Away From Home

***this post is written by Shailen***

What you gawking at?!?!?

I left Istanbul and Alisa behind and headed back to The Land of the Long White Cloud, New Zealand to witness one of the greatest event of 2008!
My Sister, Presheen, was due to have a baby boy on the 14 March 2008, so I decided to surprise her and travel to NZ to be with her when she gives birth.
My plans were to be in NZ 2 weeks before the baby was due, just in case, and leave 2 weeks after he was due, just in case!
I left on Sunday 2 March and only arrived in Auckland on the Tuesday 4 March. I travelled for 35 hours (including airport and transfer times) but only managed to sleep for 5 hours! Needless to say, I was knackered when I arrived after going from:
Istanbul - Dubai - Singapore - Melbourne (stopped here for 6 hours with nothing to do but talk to strangers!) - Auckland!!!
I don't even remember seeing Monday 3 March - maybe I was abducted.... LOL

Presheen was shocked to see me and couldn't believe that I had come for this - she was so shocked that I think it sent her into labour because the next day her contractions started!!! At about 7 am on the 5 March, she started having mild contractions but not serious enough to stop her shopping. But the fireworks started to go off that night when it started to increase in intensity and frequency. We didn't sleep at all that night and at 5 am on Thursday 6 March, we went to hospital.
At 0849 on 6 March 2008 Caio Russel Day was born and it was so emotional to see a new life being brought into the world! So yes I cried, I think I cried the most! It may have been because I was so tired or seeing my little sister starting a new family or that she had a miscarriage before and to see this one go so well or even the fact that I actually made it to see this! (I didn't see everything! I was by Presheen's head.)
Caio weighed in at 3.265 kg (7.2 Pounds) and was 52 cm tall and he was adorable! The name, Caio, has Portuguese origin and it means 'to rejoice'.
He is adorable!

Daddy MJ with Caio shortly after he was discharged from hospital

Samita and Caio

Nishay and Caio

The Proud Grand-Parents

"MILK JUNKIE - Member of Milkaholics Anonymous"

Caio sporting the latest fashion trend - Cowboy boots!!! And no I'm not strangling him, I am burping him!

The proud mummy!

Caio's first Easter with his Easter Bunny and his first Egg!

The next couple of days was spent catching up with mates and with my family. My little brother and Sister, Nishay & Samita, came over and suprised us too. Ray organised a get together drinks for me with most peeps.

I took part in the drinking horn at Uni!!! Never did it when I was in Uni but now that I left I threw caution to the wind and took part. It was a great excuse to drink during the day! hahaha. I took part with Waddies (my drinking buddy) and we came close to winning the team jug skulls!

I am so glad I had the opportunity to come back to NZ to see my nephew and only wish I could see him more! I really enjoyed my time with my sister too - I think it was the closest we have ever been and it was special to spend that time with her and MJ. We had so much of fun!!! BATMAN!!!
It was great ot spend time with my family too and also catching up with mates! Now I reckon its your turn to come and see me :D

Then it was another extremely long flight back to Istanbul and then on to London, England.....

We arrived at the bus stop of Denizli and took a Dolmus (public taxi) to Pammukale. By the time we arrived it was 10pm and because it was winter the place we were going to stay at was closed. We went to another place who had opened for the first day for the season but they didn't have any hot water and there was no food available (we hadn't had dinner so were starving). They took us to a family members hotel which could offer us a room, some food and hot water. It wasn't very nice but by this time we were so tired we didn't care. Dinner was actually really yummy. It was like a tomatoey soup with pasta type bits in it. I really liked it. They gave us heaps of bread so we were sorted. When we went back to our room it was freezing. There was a heater but it didn't seem to do much. We decided to have showers and head straight to bed cause we were pretty tired. So we had a hot (yeah right), freezing cold shower and jumped straight into bed with lots of clothes on to try and get warm. Once we were in bed with about 6 blankets on we were ok. But we don't believe it when people tell us they have hot water!!! Not the best valentines day I have had but we decided we would just celebrate it another day.

The reason we went to Pamukkale (Cotton Castle) is because they have huge white terraces similar to what the pink and white terraces were like in NZ before they were destroyed.

The Travertines. From a distance it looks like snow.

Tectonic movement in the Menderes river basin gave rise to a number of hot spring. From one of these hot springs Pamukkale was created. The water contained large amounts of hydrogen carbonate and calcium which leads to the precipitation of calcium bi-carbonate which forms thick white layers of limestone and travertines running down the mountains like waterfalls. Terraces are formed which are like mini hot pools and also stalactites form connecting the terraces. You used to be able to bathe in the hot pools but too much use dried them up and made them dirty so now you can't.

