With only two and a half weeks left in Istanbul,
we realized if we didn’t get our acts together soon, we would be spending the
entire five weeks of our time in Istanbul. Not that we would complain mind you, we tend
to be on the lazy side, but we were worried that Valerie would disown us as
friends if she knew we were being lazier here than we were in Paris.
So with that in mind, we frantically put together an itinerary allowed
us to explore some of the major sites of turkey within five days. After purchasing seats on the night bus, we
quickly did a load of laundry and pulled on our newly purchased long
john/tights. Hande gave us an early
Christmas present of flash cards custom tailored to our trip, including things
like “that’s too expensive”, and “how much if I buy two.” Some friends of Collette and Hande that we
had met over the past weeks came over to celebrate Christmas before heading off
to their respective destinations. We all
ordered pizza and chatted for a few hours.
Its probably unsurprising that we ended up with only 15 minutes to get
to the bus station, which was 20 minutes away, and we were literally “running”
late for our 10:30 pickup. Despite the
very cold weather, by the time we arrived at the bus station, we shed our jackets,
scarves, gloves, and were regretting our thermal tights. Nevertheless, the bus which was to take us to
the main station was 30 minutes late, so we had plenty of time to cool
off.
The eight
hour ride to Izmir
was relatively uneventful, although that of course ignores the cookies and cake
which were served twice. In fact the
service was better than the airlines we have taken for the most part. We weren’t used to getting offered free
water, after frequenting Ryan Air and Easy Jet, if Hande hadn’t told us it was
free we might have been loathe to take it.
Arriving in Izmir
at 8 in the morning after a very long night of stops, we were a bit bleary
eyed. Collette had explained that we
would have to take a minibus (think Dolmus, but a little more expensive) from Izmir to Selcuk (Sel-chuck)
where we were staying. Because we would
only be staying in Selcuk for one night and there was a holiday coming up, she
advised us to book our onward ticket before leaving Izmir.
With that in mind, we took Hande’s notes and flashcards, and made a
valiant attempt to book the journey from Izmir
to Goreme. Unfortunately, even if we had
fantastic Turkish, the man we talked to first had never even heard of Goreme,
so it was unlikely we could purchase tickets there. Instead, a friendly fellow at the counter (on
our side of the counter) was able to help us.
After checking at multiple cabinets, we settled on Nevesehir Otobus and
proceeded upstairs to find the minibus to Selcuk. Upon finding the area where the minibus would
pick us up, we were behind about 15 people. When the minibus arrived, Andrew
went and put our pack in the back of the bus, while Alex waited in line. Is it surprising to anyone that right as we
got to the doors of the minibus, the driver signaled that it was full? At this point, Andrew went to the back of the
bus, and asked the driver to remove his pack.
When Andrew showed him the pack, which was now under 15 other people’s
luggage, the driver decided he would kick another fellow off the bus (who was
in line in front of us) and make room for us.
Alex sat in the front with the driver and one other person, and Andrew
sat next to the ticket taker, facing 13 passengers including three angry women. As the minibus started on its hour long
journey, the women began voicing their thoughts about the injustice bestowed
upon the poor man who had to leave the minibus.
Alex fell asleep up front to escape the guilt, while Andrew clutched his
backpack tightly and counted the seconds until the bus would stop. We made it to Selcuk and were personally
guided to our accommodations at “Jimmy’s Place” buy a nice man who claimed to
be “a friend of Jimmy’s.”
Jimmy’s
Place was pretty nice and well priced. Unfortunately
Jimmy is also pretty price-conscious, and the heat and hot water only began at
7pm. (Alex is starting to think her dad may be Turkish). It may have been for the best, though,
because instead of taking a very chilly “just-arrived” nap, we started
exploring the town. The reason we went to Selcuk, is because it is the closest
town to roman ruins of “Biblical Proportions” (rim shot). In fact it is next to the ruins of Efes,
known as Ephesus
in English, which was once home to the Ephesians for which that book in the
Bible was written. During the Roman empire, Ephesus was the capitol of the Asia-Minor
territories. Well we began with the Artemis Temple, which was basically one standing
column and tens of tiny column crumbles around it. In fact we overheard one guide warning his
tourists to save their pictures for the real ruins. We concurred and continued our journey down a
tree-lined boulevard. Efes was amazing,
to put it simply. The Roman Forum is one
tenth the size of Efes. There are
towering columns, a large and small theatre where St. Paul may or may not have preached, and
three marble paved streets with wagon wheel ruts, and an ancient public toilet
with running water (expect pictures of said toilet). There was so much that we couldn’t possibly
have seen everything, and that doesn’t include the area which was an extra ten
lira. After leaving Efes, we visited the
Efes museum which had a nice selection of statues they had removed from Efes
proper, as well as an awesome temporary exhibit about gladiator life, replete
with excavated skulls which evidence tritan holes, (think King Triton’s weapon
in the little mermaid), and several of the well endowed statues of the
fertility god, including one using his “endowment” to hold up a fruit plate,
and others that just seemed to be checking the temperature and/or wind direction. After this museum, it was clear that our eyes
would not stay up much longer. We
trudged back to our hotel, and dove under the ice cold covers before falling
into a three hour nap. Our hotel forbade
outside food or drink, so Andrew was forced to go on a covert operation. He returned with two doners and a bottle of
water. We hurriedly ate while watching
TV. Deciding our room was just too cold,
we traipsed downstairs to ask about turning up the heater. Jimmy, the proprietor asked us if we wanted
tea. We gratefully accepted and sat by
the fire for the next hour. Jimmy
explained that he had earlier switched from diesel heating to olive pit
heating. We ignored the thoughts that
perhaps diesel heating would have been more effective, and accepted his offer
to see how the olives worked. He took us
to the roof and showed us his furnace, which had a big hopper full of olive remainders (pits
and stems), and the maintenance room smelled of fire and olives. Apparently the olive producers in town get three
uses from their crop: first squeeze = oil, second = soap, and third = fuel
source. After chatting a bit more, we
headed back to our room and watched the remaining 2/3’s of “Dead Poet’s
Society.”
