And most of the boats that go out that we've seen have seriously loud music,
which is another reason why we thought we'd figure out if we could drive
Are you ok?
My ankle
Don't worry about the cameras
Oh baby
We're Marianne and Chris in 2018 we quit the 9-5, and bought Trudy our camper van.
We are currently on an adventure to drive the circumference of the world.
You join us as we explore the East of Turkey.
With mystical lands,
adventurous train rides
great wild camping spots,
and interesting characters.
Good morning, morning!
What a place to wake up to!
This was definitely a gem.
This is the Euphrates river we've heard so much about that when we were at school,
but this is the Euphrates river!
It is western Asia's longest or one of the longest rivers at 2 800 km long,
and together with the Tigris, these two rivers helped create Mesopotamia.
We actually plan to only stay here for maybe one or two days because obviously we have to stop and edit and work to produce the videos for you!
But we loved it so much that we actually we've been here four days!
We've got lots of videos made, it's been good, i mean i i just thought why not park here rather than in the next city or somewhere in the middle of a noisy town!
So yeah, we've been enjoying it!
We're going to take you on a little walk around Halfeti and this town has something a little bit special about it,
so we're going to go and explore the town!
But before we go, another thing's broken in Trudy she's an old girl and things are going to break !
in fact we probably haven't talked much about the fact that our van is slowly breaking!
She's 17 years old and everything in her is original,
we have friends that are saying to us after two years their stuff's breaking in their van, so she's doing really well .
But there are a few things that are starting to break and we're going to be sharing with you soon as some of the fixes that we make,
proper fixes but until then, the problem with the fridge, it has not only died as in it's not really working very well very intermittent cooling,
but the locking mechanism isn't working which means when we drive around the corner everything goes flying!
So we're going to try and tape that button down right there Marianne!
Right there, just so it stops it opening during the drive!
Beautiful, there you go, that will do the job! Right let's hit the road.
So we just spotted a rubbish bin,
we notice a lot of people leave their rubbish!
So here's a message - it takes no effort to bring your bag whilst you're driving past and put it in the bin!
And if everyone did that you will keep your country looking as beautiful as it is!
Another thing we spotted was there's actually a water tap here, let me just move the guy's hose.
We spotted this water tap so we thought we'd fill up,
before we head to Gaziantep,
because we're a little bit low - get it while you find it!
Not only is Halfeti a beautiful little town it's famous for a couple of things,
one of them being it grows a black rose, called 'kara gul' i think i'm pronouncing that right.
It only grows in this region, and it's become so famous that they've even named a tv show,
and a perfume after it.
It is here down by the marina and they're next to the water that we've just filled up from,
there is a poly-tunnel here that you can come and have a look at the roses and see them growing here.
So the roses when they are growing they're actually a really dark red colour,
they turn black when they're dried, there's some drying here.
it's definitely a thing in Halfeti and it's a wonderful little poly-tunnel you can come
see the roses growing, see some drying, and have a beautiful view of the river at the same time.
Right we're going to go and park up in town, have a little walk around,
before heading to another thing that makes Halfeti a little bit unusual.
So we've driven down just a little bit to the end of the marina,
there's a big coach car park here because they get loads and loads of tourist buses coming,
in fact there's one that's just parked up here you can see people going onto the boats,
so back in 2001 on a big governmental project they actually damned the Euphrates river a little bit further downstream,
that caused up here to flood and the next town, the old part of Halfeti is mostly now underwater.
You can take a boat trip to go and have a look at that,
that's one of the main things to do.
The water here is crystal clear, you can see fish in there it's a really nice river.
But before we hit the town because our leisure batteries are dead, we have to put the solar panel on the roof.
So that we can charge the power bank while we're out, because the main batteries of Trudy are just not holding charge!
So we we need to pick some more up when we when we arrive in Antalya.
So this might get messy Marianne's going to try and climb on the roof and using me as a stepladder!
go on love!
You're too high can you get down a bit?
I'm too high? Yeah! What do you mean?
Last time i used your hands!
All right we got you up there people are going to think we're nuts!
See how dusty the solar panels are? It's bad!
that's why you should always have access to the roof, whether it's through a hatch or up a ladder!
and they're not hot so we're not going to crack them.
Good job they are so dirty, i can't believe how dusty they are!
That has got to help, it's got to help!
Okay so we've parked up and the solar's on the roof, coach after coach party's just arrived,
so we're quickly walking to the other side of town.
It's a lovely day again, it's always sunny here in the Southeast of Turkey,
it must be good because there's so many tourists, exactly!
There's more tourists here than i've seen,
so if you do want to take a boat trip just head head on down to the marina,
just down on the river frontage here.
