Yes, that's it there. No, not the flash brown one, the little cheap one tucked in behind it!
Ali gave us some useful tips for our itinerary down the west coast, and we ended up booking quite a bit through him. I'm glad we weren't trying to find the Istanbul bus terminus on our own. The minibus took us well out of town, then down a maze of twisty passages, all narrow, until popping us up into daylight adjacent to where our bus was to depart.
Safely ensconced we set off for Eceabat, and I while away the time by updating the blog - until Pauline elbows me in the ribs, either to point out some landmark, or out of annoyance as she can't read for more than a few seconds without feeling motion sickness.
It's a four hour trip, but we arrive feeling a box of birds, and keen to check in and explore the town. First problem, pre-booked TJ's hotel is closed for renovation, but after a few hurried phone calls we check in to Hotel Boss 1 instead, which is just as convenient to town.
The first thing that catches your eye is the monument to the Gallipoli campaign.
The meaning of the carried soldier will be explained tomorrow, but it's poignantly clear the mother is weeping for her lost sons.
A well done display graphically illustrates what soldiers from both sides endured.
On Tuesday we're off on the Gallipoli tour proper, bit first a bit of history, some courtesy of our very knowledgeable guide Canon.
As WW1 broke out Turkey (or the Ottoman Empire as it was then) was essentially neutral and unaligned. Seeking to defend itself from attack, it ordered two warships from Britain, but at the outbreak of hostilities the British cancelled the sale, and Turkey was forced to turn to Germany for it's ships. This put the fear of God up the Brits, who saw a German-aligned Turkey controlling the Dardenelles and the Bosphorus.
Britain's first approach was to use its naval power to force the issue, but when it lost two ships to the Dardenelle minefields, Churchill and Kitchener tried a different tack - a decisive ground assault on the Gallipoli Peninsula, then sweeping on to capture Istanbul. And so the fateful day on 25 April 1915 when a combined force of Brits, Aussies, Kiwis and Indians landed on the west coast, the Kiwis and Aussies in the vicinity of what is now named Anzac Cove.
You can still see the concrete foundations from the boilers used to produce drinking water, and you can get a better idea of the rugged terrain when looking up the hill towards the Sphinx.
The seats for the forthcoming ceremonies are already being laid out. It would have been good to attend, but the timetable didn't allow it.
We stop at numerous cemeteries and with others in our group have some quiet moments of remembrance.
And take the obligatory "we were there" photo.
We head up into the hills about a kilometre inland where most of the heaviest fighting took place. The story of the carried soldier is now explained.
A Turkish soldier sees an Anzac fallen injured in no mans land between the trenches. Knowing he will surely die if left, he picks him up and takes him to an Anzac trench before returning to his own lines. A small token of humanity amongst the horrors of trench warfare, where with no heavy artillery neither side could make much progress, and advances were inevitably cut down by heavy machine gun fire.
We visit Lone Pine, and I'm surprised to see Private Onion D.G. among the names of those lost from the Auckland Infantry Regiment. A relative perhaps? Family - help me out here.
Nearby are the trenches still pretty much as they were nearly 100 years ago.
As if to prove a point, our guide Canon pulls a piece of shrapnel out of a nearby clay bank.
The final stop of our pilgrimage is to Chunuk Bair.
The Kiwis won a desperate battle to secure this strategic hill in sight of the Dardenelles, but could only hold it briefly without reinforcements before a determined Turkish counter-attack drove them back.
And the rest, as they say, is history. The invading force were driven back to the sea by the Turks desperate to defend their homeland, and despite appalling losses the Allies were lucky to be able to evacuate under cover of darkness without further major losses. In all, over 120,000 soldiers lost their lives over the four months of the Gallipoli campaign, and the Allies never advanced more than a few kilometers from the coast.
Perhaps the most poignant memorial was one erected by Ataturk (the commander of the Turkish defenders at the time) in the 30s.
The inscription reads:
"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours... You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."
It echoes the thoughts I had after visiting similar memorials in Vietnam. Those who were once our enemies are now our friends. As our guide Canon put it, if I meet you on the battlefield I shoot you, if I meet you in a bar I buy you a beer.
Is it naive to think that those who are now our enemies cannot be our friends sooner rather than later with a concerted effort to find peaceful solutions?
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