The next morning began with a
Turkish Breakfast of boiled egg, cucumber, tomato, cheese, olives, and bread
with jam, and of course Turkish tea.
Alex had double helpings of boiled egg whites, and Andrew ate extra
cucumbers. When the waiter saw that Alex
ate both of the eggs, he tried to offer Andrew another one, but he promptly
explained that it was not his wife’s gluttony rather his own reluctance to eat
chicken embryos. After this breakfast,
we packed our bags and left them at the front desk. We headed out to St. John’s church. St.
John’s church is named so because he is believed to be
buried under the hill that the ruins are on.
The range of freedom you have to walk on and around the ruins is absurd
and amazing all at once. The day was
beautiful and blue and the breeze was slight.
It was a perfect day for viewing the ruins. After viewing as much of the ruins as we
could take, and after the guilt overcame us for walking on thousand year old
stone walls, we left and headed for a nearby town—Sirince (Sherin-jay). We caught a dolmus to the town. Once we reached the town, we began walking
through the town streets taking pictures of anything that caught our
interest. Sirince is basically a small
farming community well known for its sour cherry wine and gozleme. (Yes we
planned on trying both). As we crossed a
small creek and walked up a winding hill past charming houses, we shouted out
“merhaba” (hi) to all the people we saw, including old women spraying the
streets, and men chopping logs in their back yards, and goats peering down at
us from their homes. Alex remarked that her camera battery was dying. Suddenly, an old woman appeared and asked if
we wanted to take her picture (in much less words…really more gestures). Alex’s eyes almost popped out of her
head. Aside from Andrew, she doesn’t
really have a chance to photograph people.
So we followed the woman into her courtyard, and then into her
home. It was quaint, so to speak. And by quaint, we mean a 10 foot by 8 foot
room, with a 3 foot by 6 foot stove in the middle. The walls were painted teal,
and the only seating was two thin pads with pillows wrapped around one corner. Before entering the woman’s house, she
gestured for us to remove our shoes.
Alex didn’t remove hers quick enough, so the woman tried to help. Her version of helping was to yank on Alex’s
heel. Alex asked Andrew to help,
unfortunately he mimicked the woman’s method and began yanking too. Alex afraid that her foot would be coming off
soon asked them to try untying the shoe.
After this, we took a seat in the home, and Alex began to take
photos…three to be exact, and then…the battery died. We had been lured into her
house with the sole intention of taking photos, knowing that she had something
to sale, and we got three photos. And
only ONE of the woman. Well the woman
offered us tea, and we both refused.
After repeated entreaties, Andrew broke down….one wonders what he would
have done if a stranger had offered him candy as a child and cried if Andrew
said no. Haha, that’s funny, of course
Andrew wouldn’t have said no. Anyhow,
Andrew agreed, and Alex shot him a look indicating that his brain had left the
building, and wondering why we had bothered to invest in vaccinations. So the woman poured two glasses of tea, and
Alex’s glare intensified. When the woman
offered Andrew cake, Alex’s eyes bored a hole into the side of his head, and
she bared her teeth, promising him a quick and sudden death should he
accept. After leaving to get sugar for
our “tea” which looked more like “pee” the woman finally pulled out a small
collection of alleged hand knitted cloth for us to buy. We quickly picked one to compliment and she
named a reasonable price of 8 Lira.
Unfortunately we only had 5 Lira in our pocket and weren’t about to open
our wallet which only had a 50. Instead
we spent fifteen minutes trying to explain that we weren’t bargaining, we were
broke. We finally convinced her and were
happy to see that our shoes were still outside when we got ready to leave. We did give her a Lira for the tea she gave
us, but only after she tried in vain to sell us small knitted cats.
After escaping her clutches, we
made our way down to the village center for some much-needed wine
tastings. The sour cherry wine as well
as the other varieties such as pomegranate, kiwi and quince, were less like wine
and more like Koolaid. We enjoyed them all the same. We had a meal of gozleme and real tea, and
then made our way through the village once more. We bought a packet claiming to be
strawberries, but they looked more like red spiky balls with yellow centers,
and tasted like mushy orange. We went
back to our hotel, and spent the rest of the afternoon learning about
Capadoccia. Something you will learn
about in the next blog.