We're just walking along the riverfront here,
and they've got tables for picnics and things and i just love how there's just chickens randomly walking and enjoying the town as well.
So all the way along the riverfront here there's lots of wonderful restaurants that sell kebabs.
and fish, we actually went to one of the restaurants.
Oh yes we went on a date night!
we went on a nice quiet date night didn't we?
We did! it didn't quite go according to plan!
Because we went to the restaurant, we ordered the food, and then the band started!
Oh yes and although the band started it was a little bit loud!
It kind of sounded something a bit like this ....
Another reason why i'm not taking the boat today,
is because i don't know whether you can hear how loud that music is?
But when you have such a peaceful picturesque relaxing boat experience
why blast the music? But they do .... and most of the boats that go out that we've seen
have seriously loud music,
which is another reason why we thought we'd figure out if we could drive
are you ok? My ankle!
Don't worry about the cameras, Oh baby
Oh god that hurts!
We got to the bench, just a foot away there's a big hole there,
there's not just potholes.
I was walking and there's a hole here of course i was looking at the camera,
and i've just twisted my ankle,
I just need to give myself a minute, just to see, yeah i'll be back in a minute.
Okay the moral of that story is watch where you're walking when you are filming, it is my own stupid fault!
But there you go, i think i'm okay i might be hobbling a little bit today,
but i'm just going to go slowly slowly, it's not going to spoil the day.
I'm being the grown-up now!
I'm being the responsible one, it makes a change, don't tell anyone!
We're going to go and have a breakfast now rather than filming the town,
and then going to have breakfast,
because then I'm going to take Christopher back to the van,
back to our home Trudy give him some medication and we're going to drive to wherever it is that
we're going to film, because he's hobbling and pretending to be like everything's
fine, but he's hobbling good and proper!
So we're going to go and take you for breakfast!
So we've come down to the first restaurant here, okay steps hurt my leg!
I've just worked out steps are not good!
But this is nice look at this, wow!
Breakfast has arrived!
Now this breakfast is 40 TL each, the restaurants are all about the same price all the way along the river.
Okay so a quick rundown of our breakfast another big breakfast !
Honey, eggy bread, eggs, chips, bread, olives, ham, salad, jam, cheese, cream,
cheese, deep fried cheese sticks, sausages, aubergines, some more honey, some more jam and a cat !
I love it, and what a view! Look at this view! You can see the boats coming in and out here,
is absolutely lovely, this is the town of Halfeti that you can see behind us,
the new one, the old sunken one is on the other side of that hill.
I'm just putting the camera over the edge of where we're having breakfast and there's loads and loads of fish!
I don't even know if the camera will pick them up? i've got a couple of ducks come to say hello!
Okay so today's not really going according to plan we've hobbled or i've hobbled back to Trudy,
but i can't really walk on my ankle at the moment, so we're admitting defeat here in Halfeti,
and it's a shame that we're not going to be able to go and do what we wanted to do.
Some things just don't go according to plan, and it's not meant to be.
we're going to drive an hour and a half to Gaziantep, to park up i'm going to put my foot up for the afternoon and rest it.
I've taken some painkillers and then hopefully,
tomorrow or the next day we'll be able to go and film Gazientep,
Watch this space!
So just to confuse you the really big town that we're driving through now is actually
also called Halfeti,
but it's a different Halfeti, so if you do come here
check out the one by the river, by the marina!
So we're just passing the dam that is the dam that caused Halfeti to flood,
that's a huge dam look at the size of that!
We're just arriving into Gazientep.
We think we found a park up down in the city centre, so we're going to try and find that.
We were just saying that driving west i'm sat in the sun and you could do with some sun tan lotion but it's quite hard to find suntan lotion here in the Eastern Turkey,
but also even in the West of Turkey it's super expensive,
so yeah if you are coming here on holiday bring your suntan lotion with you don't think it's cheaper to buy it out here.
In 100 meters turn right.
So the car park we were trying, is full so we're going to go and
look and see if we can find somewhere else to park.
But one thing's for sure it's busy and we can't find parking at the moment.
We've actually broken our own rule which is get into a park spot in the morning,
or in the evening!
and we're trying to do it in midday.
Yeah and it's a little bit chaotic!
Okay we found this little park up, not really ideal but it's in the city!
It's in the sun!
The ankle is very swollen, now you know what pregnant women go through!
So we're going to end the video here at the moment,
and we'll see how it goes fingers crossed in the next day it gets better and we can explore Gaziantep ....
watch this space and we will see you on the next episode don't forget to click subscribe if you haven't already
and we will see you next time!
We're going to have a wander we're gonna to take .... no! three two one
it's a huge jam, Did I just say jam? I just said jam! cut that one