We arrived in Istanbul, Ataturk Airport got our visas (U.S. citizens have to pay $20.00US to enter the country, Israeli's enter for free), and made it just in time to catch our connecting flight to Trabzon. The flight was about an hour and half, which was almost as long as the flight from Tel-Aviv to Istanbul. Turkey is a big, I mean REALLY BIG country. We actually decided to take the domestic flight after hearing the bus ride to Trabzon is about 17 hours!
So we arrived in Trabzon and made our way out of airport to find a dolmus. A dolmus, pronounced 'dulmush' is basically a taxi, but bigger and seats about 12-15 people. They are privately owned and sometimes (especially in larger cities) pimped out with awfully tacky fabrics, neon lights, rims, inside paintings, fringe, and curtains.
We arrived in town after our first dolmus ride and started searching for a place to stay for the evening. We ended up choosing Otel Emperyal for 30YTL, and it was definitely the one of shittiest places we stayed. A bare minimum double size cot (though clean) and a bathroom with toliet, shower, and sink. The shower and sink shared the same drain in the middle of bathroom floor. The sink just had a thin plasitc tube that lead straight to the floor (this was a new design concept for me, but for IB he's already seen such). But we were just happy to have dropped our bags some place and start exploring the town.
One of the first things we noticed about Trabzon was that we were the only tourists around. This was a feeling repeated many times throughout our travels in the East Anatolia region (Trabzon, Pazar, Ayder, Sivas). We walked up and down the main street a few times looking for a place to eat and finally settled on a small restaurant with a few customers having tea and finishing their dinners. Little did we know that the meal we were about to eat was also to be repeated many times throughout out travels. We had stewed meat and potatoes, green beans in a tomato sauce, and bread, lots of bread. For dessert- baklava and tea. (21YTL with tip). We woke up the next morning, packed our bags, and scoured the town for some breakfast. We found a cute diner looking place, completely empty but it advertised 'breakfast!' and so we had our first Turkish breakfast, and yes, little did we know that our breakfast would be repeated many times throughout our travels. A Turkish breakfast consists of cucumber, tomato, yellow cheese, about 30 black olives, hard boiled egg, cherry jelly, honey, and bread- lots of bread (20YTL).
So to recap:
Flights: $450 (USD): Turkish Airlines & Onur Airlines for our domestic flight
Hotel: 30 YTL: Otel Emperyal, Tel: (0462) 326.30.20
Food: 41 YTL
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