When we took the vehicle ferry from the Gallipoli Peninsula across the Dardanelles to mainland Turkey we were leaving Europe and entering Asia.
After a short crossing we disembarked at the modern university town of Çanakkale (sounds like Chan-akkerly). We stayed nearby on a small camp site at Troía (Troy). Uran Savas, the owner was friendly and very helpful and drove us into town to TurkCell, the main Turkish telecoms company, where we purchased SIM cards so we could get some WiFi.
Not long after we arrived, another truck turned up; it was German and much bigger and better than ours. Tony was suffering serious Truck Envy until the following morning when he saw the man was emptying his black water tank (raw sewage) using a small plastic bucket which he then had to empty in the gents’ toilet – a job which would have taken half an hour or more – and the smell was dreadful! Our electric Cinderella toilet seemed a much nicer choice. In the US they have dedicated black water emptying stations, so it would not have been a problem there – the poor man was just on the wrong continent.
We walked 600 metres up the road to the archaeological ruins of Troy. We learnt that the original city was built 3.5 thousand years ago and had been destroyed many times over the centuries. Archaeological digs had revealed ten cities each built on the ruins of the previous settlement. The story goes that Troy was besieged by the Greeks for ten long years. The Greeks finally gave up, leaving the Trojans the gift of a large wooden horse. The Trojans pulled the wooden horse into the city. When all was quiet, Greek soldiers jumped out of the horse and destroyed the city. Every shop for miles around sold souvenir replicas of the Trojan Horses – but we resisted!
