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Which of the following would you rather be: King, Prime Minister, Prince, President, Emperor, Chief, Pharaoh, or Sultan? ‘King’ would be cool, but don’t you think a little overplayed? And too many people have the tainted and failed the crown already. ‘Primer Minister’, that just sounds toolish. Poor Monaco, ‘Prince’ is a total rip-off. ‘President’ could be fun but it seems a bit too business-like, no? ‘Chief’ reminds me of fat policemen and I think endless donuts would lead to diabetes. ‘Pharaoh’ comes in close I reckon, I quite like the idea of being buried forever with mounds of treasure, if I didn’t have stodgy air and then be robbed of it by bandits when I’m not even alive to dole out some fun punishment. ‘Emperor’... well I’m not going to lie, this one is tempting. Old-school Asian beds though, even the royal ones, don’t quite do it for me. ‘Sultan’ sounds pretty good to me. Exotic, mistresses that belly dance, magic carpets, genies granting me wishes...
Luckily for us, in Turkey you don’t have to choose! Because here, you have best of both Sultan and Emperor as the Romans ruled the region at one point. And yeah, don’t forget
that unlike the Asian emperors and their hard beds, Roman Emperors got to decide which gladiator to kill. Now THAT’S what I call Power.
I find myself 11 hours south of Istanbul in a small town on the Aegean coast called Selcuk, popularly used as a base for Ephesus (Efes), arguably the best preserved Roman ruins in the eastern Mediterranean dating from around 3 BC to 4th century AD. I arrive on an overnight bus from Istanbul at 9am, hop in the shower, and am en route to Ephesus at 9:30. I meet two Brazilian girls from Sao Paolo named Bruna and Mirella. Bruna is my age and works at a marketing firm. Mirella is a year older and is a 2-time Brazilian Olympic alpine skier. She worked in consulting before quitting her job in April to travel for awhile. They are lovely, we all get along, they tell me I belong in Brazil, we spend the rest of the day together and happy days.
After Ephesus (finally my 4 years of Latin comes into play), we check out a carpet factory and learn the ins and outs of carpet making (see pictures for details.) I now know how
me and mirella
toilets back in the day...to feel the difference between cotton on wool, cotton on cotton, silk, and synthetic silk! In all seriousness though, seeing the workmanship that goes into those things really makes me appreciate them all a little bit more, now I see how you could justify dropping several grand on one of those babies. Moving on we do a quick stop at the temple of Artemis which at one time was larger than the Parthenon in Athens, but now only part of a single column remains. A little sad to imagine this being one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World now, yes. Lastly in terms of sites we go to Mary’s House, which is believed to be a small house where the Virgin Mary lived and died after she was entrusted to St. John. That was pretty intense, and I am not even religious. Whew! What a day.
After all this I must say goodbye to my Brazilian friends as they fly to Berlin tonight. Funny thing though, Mirella is actually going to Paris this summer and will be living there through August as well taking French courses, so that story will continue in a month. When I get
back to Selcuk, I accidentally fall asleep for over an hour and as the sun is setting I decide I must see something in the town itself so I set out for St. John’s Basilica atop Ayasuluk Hill, the site of St. John’s burial. This was probably the best site of the whole day - no other tourists at 7pm! I amble around aimlessly by myself for awhile until they shut for the night and kick me out.
At this, I am at a loss for things to do with my night. There is nothing to do in Selcuk whatsoever, I am traveling alone, my new friends left me, and I have no other care in the world. So after St. John’s I am hopping back down the hill into the city center when along the way this Turkish man chilling under a tree in a very colorful striped shirt starts talking to me. He owns a carpet shop but for some reason he doesn’t annoy me so I continue the conversation. Ali is funny and interesting, and when I tell him I want to find a jewelry store Mirella recommended to me, he says it is next door
to his carpet shop and he will walk me there. Great! I love when I get walked for free. He invites me for tea later although I doubt I will go, but leaves me saying “one cup of tea brings forty years of friendship.”
Hulya is the only female business owner in Selcuk, and she runs a store selling pashminas, jewelry, and ceramics with her silver-making husband. She is absolutely lovely and we talk about anything and everything under the sun before I even choose anything to try on. I am in no rush whatsoever tonight, so around 8 I take a break for some Turkish pizza (delicious by the way) and return to the store to decide on some rings and pendants. I choose Turkish coral and Afghanistan turquoise. She likes me so much she invites me to chat outside the store on the sidewalk over some blackberry tea, and before I know it it’s 11pm and I need to get some sleep. Hulya says next time I come to Selcuk I am staying with her and her husband. On my way home I decide to stop in to say bye to Ali since we had some good
conversation earlier and he had been nice to me.
If you ever find yourself in Selcuk, Turkey, stop in to Double Knot Art Gallery to meet Ali. This man was one of the kindest, most open-minded, interesting people I had met so far in Turkey. He ended up explaining to me the commission systems in Turkey and how we get ripped off (he showed me a rug that when he worked in conjunction with a cruiseliner sold for 500 Turkish lira, now he sells it in his own shop for 50.) He laid out his own carpets and showed me how the carpet factory earlier tried to rip us off. He also told me he wasn’t trying to sell carpets to me because I’m too young and I’m not traveling with a husband. American customers are his favorite, we are the friendliest and BY FAR the most polite. When American kids come into his carpet shop and play on the ground, they ask before they step on any carpets. French women really do smell (and then I share with him what I learned about the French and perfume in Fayence a couple weeks ago) and he’s been with a
few French tourists that didn’t shave their armpits - add German and Dutch to that list as well. He mentions even Canadian women don’t “maintain themselves” like American women do. Although one American woman confided in him after a few nights that at first she though he was going to try to sell her.
I mean at this point it is 2am right now and I am just trying to catch up on my blog, I can’t list out all the interesting things we talked about but save it for my own memory. But I walked in to say goodnight at 11pm, and stayed sitting around on his carpets, talking and laughing and sharing orange cola (he insisted on giving me something to drink but I had way too much tea already today) and his picture album of his hometown and family til 1am. He is from near the Turkey-Iranian border, and his little brother is also in Selcuk and teaches cha-cha lessons!! He was definitely legit though, and had we been living in the same city I am sure we would have stayed friends for a long time. I think this late in the night I won’t be
able to creatively write in a way to convey how much fun I had with Hulya and Ali tonight. I felt like a little sponge today, just sat and soaked everything in greedily, their life stories, their learned lessons, their realizations about different nationalities after dealing in tourism all their lives, their small business stories, jokes and their senses of humor. It is amazing what you learn when you think a little more simply and just see how lucky you really are. I helped him close up the shop and he gave me an embroidered cushion cover as a gift.
Today I go to bed on little sleep from the night before, and now little sleep for tomorrow morning’s trip to Pammukale, but I go to bed very happy with all this tonight in my head. This is why we travel, no?
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alex
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darling your ability to make friends with whoever wherever you go is amazing. keep the stories coming! x