Our bus from Olympos was overbooked forcing us to stay another night in Olympos. So we drank, again, excessively.

We managed to escape the next day, heading into Antalya and catching the night bus to Cappadocia. My travelling companions and I popped a few sleeping tablets and went blissfully into unconsciousness, as I like to say 'you shut your eyes and then your're there'.

The three hour stoppver in the middle came as an unexpected surprise with us nodding off all over the place. Four nearly unconscious muppets staggering around a bus station with no idea where to go and acting like narcoleptics. We needed to do wake watches. One prising eyelids open while the others passed out. We finally got our bus, out cold, and voila cappadocia!

Cappadocia is cool. Its an area filled with cities and towns that have been carved out of the rocks. The rocks here have eroded into eerie shapes, its a cross between a smurf village and a lanscape of giant rock penises.

We checked into a pension, entertainingly called Flintstones and with rooms carved out of the rock, very cool. We took a lightning tour and were blasted at high velocity by a shumacher impersonating minibus driver through ancient underground cities, used when enemies came to attack, more things carved out of the rocks, surprisingly a carpet factory and finally to the fairy chimneys, which are basically the huge stone penises sticking out of the earth. Some very cool shit here.

We got back in time for 'Turkish Night' an event held at a local resturant with meals and a show. The food was very average, the raki was very dangerous and the belly dancer was a minger. Somehow I became the male belly dancing representative for our table. So I made some artistic interpretations and did the pelvic thrust with spanking action version. A real crowd pleaser.

An early start for a hot air balloon ride over goreme with Thomaso started the day. We were both hung over, and groggily got on the bus, and headed out to the balloons. That is a cool site watching 4 ballons being inflated, first with a petrol fan until they have enough volume to use the burners. And those things are loud, like a roaring jet engine. It seems disturbingly dangerous concept.

We boarded and took off. Gentle as, totally victim to the wind. We gently cruised over the lanscape with our pilot taking us to touching range of some of the giant rock penises. The old ducks on the balloon enjoyed that reaching out for a little touch of a giant rock hard penis.

I kind of felt like Gargamel hunting for smurfs up there, a great deal of fun. We landed smoothly and I shook hands with the pilot over a civilised 7am champagne. I noticed he had a pistol at his waist I asked to look at it. He emptied the magazine and passed it over, a chunky 9mm Beretta. I guess ballonjacking is a real threat these days, or maybe he was worried more about the balloon pirates.

A lazy day in Cappadocia, mostly spent in hangover appreciation and slight embarressment from the photos that seems to have appeared from my belly dancing experience before taking the night bus to Kahta the nearest town to Mt Nemrut.

Thomaso and I wandered around checking the place out. We were soon accosted by an english speaking girl and envited back to meet her family. Cool. Her brother was an older english teacher and we sat down, drank tea and chatted. It was great, this is real Turkish hospitality at its finest. We wandered together for awhile around town, before heading back for some home cooked turkish food. Land on rice with Beans and Ayran soaked wheat. It was delicious, but my gastrointestinal early warning system sprang into action. It was quickly quelled by the dont offend such gracious hosts power of veto.

We had to leave to meet Andy and Liz our other companions for our overpriced tour to the top of Mt Nemrut to see some big stone heads and then sleep in the minibus to see them again at sunrise. Part of my giant stone heads around the planet tour. Some miscellaneous ruins on the way and we got there, beginning what can only be called the Nemrut Experience.

We hiked up to the eastern terrace as the sun went low, the heads there were poorly lit and a little disappointing, bad head is not a good thing. I bolted around to the western side, and there they were, basking in the golden orange glow of the setting sun, the Big heads. I felt right at home. A few photos and met a lovely pair of travelling girls, leila and Casio from Toronto and Japan respectively. I started chatting while awaiting for my companions to come around the mountain. They soon arrived, Thomaso on a photo mission to catch what he could in the ailing light.

So we had a couple of beers, and then headed into the cafeteria for some dinner. It started to get wierd here. There are two Turkish men who live and operate cafeteria and bar on Mt Nemrut. The girls we had met before had hiked up and were going to stay in the dorm beds on the summit. We haggled over a price, which seemed cool and then agreed on, until the food came out and we came over to eat it and they shooed us away calling only the girls over. Strange.

We then got sent into the kitchen to make our own food, until they got angry that we were in there kitchen, the vibe started to turn very very nasty the turkish chef in particular becoming surlier by the moment. We all continued to chat together, then every now and then we would have some bizzarre confrontation with the turkish men. Mostly due to that fact that the girls who had hiked up were now talking to us. The girls were quite scared so we offered to share our minibus accomodation wioth them.

We came up with three possibilities based on our conversations with them.

1) We told them that Andy and Liz were 'married'. They then figured that we could all have sex with her and leave the other girls for them.

2) That we could sell the sexual 'rights' of the girls in return for free food beer and accomodation. I had to admit I was thirsty.

3) Good Morals. No Marriage no sleeping together.

Id have liked to have believed the latter but gut instinct knew that to be false. Those men were pissed because we had 'stolen' their women. I am glad we were there, so were the girls.

So we took to the minivan, all squeezed in and drank with the doors locked. It came to sleeping time and there was no way were were all going to fit, so I headed outside, braving the mad turks, and hiding away sleeping under the stars on a mountain top wrapped in my paraglider for warmth. A very bizzarre day.

Morning. A hike up to the summit again for sunrise. Beautiful. The heads were built as a memorial to an old Commangene king who wanted to be elevated to the heights of the gods. Its a pretty awe inspiring sight. Yesterdays home cooked dinner started to make disturbing lower intestinal growls. I wasnt even game to make a gamble fart. I headed straight to the nearest toilet.

Nasty. A turkish style squat toilet, arms bracing me either side due to lack of turkish toilet squat flexibility, totally paranoid about shitting all over my down pulled pants, and did what can only be termed aerosol. It was like faecal graffiti, I called it shart.

There were a few masterpieces painted on the way back, distracting me immensely from the ruins we visited on our way back to Kahta, before a gruelling but short two hour trip to Sanliurfa.

We found a cheap hotel. I ran to the bathroom. I made noises that can only be described as a 500 horsepower wet organic engine starting. Thomaso asked later who my major influences were. I had to reply Jackson Pollock, though I was taking the monotone approach.

Feeling better we explored old Sanliurfa. Every hundred metres or so we would have small children shouting out 'hello hello'. We would shout back. Soon we had a huge entourage of smiling shouting children following us around. I felt like the pied piper. It was really something wonderful, innocence, curiosity and happiness all brimming in the sounds and smiles of these children. We grinned from ear to ear. I think one of my most uplifting moments. We left them on our way home, a kebap for dinner, back in the bablands and sneaky plans of a brief sojourn to Syria in the air, depending on whether we can bribe our way through the border...