Decisions

I think Turkey takes the lead now.

I spoke to a travel agent yesterday who has been there recently. She was praising it quite a bit. She also said that she knew of some people who were apparently not that kicked with Egypt.

She was speaking of doing the Istanbul and Cappadocia circuit and Izmir over Antolia. The latter is apparently more of a family beach destination. Izmir seems to have more places of historical interest which would appeal more to Kainaz and me.

Then I came home and looked up Izmir on the Lonely Planet for Turkey. Didn't seem too encouraging.

I think Turkey is an interesting branding challenge. As I had said they didn't have the heritage of an Egypt or a Greece or a China. We hardly heard about Turkey while growing up except in the 2 GK questions - country with the same name as a bird, country across two continents. Who knew that Troy was in Turkey? At the same time they seem to have a lot of interesting things going for them. Plus the quite a few of the names are tongue twisters. it is quite easy to read an itinerary which has names like Alexandria, Penang or Pattaya than Gallipolli, Cappadocia, Kusadasi, Pergemon (?). Half the times I just gloss over the names while reading out the itenerary to Kainaz. A bit like Joey's French in an episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.