Pamukkale and Selcuk

One thing that gets pretty annoying in Turkey is the whole thing where people tell you a bus is direct when it really isn't. We'd been forewarned about this and repeatedly queried bus companies who would assure us that yes, their bus was direct, only to find out that pretty much every bus route we took had a service bus tacked onto at least one end of it. This held true for our ride to Pamukkale, which was especially brutal as the unexpected transfer happened around 4:30AM. But we made it to our hotel alright (albeit after having to stand in a packed minivan with our bags on for the hour long ride), checked in, and promptly passed out.

We rose a few hours later and struck out for the Pamukkale travertines - what the town is famous for. These travertines are an entire cliffside of pools made out of calcified limestone, if I remember correctly, filled with natural thermal waters (which deposit the calcium). The Romans thought it a pretty nifty spot and built a city on top of the cliffs, which turns the whole place into a dual attraction.

But, like most historical sites in Turkey, the site boasts an annoying double pricing system. Here, we had to pay 20 lira (10 euros) to get into the complex, then another 20 lira to swim in the thermal pool. We argued with the guard about this a while, saying we didn't care about the ruins, just the pools, and he started getting pretty testy with us, telling us that it was our fault for coming this year as last year it was only 5 lira and the next year it will be 5 lira again. He also started saying some stuff about reporting us to the police for insubordination or something, so we turned the tables on him and asked for his name to tell his superiors. He refused to give us any other name than "Braveheart."

We eventually folded, paid the money, and climbed to the top where we discovered that the extra pay pool is really only in one area, albeit a pretty sweet one. It's the "Antique Pool," the source of the thermal waters, which is a pool with felled ancient Roman columns and statuary poking up out of it. Awesome place to swim, but free to take pictures of, so that's all we did and instead wandered through the ancient city's roadways, over the walls, through the theater, and past the temple.

We still got to play in the travertines and Asher even went so far as to test out the therapeutic properties of the water by rubbing the calcified sand at the bottom all over himself. Plus, we got to stay up there for a pretty glorious sunset, so not too terribly overpriced after all.

When we were done with the travertines, however, we found that there is literally nothing else to do in the tiny town (other than listen to Asher belt out awesomely inappropriate verses about George Clooney from the musical he's writing at full volume next to families in the park). We had booked two nights at the hotel, but moved on after one. Again, weird bus stuff - this time because all the companies offered two rates: the real rate and the special rate they'd give you where they handwrote a voucher instead of a real ticket on company paper (so they would personally split that money with the driver). We opted for the second, cheaper route and got a bus for the couple hour drive over to Selcuk where we were checked into the ANZ (Australia New Zealand) Guesthouse but a funny little Turkish dude that my sister somehow knows named Mehmet. He was pretty friendly and the place was definitely nice - nice enough, in fact, to initiate another round of movie watching; this time, we watched through the 4 Indiana Jones movies as Asher HAD NEVER SEEN ANY OF THEM BEFORE. What a weird dude.

We were still kinda kicking ourselves about leaving Cappadocia early, but Selcuk turned out to be a pretty rocking place as well. We started out with a standard wander around town which took us past the old mosque and then up the hill to St. John's Basilica, an old Roman ruin that was once the largest and most holy church in Christendom. Cool ruins too - you can climb over everything and go through old tunnels - definitely worth the 5 lira entry price.

We also checked out the Saturday market in town which turned out to be one of the best markets any of us has ever seen. The thing was huge, sprawling through the streets like some sort of beached giant squid with tentacles of beautiful produce for next to nothing. I mean, where else can you find a kilo of scrumptious mandarin oranges for half a euro? We also discovered some weird Turkish pastry we called Breakfast Bars (no idea what they're actually called) that consist of something like semolina ground with peanuts and soaked in honey. Sounds decent - and tasted alright - but these things were about the size of a cell phone and the weight of a small Buick. Intense in every sense of the word.

One thing that the hostel offered was free use of their bikes but they warned us that they weren't all in the best condition because, even though the bikes were only a few months old, the guests had been pretty hard on them. We were all thinking, how can you mess up a bike? Well, Asher was more than happy to demonstrate. He broke two different bikes on back to back days of ridiculousness. Bike one died after a failed action-movie-skid-to-a-stop-with-the-back-wheel-fishtailing-out-behind-you stunt on our way to Ephesus. Asher managed to mangle the wheel on this one, but we were able to reverse mangle it enough that it was still (sorta) rideable and we got to the site after only a 30-45 minute delay.

Ephesus is the site of an abandoned Roman colony and, as such, is in a remarkable state of preservation. It was the capital of the province of Near Asia and was a flourishing port city until the sea around it dried up and became a marsh, when they moved the city to the location of modern day Selcuk, which is about 4 km away. We spent the whole day at the ruins, highlights of which were the huge amphitheater, the public (and we do mean seriously public) toilets, the main thoroughfare, and, of course, the library facade.

The facade of the Celsus Library is one of the best preserved and most famous examples of Roman architecture in the world. It towers three stories into the sky and uses architectural trickery to appear even more perfect and imposing that it naturally would be otherwise. Unfortunately, there isn't really anything left of the building itself behind the facade but it was still easy to spend a solid hour or so just gazing up at the marble. We would probably be recommending the Houses on the Slope as other places to see in Ephesus... if not for the damnable double pricing thing. Again, just as much to go in here as it was to get into Ephesus. But it probably is pretty cool... oh well, we still had fun.

The next day, we took a dolmus ride over to Kusadasi, the nearby resort beach town. It wasn't as exciting as we'd hoped. Still, we found a place that wasn't too pricey to eat lunch and then a spot of beach with a couple hours of sun left. The beach spot was only spoiled by a really, really annoying dog who kept coming up and dusting us with sand and refused to be shooed away (it just thought our yelling and water-throwing was our way of playing with it). We ended the day with a bit of sheesha on the beach to watch the sunset before hoofing it back to the bus station and heading back home.

The day after, we took the bikes out again, this time for more beaches. The beaches outside of Selcuk itself are only 7km away, so we picked up a lot of beer and made the trek out for our much-looked-forward-to Bender Day. It was incredible. Asher and I came up with a new business plan, Kate actually came into the water, and Asher posed for a photoshoot that got a little out of hand and ended with him shoveling handfuls of sand into his mouth (unfortunately, Asher has all those pictures so you'll have to content yourselves with this rather tame one). Then we tried to ride our bikes home, which was much more difficult than one might imagine. I only fell once, and it was, to be fair, when we were stopped (is that better or worse). Asher fell three or four times, the last of which was only a couple blocks from home and the time when he broke his second bike. It was dark and he hit the gears of the bike against a curb, mashing them together and making it impossible to ride the bike again. He also lost his awesome party glasses on the bike ride and went back the next day to retrieve them - successfully, I might add - where he apparently had some, ahem, interesting adventures with a lonely Turkish man.

But we did not go with him - no, Kate and I had decided to head down to Fethiye for a few days before reteaming with Asher... but those are both stories for another blog.