Chios


Spent the day watching local life in Chios where Dan succeeded in pissing off several locals by insisting on taking their pictures and trying to look natural. The tabloid press should come here as Dan managed to snap some lovely local birds (circa 1930 babes). Once again aboard the boat we were acousted by several characters who were interested in Landis. These included a former second world war veteran who learnt his Queens English in a prisoner of war camp apparently located somewhere between Glasgow and Edinburgh. Another guy turned out to be the first Syrian we had met, who literally begged us for a lift home. He assured us that the Syrian border was merely a days drive away and we could be there by the next morning, having studied the map we reckon it would have probably taken us three days if neither of us had slept and Landy could go 120!! On the plus side he did ease our fears of visiting Syria.

The Turkish border was relatively simple to negotiate apart from the fact that we nearly didn't get our visas as it was announced that the visa man wanted to go home early. After a heavy night drive we snuggled up together at a toll road checkpoint for a freezing nights sleep. Dan as usual was up at dawn and to his surprise Gav managed to break his previously held record of an eleven o'clock rise.

We headed for Epheus which are allegedly untouched Roman ruins. Impressive as they were, we could not help noticing some definite 'improvements' by Turkish (and probably Swedish) builders. The three million tourists there also spoilt the general ambience of the place.

Driving further south on our way to the coast we saw, what can only be described as, a stunning set of ruins which was completely deserted. Gav ran around the site like a 2 year old for several hours and almost jizzed himself at the prospect of uncovering the history behind them. (He is now considering achieving his Indiana Jones dream of studying archaeology).

Continuing the drive we checked out several coastal resorts which certainly lived up to our expectations of being tacky, expensive and generally nasty. We eventually settled for Bodrum which used to be a beautiful fishing village but has now been transformed into Tenerife with a plentiful supply of 'pure Brits' (Union jack wearing couples and their aspiring shaven headed offspring). Needless to say that this place is far too classy for us and we will be off soon in search of more suitable surroundings such as a Syrian jail or a Beirut cellar.


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