istanbul and Turkey.

Arvi - 

Our holiday from travelling Part 2: Mykonos

looking into another sunset

After a horrible, delayed and rocky 4 hour catamaran ride that was meant to take 2 hours, we arrived at the port of Mykonos. Arvi was feeling very average after having spent the majority of the trip in the toilet being sick, lucky I have a stronger stomach! After Arvi recovered enough to walk we made our way to our beautiful resort, located about 15 minutes out of Mykonos town in a place called Agios Ioannis. Complete with a pool, sun beds and 2 beaches within 10 minutes walking distance, we felt like we were living the high life.

windy rough seas

in the resort

high life

Every morning we woke to an amazing breakfast of toast, eggs, pastries, ham, cheese and my favourite, Greek yoghurt! I must had eaten about 3 kilos of it during our stay. We had both already accepted that Mykonos would not be a cheap trip and we would not be able to cook up our standard cheap pasta dinners so we treated ourselves to a few Greek meals out at restaurant. Our other meals consisted of picnics of dolmades and salami and the odd 2.5 euro gyros (a bit like small kebab with chips on it).

exploring the rocks around the beach

reading,sun baking, relaxing, sunset

We spent most of our days relaxing and reading by the pool or at the nearby secluded, sometimes nudist beach. This secret beach was just so beautiful and clear without the busyness of restaurants and payed sun beds like most of the other beaches in Mykonos. It seemed like the nudists were mainly males and, how can I say… very well ‘groomed’ (Sorry Vanaema and Nan!). Arvi decided to keep his shorts on. We also fitted in a walk to the nearby town of Ornos, where we watched the kite surfers battle the wind.

on our way to the secret beach

secret beach

walking around Mykonos town

Beach in Ornos

We couldn’t leave Mykonos without sampling the nightlife. While paying a 50 euro entry fee into Paradise club wasn’t really our scene, we still made it to the infamous Paradise Beach for a sunset party. It was like nothing I have every seen, I felt like we were on spring break! Pumping music, half naked guys, girls in bikinis being showered in Moet champagne and vodka, annoying DJ that talks through every song, people dancing on podiums, even the odd male genitalia here and there! (Apologies again, Vanaema and Nan). We couldn’t believe it when we saw a private party in the club had at least 2 dozen Moet bottles on ice and just as many bottles of Vodka and Tequila. We didn’t know what to drink and wanted something cheap so we copied a group of trashy girls and shirtless guys and ordered a bottle of wine, no glasses, just straight from the bottle. After that we headed back into Mykonos town to a few more bars before crashing at around 1am before the bars even got busy and followed the coast about 1.5 hours back to our resort. 

crazy kids its only 5pm

what? everyone else is doing it!