Travertines.

Stalactites.

There are two ways you can get to the top. One is to follow the road around and the other way is to go through an entrance at the bottom and walk up them. We decided to do this and are glad we did cause it was a lot of fun. You can't walk on the travertines with shoes on so we had to go barefoot. At first this was freezing and there was actually some ice in a few of the pools but as we got higher the water got warmer so that was ok. It takes a while to walk up but we met a couple of people on the way doing the same thing and it was nice feeling the ground with our feet. The ground felt a bit like concrete to walk on.

The calcium ground that we walked up.

The steam coming off the water.

At the top.

At the top of the travertines are the ruins of Hierapolis. So once we got to the top we still had a city to explore. Hierapolis was founded in 190BC by Eumenes II, King of Pergamum. It was believed that the water was medicinal and because of this many people came here to be healed. Looking at the huge number of Sarcophagi I don't think i would have liked to put my life in their hands!

The Travertines with Hierapolis at the top.

A plan of the city.

The city changed hands many times from the Pergamum, to the Romans, Christians and Seljucks. It was also destroyed many times by earthquakes and rebuilt. It was finally abandoned in the late 1300s and in 1534 another earthquake destroyed the remains and the ruins were slowly covered with a layer of limestone until they began to be excavated in 1887.

The city has many structures including two Theaters (although there is hardly anything left of one), a Martyrium of St Philip the Apostle, an agora, a colonnaded street, the arch of domitian, a large latrine, roman baths and a huge necroplois (cemetary).

Ruined archway.

The Arch of Domitian.

Shailen in the girls toilet.

Fifth- century Victory monument.

Circular tombs.

A building only just still standing.

Two gorgeous people! LOL

Colonnaded street.

Martyrium of St Philip the Apostle.

Sarcophagus half buried in the Travertines.

The most spectacular building like in most ruined cities is the theatre that was originally built by the Emperor Hadrian (he was a busy man!). It has been renovated recently and is very beautiful. There are also two levels of stage here which is unusual.

The Theatre from a distance.

Entranceway.

On top of the Theatre.

Shailen posing like usual.

The V.I.P seats.

The stages with its two levels.

There is also an Antique Pool spa where you can swim in the warm water with ancient marble columns at your feet. Unfortunately it is quite expensive otherwise it would have been neat to do. We had a look around though and got some photos.

The Antique pool.

The other interesting place here is a sacred cave called Plutonium which is dedicated to Pluto the god of the underworld. There is a spring in this cave which gives us toxic vapours and before a grate was put in blocking the entrance people died trying to get close to it. There is a description in the lonely planet where you can find this and it says you can still hear the water bubbling. Although we tried to find it we eventually gave up which is probably why the two of us are still alive!

The Archaeology museum in what was once the Roman Baths.

We spent most of the day wandering around the city as it stretches out over quite a large area. It was a beautiful day and we sat for a while with our feet in the warm water before heading back into town.

The beautiful view.

Picture perfect day!

Shailen walking in the warm water.

Me lazy and sitting down!

From Pamukkale we were going to head to Gallipoli and Troy so we got our bags from the Hotel and made our way to the main bus station in Denizli. We went to the different bus companies but the buses that direction weren't going for about another 7 hours which would be 2am in the morning. We had a discussion with one company when he told us the bus was leaving at midnight. So we said ok the bus leaves at 12 when does it arrive. And he said "No the bus leaves at midnight, 2am". We said midnight is 12 o'clock and he was saying no 2am. So we gave up trying to explain that if you say midnight in english it is 12 o'clock and were left wondering what to do.

We actually ended up going home to Istanbul as there was a bus leaving in a couple of hours and it would cost about the same to get to Gallipoli from there as it did from Denizli. (I think at the end of the day we really just wanted a hot shower!) So we had some dinner at the bus station headed off on the bus and pulled into Istanbul to light snow at about 8 on Saturday morning. When we get home it turns out that Mum and Dad have been trying to email us for the last few days (which we hadn't checked) to tell us that there was a huge snow blizzard predicted for the weekend and they were worried we were going to get snowed in at Gallipoli or stuck on the road. So they were very happy to see us. We were lucky to get home in time because for the next couple of days we had heavy snow and had lots of fun playing in it. Shailen especially was a big kid as he had never really experienced much snow so we had snow ball fights and snow angels and had a lot of fun. We made a little snowman out of two snowballs and put him in the flower pots on the balcony looking into the apartment. He had a sock for a scarf and another one for his hat. He was so cute!!! Unforunately the snow didn't stick around long and it was a sad day when we came home to see two socks in the flower pot!!!!